{"id":10491,"date":"2023-12-05T03:20:55","date_gmt":"2023-12-05T03:20:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/londonpost.news\/?p=10491"},"modified":"2023-12-05T03:23:18","modified_gmt":"2023-12-05T03:23:18","slug":"a-lament-for-lost-breath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brusselsindependent.com\/en\/magazine\/climate\/a-lament-for-lost-breath\/2023\/12\/05\/admin1\/","title":{"rendered":"A lament for lost breath !"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By <strong>Saman Zahra<\/strong><br \/>\nOn a post-apocalyptic morning, what was once pleasant winter time, with cool and fresh air, now stings your nose, burns your eyes and leaves your hair disgusting like a smoker\u2019s saloon. A blanket of poison over the city; it\u2019s no better on the ground. Fridays are off to keep us inside now, in hopes that one day it will just clear off. One day everything will fix itself on its own.<br \/>\nWe\u2019re the best at things that are the worst. Smog takes 7 years off our lives and force-feeds us 30 cigarettes each day. Our only defense is facemasks, extended holidays and work-from-home, because this is the age of precautionary measures that you don\u2019t follow, if you don\u2019t want to. Why is there no real effort? How long do we hold on to our hopes of change?<br \/>\nIn a country where we drink chai in Styrofoam cups in seminars against pollution, I am completely hopeless. The thing is, we don\u2019t want to change in quest to see change. Conversations on climate crises only happen because it\u2019s necessary to address something shoved in your face and of course, to seem progressive. In every fancy conference, all that happens is people with an important air about them, sit you down, sermon you to adopt a sustainable lifestyle and spread awareness. What does that mean though? They wouldn\u2019t know \u2013 it\u2019s just words they must use. And in the end, dear buddy, the world is in your hands. You have to plant trees, you have to stay indoors, you have to buy solar panels, you are the savior. Don\u2019t bother the fossil-fuel guys, they\u2019re irreplaceable, apparently. The collapsing economy is worse than lung cancer.<br \/>\nAges ago, mother nature determined our survival. Now we take ourselves down with her. I conclude this writing with the most awful itch in my airways. The government told me to buy an air purifier or two, if the poison bothers me. Since I can\u2019t afford it, I must simply\u00a0deal\u00a0with\u00a0it.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-10492 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/brusselsindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Saman--225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/brusselsindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Saman--225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/brusselsindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Saman--768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/brusselsindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Saman--1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/brusselsindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Saman--150x200.jpg 150w, https:\/\/brusselsindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Saman--300x400.jpg 300w, https:\/\/brusselsindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Saman--696x928.jpg 696w, https:\/\/brusselsindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Saman--1068x1424.jpg 1068w, https:\/\/brusselsindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Saman--315x420.jpg 315w, https:\/\/brusselsindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Saman--600x800.jpg 600w, https:\/\/brusselsindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Saman-.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/>Author: Saman Zahra A young writer, A-Level student and an aspiring journalist in Lahore, Pakistan. Apart from educational activities, She has been an enthusiastic activist for student and climate rights. She loves films, music, everything of that sort and good conversation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Saman Zahra On a post-apocalyptic morning, what was once pleasant winter time, with cool and fresh air, now stings your nose, burns your eyes and leaves your hair disgusting like a smoker\u2019s saloon. A blanket of poison over the city; it\u2019s no better on the ground. Fridays are off to keep us inside now, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10493,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":""},"categories":[714,2406],"tags":[56,2350,7749],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/brusselsindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Smog.jpg","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brusselsindependent.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10491"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brusselsindependent.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brusselsindependent.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brusselsindependent.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brusselsindependent.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10491"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brusselsindependent.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10495,"href":"https:\/\/brusselsindependent.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10491\/revisions\/10495"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brusselsindependent.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brusselsindependent.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brusselsindependent.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brusselsindependent.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}