Smog Season, Snake-Oil Season

Every winter, as the post-monsoon haze settles over North India, public attention snaps back to air pollution. Newsrooms scramble, governments announce “emergency” measures, and social media briefly unites around familiar indignation. Then, once winds pick up and visibility improves, the urgency evaporates. This seasonal memory loss helps explain why structural reforms remain slow, and why, each year, we are offered a fresh lineup of attention-grabbing fixes.

This season’s star is cloud seeding: the idea that artificial rain can wash away particulate matter on command. It joins a familiar supporting cast – smog towers, smog guns, and, more recently, “green crackers” and wearable “air purifiers” – all heavy on optics, light on impact.

Cloud seeding looks decisive, but winter in North India is dominated by dry, stable continental air. Without moisture, there are no rain-bearing clouds to seed. Even when conditions are briefly favourable, any reduction in pollution levels is short-lived. As soon as the rain stops, concentrations rebound because emissions from traffic, construction, waste burning, industry, and heating continue unabated. The science is well understood. Yet some form of such attention-grabbing “solution” resurfaces each season, even if the specific gadget changes. It allows authorities to be seen “doing something,” rather than doing what works: reducing sources of emissions and cleaning up what remains.

Also read: More Than 17 Lakh Deaths in India Linked to Air Pollution in 2022: Lancet Report

As someone who studies air pollution, I receive a plethora of questions during these polluted months. Parents ask about masks for infants. Many ask how to seal their windows better. Teachers ask how to advocate for purifiers in classrooms. Their questions are sincere; they reflect an instinctive understanding that outdoor air is unsafe. They also reveal how responsibility has quietly shifted to individuals. The advice revolves around creating small pockets of cleaner air: home air purifiers (where CADR – Clean Air Delivery Rate – matters), sealed rooms, well-fitting N95 masks, and air-conditioned cars in recirculation mode. For a narrow, privileged segment of the population, these interventions can reduce exposure. For outdoor workers, those living in unsealed homes, and many with no permanent shelter at all, they offer little.

A smaller segment still has a simpler option: leave Delhi for a few weeks when the air turns grey. It is an effective strategy, available only to those whose livelihoods and resources allow mobility. For everyone else, there is no “winter break” from breathing.

There is also a reality that rarely enters formal discussion. In the same city where some of us compare filtration efficiencies, many residents burn discarded cloth or scrap wood at night to stay warm. It is difficult to assign blame when the choice is between heat and hypothermia. Environmental harm arising from deprivation is not primarily about individual behaviour; it reflects gaps in housing, energy access, and social protection. When the state does not provide basic services, survival often requires activities that add to local emissions.

One of the least appreciated aspects of air pollution is that health impacts are not linear. Half the pollution does not imply half the harm, because much of the damage occurs even at lower and moderate concentrations. A city “only” half as polluted as Delhi can still impose most of the long-term health burden. Chronic exposure contributes to cardiovascular disease, respiratory illness, impaired childhood development, and cognitive decline.

The persistent baseline across the Indo-Gangetic Plain is therefore a serious concern, and focusing only on winter spikes normalises elevated year-round exposure. And while Delhi captures the cameras, similarly – and often worse – air quality is measured across cities and even villages in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Punjab, and parts of central India, including many places with no monitoring at all. Treating this as a single-city crisis misses the breadth of exposure across the region.

Snake-oil solutions are not harmless. They consume limited public resources, generate unrealistic expectations, and, once commissioned, become politically difficult to retire. Every rupee spent on cloud seeding is a rupee not spent on enforcing construction dust norms, improving public transport, strengthening industrial compliance, or investing in municipal waste infrastructure. Interventions at the source of pollution are evidence-based but lack photo opportunities.

Parts of the scientific ecosystem must also reflect on their role. Lending credibility to unproven interventions erodes public trust. Once public money is spent and expectations are raised, revising the science becomes difficult. If cloud seeding coincides with unusually heavy rainfall, questions of accountability emerge – whether grounded in evidence or not. Even unrelated rainfall events risk being misinterpreted.

None of the long-term measures are new. Cleaner and more reliable public transport, electrification of last-mile freight, enforcement of construction and road-dust rules, continuous emissions monitoring, municipal capacity to avoid open waste burning, access to clean cooking, and reliable electricity are all known to work. They require continuity, budgets, and coordination across states.

Also read: By Allowing Delhiites to Increase Pollution, the SC Has Shattered North India's Last Hope

Most critically, confronting air pollution at the source requires institutional willingness to inconvenience powerful interests – which is precisely why less effective but more dramatic technologies continue to attract attention.

Cloud seeding and similar snake-oil solutions are not simply scientific misjudgments; they divert attention from the structural reforms needed to reduce emissions at the source. The winter haze over North India is not only a meteorological artefact. It is a visible record of policy decisions not taken over the spring and summer.

At its core, air pollution is a governance problem. Individuals do not determine fuel mixes in power plants, staffing at pollution control boards, the operation of landfill fires, or cross-state coordination. They only experience the consequences. Personal mitigation – N95 masks, sealed rooms, purifiers – can reduce exposure for some but leave most of the population behind. Over time, they may even reduce collective pressure for systemic change, especially once those with influence can breathe comfortably indoors — or from their winter homes in Goa.

If the past decade is any indication, attention will decline as soon as visibility improves and pollution levels go back to harming us quietly. Editors have told me more than once: “Let us hold this piece. It’s not polluted right now – no one will read it.” And if Google Trends are any guide, they are correct. We will repeat the same cycle again: public concern in November, relief in March, and silence through the remainder of the year.

Shahzad Gani is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, IIT Delhi.

The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.