Bad Air

This morning’s online New York Times has a list of major cities of the world and a notation as the degree of air pollution in each of them on the worst day this year. A few cities suffered only “moderate” pollution, I suspect because of favorable prevailing winds. But unhealthy conditions were registered in nearly every big city. In some, the rating was “hazardous.” In New Dehli “beyond hazardous.”

Even if climate change weren’t a problem, it would be a wise for countries to radically cut fossil fuel emissions and accelerate conversion to alternative energy. There’s no need to debate how fast sea levels will rise. The health of billions of people is at stake.