Smoke, Smog, Dust 2018 Chiang Mai

[thaibeachlovers]

Absolutely filthy air in night market area. So bad visibility is reduced and my room is darker than normal.

Yet, what does the government do about it? Apparently nothing other than talk talk.

[Sparkles]

City Life magazines planned peaceful protest, regarding CM's horrendous air quality and its repercussions,tonight at Thepae Gate has had to be cancelled.Full details on their fb page.

 

Democracy at work

[EnlightenedAtheist]

BYD Sending 1000 Electric Taxis To Thailand, Will Open Battery Recycling Plant In China

 

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/03/29/byd-sending-1000-electric-taxis-to-thailand-will-open-battery-recycling-plant-in-china/

 

Not that the TukTuk/Songthaw mafia are going to lay down easily here/retrie their fleet (not that in the grand scheme of things they are the main problem), but every little bit would help in mitigating to some degree the problem. If BKK can do it, why can't Chiang Mai and the dirty North of Thailand? Maybe we have a bigger problem than dirty ... air here in the North.

[bubba]

19 hours ago, bubba said:

I posted this in another thread, but....

 

Chiang Mai presently has the worst air quality of all major cities in the world at 181, even eclipsing Delhi which is presently 169.

 

https://www.airvisual.com/world

Just checked and again today, Chiang Mai retains the title of worst air quality of all major cities in the world. Outdoing its AQ index number of 181 yesterday, today it stands at 190.

 

*cough*

[EnlightenedAtheist]

4 minutes ago, Sparkles said:

City Life magazines planned peaceful protest, regarding CM's horrendous air quality and its repercussions,tonight at Thepae Gate has had to be cancelled.Full details on their fb page.

 

Democracy at work

 

Yes, on the Facebook page it is indicated. No explanation.

 

Yes, there might have had a few phone calls from some individuals that forced their hands in cancelling it.

 

Still, baby steps, baby steps. I would prefer a giant step, but I will take what I can. The initiative was a good one --albeit it ill-conceived and small in scale.

 

Still, it was an initiative. Let's encourage them. Thais must keep putting the pressure on the  <deleted>

[EnlightenedAtheist]

If this website is any indication, things could get a lot worse.

 

Chiang Dao at nearly 300.

 

How high does the number need to get? How many people need to die? When the local hospitals and morgues cannot cope, they will hand out masks? 

[XGM]

11 minutes ago, EnlightenedAtheist said:

 

Still, it was an initiative. Let's encourage them. Thais must keep putting the pressure on the  <deleted>

It's their country. Too many foreigners involved might do more damage than good, stepping on national pride toes.

[EnlightenedAtheist]

I guess people can still go tonight with a mask on. Right? We are still allowed to go to Thaphae Gate and places in Chaing Mai. No?

[EnlightenedAtheist]

1 minute ago, XGM said:

It's their country. Too many foreigners involved might do more damage than good, stepping on national pride toes.

 

That's what I meant. Yes.

[canopy]

On 3/15/2018 at 3:54 AM, lannarebirth said:

March 15 is the historic "hump day". It only gets better from here ... usually.

 

And then again, maybe not...

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

They'll put a mask on you... after you're dead!!!

 

Peak high AQI reading there over the past 2 days was 196, with 200 being the threshold for an emergency condition.

 

 

http://aqicn.org/city/thailand/chiangmai---cmis/

Edited March 30, 2018 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[LolaS]

On 3/29/2018 at 12:30 PM, wolfmuc said:

Might be sarcasm or not.

Any idea what's this?

yes exactly.... This pollution is not related with Chiang Mai or burning of farmers and hunters around of chiang mai

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

10 minutes ago, LolaS said:

yes exactly.... This pollution is not related with Chiang Mai or burning of farmers and hunters around of chiang mai

 You keep pushing that line, and I don't doubt Myanmar has a role here as well, but to claim North Thailand is blameless is absurd and not supported by the facts.

 

 

 

Quote

 

Thursday morning saw a climb to 172 micrograms per cubic metre in the quantity of inhalable particulates with a diameter of around 10 micrometres (PM10) – resulting in a delayed flight into May Hong Song airport.

 

The jump, the highest reading in the region for the day, has been largely attributed to forest fires deliberately set by locals following traditional harvesting practices.

 

[Rimmer]

A derogatory post has been removed

[LolaS]

[LolaS]

18 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 You keep pushing that line, and I don't doubt Myanmar has a role here as well, but to claim North Thailand is blameless is absurd and not supported by the facts.

 

 

 

 

 

here are your facts

[LolaS]

 

what people forget here is that Thailand, north Thailand, with population of 6.3 milion people, cannot do anything in order to pollute air on the level of India.

the source and cause is far far from this region, it is the hard pill to swallow because expats always blame goverment.... but how can goverment stop somthing from other coutries? cannot, it can stabilize effect in their own coutry, but as we can see it has no effect, bcs burning in north was never a real problem or real cause.

[SoilSpoil]

42 minutes ago, LolaS said:

You probably turned a blind eye to the firemaps of the last 4 weeks.

[WinnieTheKhwai]

 

On 3/27/2018 at 8:15 PM, LolaS said:

what a ridiculous observation that farmers and hunters in Thailand are responsible for pollution. Nowhere near the truth. No data or any scientific evidence that link pollution in chiang mai to those activities.

 

While correlation does not mean causation, you can see that a reduction in local fires does seem to have a positive effect.  I don't think the air will be pristine if all fires in Thailand stop, but it will make a more positive change than we've seen over the past 20 years.

 

On 3/29/2018 at 2:33 PM, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Someone was claiming in one of these threads, the other day, and the government has banned local fire setting and thus the local burning wasn't a problem anymore, or the cause of the current smog epidemic.  And to that I would say, as the above news report clearly shows, HOGWASH!!!

 

I think the ban works relatively better for flat farmland areas and less well for forest. (Where fires may even occur naturally, as well as intentionally started).  It's good having a ban though, and get better at policing it as well as fighting any fires that occur.  Fires are down slightly over the last couple of years.

 

On 3/29/2018 at 3:36 PM, bubba said:

I posted this in another thread, but....

 

Chiang Mai presently has the worst air quality of all major cities in the world at 181, even eclipsing Delhi which is presently 169.

 

https://www.airvisual.com/world

 

No.   That list is not what you think it is.

 

On 3/29/2018 at 4:33 PM, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

We're No. 1!  We're No. 1!  Yaaaa!!!!!

 

Right up there with many of the garden spots of the world....

 

 

I believe the app indicates, they only do readings for cities over 250,000 population or so.

 

No.  You'll notice how there is a nice variation of countries in that list.  That is the goal, to show their global reach.  It's not a ranking of worst places; it's a bit misleading actually.   Also it uses the latest values, not 24 hour averages; again they do this to make an engaging display where things change throughout the day.    It just isn't a ranking of worst places in the world. If it was then you'd only see Chinese and Indian cities in there. (Of which there are many, most of them over 250,000 or even over 2.5 million, yet they're manually kept out of the list.

[WinnieTheKhwai]

3 hours ago, LolaS said:

here are your facts

 

LOL. 

 

"Here are your facts", without indicating a source of the image, or what is being shown.  What period for example, and how does it change over time.

 

I like the look of it though, what is the source?

[orang37]

Historically, mountain/hill burning by hill-tribe peoples in northern Thailand, in order to harvest mushrooms on rotting charred logs in the rainy season (a cash crop), or as part of slash/burn/plant/harvest/move/repeat has been a major source of seasonal smoke.

 

It seems to escape the notice of some posters here that a large fire can be easily set by a few people.  I have yet to see any factual source for "hunting" as a cause of pollution in northern Thailand.

 

~o:37;

[cmsally]

Global Forest Watch Fire Map

 

On here you can also search for historical data for the past 7 days. Laos and Thailand have the same number of fires recorded. Myanmar has significantly higher. The last few days the air has significantly been affected by burning in Pai /Mae Hong Son area, that is a fact. People in that area have had horrendous pollution levels and have seen fires being lit in the hills every night.

[LolaS]

1 hour ago, WinnieTheKhwai said:

 

LOL. 

 

"Here are your facts", without indicating a source of the image, or what is being shown.  What period for example, and how does it change over time.

 

I like the look of it though, what is the source?

NASA; AQITH, Envriomental Science Reaserch Institute

[orang37]

Wonder what's happened to the Chiang Mai Air site http://chiangmaiair.org/info.html which has shown no data for a few days.

 

thanks, ~o:37;

[bubba]

10 minutes ago, orang37 said:

Wonder what's happened to the Chiang Mai Air site http://chiangmaiair.org/info.html which has shown no data for a few days.

 

thanks, ~o:37;

Good question - I looked at the site yesterday and data were current.

 

All that is there now is the current skyline view of Chiang Mai:

 

http://chiangmaiair.org/view-of-chiangmai.html

 

I can't tell if that is looking to the east or the west...anyone?

[EnlightenedAtheist]

Am I the only one that has found one positive? I find that the rays/UV are partly blocked by the smoke. As a result, it is not as hot as the concrete tiles and brick walls are not storing up the heat at the rate they usually do at this time of the year.

 

There are announcing rain in the next 3  or 4 days. 

[LolaS]

42 minutes ago, orang37 said:

Wonder what's happened to the Chiang Mai Air site http://chiangmaiair.org/info.html which has shown no data for a few days.

 

thanks, ~o:37;

http://aqith.com/ this is the new on

[Stocky]

The ASEAN meteorological centre website gives the latest hotspot and haze information too.

 

http://asmc.asean.org/asmc-hotspot/

[bubba]

8 minutes ago, Stocky said:

The ASEAN meteorological centre website gives the latest hotspot and haze information too.

 

http://asmc.asean.org/asmc-hotspot/

Thanks - interesting site. If you look at:

 

http://asmc.asean.org/asmc-haze-hotspot-annual#Hotspot

 

The good news is that hotspots in Thailand peaked in 2012 and have been on a steady trend down since then. In 2012, there were 27,003 and in 2017 there were 4,126.

[sanemax]

1 hour ago, EnlightenedAtheist said:

Am I the only one that has found one positive? I find that the rays/UV are partly blocked by the smoke. As a result, it is not as hot as the concrete tiles and brick walls are not storing up the heat at the rate they usually do at this time of the year.

There are announcing rain in the next 3  or 4 days. 

Thats not the only positive .

I have found that I no longer have to buy cigarettes anymore , just go outside and breath in