Hence, when Shamsh Pervez from the PRSU in Chattisgarh visited DRI as a Fulbright fellow in 2011, they laid out the blueprint for the study. Current inventories include pollutants primarily from technology-based (or energy production) sources such as fossil fuel and residential biofuel burning." Says Rajan Chakrabarty from DRI, "Our main motivation to investigate funeral pyres and widely-prevalent cultural practices in India stemmed from the lack of data about these emission sources in current regional emission inventories used by global climate models. (Total VOC emission estimate from all ritual activities was found to be 7.388 Tg/year out of which crematoria alone contributed 7.387 Tg/year). Extrapolated to a national scale, the figures turn out to be 0.001 Terra grams per year (Tg/yr), which the scientists term as 'very huge'. This, they say, is equivalent to almost 23% of the total carbonaceous aerosol mass produced by human-burnt fossil fuels, and 10% of biofuels in the South Asian region.Īdditionally, samples collected from marriage ceremonies, Muslim graveyards, Hindu and Buddhist temples in Chhattisgarh state of India indicate emissions of massive quantities of carcinogenic volatile organic compounds (VOC). It turns out that the funeral pyres alone could be contributing as much as 92 Gg/year (Giga grams per year) of light-absorbing carbon aerosols. Credit: PRSU Scientists from Pandit Ravishankar Shukla University (PRSU) in Raipur, Chattisgarh along with colleagues from the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Reno, Nevada, USA have now accounted for the first time how much these religious practices are actually contributing to national emissions in the region 1, 2. The smoke has been adding significantly to the region's 'brown carbon' and 'volatile organic compound' emissions but remains completely missing from national health indices or international climate models.Ī researcher measures brown carbon emissions at an open air cremation site in Chattisgarh, India. This is the smoke from tonnes of incense sticks in temples, mosques and graveyards as also from burning the dead in open funeral pyres. Across South Asia, a disturbing and hitherto unaccounted amount of smoke is making its way stealthily into the air - the kind of smoke people chose to revere, inhale and quietly ignore.
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