It came almost out of nowhere. In the winter of 2016, late in the month of November, Lahore was engulfed in a way it had possibly never been before. Thick, yellow sheets of dense air surrounded the city’s roads, schools, parks, homes, bridges, and hospitals indiscriminately.
Most people were caught unaware. The winter in Lahore and its surrounding rural districts has always been cold and foggy. But this particular haze was strange. It was new and it was making people sick. Numbers from public hospitals at the time indicate a severe increase in complaints of chest pain and breathing problems in Outpatient Departments in public hospitals across the country.
The air was making people sick, and the very visible wave immediately caused concerns. Since 2016, the smog has returned every single year with varying degrees of severity. But what that one, drastic, eye-opening episode back in 2016 did was make the smog an issue of public concern. In the past seven years awareness of the smog issue has gone from non-existent to widespread. Yet the understanding of the issue has remained low.
The reality of the matter is that the smog problem is not limited to Lahore. In fact, it is acutely felt all across Punjab. And it is also not a problem that has appeared in the last decade. The smog issue was actually first identified in Punjab back in the mid 1990s. It has only been in recent times that it has become a very common talking point because of how visibly worse it has gotten.
There is limited data about what causes this phenomenon but the information available is clear. It is also clear that the only way to solve this problem is by targeting the main pollutants responsible for the state of the air — automobiles, bad fuel, industrial pollution, and crop burning. Instead, the response to the smog crisis has largely remained unimpressive and tame.
The first thing to understand here is that the air quality in Lahore isn’t just bad in the winter months. It is bad all year around. According to the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) of Punjab, the ambient air quality of the capital city Lahore in the year 2022 revealed that there were only 17 days of good or satisfactory AQI (PM2.5) out of the total 309 monitored days.
This is important to understand. You see the air we breathe in contains particulate matter — small, microscopic bits of different substances. Particulate matter that is less than 10 microns (for context, one micron one-thousandth of a millimetre) in diameter is inhalable by the human lungs. And once these very small particles are inside your lungs in enough quantities they can cause adverse health effects.
Now imagine that the air we breathe every single day contains these particles that are less than 10 microns. With every single breath you take there is poison entering your lungs. And it gets worse. You see, 10 microns or a particulate matter reading of “PM 10” is already bad for you. But when the particulate matter gets to a value of 2.5 microns or less (which is what we refer to when saying PM2.5) is categorised as “Fine Particulate Matter.”
Now the more fine Particulate Matter you have in the air, the worse your air quality is. And this amount of particulate matter is constant throughout the air. In the winter months, however, a thin layer of the atmosphere near the earth becomes cooler than that above it. As a result pollutants are trapped at ground level until there is a change in the weather.
So this is what you have. Lahore as a city and Punjab at large is producing toxic fumes and throwing them into the air every single day of the year. For most of the year they do not notice just how adversely this affects them. But for a quarter of the year stretching from at least November to January, the cold air traps these toxic fumes turning the province into a deadly den of disease. During these months the smog’s threat to health and life is worse.
The effects are clear. According to a report of the World Health Organisation (WHO), the exceeding levels of air pollution have resulted in the loss of 5.3 and 4.8 years of life expectancy from 1998-2016 among populations of Lahore and Faisalabad cities, respectively. The rate of deaths attributable to air pollution (including indoor PM2.5, and ozone) in Pakistan is also well above global averages. The World Bank estimates Pakistan’s annual burden of disease from outdoor air pollution to be responsible for around 22,000 premature adult deaths.
As the sun rises over our cities, it often struggles to penetrate the thick blanket of smog that has become a familiar sight. In recent years, Pakistan has grappled with a worsening smog crisis, fueled by a combination of crop burning and vehicular emissions. This environmental hazard not only poses serious health risks but also threatens our economy and quality of life.
One of the primary contributors to smog in Pakistan is the practice of crop burning, particularly in the agricultural heartlands of Punjab. Farmers, faced with the need to clear their fields quickly after harvest, resort to burning crop residue, releasing harmful pollutants into the air. This, coupled with vehicular emissions from outdated vehicles and inefficient fuel combustion, creates a toxic concoction that chokes our cities and towns.
To address this pressing issue, we must adopt a multi-faceted approach that tackles both the root causes and the symptoms of smog. Firstly, government policies should incentivize and support farmers in adopting alternative methods of crop residue management, such as mulching and composting. Providing subsidies for machinery that can efficiently process crop residue will not only reduce air pollution but also improve soil health and agricultural productivity.
Secondly, stricter regulations and enforcement measures are needed to curb vehicle emissions. This includes enforcing emission standards for vehicles, promoting the use of cleaner fuels, and investing in public transportation infrastructure to reduce reliance on private vehicles. Additionally, promoting the adoption of electric vehicles through incentives and infrastructure development can significantly mitigate air pollution from the transportation sector.
Furthermore, public awareness campaigns and community engagement are crucial in fostering a culture of environmental responsibility. Educating citizens about the health hazards of smog and empowering communities to take collective action, such as tree planting drives and clean-up initiatives, can amplify the impact of government interventions.
Ultimately, combating smog requires concerted efforts from government, businesses, civil society, and individuals alike. It is not only a matter of environmental conservation but also a question of public health and sustainable development. By taking decisive action to address the root causes of smog and promoting cleaner, more sustainable practices, we can pave the way towards a cleaner, healthier future for Pakistan. Let us join hands in clearing the air and securing a brighter tomorrow for generations to come.
