Jump to content

Air pollution shortening children’s lives by 20 months, report shows


webfact

Recommended Posts

Air pollution shortening children’s lives by 20 months, report shows

By Chularat Saengpassa 
The Nation 

 

d90bbd5a39f076636f2addbfc01087db.jpeg

File photo : Mae Hong Son

 

THE SMOG situation in the North has become grimmer than ever after an international report concluded that air pollution shortens children’s lives by 20 months on average.

 

The State of Global Air report for 2019 released on Wednesday underlines the fatal effects of pollution, saying that fine dust particles like PM2.5 kill more people than alcohol, malnutrition and drugs. According to the report, the life span of children born in heavily polluted regions of South Asia could be shortened by 30 months. 

 

Thailand has good reason for concern over the report’s findings. Its northern region has been struggling with harmful levels of PM2.5 (particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometres in diameter) for months now.

 

“Smog is destroying the life of my son,” Ong-art Decha, a Chiang Mai resident, lamented on Facebook recently. 

 

The post included an image of his four-year-old son Mon Phu, who sought medical help after bleeding from the nose apparently due to exposure to smog. 

 

The heavy haze enveloping Chiang Mai’s Chiang Dao district had forced the family to move to a hotel in Chiang Mai’s Muang district, though just a day after moving, Mon Phu began showing signs of a smog-related condition. When taken to Chiang Mai Hospital, the four-year-old was diagnosed with inflamed lungs. 

 

For years, the World Health Organisation has described PM2.5 as carcinogenic. 

 

Prof Dr Chaicharn Pothirat, who teaches at Chiang Mai University’s Faculty of Medicine, said that for every 10-microgram rise in PM2.5 per cubic metre of air, the number of patients admitted to hospital rises by 3 per cent on average. 

 

“The patients usually come with complaints related to acute symptoms from stroke, paralysis, heart failure, lung inflammation, asthma, etc,” he said. 

Chaicharn also believes that exposure to PM2.5 can directly shorten people’s lives. 

 

According to the Chiang Mai-based disease control office, more than 40,000 people sought medical help for respiratory disorders during the 10-week period between January and March. In the same period, nearly 30,000 people visited doctors for heart and blood-vessel related diseases, 2,783 sought help for skin inflammation and 2,373 needed medical attention because of inflamed eyes.

 

Air quality remains poor in Chiang Mai, which was ranked second in the airvisual.com list of the world’s worst polluted cities as of 1pm yesterday with an air quality index of 280. With forest fires cited as the main cause air pollution, officials are now working to tackle the situation.

 

As of 2.42pm yesterday, the Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency’s fire-monitoring system reported 275 hot spots in the region. The top five worst-hit provinces were Mae Hong Son (114 hot spots), Chiang Mai (35), Lampang (35), Chiang Rai (33), and Phayao (20). 

 

Mae Hong Son has been hit hard by this year’s smog season, with many flights to province cancelled due to reduced visibility. The pollution has been visible to the naked eye for months. 

 

In Mae Hong Son, the PM2.5 amount reached 160mcg per cubic metre of air at 8am yesterday, a far cry from the safe limit of 50mcg. 

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/national/30367171

 

thenation_logo.jpg

-- © Copyright The Nation 2019-04-05
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nothing will change, next year they will burn again and the year after.  Was all over the Australian news where chiangmai is the world's most polluted city and this can't be good for tourism.  Geez what have they done to the country?  You can't go north as the air is heavily polluted and will kill you and you can't go south as the beaches are just sewage ponds

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Thechook said:

Nothing will change, next year they will burn again and the year after.  Was all over the Australian news where chiangmai is the world's most polluted city and this can't be good for tourism.  Geez what have they done to the country?  You can't go north as the air is heavily polluted and will kill you and you can't go south as the beaches are just sewage ponds

The government will enforce the law.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They just don’t care! For a profit they poison their children who’s lungs have not fully developed yet.

 

Warning! Some graphic pictures for animal lovers!

 

On the very day of Prayuth’s visit for the photo op - a friend came down from Mae On outside Chiang Mai at night and asked if he and his family could sleep in our house - the smoke had become unbearable at their place!

 

Fires where raging everywhere again in the mountains and the next morning the entire region was under a cloud of smoke!

They have even developed methods to start the fires when they are not around - see the picture below.

This is done methodically and with the full knowledge that they break the law and the law should change - they should be prosecuted for doing bodily harm to others and not just the 5000 Baht fine for ignoring the burning ban.

 

My friend said they should arrest them when they sell the mushrooms at the market once somebody goes to jail they might think twice next time they try to poison us!

 

IMG_8641.JPG.769c79f7e58616a5b7b0c0f155936673.JPG

IMG_8644.JPG.e4986c62b1222e5c33fcc682cad8cb11.JPGIMG_8643.JPG.5e7c5519af009c03731521015fc7c35d.JPGIMG_8647.JPG.618b9ae76a678c2764cfda9b6b5c8179.JPGIMG_8645.JPG.6a903c48fe8c5565f5def55e707690bc.JPGIMG_8646.JPG.e26c2dc34b0c00e09c51cd694b402291.JPG

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

35 minutes ago, Rocking Robert said:

The Government must protect the children.  

yeah, such as the USA.  where Juliana vs. USA has had to be filed and has been fought tooth and nail by our own government and now is back to trial again.  let's get our own act together.  so.  another example, for us in the North where I live too and have chronic asthmatic bronchitis.  a 10 to 15 year latency between burning and it's effects, some of which persist for more than 100 years.  that's a lot longer than a few weeks or months.  and involves more than just heart and lung disease.  that's for the "stuff" emitted as a powerful gas at 285 grams per kilometer traveled per person.  by airplane.  which even the most optimistic say another 15 to 20 years is needed to come up with an emissions free airplane technology, yet Paris 2015 said we need to go negative not just reduce emissions ("carbon removals").  and just as with the MAX airplane saga, it takes many years to test new aircraft technology and even then we need to do more testing.  maybe 5 to 10 years.  and then 20 years to swap out air fleets.  while 6,400 million of us who have never been inside an airplane even once in their lives yet, now begin to intertwine their personal, family and business lives with the "social right" to cheap indirectly and directly publicly subsidized air travel.  that today emits carbon for what is not very essential at all and will be with us for 15 plus 10 plus 20 years plus the 10 to 100 year latency from emission to effect transmitted by higher ocean temperatures back to our atmosphere and climate system teleconnections.  which is as long as I have lived so far and if northern Thai residents experience anything more intense or pervasive in that time period as the 2015-2016 "Los Ninos" drought already was like..... and that is being more optimistic than our most optimistic scientists tell us to be...... the smoke we are suffering is short term.  what we are doing in our other "burning" activities, in tons of aviation fuel that magically disappear as a very powerful gas, is going to make it continuously worse for a very very long time.              

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If they would punish and prosecute these crop burners the same way as a sigarette smoker on some tourist beach then the problem would not even exist.

imho people who burn their entire rice fields should be punished much more severe then some smoker at a beach.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is a solution , as usual, shown by westerners, as to proper burning method that yields no smoke and creates an end product that can be fertiliser. 

But dopey nation . The 1% top dogs care just for their stranglehold on the dopey 99% who are incapable of thinking.

 

This disgusting situation does not bother them . Short time, sometime, Mai pen rai , rain come soon, bleat bleat bleat, baaa baaa baaa

Link to comment
Share on other sites

im happy they are starting to display news like this but 20months isnt as much as other studies say. Ita much much worse depending on whats being burnt ita more like 48months to 14years.

Thr major drama with the pollution is it stunts childrens growth and destroys brain cells therefore more idiots procreate!

Thais dont care about Thais!

My neighbours after 4.5yrs of complaining about charcoal have been told they have to stop by may however they keep lighting massive fires as a form of revenge and then leaving for the day. Such childish morons and they should be charged with attempted murder.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The powers-that-be care more about lining their pockets than the lungs of little kids. Because, if they really cared for the kids, and people's health and lives in general, this wouldn't have turned into an annual affair. For decades.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Our local headman here in Chiang Mai explained to my wife what is going on folks - the money is flowing with kick backs and corruption rife as usual within local government officials.

 

Who cares about the kid's health - it's not personal it's business - ya know?

 

Now shut the hell up and mind your own business.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Where is the world health organisation ?? i thought they and other world childrens protection

authorities would get involved, maybe because of military rule they avoid junta run countries, meanwhile

children and adults suffer while the government twiddle their fingers 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Brickbat said:

There is a solution , as usual, shown by westerners, as to proper burning method that yields no smoke and creates an end product that can be fertiliser. 

But dopey nation . The 1% top dogs care just for their stranglehold on the dopey 99% who are incapable of thinking.

 

This disgusting situation does not bother them . Short time, sometime, Mai pen rai , rain come soon, bleat bleat bleat, baaa baaa baaa

Will that method work in a sugar cane field?

Will that method work to reveal mushrooms easier?

Will that method only work on a rice field?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, WeekendRaider said:

yeah, such as the USA.  where Juliana vs. USA has had to be filed and has been fought tooth and nail by our own government and now is back to trial again.  let's get our own act together.  so.  another example, for us in the North where I live too and have chronic asthmatic bronchitis.  a 10 to 15 year latency between burning and it's effects, some of which persist for more than 100 years.  that's a lot longer than a few weeks or months.  and involves more than just heart and lung disease.  that's for the "stuff" emitted as a powerful gas at 285 grams per kilometer traveled per person.  by airplane.  which even the most optimistic say another 15 to 20 years is needed to come up with an emissions free airplane technology, yet Paris 2015 said we need to go negative not just reduce emissions ("carbon removals").  and just as with the MAX airplane saga, it takes many years to test new aircraft technology and even then we need to do more testing.  maybe 5 to 10 years.  and then 20 years to swap out air fleets.  while 6,400 million of us who have never been inside an airplane even once in their lives yet, now begin to intertwine their personal, family and business lives with the "social right" to cheap indirectly and directly publicly subsidized air travel.  that today emits carbon for what is not very essential at all and will be with us for 15 plus 10 plus 20 years plus the 10 to 100 year latency from emission to effect transmitted by higher ocean temperatures back to our atmosphere and climate system teleconnections.  which is as long as I have lived so far and if northern Thai residents experience anything more intense or pervasive in that time period as the 2015-2016 "Los Ninos" drought already was like..... and that is being more optimistic than our most optimistic scientists tell us to be...... the smoke we are suffering is short term.  what we are doing in our other "burning" activities, in tons of aviation fuel that magically disappear as a very powerful gas, is going to make it continuously worse for a very very long time.              

 Did you walk and swim to Thailand? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Father Fintan Stack said:

It's all about extorting money, nothing to do with about proportional justice.

 

A foreign cigarette smoker on the beach can, by threat of court action and incarceration in a Thai jail, be extorted out of a potential 100,000thb. A soft target, easily scared, coerced and bullied by the Thai Police. Almost no hesitation to hand over all the cash they have and go home. 

 

A local farmer, burning his field, probably doesn't have 100,000thb as he is in hundreds of thousands of debt to pay off his pick-up and farm equipment, has gambling and other debts leveraged against his land, probably knows the local Police fairly well... probably HIV+ from the local Laos teen hookers, producing three or more kids he can't afford nor can take care of... Police are going to get bub-kiss from this guy. 

 

It's not rocket science. 

Or probably not. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don’t worry, just keep putting on the cheap 20b masks that stop dust. 

 

If this pathetic government can’t stop the fires, they can at least educate the people on what masks to use. Would it be too hard for every channel to run a short commercial a few times per day sharing correct information about all of this and how they can protect themselves? 

 

This is shameful no matter how you look at it. Incompetence, greed, and Thainess all rolled into one. This is the true face of Thailand.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 hours ago, Borzandy said:

The government will enforce the law.

The Africans may sit on the key solution - some 1000 years ago they removed the forest which now is named Sahara - it has not been any burning since then - except sunburning ... :thumbsup:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why any expat would live up there is impossible for me to understand. Is your or your children’s lives and health not worth protecting??

was it truly your retirement dream to live in a place where you are breathing in poison every day??

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.




×
×
  • Create New...