GREAT SMOG OF LONDON AND LAHORE

SMOG ON 5 DECEMBER 1952 IN LONDON

“Smog” started in London. When people woke up on the morning of December 5, 1952, the city was drowned in thick black smoke. It was not giving way to hand. Visibility had become zero. Cars could not be seen by cars. Train drivers could not see the tracks. Pilots could not see the runway. People could not see each other. The whole city was lost in fog.

In the evening, it was discovered that this was not fog; this was torment. This was thick black smoke. This smoke took the lives of four thousand people the next day. People started coughing and dying. London’s social life came to a standstill. Traffic stopped. Trains were suspended. Flights were canceled. Offices and schools were closed. Shopping centres were closed, and people stopped coming out of their homes. There was silence in the city. This silence was punctured by the sounds of ambulances. The cemeteries were full, and both the dead and the sick lay on the same bed in the hospitals.

RAIN ON 9 DECEMBER 1952 IN LONDON

This torment continued for five days. On the night of December 9, it began to rain and the air got clearer, but more people kept dying. By the end of December, 12,000 people in London had died, while 150,000 people were suffering from asthma, conjunctivitis, tuberculosis, and nervous breakdown.

ENVIROMENTAL EXPERTS INSIGHTS

Environmental experts began investigating. It was found that between December 5 and 9, a thousand tonnes of smoke particles were produced in the air of London everyday. This included 140 tonnes of hydrochloric acid, 14 tonnes of fluorine compounds, and 370 tonnes of sulfur dioxide. All of these materials were very dangerous to health. Experts started to ask, Where did all these particles come from?

SEVEN AND A HALF YEARS OF MISTAKES

It was found that this was the smoke of seven and a half hundred years of mistakes. This process began in 1200. In seven and a half hundred years, the population of London increased tenfold, forests were cut down, rivers and lakes disappeared, villages and villages came into the city, and farms Housing societies were built in place of barns, the Industrial Revolution came, thousands of factories were set up in the city, electricity was invented, coal-fired power plants were set up, train service started, trams came, cars came, and construction started.

World War II also blew smoke, and eventually people also started polluting. Finally, the air in London became polluted, and oxygen in the air decreased. This process continued until 1952, when winter began, people burnt coal in their fireplaces, and millions of tonnes of smoke were produced.

GREAT SMOG OF LONDON

This smoke was “mixed up” with seven and a half hundred years of pollution, mixed with the December fog, and turned into a deep, thick, and black gas, and this gas continued to roam the city for five days. Experts combined the words smoke and fog to give this fog the name “smog” and declared this London tragedy the “Great Smog of London.” Environmental experts diagnosed the smog. Now it was time for treatment.

MP SIR GERALD David TOOK THE CHARGE OF SMOG SOLUTION

Conservative Party MP Sir Gerald David took charge of the smog solution. He was a businessman and industrialist like the Sharif family of Pakistan. He entered politics in 1950. He had just become a member of the House of Commons during the Great Smog of London. He got up and started making a plan to clean up London’s air.

THE CLEAN AIR ACT 1956

He worked with experts for four years until he created the “Clean Air Act” in 1956. This act was presented in the House of Commons, and the House approved it on July 5, 1956.

This act consisted of six basic reforms.

1. The government banned the use of coal in the city. It was announced that the public would be provided with alternative sources for “fireplaces.” The government provided these sources within a year. The modern heating system came from this law.
2. It was also decided to make electricity cheaper in winter so that people could afford electricity. And heat their  homes with electricity.
3. The government closed factories in the city, free space was provided to the owners away from the city, tax breaks and loans were given to shift factories, and all power plants were moved to forests away from London within two years.
4. Cutting down trees in and around London, changing the status of agricultural land, and eliminating green areas were banned. The Queen’s permission was made mandatory before cutting down trees.
5. It was decided to increase public transport and discourage private cars.
6. Also decided to raise the quality of petrol.

The House of Commons approved these reforms. The government started work, and just four years after the Act was passed, in 1960, London’s air became completely “smog-free.”.

This Act was so complete and strict that Sir Gerald David himself had to bear the brunt of it. His own factories were also moved out of London.

GREAT SMOG OF LAHORE PAKISTAN

We now come from the Great Smog of London to the *Great Smog of Lahore*. Punjab has been suffering from severe smog for the last three years. In November, Lahore, Bahawalnagar, Pakpattan, Faisalabad, and Toba Tek Singh are covered in harmful fog. Punjab is buried in smog this time too. If there are 80 micrograms of toxic substances in our air, our lungs can tolerate them, but in Lahore and its suburbs, the pollution rate is currently 200 micrograms per cubic meter. If we test the air, we will find a large amount of carbon monoxide, sulphur, and nitrogen in it. All these substances are poisons. There is also a severe lack of oxygen in the air of Lahore up to three hundred to four hundred feet. You can guess how harmful this air is to health by smoking. If we smoke 50 cigarettes a day, our lungs will be damaged as much as breathing in the air of Lahore for a day.

India is in a worse situation than us. In India In 2012, 15 million people died due to smog.

Four hundred thousand people have been affected in Lahore this year as well. These people died during 2018. Where is this smog coming from? This question is very important.

FOUR SOURCES OF POLUTION OF SMOG

There are four major sources.

1. The first source is the Haryana district of Indian Punjab. In Haryana, the rice crop has increased eightfold in ten years. Haryana farmers burn the dry stalks and empty stalks of rice plants at the end of October. Indian farmers burnt 35 million tonnes of stalks this year. The smoke from the stalks has affected the entire Punjab, from Delhi to Lahore.
2. Two, the number of factories in Lahore is increasing. These factories are producing smoke.
3. Three, the government has installed about a dozen large power plants in and around Lahore. The electricity issue has been resolved, but the air has become polluted.
4. And the fourth source is vehicles. Lahore city has one million vehicles. The quality of our gasoline is very low, so these vehicles are a moving smog.

OTHER SOURCES

Apart from these four sources, there are also sources. In Lahore, wires and oil are obtained by burning tires. There are hundreds of tire burning complexes in the city. In the Sialkot region, the remains of moong are also burnt during this season. The population of Lahore is also expanding. In the suburbs, forests, fields, and barns are also disappearing, and villages too. You should take a look at the data of housing societies around Lahore. You will be amazed. This is the beauty of these societies. We are now bringing in vegetables, fruits, and grains from China. We are also importing guava, watermelon, peach, cantaloupe, and mango.

Therefore, Lahore is rapidly drowning in smog. We have to admit that development is very important, and Lahore has become the most beautiful and developed city of the country at present. After the British, numerous large-scale development works were done in Punjab. But along with this, it is also a fact that the flag of development is not hoisted on dead bodies. If Punjab gets sick due to this development or if people start dying, this responsibility will also fall on the shoulders of the Punjab government.

Therefore, we request the Punjab government to immediately form a Clean Punjab Commission, find the causes of air pollution, and make reforms.

1. Get approval from the assembly and start cleaning Lahore with the spirit of London.
2. Get real tree plantation done in Lahore and its surroundings.
3. Get factories shifted out of the cities.
4. Control the number of vehicles.
5. Improve the quality of petrol.
6. Ban the transportation of garbage, iron, and coal and fix the punishment for cutting trees.
7. The government can also take help from the Clean Air London Act.
8. It can also study the Bhutan model of country environmental analysis.
9. It can also ban the burning of paddy residue in collaboration with the Indian government.
10. The subject of environment can also be introduced in the academic syllabus.

CONCLUSION

These steps are necessary; otherwise, Punjab, especially Lahore, will become a developed graveyard, and the Orange Line train will be used to carry the dead.

Closing educational institutions is not a solution to smog, but closing educational institutions will cause irreparable harm to the children of this country, which will be much more than the harm caused by smog