Nose for the truth

The nose knows. The human animal has only to lift its head, breathe in, and the figure flashes before the mind’s eye – like in the movies, when RoboCop gets a complete lowdown of the visual on his internal screen. So, on a dull morning with its crispness choked by dense suspended particulate matter, even when the AQI on the weather app declares a ‘poor’ 195, the nose estimates it to be at least double that count.

And on a dreary, opaque evening descending on the city like the apocalypse, the data may still say it’s a modest 350, but the nose finds it to be well beyond ‘hazardous’ levels.

The human nose (differently shaped for various climates) is a dependable aide. Although it often remains chronically congested and blocks the free flow of air (even when breath is the basis of life) it has not yet adapted to become a human proboscis. It may be bulbous, hooked, or flat, but it remains sharp – it knows the fragrant from the foul.

The urban nose, in particular, also knows the acrid and the putrid, the gush of sewers and the smell of decay. The human animal has not adapted like other species yet in response to environmental challenges – many African elephants no longer grow tusks due to relentless poaching, and the snouts of urban foxes are becoming smaller as they stop being hunters and turn scavengers due to urbanisation and loss of forests.

One ability of the nose (often overlooked) is that it can cut through propaganda: air-quality data, visual theatrics in the sky, and official speeches and statements. At the end of the day, even when researchers join govts in claiming that air-quality data shows a drastic improvement (somehow coinciding with critical junctures in a govt term), the nose cannot be fooled. It knows the olfactory landscape: the smell of smog, the ‘cloudy’ feeling when there are no clouds in the sky, the tingling it causes in the nostrils, and the congestion that prevents it from performing its most basic function – to deliver clean air to the body.
Instead of a positive data overload, it craves simpler evidence – a clear morning, the invigorating fresh air it once knew, and plain assurances rather than long-winded explanations that raise dust and obscure clarity, leaving people gasping for a breath of fresh air.

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