{"id":36228,"date":"2023-12-16T15:35:06","date_gmt":"2023-12-16T15:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/in-a-first-punjab-govt-uses-artificial-rain-against-smog\/"},"modified":"2023-12-16T15:35:06","modified_gmt":"2023-12-16T15:35:06","slug":"in-a-first-punjab-govt-uses-artificial-rain-against-smog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/in-a-first-punjab-govt-uses-artificial-rain-against-smog\/","title":{"rendered":"In a first, Punjab govt uses artificial rain against smog"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\n<p>In a first experiment of its kind, caretaker Punjab government on Saturday used artificial rain in a bid to combat hazardous levels of smog in Lahore.<\/p>\n<p>Planes equipped with cloud seeding equipment were flown over 10 areas of the city, often ranked one of the worst places globally for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1773017\">air pollution<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Caretaker Punjab Chief Minister Mohsin Naqvi said the \u201cgift\u201d was provided by the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTeams from the UAE, along with two planes, arrived here about 10 to 12 days ago. They used 48 flares to create the rain,\u201d he told the media.<\/p>\n<p>He said the team would know by tonight what effect the \u201cartificial rain\u201d had.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media  w-full  w-full  media--stretch  media--embed  \">\n<p><div class=\"ast-oembed-container \" style=\"height: 100%;\"><iframe title=\"Caretaker Government Is Appreciative Of UAE&#039;s Support | Dawn News\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/k1YmGH_VN_Y?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The UAE has increasingly used <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1793146\">cloud seeding<\/a>, sometimes called artificial rain or blue-skying, to create rain in the arid expanse of the country.<\/p>\n<p>The weather modification involves releasing common salt \u2014 or a mixture of different salts \u2014 into clouds.<\/p>\n<p>The crystals encourage condensation to form as rain. It has been deployed in dozens of countries, including the United States, China and India.<\/p>\n<p>Even very modest rain is effective in bringing down pollution, experts say.<\/p>\n<p>Air pollution has worsened in Pakistan in recent years, as a mixture of low-grade diesel fumes, smoke from seasonal crop burning and colder winter temperatures coalesce into stagnant clouds of smog.<\/p>\n<p>Lahore <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1789456\">suffers<\/a> the most from the toxic smog, choking the lungs of more than 11 million residents during the winter season.<\/p>\n<p>Levels of PM2.5 pollutants \u2014 cancer-causing microparticles that enter the bloodstream through the lungs \u2014 were measured as hazardous in Lahore on Saturday at more than 66 times the World Health Organisation\u2019s (WHO) danger limits.<\/p>\n<p>Breathing the poisonous air has catastrophic health consequences. Prolonged exposure can trigger strokes, heart disease, lung cancer, and respiratory diseases, according to the WHO.<\/p>\n<p>Successive governments have used various methods to reduce air pollution in Lahore, including spraying water on the roads, and weekend shutdowns of schools, factories, and markets, with little or no success.<\/p>\n<p>When asked about a long-term strategy to combat smog, the chief minister said the government needs studies to formulate a plan.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a first experiment of its kind, caretaker Punjab government on Saturday used artificial rain in a bid to combat hazardous levels of smog in Lahore. Planes equipped with cloud seeding equipment were flown over 10 areas of the city, often ranked one of the worst places globally for air pollution. Caretaker Punjab Chief Minister [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/12\/16194212b790377.jpg?r=194225","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}