Thursday, February 21, 2013

Blog 4 Despite a Whiff of Unpleasant Exaggeration, a City’s Pollution Is Real



According to the article, “Despite a Whiff of Unpleasant Exaggeration, a City’s Pollution is Real,” written by Rod Nordland stated that the air in Kabul, Afghanistan was on average worse than Beijing’s haze, by one measure. Nordland also stated that the problem with Kabul’s air was because of feces. According to a test made by the government about 30 percent of Kabul’s air was feces particles. Nordland stated how Kabul was a city built for half a million people but during wartime the population increased to five million. Nordland stated that only 5 percent of Kabul’s homes were connected to sewage systems while most household waste flows straight to open roadside drains. Nordland also stated how the United Nations Environment Program did an air sampling which contained only sulfur dioxide and nitrous oixides plus particles known as PM 10. A study by the Asian Development Bank and the Afghan government’s environment agency suggested that there were no flying feces around but toxic levels of cadmium were noted. Kabul may not have an aerial fecal problem, but it is far from off the hook on air pollution said Mohammad Yunus Nawandish, the mayor of Kabul. But because of Kabul’s geographic structure it becomes a bowl-like where it is encircled by mountains resulting in trap airborne pollutants. On average Kabul’s air is still worse than Beijing’s air.

The one thing wrong with this article is that it only stated about Kabul’s fecal particles in the air. That it wasn’t part of Kabul’s air pollution. It didn’t really state how the living conditions were like in Kabul. Then the article stated about on average Kabul’s air is still worse is still worse than Beijing’s. Basically, what this article is trying to say is that because of Kabul’s geographic structure it air quality is much worse than Beijing’s.

2/21/2013
8:47 AM

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