Beijing’s critical air quality unmasks the darker side of urbanization
The Chinese New Year – being celebrated as the year of the water snake – that was unveiled in China this year presented a rare insight of the dragon. Far from celebrating the festivities, residents of Beijing were forced to stay indoors. Schools were shut down; commercial and even essential business came to a halt. And the reason: a thick blanket of black and noxious smoke that enveloped most of the skyline of China’s capital. The smog plunged Beijing’s 20 million people into darkness for most of the days in January this year. One of the world’s top cities, Beijing, was blanketed in a thick foul-smelling layer of hazardous smog, which experts are now calling the worst air pollution disaster in China’s history. For the first time, even the Chinese government admitted that Beijing’s air was “hazardous”, and agreed with US and independent scientists about the increasing poisonous air in Beijing. As the world takes note of China’s amazing growth, the Beijing smog may have only showcased the ugly side of an increasing urban landscape in China, but revealed the darker side of increasing urbanization.
Festivities had to wait. The air smelt foul. The suffocation caused by the smog was apparent. “How do we get out of this suffocating siege of pollution?” screamed the People’s Daily, the official Communist party newspaper in an editorial. The Chinese State seemed helpless. A weather-induced curfew-like situation prevailed in most of Beijing’s streets. Hospital admissions in the city showed a 30 per cent increase, especially for respiratory illness, congestion and asthma. And when Chinese state pollution agencies admitted that air pollution levels were above the permissible limit, they were only stating the obvious.
It is well-known that air pollution standards in China are one of the worst in the world. For instance, Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM) levels of 2.5 were above 600 micrograms in Beijing in January, when the safe level designated by the World Health Organization is 25. In the US, no more than 12 micrograms is considered safe. But SPM levels in Beijing jumped to more than 900 micrograms on many peak smog days. These significant figures have alarmed scientists around the world, as they are accompanied by catastrophic public health events.
Changing times
The Chinese may well be living in interesting times, but the Beijing smog is not an isolated event. Pollution events and weather-related events are affecting everyday life in every city around the world. In Delhi, for example, a thick fog affected daily life recently, forcing schools, airports and railways to suspend work. The change in the weather pattern in Delhi is telling – for instance, winters now begin only in late December, a far cry from the 1980s and 1990s, when jackets and blankets were pulled out in November itself. On many smog days, SPM levels in Delhi were at 400, way above permissible limits. Experts admit winters in Delhi are more chilling and take away many lives of the homeless each year. In contrast, you will find almost every resident wearing a pollution mask in Beijing on peak pollution days, indicating greater awareness among common people and proper monitoring of air quality.
The stench of a polluted urbanized landscape has spread across the world. In 2012, Tehran reported 4,400 deaths annually due to air pollution. In shocking cases reported in the media, many hospitals ran out of essential hospital equipments to handle the number of patients afflicted with pollution related sickness and emergencies. Delhi hospitals record an increase in the number of patients with asthma and eye infections during winter months.
Un-masking pollution
In many cities across the world, pollution levels are not even monitored or data analyzed, revealing poor awareness among local populace and exposing information gaps about individual and community health in public health systems. Governments and authorities in many countries are working towards strengthening environment protection. But in many cases, authorities are only beginning to take evasive action against air pollution like pollution masks, and not pre-emptive steps like green infrastructure, incentives and long-term city planning policies.
Blanket solutions to curb air pollution may be hard to find. In China, the smog was largely blamed on pollution emanating from local industries, even though the country boasts of eco-friendly policies like cycling tracks, efficient public transport and mandatory pollution masks. Delhi has a cleaner fuel, CNG, but it also has more vehicles on its streets than ever before. Experts believe even tighter European pollution standards both diesel and petrol vehicles may not be able to reverse the worsening air quality trends for the capital.
Cities today need more and tighter standards for emissions, not less. They need better and efficient public transport systems, not cheaper cars. They need proper city planning that gives space and incentives for green innovations and cleaner mobility. If we cannot come up with an ecological blueprint, cities like Beijing, Delhi or Tehran, will become a nightmare not just to live, but simply to breathe…
Frogs are falling silent…
ARE THEY DYING TO SAY SOMETHING?
By S S Jeevan
HOP, skip and jump into extinction. That's what members of the amphibian family — toads, frogs, salamanders and newts — are doing. After dinosaurs, a serious problem of extinction now threatens the amphibian population. From the windswept Rocky mountains of the US to the pristine rainforests of South America; from the cold Andean ranges to the tropical forests of Australia and even temperate Europe, the frog population has been on the decline. And even those who do not look beyond their "bulging eyes, and warts' may have to listen to what the frogs are dying to say.
Reports suggest that, in Costa Rica, 20 frog and toad species — almost half the total — have disappeared over the past five years. In Australia, a frog species that has the potential to cure cancer is affected by a serious skin disease. In the US , one-third of the 230 native amphibian species are on the decline. No continent has been spared. The bad news is yet to come from Asia and Africa only because of the relatively low intensity of research in these two continents. For most of the 250-odd described species of amphibians in south Asia, the biological status is simply unknown.
However, the good news is that not all species are affected. The population of a species threatened in one locality may be thriving elsewhere. The degree of population decline of amphibians also appears to vary from region to region and within different species. Considered "sentinel' species, their permeable skin and ability to live both on land and in water makes amphibians more sensitive to environmental changes than any other species. As tadpoles, they live on water and eat plants, while in the adult stage they live on land and eat insects. Their eggs have no protective shells. Their skin is thin, moist and permeable.
Scientists believe that they are useful indicators of environment quality and the changes that are taking place in the natural world. Thus, the decline in amphibian population could be a precursor for what is going to befall humans, too. Moreover, members of the amphibian family are an important part of the food chain. "They form an essential part of the diet of many animals, such as snakes and birds, which, in turn, form the diet of other animals,' says Michael Tyler, a researcher at the University of Adelaide, Australia.
Why are frogs dying? Scientists have zeroed in on three reasons that may be responsible for the amphibians dying — infectious diseases, chemical pollution and increased ultraviolet ( UV ) radiation (resulting from the thinning of the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere). Besides these three reasons, some scientists also blame trade in endangered amphibians, acidification of the Earth's atmosphere and deforestation for the decline.
INFECTION: It is well-known that bacteria and viruses infect amphibians. But what has startled researchers is that a fungus is killing frogs. When microbiologists analysed some dead frogs, collected from Panama in the US and Queensland in Australia, they found that a new strain of fungus was responsible in both instances. The fungus covers the frog's skin, through which respiration takes place, then suffocates them to death.
UV RADIATION: In temperate regions, such as north America and Europe, UV radiation from the Sun has been reaching the Earth's surface during the spring spawning season. This is because of the destruction of the protective ozone layer in the atmosphere due to the use of chlorofloro carbons ( CFC s) and other human-made chemicals. Researchers at Oregon State University, USA , feel that UV radiation is affecting the eggs that amphibians lay in the shallow waters of lakes and ponds. In an experiment, the researchers shielded some salamander eggs against UV rays and exposed other eggs to normal sunlight. They found that the former hatched successfully, while the latter failed to hatch or produced deformed salamanders.
PESTICIDES AND FUNGISIDES: Many researchers believe that increasing use of pesticides and fungicides may be responsible for frog deaths. Spraying of pesticides not only poisons frogs directly, it also wipes out their food supply. Amphibians are known to be susceptible to at least 211 different pollutants. Organophosphorus insecticides, like malathion, are known to disturb the frog's development, distorting the growth of their limbs at the egg and tadpole stages. Frog deformities — such as multiple or missing limbs and body abnormalities — because of unchecked use of chemicals have already been reported in many areas in the US.
Donella H Meadows, professor of environmental studies at the UK -based Dartmouth College says that a Canadian researcher reported that along the St Lawrence valley fewer than two per cent of frogs in ponds that were away from any pesticide use had deformities. While 20 per cent frogs from ponds near areas of heavy pesticide use displayed defects, in one pond it was 100 per cent. Researchers in Switzerland have exposed developing frog eggs to the pesticide triphenyltin and have found deformities similar to some seen in the ponds.
Researchers at the US -based Scripps Research Institute say that S -methoprene, a popular ingredient in mosquito sprays and flea powders, breaks down into retinoids, which are known to cause birth defects not only in frogs but among humans. As this spray kills insects and interrupts their pupation it is bound to affect the development of embryos. Australia has banned the use of the weedkiller Roundup (gylphosate) around ponds and streams because of its effect on tadpoles and frogs. The problem does not seem to be the gylphosate itself, but an "inert ingredient' added to make the herbicide stick better to leaves.
GLOBAL TRADE: Uncontrolled international trade in amphibians is also threatening several species. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora ( CITES ) or the Washington Convention, the main tool to control trade in wild species internationally, has already banned trade in two amphibian species — Hoplobatrachus tigerinus and Euphlyctis hexadactylus . This ban may help save the two species, but may drive many other species to the brink of extinction.
ACIDIFICATION: Another anthropogenic disturbance that is suspected to have a negative effect on amphibian populations is acidification. Widely reported in the industrialised nations, this is happening because of increasing sulphur dioxide ( SO 2 ) and nitrogen dioxide ( NO 2 ) emissions. SO 2 (in the presence of sunlight) and NO 2 reacts with water vapour to form sulphuric and nitric acids. The rain, contaminated with these acids, affects flora and fauna, both on land and water, adversely.
"All amphibian biologists are now convinced that something catastrophic is happening to amphibians,' says Ronald Heyer, chairperson of the declining amphibian populations task force, an international network of more than 1,000 scientists. "In the US alone, around US $8 million is needed to monitor and research amphibians,' says Bruce Babbitt, interior secretary, USA . "Since the scope of the problem is global, other countries need to fund similar research and conservation efforts,' says Heyer. In the UK, attempts are being made to save the last-known surviving male pool frog. The frog is being encouraged to breed with nine female frogs flown in from Sweden. The Swedish frogs have been chosen because of their close genetic makeup to the British variety.
Frogs are important particularly for a country such as India, where the agricultural sector plays a vital role in the economy. They devour pests which pose a threat to crops and prevent the spread of vector-borne diseases like malaria because they consume parasites responsible for the disease. An adult frog devours its own weight of insects daily. Thus, if its population goes down, the insect population goes up. The extinction of frogs, on the one hand, means increasing the use of pesticides which is not only bad for agriculture in the long run, but poses a serious health hazard to all living organisms. On the other hand, the decline in amphibian population also means spread of diseases like malaria.
According to experts at the Bombay Natural History Society, in many parts of western Maharashtra, crops have been badly hit by proliferating insects as a result of large-scale slaughter of frogs. The Zoological Survey of India has also reported an increase in malaria in rural areas of West Bengal where 50 per cent of the frogs destined for export are captured. In India, trapping for export of frog legs poses a major threat (see box: With love, from India). However, not much is known about the commonest species of amphibians found in India. So far, 210 amphibian species are said to exist in India, making it one of the world's leading frog habitat. Most of these are said to be thriving in the Western Ghats, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the foothills of the Himalaya and the northeast. Worldwide, there are 53 species of amphibians listed in the endangered category, of which three are in India.
It is predicted that the number of amphibian species found in India will increase many fold if systematic studies are carried out. For instance, in Sri Lanka, Kelum Manamandra-Arachchi and Rohan Pethiyagoda of the Sri Lanka Wildlife Heritage Trust demonstrated — using both traditional morphological and acoustic data and molecular techniques — that the fauna includes over 250 species, a far cry from the 55 species listed till then. In the Indian context, over-extraction of groundwater for human use, which can dry up or decrease levels of water in ponds during summer and destruction of forests has led to either complete loss of forests or their fragmentation. This could isolate amphibian populations, and relegate them in smaller sub-populations that may no longer be genetically viable. Besides, certain forestry practices such as removal of leaf litter may also be working against biodiversity conservation.
So what impedes the acquisition of this information in India? What is rarer than amphibian species are people who can identify them. The science, called systematic, which deals with relationships between and within species, is not taught in India, and nearly all systematicists are self-taught. This explains why data on amphibians is still very sparse. Even the most comprehensive collections of India, such as those of the Zoological Survey of India and the Bombay Natural History Museum, do not have close to half of India's described amphibian species.
Several frog and toad species are known only from the original description, and no effort has been made to find these species since. It is possible that some of these species are common and widespread, but status information is generally unavailable. Data collection has been for the most part not with the view of providing quantitative information — rather, they are subjective evaluations of abundance. Today, one can only assume that amphibians native to India may also be facing what its brethrens elsewhere are going through. In ancient times, frogs were believed to be harbingers of prosperity and plentiful rains. This belief will get eroded along with their disappearance. And the extermination of frogs could well spell doom for the entire human society.
(Published in Down To Earth, May, 1999)
By S S Jeevan
HOP, skip and jump into extinction. That's what members of the amphibian family — toads, frogs, salamanders and newts — are doing. After dinosaurs, a serious problem of extinction now threatens the amphibian population. From the windswept Rocky mountains of the US to the pristine rainforests of South America; from the cold Andean ranges to the tropical forests of Australia and even temperate Europe, the frog population has been on the decline. And even those who do not look beyond their "bulging eyes, and warts' may have to listen to what the frogs are dying to say.
Reports suggest that, in Costa Rica, 20 frog and toad species — almost half the total — have disappeared over the past five years. In Australia, a frog species that has the potential to cure cancer is affected by a serious skin disease. In the US , one-third of the 230 native amphibian species are on the decline. No continent has been spared. The bad news is yet to come from Asia and Africa only because of the relatively low intensity of research in these two continents. For most of the 250-odd described species of amphibians in south Asia, the biological status is simply unknown.
However, the good news is that not all species are affected. The population of a species threatened in one locality may be thriving elsewhere. The degree of population decline of amphibians also appears to vary from region to region and within different species. Considered "sentinel' species, their permeable skin and ability to live both on land and in water makes amphibians more sensitive to environmental changes than any other species. As tadpoles, they live on water and eat plants, while in the adult stage they live on land and eat insects. Their eggs have no protective shells. Their skin is thin, moist and permeable.
Scientists believe that they are useful indicators of environment quality and the changes that are taking place in the natural world. Thus, the decline in amphibian population could be a precursor for what is going to befall humans, too. Moreover, members of the amphibian family are an important part of the food chain. "They form an essential part of the diet of many animals, such as snakes and birds, which, in turn, form the diet of other animals,' says Michael Tyler, a researcher at the University of Adelaide, Australia.
Why are frogs dying? Scientists have zeroed in on three reasons that may be responsible for the amphibians dying — infectious diseases, chemical pollution and increased ultraviolet ( UV ) radiation (resulting from the thinning of the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere). Besides these three reasons, some scientists also blame trade in endangered amphibians, acidification of the Earth's atmosphere and deforestation for the decline.
INFECTION: It is well-known that bacteria and viruses infect amphibians. But what has startled researchers is that a fungus is killing frogs. When microbiologists analysed some dead frogs, collected from Panama in the US and Queensland in Australia, they found that a new strain of fungus was responsible in both instances. The fungus covers the frog's skin, through which respiration takes place, then suffocates them to death.
UV RADIATION: In temperate regions, such as north America and Europe, UV radiation from the Sun has been reaching the Earth's surface during the spring spawning season. This is because of the destruction of the protective ozone layer in the atmosphere due to the use of chlorofloro carbons ( CFC s) and other human-made chemicals. Researchers at Oregon State University, USA , feel that UV radiation is affecting the eggs that amphibians lay in the shallow waters of lakes and ponds. In an experiment, the researchers shielded some salamander eggs against UV rays and exposed other eggs to normal sunlight. They found that the former hatched successfully, while the latter failed to hatch or produced deformed salamanders.
PESTICIDES AND FUNGISIDES: Many researchers believe that increasing use of pesticides and fungicides may be responsible for frog deaths. Spraying of pesticides not only poisons frogs directly, it also wipes out their food supply. Amphibians are known to be susceptible to at least 211 different pollutants. Organophosphorus insecticides, like malathion, are known to disturb the frog's development, distorting the growth of their limbs at the egg and tadpole stages. Frog deformities — such as multiple or missing limbs and body abnormalities — because of unchecked use of chemicals have already been reported in many areas in the US.
Donella H Meadows, professor of environmental studies at the UK -based Dartmouth College says that a Canadian researcher reported that along the St Lawrence valley fewer than two per cent of frogs in ponds that were away from any pesticide use had deformities. While 20 per cent frogs from ponds near areas of heavy pesticide use displayed defects, in one pond it was 100 per cent. Researchers in Switzerland have exposed developing frog eggs to the pesticide triphenyltin and have found deformities similar to some seen in the ponds.
Researchers at the US -based Scripps Research Institute say that S -methoprene, a popular ingredient in mosquito sprays and flea powders, breaks down into retinoids, which are known to cause birth defects not only in frogs but among humans. As this spray kills insects and interrupts their pupation it is bound to affect the development of embryos. Australia has banned the use of the weedkiller Roundup (gylphosate) around ponds and streams because of its effect on tadpoles and frogs. The problem does not seem to be the gylphosate itself, but an "inert ingredient' added to make the herbicide stick better to leaves.
GLOBAL TRADE: Uncontrolled international trade in amphibians is also threatening several species. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora ( CITES ) or the Washington Convention, the main tool to control trade in wild species internationally, has already banned trade in two amphibian species — Hoplobatrachus tigerinus and Euphlyctis hexadactylus . This ban may help save the two species, but may drive many other species to the brink of extinction.
ACIDIFICATION: Another anthropogenic disturbance that is suspected to have a negative effect on amphibian populations is acidification. Widely reported in the industrialised nations, this is happening because of increasing sulphur dioxide ( SO 2 ) and nitrogen dioxide ( NO 2 ) emissions. SO 2 (in the presence of sunlight) and NO 2 reacts with water vapour to form sulphuric and nitric acids. The rain, contaminated with these acids, affects flora and fauna, both on land and water, adversely.
"All amphibian biologists are now convinced that something catastrophic is happening to amphibians,' says Ronald Heyer, chairperson of the declining amphibian populations task force, an international network of more than 1,000 scientists. "In the US alone, around US $8 million is needed to monitor and research amphibians,' says Bruce Babbitt, interior secretary, USA . "Since the scope of the problem is global, other countries need to fund similar research and conservation efforts,' says Heyer. In the UK, attempts are being made to save the last-known surviving male pool frog. The frog is being encouraged to breed with nine female frogs flown in from Sweden. The Swedish frogs have been chosen because of their close genetic makeup to the British variety.
Frogs are important particularly for a country such as India, where the agricultural sector plays a vital role in the economy. They devour pests which pose a threat to crops and prevent the spread of vector-borne diseases like malaria because they consume parasites responsible for the disease. An adult frog devours its own weight of insects daily. Thus, if its population goes down, the insect population goes up. The extinction of frogs, on the one hand, means increasing the use of pesticides which is not only bad for agriculture in the long run, but poses a serious health hazard to all living organisms. On the other hand, the decline in amphibian population also means spread of diseases like malaria.
According to experts at the Bombay Natural History Society, in many parts of western Maharashtra, crops have been badly hit by proliferating insects as a result of large-scale slaughter of frogs. The Zoological Survey of India has also reported an increase in malaria in rural areas of West Bengal where 50 per cent of the frogs destined for export are captured. In India, trapping for export of frog legs poses a major threat (see box: With love, from India). However, not much is known about the commonest species of amphibians found in India. So far, 210 amphibian species are said to exist in India, making it one of the world's leading frog habitat. Most of these are said to be thriving in the Western Ghats, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the foothills of the Himalaya and the northeast. Worldwide, there are 53 species of amphibians listed in the endangered category, of which three are in India.
It is predicted that the number of amphibian species found in India will increase many fold if systematic studies are carried out. For instance, in Sri Lanka, Kelum Manamandra-Arachchi and Rohan Pethiyagoda of the Sri Lanka Wildlife Heritage Trust demonstrated — using both traditional morphological and acoustic data and molecular techniques — that the fauna includes over 250 species, a far cry from the 55 species listed till then. In the Indian context, over-extraction of groundwater for human use, which can dry up or decrease levels of water in ponds during summer and destruction of forests has led to either complete loss of forests or their fragmentation. This could isolate amphibian populations, and relegate them in smaller sub-populations that may no longer be genetically viable. Besides, certain forestry practices such as removal of leaf litter may also be working against biodiversity conservation.
So what impedes the acquisition of this information in India? What is rarer than amphibian species are people who can identify them. The science, called systematic, which deals with relationships between and within species, is not taught in India, and nearly all systematicists are self-taught. This explains why data on amphibians is still very sparse. Even the most comprehensive collections of India, such as those of the Zoological Survey of India and the Bombay Natural History Museum, do not have close to half of India's described amphibian species.
Several frog and toad species are known only from the original description, and no effort has been made to find these species since. It is possible that some of these species are common and widespread, but status information is generally unavailable. Data collection has been for the most part not with the view of providing quantitative information — rather, they are subjective evaluations of abundance. Today, one can only assume that amphibians native to India may also be facing what its brethrens elsewhere are going through. In ancient times, frogs were believed to be harbingers of prosperity and plentiful rains. This belief will get eroded along with their disappearance. And the extermination of frogs could well spell doom for the entire human society.
(Published in Down To Earth, May, 1999)
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