| Friday, 27 September 2024 |
Inciting Incident is our weekly newsletter about the most powerful tool of our age—stories. Stories told by businesses, leaders, governments. Subscribe here
Good morning [%first_name |Dear Reader%],
For this edition of Inciting Incident, your Friday newsletter on decoding narratives, I’ve drawn some inspiration from The Economist’s special weekend newsletter on longevity, published a fortnight ago. This special edition was the most comprehensive collection of stories on what makes life longer and better that I have come across yet—a subject, I’m sure, that’s close to every human heart.
I was surprised to learn that while there are many places in the world that claim to be home to people who live far longer than average, these may well be false claims. And that fasting and other lesser-known strategies can help improve longevity. And that scientists are now genuinely focussing on how to slow ageing, with businesses rapidly catching up.
The upshot is that it looks like living up to 120 isn’t as unimaginable as it once seemed. This new narrative is quite rich, complex, and nuanced in the various emotions it evokes, and I think it has the power to change behaviours because it taps into the innate human need to choose life, improve its quality and, even if momentarily, keep the fear of death and decay at bay.
It’s a story that has the essence of all great stories—it resonates with a vital human need, and it has a long line-up of protagonists and antagonists that square up against each other.
For this week’s Inciting Incident, I thought I’d talk about two antagonists that have recently grown very large as threats to human longevity.
Pollution is worse than drinking, smoking, and HIV
Last month, the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC) released its annual Air Quality Life Index report for the year. There was actually some good news as far as the length of Indian lives are concerned. We now apparently have one more year of life on average. But zoom out, and whatever silver lining you think this is becomes pretty hard to see.
There is good news from South Asia: pollution declined by 18% in one year in the region. India’s particulate pollution, too, has declined from 51.3 in 2021 to 41.4 μg/m³ in 2022, which has added one year to the country’s average life expectancy.
[…]
Kalpana Balakrishnan, Dean (Research) at the Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research, shared that the increase in life expectancy reflects the cumulative healthy years gained from reducing PM2.5 levels. “It’s not just one number; it accounts for fewer years spent suffering from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, child growth deficits, and pneumonia — all health outcomes linked to air pollution,” she added.
However, despite the recent improvement in air quality, South Asia continues to be the world’s most polluted region, the AQLI report notes. Of the total life years lost globally to high pollution, South Asia accounts for 45%. Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan are among the most polluted countries in the world.
Other research has pointed out that there are several indirect ways in which particulate matter in the air adversely affects health, to a point where it causes a large number of premature deaths, as reported by Down to Earth magazine in June
Silent killers fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) led to a staggering 135 million premature deaths worldwide between 1980 and 2020, a new study has found. The research has also highlighted the role of climate variability phenomena like El Nino-Southern Oscillation, Indian Ocean Dipole and North Atlantic Oscillation in exacerbating PM2.5 pollution levels. The study by researchers from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore was published in the peer-reviewed journal Environment International.
It’s also clear that the benefits of any decrease in pollution, and hence better health, is not for everyone in India.
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Kiran Mazumdar Shaw
Executive Chairperson, Biocon Limited
As a designer, it’s easy to get lost in the craft of building products. As a business owner however, keeping up with a rapidly changing landscape is key to saying relevant. The Ken doesn’t just help me stay on top of what’s happening in India(and beyond), but makes it fun to do so.
Rahul Gonsalves
Co-founder and CEO, Obvious Ventures
I enjoy reading The Ken because it is informative, the articles are well researched, well written, without the spin and bias. I admire The Ken team for their dedication to getting closer to the true picture.
Hari Buggana
Chairman and MD, InvAscent
Transparent, Honest, Detailed. To me, The Ken has been this since the day I subscribed to them. The research that they put into each story and the way it is presented is thoroughly interesting. Personally, I’ve always had a great time interacting with the publication and reading the stories.
Harshil Mathur
CEO and Co-Founder, Razorpay