Monday, September 26, 2011


This map was taken from the website - Smoke Free Partnership. It deals with smoking related deaths in the different parts of the world. If we look closely, we see that in the this problem is highly prominent in the first world countries where the percentage of smoking related deaths is more that 15%. The poor countries where the number is far lower and this can be attributed to the fact that poor countries have adopted this habit fairly recently. I believe smoking is a habit that is usually picked in a young age and over time it becomes difficult to quit it. Personally, I feel the only way to discourage cigarettes in the society is to tax them high. This will at least discourage children of middle-class from buying them and thus the percentage of smokers will automatically come down.




The above map was selected from the website - https://www.amherst.edu/taxonomy/term/1706. The map is shows the various degrees of light pollution at night. It is interesting to note that the problem is prominent in the countries that come in the developed or the developing categories including United States of America, majority of western Europe, densely populated parts of India and China. This phenomenon is also known as over-illumination and is responsible for unnecessary energy consumption, interference with astronomical observatories and like any other pollution disrupts the ecosystem in several ways.