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Earth News

Pakistan Limits Outdoor Activities, Market Hours To Curb Air Pollution-Related Illness (reuters.com) 27

Pakistan's Punjab province banned most outdoor activities and ordered shops, markets and malls in some areas to close early from Monday to curb illnesses caused by intense air pollution. From a report: The province has closed educational institutions and public spaces like parks and zoos until Nov. 17 in places including Lahore, the world's most polluted city in terms of air quality, according to Swiss group IQAir's live ratings.

The districts of Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad and Gujranwala have seen an unprecedented rise in patients with respiratory diseases, eye and throat irritation, and pink eye disease, the Punjab government said in an order issued late on Sunday. The new restrictions will also remain in force until Nov. 17. "The spread of conjunctivitis/ pink eye disease due to bacterial or viral infection, smoke, dust or chemical exposure is posing a serious and imminent threat to public health," the Punjab government said.

While outdoor activities including sports events, exhibitions and festivals, and dining at restaurants have been prohibited, "unavoidable religious rites" are exempt from this direction, the order said. Outlets like pharmacies, oil depots, dairy shops and fruit and vegetable shops have similarly been exempted from the directions to close by 8 p.m. local time. Lahore's air quality remained hazardous on Monday, with an index score of more than 600, according to IQAir, but this was significantly lower than the 1,900 that it touched in places earlier this month. A score of 0-50 is considered good.

Pakistan Limits Outdoor Activities, Market Hours To Curb Air Pollution-Related Illness

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  • You know, build solar rooftop power and start creating an EV infrastructure. It isnt more expensive than importing shit-tons of fuel.
    • A lot of the pollution is from antiquated industry that they don't have the capital to upgrade, but can't afford to go without. For example, the manufacturing of bricks is responsible for putting out a lot of air pollution and is done at numerous smaller sites that operate at incredibly low margins or relies on what is effectively slave labor.

      It's not just a simple matter of switching to solar. They need material to build new housing to support a population that has tripled in the last three decades.
    • Yeah, they have plenty of sun and are close to China.

      They also have nuclear weapons - why are they not building atomic energy stations?

      "Pink eye" is viral/bacterial. Allergic conjunctivitis is a separate diagnosis - they seem to be blaming a hygiene problem on pollution. I used to get allergic conjunctivitis when living on a county highway and not since I moved to a forest, so I sympathize.

      People who've had kids in daycare know how wildly the contagious pinkeye can spread. Erythromicin ointment should r

      • by gtall ( 79522 )

        "They also have nuclear weapons - why are they not building atomic energy stations?"

        Because their Jihadist mindset just KNOWS those naughty Indians are scheming to take over their country...because....because....well, I'm sure they can tell you. Nobody sane thinks the Indians give a flying rats ass about Pakistan.

    • Pakistan is a country which has several massive problems, the least of which is air pollution.

    • I have a lot of coworkers in Pakistan. They all agree that the government's response to pollution has been bought and paid for by the industries that are causing it.

    • by shilly ( 142940 )

      This is happening on a truly giant scale, and very fast. To give a sense of it, in the first half of this year, Pakistan imported solar capacity equivalent to a third of its current total power capacity (13GW vs 46GW!). Lots is being deployed behind the meter, not least because it means users don’t have to rely on an unreliable grid.

      This pace of change is going to make a massive difference in a very short space of time — years, not decades. But there’s much much further to go, for sure.

      htt [weforum.org]

  • by Kokuyo ( 549451 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2024 @10:54AM (#64939825) Journal

    ...this move for equality.

    Now the women have the same freedom as the men :D.

  • by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2024 @10:58AM (#64939839)

    A better idea might be to take pollution seriously. Pollution caused by open air fires, burning of waste, toxic chemicals, vehicle emissions, smoking and whatever else is causing such poor air quality and contributing to climate change in general.

  • These guys just burn all the hay from their wheat farms... millions of tons of it - it makes air unbreathable in half of the subcontinent.
  • Its those lazy people getting sick from it.
  • by KiltedKnight ( 171132 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2024 @11:26AM (#64939905) Homepage Journal
    ... would focus on the major polluters (China, India), we might actually have a real impact on pollution levels.
  • by kbahey ( 102895 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2024 @11:41AM (#64939933) Homepage

    The summary doesn't mention why there is smog.

    Basically it happens every year in this season. Farmers burn the stubble left over in the fields.
    And the results is what you see in these satellite pictures [bbc.com] comparing September to November.

    • by skam240 ( 789197 )

      It's really just lunacy that they continue this practice when they can see the results. I understand they're a poor country and modern farming methods cost more money but so will dealing with the surging cancer rate (not to mention many other health issues) that will come in a couple decades.

      • dealing with the surging cancer rate

        Well, to be totally fair they won't deal with the surging cancer rate. (Poor) people will just die.

        Meanwhile, in the U.S. we are pretending we are solving the climate crisis by replacing leather iPhone cases with some "fine woven" nonsense and putting plastic bottles into different bins that all end up in the same place anyways.

        We have to stop pretending we can solve the climate crisis without tremendous international cooperation and sharing significant resources to address real global problems. I am op

        • by skam240 ( 789197 )

          To be fair global warming is a bit more abstract than Pakistan's air problems though. You can see and choke on Pakistan's air problem, the symptoms of global warming on the other hand aren't quite as obvious. You can point at hurricanes being stronger and more frequent for example but it's not like we didn't have them in past centuries before global warming was a concern and who's to say which hurricanes are global warming induced and which we would have had anyways. Hence us having problems convincing peop

          • Crop burning is estimated at about 3.5% greenhouse gas emissions (https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector), so it is an important, although not primary, source of these gasses. And it definitely contributes to negative health for those who are forced to breathe it this time of year.

            But I totally agree that because climate change is hard to see in some ways it is an out-of-sight out-of-mind kind of problem. Until it isn't, at which point it is too late. Which means we need to find ways to covert
    • That article says that the burning of stubble is a major factor, but it also says the problem is larger. Lahore has millions of automobiles and five million motorcycles. I'm willing to bet most of those motorcycles have 2-stroke engines. They also have heavy industry. Pollution is a problem year round but it does peak at this time of year. The burning of stubble coincides with an inflow of cold air from Tibet, pushing the smog down closer to the ground.

      Farmers burn off fields all over the world, includ

  • ..when they stop playing cricket.

  • Did the Indus Valley civilization pollute less and build enough bricks to house themselves, while having advanced sewer systems? Have they devolved, no thanks to capitalist promises about "just increase GDP and everything will be fine"?

What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expect generally happens. -- Bengamin Disraeli

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