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.
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.
You would think they would just limit emissions (Score:1)
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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.
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Specifically their two biggest exports -- fraud and AK-47s.
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A solar furnace can easily fire bricks.
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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
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"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.
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Pakistan is a country which has several massive problems, the least of which is air pollution.
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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.
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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]
Gotta respect... (Score:5, Funny)
...this move for equality.
Now the women have the same freedom as the men :D.
A temporary measure (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Burning Hay (Score:1)
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Its not the pollution (Score:2)
Maybe if the eco-warriors... (Score:3, Insightful)
Reason for smog ... (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
Re:Reason for smog ... (Score:4, Informative)
what is the alternative?
There are plenty of alternatives that don't even require additional fertilizers, but they all cost money (in terms of new machines or changing crop rotations) in the short term, although some do produce additional income once they are implemented. See: https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
You'll know its serious... (Score:2)
..when they stop playing cricket.
Was the Indus Valley Civilization better? (Score:1)
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"?