19. India, let’s save the air.
Our needs of energy has caused a global catastrophe. Our air is poisoned to one of the most dangerous levels of all time. And the only alternative to solve this is locked away by our government. Is this worth caring about?
Air pollution is one of India’s most pressing environmental issues.
In 2016, a year ago, the pollution was so bad in our capital city, DELHI, where the air pollutants were at 16 times the safe levels and the government was forced to declare an emergency. Other Indian cities do not fare much better.
The primary sources of this pollution are Power Industries, Transportations, Agricultural waste burns, and Industrial sectors.
This pollution is not only just a nuisance but also causes respiratory and skin diseases, and sometimes even death. High levels of air pollution can adversely affect lung function and trigger Asthma and COPD exacerbations. It also increases risk of acute cardiovascular events (eg, MI) and development of coronary artery disease.
Over 15 million people in India suffer from Aasthma.
A global study revealed that the number of asthma patients are rising by 50% every decade, all over the world.
It is very evident that the result of industrialisation and modernisation is directly affecting all of our health and also our planet. Continuing to pollute the air even further affects not just the planet, but all of life. Damaging the climate any further would just result in the end of life as we know it. Forests, animals, oceans and us.Is clean air too much to ask for?
Basics : Air Pollution
The basic science that everyone needs to understand when it comes to Air Pollution.
Air pollution is accumulation of Carbon in the atmosphere, which results in trapping of heat within the atmosphere. Air pollution is also about releasing harmful chemicals in the first place.
Over 200 years of Industrialisation has led Humanity to take the available options like Coal and Crude oil
and exploit it like there is no tomorrow.
The first signs of pollution and awareness of environment grew much as the 20th century progressed. But today, in the 21st century, it is more evident that almost all the countries across the world have contributed their bit of pollution by burning this naturally available energy for our needs.
It is easy to extract crude oil from the planet. It is easy to extract coal from the earth. We have the technology to unearth these ancient decomposed carbon which our living matter breathed in millions of years ago. But what we are doing at the present is that we are re-releasing all these carbon molecules which was inhaled by our forests millions of years ago into our present day atmosphere.
The world had evolved itself to bring life into existence by balancing our atmosphere. And then we happened.
Our dying addiction towards materialistic needs and comforts and our never ending addiction to SPEED has led the human race to this blink of time where we just cannot continue to do things like the way we have done for the past 200 years.
The world was never able to invent a technology to absorb all the carbon back from the atmosphere and balance our air again.
But this kind of technology is gifted to us by nature. Plants and trees breathe in carbon-dioxide and release oxygen. But how can we change the world using this?
There has to be that one plant which can grow fast, produce enough carbon within itself for us to replace our needs of energy and also be able to replace all of the harmful industries and its products that we are ignorantly feeding on.
The answer to all of our needs and also to stop air pollution once and for all is HEMP.
Solution : Hemp Energy
First of all, cannabis crops will absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and replenish the oxygen. Secondly, cannabis biofuel is a more environmentally friendly alternative to regular fossil fuels (Coal and Crude oil).
And cannabis hemp is more efficient than any of our other crops as it gives us food, shelter, energy, clothes, fibres and medicines.
It grows fast. It’s ready for harvest in less than 4 months.
And it grows in more climatic conditions than any other crop.
It doesn't require any chemicals to grow and it one of the most efficient crop for replacing our needs of energy which is causing this toxic disaster all across our planet.
Cannabis biofuel burns cleanly and it doesn't add sulphur to atmosphere like the way burning coal and crude oil does. And it goes without a saying that Hemp Energy is definitely more balanced as compared to the older energy models which were more toxic to our planet and us.
When we grow Cannabis, it absorbs the carbon from our atmosphere. And when we burn the bio-fuels produced by the plant, it releases only part of these carbons back into the atmosphere.
And with globalising the HEMP Energy, and growing these plants everywhere, we just might be able to stop the world from becoming more poisonous to all lives by reversing our carbon foot print and also adding more oxygen into our atmosphere.
So what are we waiting for?
The governments, scientists and the science student community must be driving this whole movement forward with the support and demand of the general public.
But what does the general public care about?
It’s evident that we, as a collective force, are being more distracted and not really care about our environment or take necessary steps to make things better for us. We are being spoon fed by our industries which ends up making a lot of profits from these natural sources and the government is yet to awake or we are yet to create a government that is not corrupt.
Either ways, the time is short and our actions are slow. The world will soon wake up to a day where there is an option to choose from. It just doesn't happen that way.
Only a few bunch of collective GAIAN forces needs to make this change happen.
Cannabis is one real solution to our air pollution problem.
Let’s legalise it so we can have cleaner fuel and cleaner air for India.
The largest pollutants of our air is our energy needs. Hemp can replace our global energy needs and also reverse the carbon footprint at the same time.
So, Let's design a better future.
Special thanks to Danny, Amy, Eshna, Aditya, Anshul and Priya.