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This is a highway in India near Delhi.
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The smog here was so thick,
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drivers couldn't see where they were going.
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At least 24 vehicles were damaged
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as drivers kept crashing into the pileup.
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These conditions happen every year,
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when Delhi experiences a huge spike in air pollution.
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“Are we breathing poison in Delhi?”
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“...every two minutes one person dies due to air pollution in this country.”
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“I get nauseous.
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I get dizzy.”
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" I have to go to the hospital or the doctor now."
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When it hits, the nearly 30 million people
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here are forced to live in a toxic cloud.
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Scientists estimate that spending a day outside
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in these conditions is like smoking 50 cigarettes.
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“As a lung surgeon, when I open the chest
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I rarely see a normal pink lung these days.”
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On the ground, a layer of dust covers the entire city,
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and, in the air, a thick layer of pollution hides landmarks
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that are easy to see the rest of the year.
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Delhi has always been a big, busy, polluted city.
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But in the last decade something is making
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it even worse.
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In the last 10 years, Delhi's population
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has grown by more than 7 million people.
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Today it's the second-largest city in the world
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and it's also among the most polluted.
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More people means more cars,
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spreading dust and exhaust into the air.
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As Delhi grows, there's also more construction,
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producing dust particles.
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And more industries, contaminating the environment.
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All these things make the average air quality in Delhi
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unhealthy year-round.
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But something else is happening right here,
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when air pollution in Delhi spikes
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in October and November.
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It sends air pollution levels to
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fifty times what's considered safe.
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“Levels go haywire.
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Many of the machines are not made
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to measure the levels that we achieve.”
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The smog is so bad , you can see it from space.
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But this cloud of pollution
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isn't actually coming from Delhi.
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It's coming from here.
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The states of Punjab and Haryana
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are known as “India's Breadbasket.”
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They're a key region for the country's agriculture.
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Farmers here grow rice
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and that requires large amounts of water.
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In the 2000s, rice farming here took off,
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and farmers in the area started using so much water,
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that the region's groundwater started running low.
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So, to save water, authorities passed a new act in 2009.
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It bans rice planting before mid-June.
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That means farmers can't plant rice
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until right before the monsoon season,
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when rains come to replenish the groundwater.
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That pushes rice harvesting later into the year,
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which means farmers have less time
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to get their fields ready for their next crop.
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So, to clear their fields more quickly,
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more and more farmers have started
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setting their crop stubble on fire.
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Every year, all those stubble fires
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form a massive cloud of smoke
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during October and November.
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And it heads straight for Delhi.
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There are two reasons why smoke in this region
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makes things worse in Delhi.
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The first is geography.
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The Himalayan mountains act like a kind of barrier,
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directing the smoke towards Delhi.
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The second is the weather.
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During the winter, cold mountain air
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rushes down from the Himalayas towards Delhi,
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arriving beneath a layer of warm lowland air
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that creates a kind of dome over the city.
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The warm air keeps pollution trapped on the ground
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with nowhere to go.
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So when the stubble fire smoke arrives in Delhi,
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it mixes with the urban pollution
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forming a toxic smog that sits on top of the city.
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Mix all that together and you have
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the most hazardous air pollution of almost anywhere.
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In November of 2019, India's Supreme Court
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ruled that states in the North had to stop farmers
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from burning their crop stubble.
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But so far, the ruling
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hasn't been enforced on the ground.
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In the weeks after the ruling,
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tens of thousands of crop fires
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continued to burn in Punjab and Haryana.
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Delhi doesn't have the ability
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to stop crop burning in neighboring states.
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Instead, when pollution spikes
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in October and November,
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city officials change the things they can control:
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Sometimes they'll halt all construction in the city.
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Or put restrictions on vehicle use.
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Still, until India's ban on crop stubble burning
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is actually enforced,
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these spikes will be back every year.
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Making the city's already dangerous pollution
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even worse
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and putting the lives of millions at risk.
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" I've lived in Delhi for over 50 years. Where will we go ?"
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" Our livelihood is here."
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“Here we are taking baby steps,
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but we are in a time period where
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baby steps won't help anymore.”
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“What we breathe should be fresh air.”