Big blot on Bihar on Nasa pollution map

The Telegraph , Sunday, January 30, 2005
Correspondent : Jayanta Basu
Calcutta, Jan. 29: After schoolchildren in Patna, it’s the turn of Nasa scientists to find fault with Laloo Prasad Yadav’s Bihar. Nasa scientists have found “an immense wintertime pool of pollution over Bihar…blanketing around 100 million people, primarily in the Ganges valley, (where) the pollution levels are about five times larger than those typically found over Los Angeles” by analysing data generated over four years with the help of Multiangle Imaging Spectro-Radiometer on board the Terra satellite, the flagship of Nasa’s Earth Observing System Programme.

Nasa findings observe that though “high pollution levels were found over much of India, a concentrated pool of particles was discovered over Bihar”. “A large source contributing to the Bihar pollution pool is the inefficient burning of a variety of biofuels during cooking and other domestic use.” The situation is worsened in winter as the “particles in the smoke remain close to the ground … and unable to mix upward because of a high pressure system”.

“This study is the most comprehensive and detailed examination of industrial, smoke and other air pollution particles over the Indian subcontinent to date,” said Larry Di Girolamo, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois and a co-investigator in the project. But many Indian experts are not prepared to accept the “discovery” at face value. “It is too strong and too early,” feels climate scientist Professor Asesh Prasad Mitra. “Burning biofuel and biomass are major sources of air pollution in parts of the Gangetic plain. But these factors also exist in other parts of the world like Africa or Vietnam… and you need to make a highly detailed season-wise study before pinpointing any region.”

Air pollution researcher Anumita Roy Choudhury of the Centre for Science and Environment feels one should be careful and study “all the aspects, including the larger global enviro-political equation”. “Findings like these are meant to counter-balance allegations against countries like the US for contributing to global air pollution through fossil fuel burning,” said an expert who did not want to be named.

“However if the finding is considered true, it raises several uncomfortable questions… Bihar has never been highlighted as a front ranking polluting state and the report gives a lie to our air quality monitoring system,” said Anumita. West Bengal Pollution Control Board chairperson Sudip Banerjee asked: “How is it that Nasa referred to pollution remaining stagnant? There has to be some amount of shifting even in winter.” But he is worried that if Bihar is affected, Bengal also must be.

 
SOURCE : The Telegraph , Sunday, January 30, 2005
 


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