we all wish we lived in a blue planet
but nine out of ten people worldwide
don’t get to live in a place with clean
blue air most of us live in places like
here in Lahore where air pollution is a
big problem 135,000 people die every
year because of air pollution did you
know in Punjab for those of you who live
over here your life expectancy is
reduced by five years because of how bad
the air pollution is over here a lot of
you have been wondering that it doesn’t
look so bad when I look outside actually
the earth seems to be quite alright
but the problem is actually quite
breathtaking I’ll just tell you how I
started my journey in this into air
pollution I used to live in Beijing
China the last five years and you may
have heard that air pollution is a big
issue over there so being from Karachi I
wondered how the air in karachi so I
went on Google like everyone else does
and I care found these numbers that okay
in Karachi it’s 88 in Lahore it’s 68 and
and so on and all these numbers and I
was like okay interesting end of story
and you know I closed my browser and
that was that that’s what was what most
people would have done but I decided to
investigate a little further I was like
okay you know I actually think the air
quality in Karachi is not so bad so how
can I find out I set up a series of
monitors all across Pakistan so in
cities like Karachi Fez LaVon Pavel poor
Lahore Islamabad to monitor the air
quality for myself and see what the
numbers really look like and I don’t
want to bore you with the numbers but
we’re just got to go a little bit deeper
into what they are so I looked at some
of the other cities which you’ve heard
of which are known for having very poor
air quality you you you know Beijing is
known for having an air pocket lips as
having some of the worst air quality in
the world and when I lived there I used
to take offense at that I was like
there’s so many other parts of the world
which are waivers her
New Delhi being one of them but nobody
knew about it at that time this is a
couple of years ago because the story
never came out to the public there was
no data existing there was no monitoring
there was no information there was no
awareness about the extent of the
problem but regardless what do those
numbers actually mean right these are
just just some hazy numbers out there
let’s talk about some other cities which
are taking extreme measures to curb air
pollution cities which are implementing
traffic congestion policies to not allow
cars to come into the city centers which
are keeping old diesel vehicles out of
the city centers which are for every odd
and even day of the week they don’t let
you drive your car
can you guess what those cities are well
I’ll put them up that’s London and Paris
and the numbers for London and Paris
look like 12 and 16 did you know what
the World Health Organization says is a
safe limit for exposure to bad air the
number should be 10 so what’s the number
like in Pakistan well in Lahore like I
was telling you the World Health
Organization says it’s 68 in Karachi
it’s 88 I looked a little deeper into
the data and I found that for Lahore
they just have about two weeks of
measurement from way back in 2011 for
Karachi the data is from 2008 so there
was no new data so thanks to the air
quality monitors that I had running
since 2016 here’s the data that we have
for last year Laura’s actually not as 68
it’s closer to a hundred and thirty
which is very close to the New Delhi’s
143 so we’re in the same boat as nine
out of ten people worldwide
so again I don’t want to bore you with
the numbers where the important is a
message it’s all unhealthy all the
cities in Pakistan have unhealthy air
quality heaven if you wondered what
exactly am I talking about when I refer
to our quality well
let’s dive into that I am holding up
here a human hair it’s very difficult to
see because it’s very very tiny but
that’s how small is this stuff that’s
out there in the air let’s zoom in a
little bit so if you now look at the
screen I’ve enlarged it somewhat let’s
put the particles of interest which were
most representative of air quality it’s
called PM 2.5 stands for particulate
matter of 2.5 micrograms and mass which
means it’s about 30 times smaller than a
human hair 30 times smaller than a human
hair so this stuff is not dust that
we’re talking about this stuff is a
complex mixture of gases of aerosols of
pretty toxic stuff like it’s got caddy
um it’s got mercury it’s got aluminum
it’s all the sort of toxic metals out
there it’s also the gases it’s sulphur
dioxide it’s ammonium gas it’s
everything that is the stuff of
nightmares
that’s what comprises PM 2.5 so what
does PM 2.5 do these particles as you
breathe in now everyone take a deep
breath well done so you’ve just read it
in some PM 2.5 particles they have made
their way through your referee system so
the bigger particles which we call PM 10
so 10 microns in size
those get trapped in your mucus so they
don’t make it all the way down but the
PM 2.5 that goes all the way through
down into your lungs and it doesn’t stop
there it carries on it absorbs through
your bloodstream through your blood
vessels into the bloodstream and then it
goes everywhere into your body it goes
into a cardiovascular system and of
course also lodges in your lungs
it creates havoc such as cardiovascular
diseases was telling you about earlier
respiratory issues
lung cancer it can even cause genetic
issues in later generations so this is
very very serious stuff you’re talking
about and I gave you some numbers before
but let
that in a different context I told you
the World Health Organization says that
it should be less than 10 micrograms per
cubic meter of PM 2.5 concentration in
Lahore it was a hundred times higher
than that in November 2017 so in 2016
when the smog here I spoke with some
journalists and I said listen it’s a big
issue and it’s it’s a big story and
nobody’s talking about it
local media international media nobody
paid attention and I was like it’s
really really a major issue they said Oh
unless if it’s a breaking story and if
it’s if it’s worse than New Delhi or
divorce in Beijing nobody’s gonna care
and I try to convince them that but yes
it is worse then you there Li it is
worse in Beijing so finally last year in
November the New York Times wrote the
story and that’s actually why I’m
standing here because people have
started to listen about it so the
numbers don’t make much sense so let’s
put them in another perspective how many
good days of air quality do you have in
Lahore zero that’s a number of good days
of air quality that you had in 2017 in
Lahore in fact most of the days of
Lahore including 37 days during the
so-called fifth season of smog where it
hazardous air quality that’s the kind of
air that you want to run away from like
I know people who ended up leaving
Lahore because it does get that bad to
live in a toxic soup you’ve heard of
people running away from New Delhi in
Beijing as well same reason it’s about
that bad over here also how about some
other city which is better but not great
now we look at Karachi that also has
very poor air quality a lot of unhealthy
days but if we happen to have some
moderate days as well so moderate is
still much worse than what safe
guidelines talk about but that was all
last year how is it this year so I put
together the data for the first six
months of this year
and guess what zero good air days so no
city in Pakistan has had a good air day
in 2018 till now
in fact Lahore already had five
hazardous days in the beginning of this
year so we live in a difficult place
smog in Pakistan is a public health
emergency that we all need to wake up to
but I see smog as a silver lining and I
tell you why so air pollution is a area
of concern worldwide and for those of
you who’ve been lucky enough to have
traveled abroad to a higher income
countries such as the United States or
Europe you would be amazed by how blue
the sky is over there I’m always amazed
when I go and I see you know I look up
and I’m like wow the sky so blue why
isn’t the sky blue in Lahore
well these same cities had the same
problem you might have heard that LA up
till the 1990s was known as one of the
most polluted cities in the world
le was known for its haze and its smoky
grey skies a lot of Europe was also
known for that it wasn’t until the great
smog of London of 1954 that people
started waking up to the smog issue they
weren’t fully woken up yet because at
that time they didn’t quite know what
was going on but thanks to these major
smog events slowly it was until the
1970s when you had the Clean Air Act of
the United States you had the Green
Party’s forming all across Europe that
people started putting pressure on their
local governments to start doing
something about the air pollution
because unlike other forms of pollution
for example the river close by that you
hear about is highly polluted but you
never get to see you hear about all
these coal power plants coming up
throughout the country and how much more
pollution they’re going to add to our
skies but you’re not actually ever going
to see those but air pollution is
something that you see
and you feel it every day air pollution
is what prevents you from taking your
child to school one day because it was
just too
smoggy to drive air pollution is what
causes the your grandparents to have
heart issues in the winter months in
Lahore air pollution is what is going to
help us create the pressure to change
the environment in Pakistan to be
cleaner and greener thank you [Applause]
but nine out of ten people worldwide
don’t get to live in a place with clean
blue air most of us live in places like
here in Lahore where air pollution is a
big problem 135,000 people die every
year because of air pollution did you
know in Punjab for those of you who live
over here your life expectancy is
reduced by five years because of how bad
the air pollution is over here a lot of
you have been wondering that it doesn’t
look so bad when I look outside actually
the earth seems to be quite alright
but the problem is actually quite
breathtaking I’ll just tell you how I
started my journey in this into air
pollution I used to live in Beijing
China the last five years and you may
have heard that air pollution is a big
issue over there so being from Karachi I
wondered how the air in karachi so I
went on Google like everyone else does
and I care found these numbers that okay
in Karachi it’s 88 in Lahore it’s 68 and
and so on and all these numbers and I
was like okay interesting end of story
and you know I closed my browser and
that was that that’s what was what most
people would have done but I decided to
investigate a little further I was like
okay you know I actually think the air
quality in Karachi is not so bad so how
can I find out I set up a series of
monitors all across Pakistan so in
cities like Karachi Fez LaVon Pavel poor
Lahore Islamabad to monitor the air
quality for myself and see what the
numbers really look like and I don’t
want to bore you with the numbers but
we’re just got to go a little bit deeper
into what they are so I looked at some
of the other cities which you’ve heard
of which are known for having very poor
air quality you you you know Beijing is
known for having an air pocket lips as
having some of the worst air quality in
the world and when I lived there I used
to take offense at that I was like
there’s so many other parts of the world
which are waivers her
New Delhi being one of them but nobody
knew about it at that time this is a
couple of years ago because the story
never came out to the public there was
no data existing there was no monitoring
there was no information there was no
awareness about the extent of the
problem but regardless what do those
numbers actually mean right these are
just just some hazy numbers out there
let’s talk about some other cities which
are taking extreme measures to curb air
pollution cities which are implementing
traffic congestion policies to not allow
cars to come into the city centers which
are keeping old diesel vehicles out of
the city centers which are for every odd
and even day of the week they don’t let
you drive your car
can you guess what those cities are well
I’ll put them up that’s London and Paris
and the numbers for London and Paris
look like 12 and 16 did you know what
the World Health Organization says is a
safe limit for exposure to bad air the
number should be 10 so what’s the number
like in Pakistan well in Lahore like I
was telling you the World Health
Organization says it’s 68 in Karachi
it’s 88 I looked a little deeper into
the data and I found that for Lahore
they just have about two weeks of
measurement from way back in 2011 for
Karachi the data is from 2008 so there
was no new data so thanks to the air
quality monitors that I had running
since 2016 here’s the data that we have
for last year Laura’s actually not as 68
it’s closer to a hundred and thirty
which is very close to the New Delhi’s
143 so we’re in the same boat as nine
out of ten people worldwide
so again I don’t want to bore you with
the numbers where the important is a
message it’s all unhealthy all the
cities in Pakistan have unhealthy air
quality heaven if you wondered what
exactly am I talking about when I refer
to our quality well
let’s dive into that I am holding up
here a human hair it’s very difficult to
see because it’s very very tiny but
that’s how small is this stuff that’s
out there in the air let’s zoom in a
little bit so if you now look at the
screen I’ve enlarged it somewhat let’s
put the particles of interest which were
most representative of air quality it’s
called PM 2.5 stands for particulate
matter of 2.5 micrograms and mass which
means it’s about 30 times smaller than a
human hair 30 times smaller than a human
hair so this stuff is not dust that
we’re talking about this stuff is a
complex mixture of gases of aerosols of
pretty toxic stuff like it’s got caddy
um it’s got mercury it’s got aluminum
it’s all the sort of toxic metals out
there it’s also the gases it’s sulphur
dioxide it’s ammonium gas it’s
everything that is the stuff of
nightmares
that’s what comprises PM 2.5 so what
does PM 2.5 do these particles as you
breathe in now everyone take a deep
breath well done so you’ve just read it
in some PM 2.5 particles they have made
their way through your referee system so
the bigger particles which we call PM 10
so 10 microns in size
those get trapped in your mucus so they
don’t make it all the way down but the
PM 2.5 that goes all the way through
down into your lungs and it doesn’t stop
there it carries on it absorbs through
your bloodstream through your blood
vessels into the bloodstream and then it
goes everywhere into your body it goes
into a cardiovascular system and of
course also lodges in your lungs
it creates havoc such as cardiovascular
diseases was telling you about earlier
respiratory issues
lung cancer it can even cause genetic
issues in later generations so this is
very very serious stuff you’re talking
about and I gave you some numbers before
but let
that in a different context I told you
the World Health Organization says that
it should be less than 10 micrograms per
cubic meter of PM 2.5 concentration in
Lahore it was a hundred times higher
than that in November 2017 so in 2016
when the smog here I spoke with some
journalists and I said listen it’s a big
issue and it’s it’s a big story and
nobody’s talking about it
local media international media nobody
paid attention and I was like it’s
really really a major issue they said Oh
unless if it’s a breaking story and if
it’s if it’s worse than New Delhi or
divorce in Beijing nobody’s gonna care
and I try to convince them that but yes
it is worse then you there Li it is
worse in Beijing so finally last year in
November the New York Times wrote the
story and that’s actually why I’m
standing here because people have
started to listen about it so the
numbers don’t make much sense so let’s
put them in another perspective how many
good days of air quality do you have in
Lahore zero that’s a number of good days
of air quality that you had in 2017 in
Lahore in fact most of the days of
Lahore including 37 days during the
so-called fifth season of smog where it
hazardous air quality that’s the kind of
air that you want to run away from like
I know people who ended up leaving
Lahore because it does get that bad to
live in a toxic soup you’ve heard of
people running away from New Delhi in
Beijing as well same reason it’s about
that bad over here also how about some
other city which is better but not great
now we look at Karachi that also has
very poor air quality a lot of unhealthy
days but if we happen to have some
moderate days as well so moderate is
still much worse than what safe
guidelines talk about but that was all
last year how is it this year so I put
together the data for the first six
months of this year
and guess what zero good air days so no
city in Pakistan has had a good air day
in 2018 till now
in fact Lahore already had five
hazardous days in the beginning of this
year so we live in a difficult place
smog in Pakistan is a public health
emergency that we all need to wake up to
but I see smog as a silver lining and I
tell you why so air pollution is a area
of concern worldwide and for those of
you who’ve been lucky enough to have
traveled abroad to a higher income
countries such as the United States or
Europe you would be amazed by how blue
the sky is over there I’m always amazed
when I go and I see you know I look up
and I’m like wow the sky so blue why
isn’t the sky blue in Lahore
well these same cities had the same
problem you might have heard that LA up
till the 1990s was known as one of the
most polluted cities in the world
le was known for its haze and its smoky
grey skies a lot of Europe was also
known for that it wasn’t until the great
smog of London of 1954 that people
started waking up to the smog issue they
weren’t fully woken up yet because at
that time they didn’t quite know what
was going on but thanks to these major
smog events slowly it was until the
1970s when you had the Clean Air Act of
the United States you had the Green
Party’s forming all across Europe that
people started putting pressure on their
local governments to start doing
something about the air pollution
because unlike other forms of pollution
for example the river close by that you
hear about is highly polluted but you
never get to see you hear about all
these coal power plants coming up
throughout the country and how much more
pollution they’re going to add to our
skies but you’re not actually ever going
to see those but air pollution is
something that you see
and you feel it every day air pollution
is what prevents you from taking your
child to school one day because it was
just too
smoggy to drive air pollution is what
causes the your grandparents to have
heart issues in the winter months in
Lahore air pollution is what is going to
help us create the pressure to change
the environment in Pakistan to be
cleaner and greener thank you [Applause]
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