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CARL AZUZ: Fridays are awesome.
I don't usually say that on a Tuesday.
But this is our last show of the week
after today will be off until next Monday
for the Thanksgiving holiday and I
didn't want a Friday to roll around without you getting
the chance to hear that.
All right, let's get to work.
Last Thursday when we told you about pollution in India,
we mentioned it's not the only place in this region
with the problem.
About 80 miles northwest of the Indian capital
is the Pakistani city of Lahore.
It is frequently near and recently
at first place in an international ranking
of most polluted cities.
The likely reasons are similar to the ones
that cause problems in India.
In the fall, after monsoon season ends,
the rains and winds died down, so there's
less moisture and movement in the atmosphere
to sweep the pollutants away.
Meteorologists say winter temperatures can also
keep smoke from rising, so more pollutants
get trapped near the ground.
Some experts blame farmers for contributing to pollution,
because they typically burn off their old crops
this time of year to prepare their fields for new ones.
The smoke from that can gather in the air.
Others say the issue is caused by low quality fuel that's
used to power cars and trucks.
Industrial pollution also plays a part.
Whatever the reasons are, some residents in Lahore
are calling for the Pakistani government to take action.
That government says it has, that it's told factories
and refineries to reduce their emissions,
that it's banned low quality gasoline, that it's planning
to require less polluted motorcycle engines,
and that it's looking at ways to plant more trees in the city.
Will its efforts be enough?
- Smog so dense you can only see a silhouette of this building
that's just a few yards away.
On the streets people are wading through the thick smog.
One resident says it's so bad, people are covering their eyes
and walking right into traffic.
This is Lahore, Pakistan, which regularly ranks among the most
polluted cities in the world.
[non-english speech]
- Now this city, which we call the city of flowers, the city
of gardens, is gripped by smog.
It is engulfed in smog.
- On Saturday, Lahore topped IQAir's daily ranking
of the world's most polluted cities again, a rank
often challenged by New Delhi.
Residents cough.
Everything smells of smoke.
According to a paramedic at a local hospital,
patients are coming in with sore throats because of the smog,
not COVID.
As the haze grips the city in a choke hold,
residents are getting desperate.
[non-english speech]
- When we all leave the house in the morning,
the pollution causes irritation to the eyes.
It is hard to breathe.
The government should find a solution for this smog.
- A local report says anti-smog squads have
been deployed across Lahore.
They're identifying and sealing factories that aren't
meeting the city's standards.
In neighboring New Delhi, smog towers in some areas
are sucking pollutants from the air.
Residents are now asking the government to install more,
as the smog continues to affect people's health
and livelihoods, like this rickshaw driver's.
[non-english speech]
- The whole day I drive around without any passengers.
There's passengers.
They prefer cabs.
I ask them, where are you going?
They say no, there's too much pollution.
We'll take a cab.
- Despite some measures to fight smog,
the increasing pollution makes the sight of a clear sky
still a distant dream.
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CARL AZUZ: 10 second trivia.
Which inventor is famous for his contributions
to the alternating current electrical system?
Edison, Marconi, Nobel, or Tesla?
[countdown beeps]
He was the eccentric genius, Nikola
Tesla, who discovered the rotating
magnetic field in the 1880s.
As more and more car makers offer increasingly autonomous
modes, which means computer-assisted driving,
you might be wondering if fully self-driving cars
are just around the corner.
In our special on this topic almost three years ago,
we said experts predicted that a city with driverless cars
was still decades away.
Is that still the case?
There have been several advancements
in autonomous technology.
The Tesla electric car company, for instance,
is regularly updating its software,
but there have been a number of accidents
blamed on this as well.
And a CNN reporter recently found that in some areas,
the tech has a long way to go.
MICHAEL BALLABAN: Oh, we've got a situation in front of us.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Oh, no.
We're going on the wrong side of the road.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
No, no, no.
It wanted to hit the truck.
This is a Tesla Model 3.
So we are turning on the full self-driving beta.
OK the car is now officially, technically,
sort of driving itself.
Whoa, whoa.
That was a really sharp turn the car just tried to make.
Oh, we've got a situation in front of us.
Whoa.
OK.
What we just had in front of us was a UPS
truck coming onto our lane.
We had a guy in front of us with a cargo bike.
To avoid hitting the guy on the bike,
the car seemed to want to put us straight
into a giant UPS truck.
I would prefer not to hit a UPS truck today.
So I took over.
It does seem to need an interruption
every couple of blocks or so.
But sometimes if the car is hesitating a little bit,
I have to intervene.
You also have to be ready to take over at any time.
Now this is challenging.
Oh, no, we're going on the wrong side of the road.
We're not trying to make this car screw up.
We're not trying to have a laugh at Elon Musk's expense.
That's not the point.
We're really just trying to see how
it handles driving in the city.
So far, it's going OK.
We're going down a pretty just straight, normal road.
There's not a lot of pedestrians here.
And when you're going down a straight road
with not a lot of pedestrians, the car
actually seems to be doing OK.
We're doing right around the speed limit,
you know, we're not hitting anything.
The car can see cones.
The car can see trucks.
The car can see even pedestrians on the other side
of the street.
Seeing might not be totally the issue here.
It's knowing what to do in challenging situations, stuff
that experience teaches you.
We're driving down Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn,
where thousands of drivers drive every day,
human drivers, that is.
It's a main artery through Brooklyn-- commuters, trucks,
people going to their jobs.
A lot of human drivers do this every day,
so a car should be able to handle it just fine.
Oh, but we're stopping in the intersection.
No, now we're going again.
Hey, how about that?
And no, we've got a-- we've got a green light.
And the car hesitates, because there's no right turn,
but we can go straight.
And that's where we want to go.
We want to go straight.
I stand at the ready to intervene.
Hopefully I can do it fast enough.
Now this will be challenging.
We've got a fence in front of us.
Whoa, whoa.
Car almost hit the fence just there.
It blocked off a turning lane.
But the car was supposed to move into the next lane anyway,
because we're going straight, and it was pretty much
headed right for those fences.
So I had to take over there.
This is officially, not truly, ready for public consumption.
A lot of people have issues with this
being called full self-driving.
First and foremost, it's not fully self-driving.
I have to sit here.
If it was fully self-driving, as promised,
that would let you take a nap while you're driving along.
Whoa.
But we just slammed on the brakes there,
and now this big truck is going to go.
We're going to see if we're going
to go around the big truck.
Well, I was going to give it a little little gas, help it.
Nope, nope, nope.
It wanted to hit the truck.
So we're going to just use a human driver
to go around the truck.
I don't drive a Tesla every day.
I am a little skittish.
I'll fully admit that.
So I am taking over more than someone who is used
to how the system performs.
And because of that, maybe I'm skewing things a little bit,
but that is the observer effect.
Because it's a little like teaching a teenager
how to drive, and you're always watching,
you're always waiting.
You never know when it might try something new.
And that's where the anxiety comes from.
You know it does seem to be making other drivers upset.
It's the people behind us.
It's the people honking.
Now I'm not saying a truly, fully, autonomous
car will never happen.
But I think at this point we're still years away.
CARL AZUZ: On a small island in the Indian Ocean,
an annual migration has residents
seeing red and feeling crabby.
It's the rainy season on Christmas Island,
and so many crustaceans make their way
from the forest to the sea this time of year
that authorities built a special bridge
so they don't become roadkill.
Each female crab can produce up to 100,000 eggs.
So it's five weeks before Christmas,
and all across that island, red crabs
were traversing the lowlands and highlands, with bridges
to cross and barriers to breach, no thing
could stop their sideways march to the beach.
It's a sea of red crawling the ground in slow motion.
Their goal, not the Pole, but the distant "crustocean."
You don't have to tell us that others are "shellous."
While they may grace plates, these crabs
get the applause of trivia hoarders and media reporters
who root for them on their route to "Sandy Claus."
That wraps up our show for the week.
Want to give a shout out to Furness High School.
Thanks to our viewers watching in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Our YouTube channel is the place to go to request
a mention for your school.
We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
We look forward to seeing you again next Monday.
I'm Carl Azuz, and that's CNN.
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