Gone are the days when the arrival of winter in Lahore used to be synonymous with a soothing concoction of basking in the low-hanging sun, enjoying the cold breeze and the eerie silence. Almost like tragic clockwork, the grey dense sheet of nauseating smog appears ever-ready to descend upon the city even before the final bow by relentless summers. As Lahore has already soared to the top of the list of most polluted cities on the Air Quality Index while the air is yet to become heavier and, thus, increasingly laced with toxic particulate matter, how dangerous the situation would become in a matter of weeks, if not days, does not warrant any wild guesses. That Lahoris are phenomenally resilient people who have repeatedly braved the AQI rating rising to an unbelievable 600–when science proclaims half its value as straight-up hazardous–has, however, stirred a shameful complacency in the authorities. Apart from a few eyewash investigations and blame-diverting albeit bizarre explanations, the provincial government does not believe in playing its due responsibility towards the environment and the liveability of the citizens. By raising hue and cry about the Indian farmers burning crops, many in the machinery try their level best to sweep local vehicular emissions, poisonous industrial pollution and coal burning queues upon queues of brick kilns dotting the entire landscape under the rug. In a bid to politicise administrative troubles, they conveniently sideline how Lahore is witnessing a never-before-seen traffic volume, a large majority of which uses cheap fuel to further magnify the disastrous emissions. Since all this has been carved into the wall for quite a few years, the dreary prospects come as a big question mark on the performance of the Environment Protection Agency. What became of the great fanfare attached to the crusade against mega-polluters? Despite vast resources at its disposal, has the Agency done anything to curtail the usage of substandard fuel used by industries or ensure the catalytic conversion in vehicles? Simply declaring the looming clouds as a calamity and ordering the common man to lock himself indoors cannot (and should not) be considered a sustainable policy, especially when the economy is hanging by a thread. It is high times that quick fixes are shelved to pursue effective long-term strategies that centre around alternates to crop burning, brick kilns and automobile emissions. *