A farmer walks through smoke from the fire he set to clear a field at Chandhat, India.
Photographer: Saurabh DasThe Dirty Legacy of China’s and India’s Growth
Their booming economies have lifted millions out of poverty, but the price of that progress is suffocatingly deadly—bad water and filthy air.
The sixth-biggest cause of death globally is small-particle pollution, chemical specks that enter the lungs and can contribute to cardiovascular diseases, lung cancer, and infections. It led to more than 4 million deaths in 2016. Ninety-nine percent of children 5 years old and younger in South and East Asia breathe unhealthy air.
● Much of China’s particulate pollution comes from industrial facilities, especially coal-burning power plants. In India, PM2.5 comes not only from cars and coal-fired power stations, but also from widely used domestic cookstoves and the common agricultural practice of burning to clear fields.