Tag - smog

 
 

SMOG

An Iranian couple sits in a park facing the Milad Tower in Tehran on Dec. 27.
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 3, 2025
Vanishing mountains: Winter air pollution smothers Iran
Iran's capital Tehran frequently ranks among the world's most polluted cities, says Swiss-based air quality monitoring company IQAir.
Thailand's Royal Rainmaking department takes part in an atmospheric modification mission to displace pollution by spraying icy water in the air over the outskirts of Bangkok.
ASIA PACIFIC / Science & Health
Jan 27, 2025
Ice in the sky: Thailand's fight against air pollution
The new technique of spraying dry ice or cold water into the air was first used last year and is still in its testing stages.
Smoke from the Pacific Palisades fire blankets the area in Los Angeles on Tuesday. Researchers see a growing health danger from the vast plumes of pollution spawned by wildfires like the ones devastating Los Angeles.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jan 12, 2025
Far from the Los Angeles fires, the deadly risks of smoke are intensifying
By some estimates, wildfire smoke causes as many as 675,000 premature deaths a year worldwide, as well as a range of serious health problems.
A farmer burns straw stubble after harvesting a paddy field on the outskirts of Jind in India's Haryana state on Nov. 26.
ASIA PACIFIC / Science & Health
Dec 3, 2024
The farm fires helping to fuel India's deadly air
Burning is a cheap way to clear fields for new crops, making it hard for farmers to shift to other methods despite the consequences.
The New Delhi skyline engulfed in heavy smog on Nov. 17
ASIA PACIFIC / Science & Health
Nov 24, 2024
Mounting economic costs of India's killer smog
Smog in New Delhi this month contains more than 50 times the World Health Organization's recommended limit of fine particulate matter.
Visitors walk along the ground-level pathway at the newly expanded Benjakitti Park in central Bangkok, where trees and wetlands now thrive on the site of a former cigarette factory.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
May 17, 2024
Big, smoggy Bangkok gets a badly needed breath of fresh air
In the heart of a megacity, an industrial site has been turned into an oasis for residents, as well as birds, bats and mosquito-eating dragonflies.
A commuter walks along an overpass in Jakarta.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Mar 20, 2024
Only 10 countries had healthy air quality in 2023, report finds
Sources of PM2.5 pollution vary widely, but the overwhelming cause is the burning of fossil fuels.
A housing development next to the Sasol’s petrochemicals plant in Sasolburg, South Africa.
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 2, 2024
What it's like to live in the most polluted place on Earth
Coal and steel plants offer steady work for residents in South Africa's Vaal Triangle, yet they’re also pumping out harmful emissions.
Traffic along a highway amid heavy smog and pollution in New Delhi in November
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Dec 7, 2023
As China enjoys cleaner air, India's pollution struggle continues
Huge swaths of northern India choke on clouds of polluted air during winter as temperatures drop, winds disappear and farmers set fields ablaze.
A mother assists her child to breathe with the help of a nebuliser at the emergency ward of the government-run Chacha Nehru Bal Chikitsalaya children hospital in New Delhi on Tuesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Nov 10, 2023
'Like breathing poison': Delhi children hardest hit by smog
"Imagine telling a parent not to let their child go out and play in this toxic environment."
Asep Muizudin Muhamad Darmini was recently discharged from a hospital in Jakarta after being treated for a respiratory illness caused by the city's air pollution.
ASIA PACIFIC / Science & Health
Sep 13, 2023
Breathless Indonesians irate over pollution crisis in Jakarta
Air pollution is hardly a new phenomenon in the city, but monitors and activists say the effects have been even worse than usual this year.
People sit on a rail track as smoke rises from steel mills near a slum in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Tuesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Science & Health
Aug 30, 2023
Air pollution now a risk to life expectancy in South Asia: study
Rapid industrialization and population growth have contributed to declining air quality in South Asia.
Flames reach upward along the edge of a wildfire near Mistissini, Quebec, in June.
ENVIRONMENT
Aug 23, 2023
As wildfires multiply, a new era of air pollution
The average American had already been exposed to 450 micrograms of smoke per cubic meter by early July, worse than from 2006-2022.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Jun 9, 2023
How wildfire smoke impacts human health
Wildfire exposure is bad for the human body no matter how healthy a person is or how long they’re exposed to it.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Jun 9, 2023
Wildfire smoke increases the risk of contracting COVID-19
Millions of people in Canada and the U.S. are currently at an elevated risk of catching COVID-19, thanks to the smoke from hundreds of wildfires.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 8, 2023
Smoke from Canadian wildfires blankets New York
The U.S. National Weather Service issued air quality alerts for a large part of the eastern U.S. as fires threaten critical infrastructure in Quebec.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Mar 31, 2023
Thai forest fires worsen pollution that’s left 2 million ill
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has ordered urgent steps to put out forest fires in Nakhon Nayok province to the east of Bangkok and those in the country’s northern region.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Nov 23, 2022
Beijing is fixing its foul air. Why can’t New Delhi?
The return of smog season in India's capital has again left residents asking why nothing has changed. The answer may be largely political.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Nov 26, 2020
New Delhi's poisonous air a perennial crisis of its own making
Thousands of families who live near a smouldering waste landfill in a northern corner of India's capital have boarded up their doors and windows because they say the air outside is so toxic that they would be coughing all day.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Science & Health
Jul 9, 2020
Smog caused an estimated 49,000 deaths in Beijing and Shanghai since Jan. 1
Air pollution has caused an estimated 49,000 deaths and $23 billion in economic losses in the cities of Beijing and Shanghai alone since Jan. 1, according to a "clean air counter" launched by environmental groups on Thursday.

Longform

Eme-Ima Kitchen is one of over 10,000 kodomo shokudō in Japan. A term first used in 2012 to describe makeshift eateries offering free or cheap meals to disadvantaged kids, it now refers to a diverse range of individuals, groups and organizations working to provide not only food but a sense of belonging to both children and adults.
Japan’s ‘children’s cafeterias’ are booming — but is that a good thing?