Since Kelly, Minh, and I missed the memo on signing up for the trip to ride elephants and visit a rhino sanctuary, we decided to spend the day off with our two good translator friends, Jantu and Reza. We took a trip to the Umananda temple (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uma_Nanda_Temple) located on an island of the Bhramaputra, I refer to it as the monkey temple. The temples were beautiful as was the island filled with wild white monkeys and some sacred cows. The five of us took a ton of pictures and hung out by the rocky cliff just before the sun set and the last boat departed. I think Kelly and I had another one of those, ‘omg we are in India and this is so amazing’ moments. After the boat trip, we all had some local food, Baskin Robins, and roamed around the streets of Guwahati eventually walking all the way back to our hotel and ended the night with sari shopping.
Walking around all day in Guwahati made me even more aware of the stifling air pollution. I grew up in NJ near NYC and live in LA, both places not having the best air quality, still pale in comparison to Guwahati. The smog is so dense that the beautiful mountains in the distance are hazy, the sunsets are red through the thick layer of pollution, and even on the street level there is a constant visible thin fog of car exhaust. Having not totally acclimated to the poor air quality, sometimes I feel as though I am not breathing enough oxygen especially when performing any physically taxing tasks.
I start to think about the long term health effects of horrendous air pollution for all the locals. I know after doing a presentation on air quality in my environmental epidemiology class that the rates of asthma, lung cancer, and other cancers greatly increases in areas with significant particulate matters in the air. Lifespan can also be cut down as well as productivity at work. The smog in Guwahati is also far-reaching. It affects all regardless of income, gender, or socio-economic status. You have to think about how many in the deepest state of poverty and subjected to living outdoors or breathing in the toxins at work are at even higher risk. One of the most effective ways to improve health in the area might begin with improving breathing conditions for all. I wonder about the unreported rates of asthma, lung cancer, and other pollution-related conditions in Guwahati as well as the unnecessary loss of life years. Looking at the grand scheme, it’s also apparent that the giant car companies and policy officials have a lack of concern for this health outcome. I imagine that steps to remedy the air pollution would involve emissions control and stricter regulations. These are not necessarily difficult tasks and have the potential to make a huge impact like it did when Los Angeles cleaned up its air quality from the 70s. The health consequences and steps for remediating the issue might truly be thicker than the smog itself.
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