 If you have asthma, some other respiratory condition, or you simply care about the state of the environment in Israel and are dismayed by humanity's tendency to take the fresh air on this planet and make it polluted and disgusting, then I have a URL that you should definitely make note of and save in your bookmarks, air.sviva.gov.il. There's also an Android app and one for Apple users, although be warned that it hasn't exactly received rave reviews from users. This is the official air quality data portal of Israel's ministry for the protection of the environment in Hebrew. As the name suggests, the mandate of this government industry is to protect the environment in Israel. Recently, the air quality data that is recorded in Israeli government observation stations got a bit of a boost in prominence. This is because it was integrated into Google Maps. Now you can simply toggle on a data layer in order to see just how polluted the air is here. To do this from a desktop, click on the layers button, click on more, and then click on air quality under map details. Now the map will be overlaid with the IL air quality index, which ranges from 100 to minus 400. It's possible that this integration happened a long time ago and I've just been living under a rock, but either way, as an asthmatic living in Israel, I thought I draw attention to the fact that it exists. The air quality index is abbreviated in most of the world as AQI. In Hebrew, it's Ramat Ichhut Avir. The Israeli index ranges from 100 to minus 400. 51 to 100 is green and is the best air quality. 0 to 50 is color-coded yellow and is medium, and then from 0 through to minus 400, the air quality gets progressively worse, with the lowest category having the color color brown and being described as very low quality. The index is based on a composite of different pollutants, including PM 2.5 and PM 10, which measure different particular concentrations in the air. Hovering over Jerusalem, we can see the latest data from eight different monitoring stations, which are scattered throughout the city. If we click on a particular station, we can see the latest observation time that the data was taken. If we click on the info button, we can drill down into that observation to see the different measurements. There's also a photograph of the air quality station, its address, and geo coordinates, and we can also look at graphs to see how the level of specific pollutants change over time. Here, for example, is the daily graph showing the fluctuations in PM 2.5 concentrations at the air quality monitoring station in Bakka, which is an urban neighborhood in south Jerusalem. As can be seen at first glance, the air quality in Jerusalem, and indeed in all of Israel, is quite often problematic. According to Dr. Zohar Brandt-Itschaki, a researcher at the Ministry of Health, Israelis are routinely exposed to levels of air pollution that are dangerously high. Common causes of air pollution, especially in urban areas, include pollution caused by traffic, industrial activity, and agriculture. The Ministry for the Protection of the Environment is under the responsibility of Edith Silman, who is a member of parliament affiliated with the Likud Party. For more videos about daily life in Israel, please consider subscribing to this YouTube channel.