Northern Thailand suffers whilst officials play the blame game

[webfact]

Northern Thailand suffers whilst officials play the blame game

By The Thaiger

 

 

Excerpts from an article at ttrweekly.com

 

Inflicting immeasurable damage to the health of residents and incalculable losses on the economy and tourism, the northern smog clings to the hilly landscape making a mockery of government assurances that it has the crisis under control.

 

Provincial and district officials appear to be preoccupied with the task of deciding a date when residents can resume the burning of household rubbish in their gardens. The dates have changed at least three times in the last week when common sense would have dictated the province should stop any outside burning, of anything.

 

“Chiang Rai stands out on the Thai map for all the wrong reasons. It’s a hot spot for forest fires and agricultural arson raising the air quality index into the red alert zone for almost three months.”

 

Full story: https://thethaiger.com/hot-news/air-pollution/northern-thailand-suffers-whilst-officials-play-the-blame-game

 

 

-- © Copyright The Thaiger 2019-05-07

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[Justgrazing]

14 minutes ago, webfact said:

The dates have changed at least three times in the last week when common sense would have dictated the province should stop any outside burning, of anything.

Not forgetting common sense is not a quality in great abundance here ..

[Thailand]

Just driving along the 121 past a residential estate that was enveloped by smoke from a burning field literally next door.

I guess the authorities are on their way to sort it out and issue fines to the arsonists.

[namatjira]

They are going to have to make those mushrooms illegal to own or harvest.....treat them like they were a drug.

Mai Hong son just had a near miss with a temple nearly being burnt to the ground, they admitted the fires were caused by villagers burning as when the rain does come the mushrooms are multiplied. And the mushrooms are expensive.......with a huge demand from China....first step stop exports to China...

Second step make them a banned substance locally...like Kratom perhaps....a poor hill tribe villager sees no wrong in burning down the national park for an increased money bonus for mushrooms.

not a second thought, only thought is for the extra few thousand baht.........and for that, we all suffer....people’s health suffers, business suffers......come on north Thailand....do something.

most of the pollution this year was spontaneous outbursts in national parks.....mushrooms......this is a fairly new trend that needs attention now....the farms burn off can be co ordinated and controlled to some degree....the random torching of the parks can not.......

[cardinalblue]

Until thailand moves away from a slash and burn culture, nothing will change.... 

 

more importantly is for ex-pats to make get away plans (Feb - May) every year...

 

i have on my travel list.....NZ Aus, Panama, Costa Rica, Portugal, Vietnam California/AZ/NM etc...please add to my list

 

i do hope word gets out to foreign visitors that CM is a place to avoid during these four months...

[55Jay]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

Northern Thailand suffers whilst officials play the blame game

Every year, like the unforeseeable drought conditions. 

 

A few months from now, they'll be reacting to unforeseeable flooding.

 

It's the first time every time, year after year. 

[yellowboat]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

Inflicting immeasurable damage to the health of residents and incalculable losses on the economy and tourism, the northern smog clings to the hilly landscape making a mockery of government assurances that it has the crisis under control.

The hand waving and seven day deadline of general cha cha did not work?  How could that have happened?  ????

[cmsally]

The past 3 or so days , many govt officials including on the local level have been down in Bangkok. This fact has not been lost on the locals. Just to back up my theory I did actually ask some locals who were burning.

In the replies you get, health and air quality do not get a mention. Burning ban finished and local officials "pai teeo" do get a mention.

[cmsally]

3 hours ago, namatjira said:

They are going to have to make those mushrooms illegal to own or harvest.....treat them like they were a drug.

Mai Hong son just had a near miss with a temple nearly being burnt to the ground, they admitted the fires were caused by villagers burning as when the rain does come the mushrooms are multiplied. And the mushrooms are expensive.......with a huge demand from China....first step stop exports to China...

Second step make them a banned substance locally...like Kratom perhaps....a poor hill tribe villager sees no wrong in burning down the national park for an increased money bonus for mushrooms.

not a second thought, only thought is for the extra few thousand baht.........and for that, we all suffer....people’s health suffers, business suffers......come on north Thailand....do something.

most of the pollution this year was spontaneous outbursts in national parks.....mushrooms......this is a fairly new trend that needs attention now....the farms burn off can be co ordinated and controlled to some degree....the random torching of the parks can not.......

I thought it was rather ironic, that it was a Chinese temple.

[RotMahKid]

3 hours ago, webfact said:

residents can resume the burning of household rubbish in their gardens.

Let's first start to forbid this in the whole country it's something from a century ago. If you have trash collect it and deposit it in the proper place where it's been collected.

[THAIJAMES]

3 hours ago, namatjira said:

They are going to have to make those mushrooms illegal to own or harvest.....treat them like they were a drug.

Mai Hong son just had a near miss with a temple nearly being burnt to the ground, they admitted the fires were caused by villagers burning as when the rain does come the mushrooms are multiplied. And the mushrooms are expensive.......with a huge demand from China....first step stop exports to China...

Second step make them a banned substance locally...like Kratom perhaps....a poor hill tribe villager sees no wrong in burning down the national park for an increased money bonus for mushrooms.

not a second thought, only thought is for the extra few thousand baht.........and for that, we all suffer....people’s health suffers, business suffers......come on north Thailand....do something.

most of the pollution this year was spontaneous outbursts in national parks.....mushrooms......this is a fairly new trend that needs attention now....the farms burn off can be co ordinated and controlled to some degree....the random torching of the parks can not.......

 

You make great points.  I would like to add that the largest conglomerate in Thailand is also responsible for the massive increase in corn growing in Thailand and neighboring countries.   This corn is mostly used as feed for export to China and other countries.

 

Both the mushrooms and corn feed does not really benefit Thailand.

[Cadbury]

1 hour ago, yellowboat said:

The hand waving and seven day deadline of general cha cha did not work?  How could that have happened?  ????

His leaf blower blew the leaves onto the fire creating even more smoke.

[worgeordie]

It will be the same next year,as it has in the past,they are not really

serious about this problem,just trying tricks like leaf blowers !,and

big fans blowing water in town centre,this year has been a circus,

while peoples health and the tourist income has suffered terribly.

regards worgeordie

[JimmyJ]

6 hours ago, cardinalblue said:

Until thailand moves away from a slash and burn culture, nothing will change.... 

 

more importantly is for ex-pats to make get away plans (Feb - May) every year...

 

i have on my travel list.....NZ Aus, Panama, Costa Rica, Portugal, Vietnam California/AZ/NM etc...please add to my list

 

i do hope word gets out to foreign visitors that CM is a place to avoid during these four months...

 

Very conservative - Wasn't it already getting serious beginning in December?

[chama]

4 hours ago, worgeordie said:

It will be the same next year,as it has in the past,they are not really

serious about this problem,just trying tricks like leaf blowers !,and

big fans blowing water in town centre,this year has been a circus,

while peoples health and the tourist income has suffered terribly.

regards worgeordie

Agreed they are not serious about the problem but I am also convinced they just don't have it in them to sit down and develop a permanent solution to eliminate the causes of the problem with new procedures and penalties (with enforcement processes). 

[jackdd]

Since about a week people in the city started burning their trash again, and afaik the burning ban ended last week (the people probably think the same). Is the burning ban still active or not?

[tabarin]

Seeing tons of things coming for sale in the second hand markets lately (almost new furniture, gadgets, cars, bikes etc). 
Have gotten quite a few things for a bargain. Also a lot of condo's and houses for rent, some extra discounted for fast attempt of sale etc.

Not to mention business closure, sale / rent offers and other things. Seems foreigners are serious about leaving this time (but seemingly also out of Thailand entirely as of the sale of all their stuff, not just the big things).

But yeah, forcefully, we will relocate to the coast early next year too. This problem is like waiting for cockroaches to disappear, keep(s) coming back.

[SmartyMarty]

Move Songkran dates and the tourists will be ok.

[connda]

22 hours ago, webfact said:

Inflicting immeasurable damage to the health of residents and incalculable losses on the economy and tourism, the northern smog clings to the hilly landscape making a mockery of government assurances that it has the crisis under control.

Once the rains finally show up, they'll be awards and photo-ops celebrating the government's fantastic handling of the problem.

Meanwhile - It freaking May and the near-by mountains bordering Lampang-Lamphun are almost invisible 10 km away due the the shear number of fires as we continue to hunker down most of the day in the air conditioned and air filtered rooms of the house. 

No doubt it will be a bumper year for the collection of mushrooms. I wonder how much each individual mushroom costs when you factor in ecological and healthcare costs and lost GDP?  ????

[Prairieboy]

23 hours ago, yellowboat said:

The hand waving and seven day deadline of general cha cha did not work?  How could that have happened?  ????

I was sure by now the green giant vacuum cleaner would have sucked in all the smog leaving behind a pristine atmosphere.

 

[cmsally]

1 hour ago, Prairieboy said:

I was sure by now the green giant vacuum cleaner would have sucked in all the smog leaving behind a pristine atmosphere.

 

Where is the giant vacuum cleaner ?? Certainly nothing at Tapae gate

[jak2002003]

18 minutes ago, cmsally said:

Where is the giant vacuum cleaner ?? Certainly nothing at Tapae gate

think I caught fire and broke down when it got clogged after a few days.  Then they might have thrown it onto a bonfire.  

[WeekendRaider]

if "the USA is not a planet"..... Thailand isn't either.  that was the sum total of the GOP response during the 2015-2016 US presidential "debates".  not only is it impossible for us to even begin seriously working to meet our United Nations Paris 2015 commitments, in any manner, it is not 2019 that we need to be focused on, nor Paris.  but 2020.

the general view, if you do any at all reading on the ENSO recently, and I mean the peer reviewed stuff, is that 2020 is what we are most concerned about.  these fires are definitely linked to Climate Change.  at least 50% directly correlated... and given the latencies involved, we may only now be reaching the point where the "hockey stick" of GHG emissions, especially of Co2, really begins to take off.  because of how big the oceans are, basically, in a nut shell. 

the only good news is that we only have 60 years of basic oceanographic data on the ENSO, and some old proxies such as tree rings in Taiwan, and some new proxies such as plankton fossils... to make our guesses... so we MIGHT still be wrong about 2020.... but our models are getting really good, and they are already making predictions that folks in the PI, i.e. the recent solar irrigation project, seem to be taking even more seriously than in SE Asia.  yet it will effect the local monsoons even more here.