The Smokescreen
- AQI Peak
- 0
- PM2.5 µg/m³
- 180
Born in coal plants and diesel engines, PM2.5 particles are so tiny they slip past your body's defenses, embedding in lung tissue for decades. The invisible tax on every breath.
−12 yrs lung lifeCheck current AQI, PM2.5 and air pollution near you. Explore the live map, compare cities, follow pollution trends, and get practical health guidance.

Air quality can significantly affect your respiratory health.
Live PM2.5 for your city, adjusted for how you spend your day -- your commute, time outdoors, and the hours indoors -- to estimate what you actually breathe.
Estimate the annual impact on your productivity and health using live air quality data.
Your actual age and your lungs' biological age can diverge by decades in high-pollution cities. Find out where you stand.
Born in coal plants and diesel engines, PM2.5 particles are so tiny they slip past your body's defenses, embedding in lung tissue for decades. The invisible tax on every breath.
−12 yrs lung lifeGround-level ozone forms when sunlight bakes vehicle exhaust. On hot summer days it peaks in cities, causing chest tightening and triggering asthma attacks in millions.
−6 yrs lung lifeEvery rush hour produces a new surge of nitrogen dioxide. Children who grow up near highways show permanently reduced lung capacity — a sentence written in exhaust fumes.
−8 yrs lung lifeAs forests burn hotter and longer, smoke blankets cities thousands of miles away. In 2023, Canadian wildfires turned New York's sky orange. The new normal.
−15 yrs lung lifeFive days of toxic coal smoke and fog killed an estimated 12,000 Londoners. Hospitals overflowed. The Thames Valley became unbreathable. This disaster gave birth to modern clean-air legislation.
CatastrophicAt peak industrial expansion, Linfen residents hung wet cloths over their doorways daily to catch the soot. Children played indoors year-round. Coal mines ran 24/7.
SevereChina halted factories and banned half of Beijing's vehicles to host a "clean" Olympics. AQI still reached 188. Athletes wore masks. Marathon start times shifted to dawn.
LegendaryDelhi's annual average AQI has exceeded 150 for the past decade, meaning residents breathe air classified as "Unhealthy" for the average day. Equivalent to ~4 cigarettes/day, every day.
Annual Record"Air pollution is the world's largest single environmental health risk, responsible for one in eight deaths globally."
-- World Health Organization

Ask a Delhiite where the air is best in the city and you'll get a predictable answer: Lutyens Delhi, the Ridge, the areas near the Yamuna Biodiversity Park. The instinct isn't wrong. But the reasons are more interesting than "more trees = cleaner air."
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The instinct makes sense: when the AQI climbs, you stay inside and close the windows. But for many Indian homes, closing the windows doesn't mean breathing clean air – it can mean breathing concentrated indoor air that is worse.
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There is a tempting way to think about air pollution: a city is polluted because it has too many cars, too many factories or too many people. Reality is much more interesting - cleaner cities almost never rely on a single fix.
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