Want to burst crackers on Diwali? Blog #315

Want to burst crackers on Diwali? 

Christmas is the major cause for deforestation. Are you laughing? Then you might want to laugh at banning crackers on Diwali too.

Every year, there is a lot of NOISE around how we must stop bursting crackers for Diwali. To fight for this is, to use the gentlest of words, plain stupid. Here is why:

Below are the main pollutants of air in India:

 Fuelwood & Biomass burning        

 Fuel Adulteration

Vehicle emission 

Traffic congestion

The above factors contribute to the poor air quality throughout the year, 365 days a year!

Do we do anything about reining in the above factors? Absolutely not!

Now how much does bursting crackers on Diwali contribute to the pollution?

Let us look at some statistics -

Now, how many days are the crackers burst? One day. Let’s assume it goes on for 2 days.

% of days in a year where crackers are burst for Diwali	0.55%
% of hours in a year where crackers are burst for Diwali – (Assuming over a period of 2 days, we burst crackers for whole of 24 hours)	0.27%

% of Hindus in India	79.80%
%  of urban Hindus living in poverty (Urban & Rural)	21.90%

(Source:http://indianeconomy.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/working_papers/working_paper_2013-02-final.pdf )

Number of Hindus who don’t come under the poverty line

829 Million

So 829 Million out of the 1.3 Billion is the amount of people who might burst crackers. 

Number of households  (conservative estimate)

829 million/4 = 207480000

Let us discount the below households from the above figure. 

% of households with old people	1%
% of households with dogs and who choose to not burst crackers	1%
% of households with babies	1%
% of households who choose to not burst crackers	1%
% of houses close to hospitals	1%
% of households in states where Diwali is not a big festival	1%

Number of households that might burst crackers(94%)	195031200
Area of India	3,287,263 Square Kilometres
Distribution	60 households per square kilometer

Impact of burning crackers during Diwali is as below - 

Per square kilometer, only 60 households burst crackers for 0.55% of the time of an entire year of 365 days. 

This is not going to contribute drastically to the pollution. By this logic, avoiding it will not have a major impact on the air quality of our country. So relax.

If we really want to make a change to the air quality around us., here are a few steps:

             Till your land instead of burning the crops.

                       Choose to take a shared cab instead of taking a prime.

            Pool your daily office rides

 Plant trees.

 Walk more.

 Maintain your automobile well &Get a PUC certificate.

 Use a solar powered generator instead of the diesel powered one that you use now.

The point I am trying to make is that if  we ban crackers on Diwali, all we are doing is taking a populist, ineffective measure which doesn't have any considerable impact on the outcome. Imagine this. There is a water tank with 4 walls. There is a pinhole sized leak. We focus our energy on fixing the pin hole where as one entire wall itself is going to break and we are least bothered about this wall in peril!

My friend, Raghunath was kind enough to make an infographic out of this blog post. Here it is. Thankful as ever for his time, effort and encouragement :)

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