Watch out: smog is here!

Not long ago, the winter weather (or at least mild winter) would set in by the first week of November.

Now, it is the first week of November, and still, no one is seen wearing warm clothes.

For the last two years, the Punjab areas have been deprived of charming dusk hours of November.

It is smog.

Every day, layers of smog descend upon cities and plains preventing sunshine reaching the earth.

Smog.

Smog, a relatively new phenomenon in Lahore and other parts of Punjab, is the polluted crop, which we are reaping for uncontrolled and unplanned industrialisation and lack of environment-friendly measures.

Earlier, in every December, thick layers of fog would blanket the horizon making the visibility rate too poor to drive on Motorway and land at the Lahore Airport.

But smog, a major health hazard, is something else: the choking layer is smoke, a mixture of polluted air and water vapor in the atmosphere. Unlike fog, which descends upon plains and cities by the evening, the greyish smog falls in the daytime and refuses to vanish till midnight.

With smog have come health advisories: people need to remain indoors, avoiding unnecessary exposure to the air; people need to cover their eyes, nose, and ears or they can suffer irritation; people need to increase liquid intakes to avid respiratory ailments. Children, senior citizens and those suffering from lung and heart ailments need extra preventive measures. In short, smog can harm human health to a great degree.

Prevention is better than cure; besides following preventive measures, the public at large should press the government to awake to the situation arising from environmental issues and make the environment a major priority. Preventive measures could have averted the rise of smog.

Still, it is better late than never.

The government needs to look into factors contributing towards the smog phenomena. The choking smoke stems from traffic emission and industrial fumes that cause smog when they interact with sunlight and water vapors. The government blames the wisps of smoke rising from the burning stubbles in Punjab farms for smog. This is a great miscalculation. For decades, the farmers have been burning stubble at the end of every crop season; now the smokes billowing from farms have just aggravated the smog levels. Several cities, far from agriculture farms, such as Los Angeles, Beijing, Mexico City and Tehran, have also been invaded by smog.

Once the core issue is detected, the government should come up with preventive measures. One such effective measure can be banning cars on certain days in cities to lower the level of smoke emission. The government can introduce laws to discourage the use of old cars and other over ten years old vehicles. The industrial units emitting more carbon and smoke should be fined or sealed. The use of machinery and vehicles using diesel should heavily be taxed because they also release emissions which pollute the environment.

Toxic fuel emitting generators have become a must part of every factory and shop. That speaks volume of the power shortage issue. The government has commissioned coal-fired power units across Pakistan, and one such power plant is already functioning in Sahiwal. The plant should close if research finds it harming the health of air quality.

Lately, the media has been reporting that the Punjab government is going to introduce a smog policy. That is a welcome development but the public at large should also chip in their share to change their approach towards the environment.

As it is smog everywhere, it should be everyone’s issue.