The Smog Return

Fahid Rasheed
Nov 2 · 2 min read

FOR several days now,the inhabitants of Lahore have been complaining about the toxic air they are forced to breathe. The dreadful smog engulfs the Lahore once again. The residents of Punjab largest city are becoming fed up and demanding the answers and accountability for the gloomy state of affairs.

I want to written on it because as it has become routine for some years now, the smog is expected to last till the January-February of the next year. Undoubtedly, the pollutant-filled air is leaving immeasurable public health damage by largely affecting the lungs and hearts of the innocents citizen. I used the word innocent because the children as well as elderly persons are being vulnerable.

The international as well as national community has to take notice of the situation. The international rights group has condemned the Pakistani government for its failure to protect the lives of its citizens. They are qualifying it as a human right issue.

Additionally, the lack of monitoring devices to make air quality makes the matter murkier, leading to disagreements about the exact figures and scale of the disaster. Now the air is quantified as hazardous.

However, the minister of state for the climate change in her recent address saying the situation was blown out of proportion due to vested interests. Some people are also repeating the commonly held belief that smog was entering the country by way of our neighbor India where the farmers are engaging in stubble-burning right before the harvesting season.

Meanwhile, environmentalists hold the transport sector, local manufacturing and agricultural industries that operate on substandard fuel quality chiefly responsible for the smog created each winter.

While the government has taken steps to address the issue, and these were pointed out by the minister, but the seriousness of the thread posed by the polluted air cannot be downplayed.

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