‘Observing our planet for a better future’ is the theme for the World Meteorological Day falls on March 23, today (on Sunday). The Council of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) entered into force on March 23, 1950 and a year later, WMO was designated as a specialised agency of the United Nations.
The average temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere has risen by about 0.5 Degree Celsius during the past century and at the same time, continuous climate change could alter ecosystem, drive species into extinction, and impact human settlement, food production, and distribution of diseases, the WMO observed.
Like any other under-developing country, the air-pollution is directly harming the citizens in Pakistan up to great extend and if special attention is not paid timely, then we would suffer some grave consequences, Shahid Qureshi, Chairman, Institute of Space Planetary Astrophysics (ISPA), University of Karachi (KU) said.
According to him, greenhouses are the real threat to the environment and it is affecting the whole life-cycle, not only humans, the Mother Nature on whole is being slowly poisoned to the death.
Shahid Qureshi said that the automobiles are not only creating massive traffic jams everywhere on roads but the carbon monoxide in the exhaust fumes from these vehicles is rapidly destroying the ozone layer.
He added that on the other hand, the factories and industries are also playing major role and tipping the balance against clean environment. “We do not have fresh air even in the outskirts of the city and lung cancers and skin diseases are becoming common these days,”
Adding, he said that it is happening due to increase in the level of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide in the environment.
“Major culprits for polluting the air are vehicles, blamed with 49 per cent of pollution, whereas fuel burned in factories and industries cause more than 28 per cent of pollution worldwide,” Anila Kausar, Lecture at Department of Geography, KU said.
“There are some standards to protect the ozone layer but unfortunately most of the people in our country do not understand what actually ozone is, and what its purpose is,” she said.
She added that coal and petroleum are the two main source of generating power in industries and coal is largely carbon, which when burned completely, produces carbon dioxide and petroleum is the mixture of hydrocarbons, compounds composed of carbon and hydrogen.
If fuels were composed of carbon and hydrogen and burn completely, air population from burning of fossil fuels would pose little direct threat to our health, she added.
According to Qureshi, industries and vehicles owners must follow the international standards of emissions and government should implement it strictly. By adopting the policies as part of the law, 30 to 40 per cent of air population could be controlled easily, he further said. Individuals are also responsible for the air population and they should have awareness in this regard, he added.
Qureshi added that simultaneously, government should go for the alternate energy option. The wind and solar energy are some common example of the alternate energy and European countries have started work on the projects to produce power from these sources.
It is time to move towards to alternate energy to avoid air population as well as to save our foreign exchange. We paid a lot to purchase crude oil for our domestic and industrial usage and, if we opt the alternate energy sources. We could easily safe handsome amount, he added.