WILLIAM Dillard, founder of Dillard's Department Stores, the third-largest department-store chain in the US, made famous the slogan 'Location, location, location' which gained worldwide application in retail, restaurant and real-estate businesses — emphasising the need to be geographically in the right place to gain and maintain commercial success.

With the accelerating degradation of Pakistan's physical and social environs, spawned by the twin demons of an exploding population and escalating consumerism, leading to violent conflicts over dwindling resources, our national slogan must become 'Environment, environment, environment'. Unless we take radical steps to relieve the extreme stress that our ecology is experiencing, the future will be even grimmer than expected.

The environment is under attack by industrialists (improper disposal of solid waste, dirty air emissions, toxic effluents into sewers), municipalities (poisonous solid, liquid and gas discharges), electricity generation, transportation, builders/developers, timber mafias, land grabbers — virtually everyone.

The rich and powerful, patronised by politicians and bureaucrats, reap maximum profits destroying the environment, and then donate to charitable and religious causes. The escalating damage inflicted on the poor and helpless by environmental vandalism, political/economic opportunism, cartelisation, hoarding, food-price manipulation, unjust salaries, tax evasion and the like cannot be repaired with philanthropy. Asian Green City Index

Pakistan is well on the way to evolving into one large garbage dump-cum-cesspool. With an unchecked population of some 185 million (36 per cent urban), projected to reach 225 million (40 per cent urban) by 2020 and 265 million (46 per cent urban) by 2030, we bottomed the rankings of the ,(a Siemens AG study carried out by the independent Economist Intelligence Unit to evaluate sustainability of 22 mega cities).

Topping the ratings of the 'well above average' group is Singapore (that fortunate city-state whose prime minister attributed governance success to his initial resolve that “Singapore, not Lee Kwan Yu, will become rich”). Karachi (that unfortunate urban conglomeration of a country of which the president, government and administration resolved the exact opposite of Mr Lee) lingers in the lowest 'well-below average' category. Assessment of heavy-metal toxicants in the roadside soil along the N-5 National Highway, Pakistan

In February 2011, the Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research published a report, — based on the sampling of nine sites between Lahore and Karachi. The levels of carcinogenic toxic metals, especially lead (from fuels, paints) and mercury (from hospital waste, discarded batteries, switches, fluorescent lamps, 'energy-savers') was 45 times the acceptable level.

This contamination is transferred by rain runoff to agricultural fields and water supplies, it is inhaled by passersby, and ingested through the food chain. The levels of contaminants inside cities are estimated to be much higher.

The Turkish power-barge anchored off Karachi's Korangi coast is belching pollutants over millions of residents in this highly polluted city. The air-dispersion modelling in the SEPA-approved EIA fraudulently showed furnace oil emissions travelling towards the creek, even though the prevailing wind is in the opposite direction towards land.

The engine-cooling system of the generators exacerbates the already excessive 7oC seawater temperature rise (illegally generated by KESC's power station), destroying marine life and fishermen's livelihoods: the law limits rise to 3oC. Most KESC, WAPDA and IPP generating stations countrywide are operating in violation of environmental codes.Earlier this month, the press reported that 2,238 industries in Sindh were served notices for violating environmental laws, including 240 that were put “under close surveillance for posing a threat to the environment”. So is it any wonder that we feel that political influence will prevent any meaningful action?

Energy is being wastefully consumed in Pakistan because it is cheap. Lately, petrol prices (dollars per gallon) in various countries were: Saudi Arabia $0.85, Iran $2.58, Pakistan $4, US $4, India $5.70, Germany $7.50, UK $9.50, Turkey $10. Energy efficiency is furthest from our minds. Alternative fuels (solar, wind, coal, etc) may never take off because, under pressure from the oil lobby, the government refuses to transfer subsidies.

Four hundred million gallons of untreated sewage are dumped every day into the creeks, rivers and seas around Karachi. This is decimating marine life and adversely affecting the fishing and tourism industries. The expansion land of two sewage-treatment plants in the city (Gutter Baghicha, Mahmoodabad) has been grabbed by political criminals. The Sindh EPA, KWSB and Industries Department spar over who should grab the most 'goodies' from the four combined effluent treatment plants to be constructed in industrial estates around the city. Defying Supreme Court directives, toxic solid in Karachi's industrial areas continues to be dumped in the open, as in other cities in Sindh. The sewerage situation in the cities of the other provinces is no better, resulting in pollution of rivers and water bodies. Airsheds around industrial and urban areas are heavily polluted.

The under-funded and understaffed EPAs in all four provinces are essentially doing nothing. Serving notices, filing unsubstantiated cases in tribunals, and giving flowery press statements is a cover for the harassment and extortion they impose on polluters in business and industry: the municipalities get away scot-free.

This column has previously emphasised the close nexus between the deteriorating environment and the social decay and terrorism that Pakistan is experiencing. World Environment Day comes this year on June 4. Will we continue with 'business as usual', splattering the newspapers with meaningless platitudes from presidents, governors and ministers, telling us all is fine and hunky-dory? Do we just sit back and hope for the best, or take the other way out of our predicament?

arfc@cyber.net.pk