Combating Smog

Smog is a term use for atmospheric instability, poor visibility, and large concentrations of gaseous and particulate air pollutants. The word "smog" is usually a combined mixture of two words "smoke" and "fog."

Main Causes of Smog:

Smog forming pollutants from numerous sources such as industries, factories, consumer products or vehicles are the typical causative factors of smog. In most urban areas, more than 50% of smog is formed in result of vehicular emissions. Mostly the smog occurred due to weather changes and heavy vehicle traffic and emissions from industries and other consumer products. Consumer products which causing smog are particularly include solvents, paints, plastic packaging and sprays.

Lahore has a worst condition of pollution since last few years. Smog has now become a ‘fifth season’ in Pakistan and this is due to the worst air quality. According to data revealed by Pakistan Air Quality Initiative Only two days of good air quality recorded in 2017 in Lahore.

While we were waiting for some respite from the heat, all set to welcoming the winters, we were blindsided by smog. The question arising is that, did we really get blindsided by it or are we paying the price of ignoring the warning signs?

Miss Fazila Ishfaq giving SMOG awareness

Human made smog is a combined result of coal, vehicular and industrial emissions, as well as forest and agricultural fires and photochemical reactions of these emissions. From last year’s Punjab is witnessing the havoc that smog is capable of creating since late October. The News speaking that an eminent environmentalist, at an event in Karachi said: “In the days to come, Karachi may face extreme dust storms, devastating cyclones and hurricanes in the Arabian Sea as well as smog”.

This issue should be a wakeup call for everyone who thinks that this is an isolated provincial or regional issue that they can completely ignore. Environmental issues have a snowball effect, and if not catered to in time they can be as devastating as a storm.

If the smog situation goes like this year by year, the results occur from it will grow in their intensity as well, from mild eye and throat irritation, minor pains to severe pulmonary diseases and potential cancer risks. Individuals highly susceptible to these impacts include senior citizens, children and those with cardiac and respiratory complications as they have the tendency to be at a disadvantage of asthma.

In 2015 alone, almost 60,000 Pakistanis died from the high level of fine particulate matter (PM) in the air, making it among the highest death tolls in the world from air pollution according to the World Health Organization (WHO). As South Asia’s most urbanized country, Pakistan contends with increasing challenges such as the increase in motor vehicles in cities. In the last decade, more than 11 million cars appeared on the roads in Pakistan’s most populous province, representing a growth of almost 30%, according to a report from the Punjab Environmental Protection Department (EPD).

SMOG Awareness

Another cause for the current scenario is the polluting practice on agricultural land common in Pakistan’s Punjab, resulting in plumes of toxic smoke carried across the neighbourhoods of Lahore.

The WHO sets a standard safe PM 2.5 level (air pollutant) in a 24-hour period at 25 µg/m3, while the latest readings in Lahore are fluctuating between PM 450 and 500.

Despite the current situation, not all is lost, if we only stop the blame game and get to work. What you can do is plant indigenous trees like shisham, neem, pipal, jaman, amaltas and sohanjna to name a few. These are species that will help clean the air, provide shade and habitat for our birds and be a source of nutrition.

Alarmingly, Lahore cut down more than 2,200 trees in the city in 2016 and the practice continues till date at a similar pace across the country, removing a natural carbon sink a source of absorbing large quantities of co2 and fine particulate matter released into the air.

WBM Foundation has launched a tree plantation campaign, which you can also be a part of. This campaign as an opportunity for us to take preventive measures against present and looming environmental disasters.

“Why get to that stage where we are waiting for something to impact us so catastrophically.WBM Foundation believe that prevention is better than cure and plantation is the only source of preventing from smog issue. A key solution to multiple environmental issues we face is to combat deforestation by planting indigenous trees. This is a small effort that we can all do at an individual level. It will be surely our investment towards a better present and future.”