For nearly a month, the Indian megalopolis has suffered its most severe episode of pollution in six years. The rate of fine particles in the air is forty times higher than the alert level established by the WHO, to such an extent that this Friday schools are closing and residents who can are invited to telecommute at home.
Hence the petition filed by Aditya Dubey, 18, and examined today by the Supreme Court on the deterioration of air quality and precisely the inaction of the public authorities, which this student asks to finally take measures. . Immediately, for the emergency, but also for the rest of the year, that the factories no longer run on coal, that the farmers no longer burn their agricultural waste, that the construction sector be more supervised, than the old vehicles disappear from circulation.
“Change begins with us” @ AdityaDubey2003
Recipient of the 2021 Legacy Award @DianaAward pic.twitter.com/0gN3DmGSVm
– #LetMeBreathe ™ (@LetMeBreathe_In) December 2, 2021
Yes Aditya dubey has embarked on this battle, it is because he himself is a victim of the poisoned air. In 2016, when he was 13, he endured his first respiratory attack, a difficult mixture of asthma and sinusitis after yet another spike in pollution. Very quickly, he realizes that he is not alone, that his friends also suffer from lung diseases. So he educates himself, compiles articles on the sources of CO2 emissions and fine particles.
He understands that he is not going to stop alone the factories, nor the cars, nor the agricultural burns which smoke the area of New Delhi each fall. Its solution to act on its own scale is therefore to launch the operation “Plant A MillionTrees”, “Let’s plant a million trees”. “I campaigned on social media, he explains to the magazine The Verve, and then I started to distribute seeds to all those who asked me.” And it worked.
“I’m afraid that one day we will fall into a kind of civil war where everyone would fight to seize the few still usable resources, where only the wealthiest could afford drinking water and air purifiers. (…) But that also may not happen, if the change starts with us. “
Aditya Dubey, Diana Award 2021to The Verve magazine
Photos of freshly planted shrubs bloomed on Twitter and Instagram, today 180,000 trees have been planted and Aditya Dubey has just received the Princess Diana Prize, awarded every two years by her two sons Harry and William.
It’s flattering, but it still doesn’t solve the problem. Hence the new method of the student: for a year, he has filed petitions in court, so that the subject is addressed by institutions, and not just on social networks.