The cost of breathing air

Karachi is not a green city by any stretch of the imagination, unlike some of the other big cities. But even by our twisted standards, there is a strange dejection in the air the moment you enter Korangi or cross Mausamiyat in the afternoon. It’s not because you have to take University Road (whatever patches exist) for the latter, but because the scorching sun directly shines on you, with hardly any trees to protect and just… a lot of dust. Yet surprisingly, among the major urban centres in the country, Karachi had the lowest average PM2.5 reading of 47.1 micrograms per cubic meter, while Lahore was ahead of the rest at 102.1 g/m³. Such relative performance is absolutely meaningless, though, and should not at all be comforting because all of Pakistan’s major six cities were well above the World Health Organisation-prescribed concentration of 2.5 g/m³. To sum up, even the best performer is 19x beyond the acceptable threshold.