Most polluted cities of 2018 (opens in new tab)

In a world where individualism and short term profit is valued above all.

What do you think happens when we buy asian gadgets on amazon with same day delivery, mindless pollution, from the first step to the last.

Go out, and look at the streets, hundreds of cars with (90% of the time) a single person in it. Moving 2 tons of steel for a 80 kilos meatbag, now that's efficiency. We could almost ignore that if it wasn't releasing toxic gases straight in the worst place possible: the exact place where most of us live.

What about importing bananas and mango from the other side of the globe ? How come I can buy Evian water in the US; are we really shipping water from Europe to America ?

Meat at every meal, well meat is good so why not, plus it's cheap now that we mass produce it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_p...

And the list goes on forever, but who cares, convenience is king, as long as it's cheap.

How widely known is it that Indian cities are so polluted? I feel like I only hear about pollution in Chinese cities. I feel like the fact that this is dominated by Indian cities would come as a surprise to many.

Anyone knows what the major source of pollution in Indian cities is? My guess would be automobile but I'd like it to be confirmed or denied.

Mexico City is in rank 704, I didn't expect that. I don't know if Mexico City is doing better or if the other 700 cities are nightmares. Well at least the pollution average in the city went down from 2017 to 2018.

I was fascinated to see how low New York was. Given the immense amount of car traffic, anyone have an idea as to why its so low?

Why not measure surface area polluted and how much of that is in a country, rather than very long lists of individual cities?

E.g., China - 100km2, India 500km2 (making up numbers), rather than list 300 cities from each country as nearly equal pollution?

Changing the ranking to the world's most polluted countries really puts into perspective the ecological destruction wrought by the trend of western consumerist fetishism (this isn't to say that the destruction of natural systems is entirely the fault of western citizens, of course).

The top 25 (at least) most polluted countries are all firmly outside what would be considered the western world; it's obvious that the environmental byproducts of materialism and consumerism are simply outsourced to where westerners cannot readily see them. The necessary course of action for an informed and future-minded person seems blindingly obvious - allocate resources only to those corporations and systems that reject the trend of object fetishism and environmental (and social) exploitation.

The classic rebuttal to this stance (i.e., that all corporations naturally engage in this type of exploitative behavior / the standard of living of the exploited region's citizens is being raised as a byproduct of said exploitation / etc.) is ringing more and more hollow. The fact of the matter is that you don't need a new smartphone / TV / whatever nearly as often as we are conditioned to believe.

There is a strange (borderline schizophrenic) attitude that I notice among defenders of entrenched corporate systems (meaning production and consumption symbioses) wherein the defender of the system simultaneously resigns themselves to powerlessness in the face of what they claim are the inevitable (and often negative) byproducts of technological and economic growth and at the same time admit (directly or indirectly) that they willingly add to the conflagration under nothing but the threat of relatively minor social inconvenience (see: Facebook membership, ordering junk from Amazon, using Google services, etc.). It's tiring and bewildering to witness.

All of the US cities in the North America top 50 are rural CA cities. I have to assume that their over all badness last year was due to the fires.

Anyone know why is pollution is worst in winter? heating?

We were in India in the winter, and the smell everywhere was like smoke from burning.

Thanks for hijacking my back button

I was really surprised to see that in my neck of the woods Chicago proper had better air quality than some of the nearby suburbs (that aren't industrial exurbs) such as Naperville: https://www.airvisual.com/world-most-polluted-cities?contine...

I always had the question is the source of pollution at least the air quality is local or can it travel across globe ?

Why is it that the top 100 are all chain in India? And in that case why is it that the Paris climate accord delayed China and India is accountability while charging American Germany the highest reparations immediately? The politics behind climate change is it simply a method of controlling our economy and taxing us

I happened to be in San Francisco during the Camp fire late last year. Even far from the fire itself, the air outside was terrible, and for a week or two I felt miserable and trapped. Not being able to breathe properly, or open a window, or go anywhere for days on end wasn't fun.

Most of the cities in that list are just as bad as that, all year round. I can't even begin to imagine what it feels like to live like that permanently, or what it does to your health :(

If you look at the list of cities, they are mostly in countries that are undergoing massive industrialization. If you look at the equivalent stage in the West about a hundred years ago, you would see the New York, Chicago, London, Pittsburg also with massive pollution. As countries became more industrialized and wealthy, they switch from caring about growth above all else, to caring more for quality of life and reducing pollution is a big part of that. That period occurred for the US in the 60’s and 70’s. You can see that dynamic already taking hold for example in Beijing where the Chinese government is trying to reduce its pollution problem by regulating cars and pushing electric vehicles.

Surprised by the numbers for Mexico City (19.7, 704th). I live there and the air is disgusting. I can't imagine how bad it must be in all those Chinese/Indian cities above 100.

To give some perspective, Paradise California (which burned to the ground on Nov. 8 2018) had a PM2.5 measurement that month fairly similar to that of the world's most polluted cities. That seems so grim to me.

I feel so fortunate seeing this list. The area I live in is almost entirely blue despite being subjected to bursts of wildfire smoke in summer.

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