Solutions to burning season

[emptypockets]

1 hour ago, Gazzelle said:

Maybe where you are in Chaing Mai but, I live in Kam Phaeng Phet and they have been burning the sugar beet remains for more than 3 months now! The pollution is visible & bad (large pieces of burnt carbonized sugar beet remains constantly falling from the skies) but, really the bigger danger to health is the smaller particles that the eye cannot see but we are constantly breathing in!

^{I very much doubt they are burning sugar beet. Sugar beet is not grown in Thailand}

[Grusa]

2 hours ago, Thailand said:

Fine the owner of the land where the fires are detected not the farmers renting it and make it hurt with fines 50K up for first infringement.

Not difficult to spot by satellite. Alternatively there is small but active community of private pilots who would be happy to photograph with time and geolocation info, to enable this.

 

Oh sorry, mostly farang, unacceptable.

[emptypockets]

1 hour ago, wgdanson said:

I was led to believe that the sugar cane farmers burn their field BEFORE harvesting, thereby getting rid of unwanted leaves etc, and scaring off any snakes. 

Correct. It makes it easier to hand cut harvest and reduces the risk of Weils disease. Not too many critters live in cane fields, occasional pig not too many snakes.

[tandor]

On 3/25/2019 at 9:08 AM, BritManToo said:

And Cambodia, and Burma, and Laos.

..i don't really think that any of the aforementioned countries and big China give a toss about air quality and standards when it comes to crop production.

[meerhof]

Do away with some archaic useless immigration rules and free up staff to really impose usefull laws. If you start fining and putting in jail arsonists putting the woods on fire the risk of being  catched would be more than the 0.0000000000000001 % of the risk they run now.

[banagan]

Looks like the best they can come up with is spraying water in the air! 

Ranked #1 worst polluted city in the world, worse than Delhi! with 19 million people. Are they not even embarrassed?

 

 

[THAIJAMES]

Here are my suggestions of what should be done regarding forest fires and pollution in the North.  Some of these suggestions need to be done gradually for example with fines increasing progressively as years go by:

 

1. Ban harvest, possession, consumption, sale and export of the mushrooms involved in the burning of the forests. Heavy penalty should be for the sellers and exporters as those will be the easiest ones to enforce.  also technically those mushrooms do grow naturally without fires so it'd be unfair to heavily penalize someone that picked them for personal use that may not have set the forest on fire.

 

2. Penalize all landowners with traces of fire or fire residues on their land. It is the responsibility of a landowner to make sure no fire on their land period.  penalty should be based on the square meters or the area that is affected so bigger fire bigger penalty. It doesn't matter if the fire residue is discovered the next day or two months later same penalty.  Officials can easily find bigger fires using open source fire maps or visually.

 

3. Village headmen should be fined for not reporting fires in their area. Even after the fact. At the same time they should get a certain budget to ensure that there are no fires in their area.

 

4. Tambons should be punished and rewarded based on the numbers of fires in their tambons.

 

5. while firefighters should be paid for putting out fires this cost must partially be paid for by the local authorities to make sure that there's no incentive for starting fires just to make money.

 

6. In the west we have burn days and no burn days.  That is the authorities determine that on some days it is safe to burn because the wind patterns and the weather in general mean that the smoke will not be dangerous for the population.

 

7. When the air quality goes above a certain safe standard probably 200 aqi at first the authorities need to shut down all the schools government offices and polluting factories. 

 

8. No vehicles over 20 years allowed within the inner city area. Any transport vehicle for example public transport or cargo must undergo strict smog testing only to be performed at government testing centers.

 

9. Police need to aquire smog testing equipment and make sure that all vehicles adhere to strict standards.

 

10. The need to make public aware of dangers of smoke and other air pollutants not enough effort has been made to show the clear dangers and how to protect yourself from them.  A lot of Thais still don't really know about proper masks and air purifiers.

 

Although the Thai system has a lot of corruption and is based on what's in it for me a lot of the above suggestions means that the corrupt officials can actually make money by rewarding them for enforcing better air quality.

 

This will not solve all the problems as we still have country neighbors to deal with but the best way to solve this is to set an example and then put pressure on the neighbors.

Edited March 26, 2019 by THAIJAMES

[Dante99]

Does anybody have any factual numbers about what sources of smoke contribute what percentages of the total smoke?  6% from burning for mushrooms?  22% from burning trash? 18% from burning rice fields?  29% from naturally started forest fires?  37% from motor vehicles?....those numbers are only bad examples, What are the actual numbers?

 

Thai talk is that the increased production of corn in recent years is a big factor, corn leaving a large biomas to be burned after harvest, corn being planted on mountain slopes and in valleys, very big amounts of corn being purchased by animal feed producers.  So easy to grow.

 

 

 

 

[Gazzelle]

16 hours ago, wgdanson said:

I was led to believe that the sugar cane farmers burn their field BEFORE harvesting, thereby getting rid of unwanted leaves etc, and scaring off any snakes. 

I stand corrected, yes the sugar cane is burnt prior to harvesting! And, if the leaves are not burnt off or removed in some other way, the factory will not accept the harvest for processing?

 

So, after verifying how this works, this makes the situation of trying to stop the burning or at least try and find an alternative a non starter as the harvest is the livelihood of the local farmers and their families?

 

i guess it’s time to move to a coastal area!

[THAIJAMES]

3 hours ago, Dante99 said:

Thai talk is that the increased production of corn in recent years is a big factor, corn leaving a large biomas to be burned after harvest, corn being planted on mountain slopes and in valleys, very big amounts of corn being purchased by animal feed producers.  So easy to grow.

 

 

 

 

That's a good point maybe approach CP and put pressure on them for causing pollution to the environment.  Maybe they can turn that biomass into constructive use.

Edited March 27, 2019 by THAIJAMES

[wgdanson]

9 hours ago, THAIJAMES said:

Here are my suggestions of what should be done regarding forest fires and pollution in the North.  Some of these suggestions need to be done gradually for example with fines increasing progressively as years go by:

 

1. Ban harvest, possession, consumption, sale and export of the mushrooms involved in the burning of the forests. Heavy penalty should be for the sellers and exporters as those will be the easiest ones to enforce.  also technically those mushrooms do grow naturally without fires so it'd be unfair to heavily penalize someone that picked them for personal use that may not have set the forest on fire.

 

2. Penalize all landowners with traces of fire or fire residues on their land. It is the responsibility of a landowner to make sure no fire on their land period.  penalty should be based on the square meters or the area that is affected so bigger fire bigger penalty. It doesn't matter if the fire residue is discovered the next day or two months later same penalty.  Officials can easily find bigger fires using open source fire maps or visually.

 

3. Village headmen should be fined for not reporting fires in their area. Even after the fact. At the same time they should get a certain budget to ensure that there are no fires in their area.

 

4. Tambons should be punished and rewarded based on the numbers of fires in their tambons.

 

5. while firefighters should be paid for putting out fires this cost must partially be paid for by the local authorities to make sure that there's no incentive for starting fires just to make money.

 

6. In the west we have burn days and no burn days.  That is the authorities determine that on some days it is safe to burn because the wind patterns and the weather in general mean that the smoke will not be dangerous for the population.

 

7. When the air quality goes above a certain safe standard probably 200 aqi at first the authorities need to shut down all the schools government offices and polluting factories. 

 

8. No vehicles over 20 years allowed within the inner city area. Any transport vehicle for example public transport or cargo must undergo strict smog testing only to be performed at government testing centers.

 

9. Police need to aquire smog testing equipment and make sure that all vehicles adhere to strict standards.

 

10. The need to make public aware of dangers of smoke and other air pollutants not enough effort has been made to show the clear dangers and how to protect yourself from them.  A lot of Thais still don't really know about proper masks and air purifiers.

 

Although the Thai system has a lot of corruption and is based on what's in it for me a lot of the above suggestions means that the corrupt officials can actually make money by rewarding them for enforcing better air quality.

 

This will not solve all the problems as we still have country neighbors to deal with but the best way to solve this is to set an example and then put pressure on the neighbors.

And make sure everyone wears a helmet when riding their motorbike.   LOL

[wgdanson]

And when farmers are persuaded to grow cannabis for medicinal use, we'll all be saying 'go on, burn the field so we can all have a whiff'.   LOL

[orang37]

9 hours ago, THAIJAMES said:

Here are my suggestions of what should be done regarding forest fires and pollution in the North.  Some of these suggestions need to be done gradually for example with fines increasing progressively as years go by:

 

1. Ban harvest, possession, consumption, sale and export of the mushrooms involved in the burning of the forests. Heavy penalty should be for the sellers and exporters as those will be the easiest ones to enforce.  also technically those mushrooms do grow naturally without fires so it'd be unfair to heavily penalize someone that picked them for personal use that may not have set the forest on fire. ... 

 

 

In a 'police state,' (or maybe Singapore under LKY), these suggestions would work,

 

~o:37;

[THAIJAMES]

1 hour ago, orang37 said:

 

 

In a 'police state,' (or maybe Singapore under LKY), these suggestions would work,

 

~o:37;

I agree with you. Just putting it out there just in case there's a tiny chance any of these suggestions might reach persons that have power to change things.