“Smog Tower” Opens in Advance of Annual Air Pollution Crisis
August 25, 2021
The Indian capital of Delhi, infamous for polluted air, has opened its first “smog tower” to take in dirty air, filter it, and release the purified result. But even if it works—skepticism abounds—a larger challenge will be solving the problem at its source. As Jon Hellin and Sudhanshu Singh explain in Issues, much of the city’s smog derives from smoke generated when area farmers burn rice straw in their fields—ironically, a practice spurred by the Green Revolution. The remedy, the authors write, will require technological, social, and policy changes, including giving farmers incentives to reduce burning.