4bEFS,Iman Elhamruni, term 7/2010

Air pollution: case study of

Bangkok, Delhi and New York

The world has been facing one of the significant and most serious problems

which affect the environment and the life quality. In particular, Air pollution

is a serious problem stemming from human activities such as, motor vehicles

and industrial process which pollute the air by mixture of gases and solid

particles. They effect the earth and causes diseases for people but people still

do not care about it. This essay will discuss the causes and the effects of air

pollution, the government strategies for Bangkok and Delhi as developing

cities, and for New York as a developed city, and which strategy may work

better and reduce the air pollution risks.

The most significant sources of air pollution in both developing and

developed countries are car exhausts and industries. Bangkok, Delhi, and

New York, which are the capital of Thailand, Indian, and USA have

experience in air pollution. Bangkok and Delhi are both polluted because of

increasing the number of vehicles. As the UN (2010:22) the number of

vehicles has increased from 600,000 in 1980 to 5,614,294 vehicles in 2007

while in Delhi it has increased from 37,400 to 2,229,600 vehicles from 1961

to 1996 (Nagdeve,2004:464). In fact, motor vehicles contribute to poor air

4bEFS,Iman Elhamruni, term 7/2010

quality by emit particular matter (PM),ozone (O3),carbon monoxide (CO),

sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2).As result, air pollution can

cause human health risk. Such as, respiratory disease, heart disease, brain

damage and mortality increase. On the other hand, In New York the main

sources of air pollution are vehicles and power plants emitting high levels of

ozone and particulates and cause high risk of asthma and DNA damage for

babies in the womb. To sum up, air pollution is affect both developing and

developed countries.

Bangkok, Delhi and New York government all try to reduce the level of air

pollution by various strategies. Bangkok government decreases the amount

of lead from gasoline in 1996 and the quality of fuel has been improved.

In addition, it creates good public transports to trim down the vehicles on the

roads. On the other hand, the government of Delhi has used different

strategies. One of them was starting using unleaded petrol in 1998, which

reduced 60 % of lead in the atmosphere (Nagdeve,2004:467). Moreover,

sulfur dioxide was decreased so half of it was reduced during one year (1995

to 1996). However, the government of New York has a different way to

solve the problem. It has introduced series of environmental policies since

the 1990s.one solution to reduce the air pollution impact was improvement

the public transport and encourage New Yorkers to use it instead of using
4bEFS,Iman Elhamruni, term 7/2010

their cares. As a consequence, As Wikipedia (2010:4 ) more than 50 % of

New Yorkers do not have a private car whereas, 90 % of the USA people

travel by their cars . Another important strategies that have been undertaken

by the government was improving vary clean energy. For example, wind

mills would power about 5,000 houses in New York and the government

has tried to use under water turbines which unfortunately worked for 3

months then it is broken. Furthermore, the most energy-efficient have been

used in its public building. According to Wikipedia (2010:3 ) the average

annual of using electric by the New Yorker from 2000 to 2005 was half of

the electricity of Chicago customer and about quarter of electricity of Dallas

customer. Finally, every city has different strategies to keep the air clean and

protect their people.

They all have good strategies to minimize the air pollution but New York,

which is a developed city likely improve the quality by using wide methods

it covers what the other two cities do. New York richer than Bangkok and

Delhi so the government can use more expensive and effective methods.

Otherwise, as a developing city with poor economy Delhi government has a

good strategy. In one year the lead in the atmosphere was reduced by 60 %

and the sulfur dioxide was also reduced by 50 %. There is no one overall

solution strategy applicable to all cities

4bEFS,Iman Elhamruni, term 7/2010

In conclusion, air pollution is a global problem and the major sources could

lead to air pollution are emissions from vehicles and industries. This essay

focused on the air pollution problem in Bangkok, Delhi and New York , the

solution was taken by their governments to save their people life,

comparison between the strategies and which one is the most effective. to

solve the problem people should collaborate with the governments.

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