Exhaust and no wind blamed for Bangkok’s worsening air quality

[URMySunshine]

22 minutes ago, Liverpudlian said:

Time for the temples to invent new amulets me thinks.

Stop burning all the incense and fireworks would be a start. 

[puck2]

4 hours ago, GeorgeCross said:

been following this closely for the last week and here is what i have noticed. the gulf air pollution is coming from cambodia crop burning. have a look at the following image that shows a "smear" of red pollution being blown west on the prevailing wind directly from cambodia.

 

 

nasa fire satellite data backs this up, yesterday 150 fires in thailand, 900+ in cambodia

 

stop the fires stop the pollution

 

 

now all Prayut has to do is put out his own countries fires AND ask Hun Sen to stop their burning!
good luck with that 

 

 

If Cambodia is the main culprit, then please explain me why the 2.5 p.m. over Cambodia (138) are lower than those in the central area around Bangkok and especially around Ubon Rat.(160),?! It's against the logic.

[GeorgeCross]

29 minutes ago, puck2 said:

 

If Cambodia is the main culprit, then please explain me why the 2.5 p.m. over Cambodia (138) are lower than those in the central area around Bangkok and especially around Ubon Rat.(160),?! It's against the logic.

 

wind is blowing in the opposite direction, away from the 138 and towards bangkok and the gulf

 

[GarryP]

2 hours ago, jybkk said:

There is wind. But it's little and it's coming from where the burning fields are.

 

The thing with PM2.5 particles is that they are really small and will easily stay airborne for days.

 

All the scientific studies and analysis I've seen which publish their methodology and results agreed that the winter pollution peak is due to crop burning.

 

Have you remarked that none of these announcements by the government come with any actual proof or numbers?

 

Last year some NGO analyzed the particles in February and something like 70% was from burnt organic materials while the rest was a mix of dust and exhaust pollutants.

 

Just look at the maps of the fires, the location of the pollution and the wind patterns. It's absolutely obvious where the brunt of it is coming from.

 

Now I'm not sure why the government is blatantly ignoring all the evidence. Maybe they don't want to aggravate farmers who already have it tough with the strong baht. But it's clear that they've decided to pretend it's all just about the traffic.

Spot on. They need to go after agricultural burning. Any sugarcane processing plant that processes burnt cane must be very heavily fined, with the threat of permanent closure. 

 

As to burning of rice stubble, the Ministry of Agriculture needs to invest in ploughing machinery which is then made available to farmers. Once there is an alternative, and fines for burning, perhaps farmers can stop burning and plough under the stubble. 

 

But then again, who runs the sugarcane mills? And the government does not want to <deleted> off the farmers. 

[Number 6]

Yes, it will never get better.

 

That would take

Reformulating the benzene

Taking the old trucks off the road

Modifying trucks the balance

New fleet of promised buses OR

at least convert to ngv

Smog check all cars 2yrs+ old

Ride-sharing program

Add cars to BTS MRT. Incentivize.

Rebuild footpaths

Punative punishment for cyclist on footpaths.

 

Never going to happen. I think the petrol change slated for 5 years from now.

 

When my job is finished, we are gone.

[ExpatOilWorker]

Looks like it will get even worse Wednesday/Thursday:

 

https://www.windy.com/-PM2-5-pm2p5?cams,pm2p5,2020012210,11.566,100.415,6

[jybkk]

What's interesting is also that a lot of commenters here seem to have a hard time understanding that there could be 2 sources for the pollution.

 

It's pretty obvious that BKK doesn't have clean mountain air the rest of the year and that the emissions from traffic NEED to be addressed.

 

But it's a baseline of around 50-60 AQI. Not great but not terrible by urban standards.

 

The crop burning is what tips it from 'not great' to 'very unhealthy'. Seeing how non urban areas themselves are past 120AQI is proof enough that even if you stopped all traffic and construction in BKK it'd still be really bad.

 

Crop burning wasn't that bad in the past. I suspect the farmers are currently struggling not than usually to make ends meet and that burning is more economical for them. 

[GeorgeCross]

3 hours ago, jybkk said:

What's interesting is also that a lot of commenters here seem to have a hard time understanding that there could be 2 sources for the pollution.

 

It's pretty obvious that BKK doesn't have clean mountain air the rest of the year and that the emissions from traffic NEED to be addressed.

 

But it's a baseline of around 50-60 AQI. Not great but not terrible by urban standards.

 

The crop burning is what tips it from 'not great' to 'very unhealthy'. Seeing how non urban areas themselves are past 120AQI is proof enough that even if you stopped all traffic and construction in BKK it'd still be really bad.

 

Crop burning wasn't that bad in the past. I suspect the farmers are currently struggling not than usually to make ends meet and that burning is more economical for them. 

 

well that and the fact that there has been massive deforestation in SE asia over the last few decades making way for more & more agriculture and the inevitable slash and burn farming so popular here.

 

[473geo]

5 minutes ago, GeorgeCross said:

 

well that and the fact that there has been massive deforestation in SE asia over the last few decades making way for more & more agriculture and the inevitable slash and burn farming so popular here.

 

Well there has also been a massive increase in motor vehicles over the decades, the move from bicycles and motorcycles to utes and motorcars and a consequence is much more stationary traffic polluting, not to mention the increased city population who are also increasing the use of motor vehicles while condensing the 'open spaces'

[Jimbo2014]

I just arrived in Nay Pyi Taw and can slowly feel the inflammation in my lungs returning to normal.  I havnt felt like I did after the last month in Bangkok since I worked in Delhi in 2015.  Horrendous pollution causing massive health damage to children and adults alike.  Going to kill tourism and result in very long term impacts for Thailand.

[GeorgeCross]

14 hours ago, 473geo said:

Well there has also been a massive increase in motor vehicles over the decades, the move from bicycles and motorcycles to utes and motorcars and a consequence is much more stationary traffic polluting, not to mention the increased city population who are also increasing the use of motor vehicles while condensing the 'open spaces'

 

hey not denying increased use of combustion engines is not helping but let's be pragmatic here if the main problem was vehicular we'd be complaining all year but we're not we are complaining during burning season.

 

[johng]

20 hours ago, Liverpudlian said:

Time for the temples to invent new amulets me thinks.

They  just burn the old ones along with anything else

[Time Traveller]

People complain about everything these days. Air is much better than it was in the past.

Bangkok had much worse air quality in the 1990s with a lot of vehicles burning diesel and emitting black soot when the transport system was basically buses. Now there's fuel efficient vehicles and many heavy industries have relocated out of Bangkok to places like Chonburi. 

[overherebc]

On 1/19/2020 at 10:26 AM, Thian said:

Why is the police not going to the farmers and order them to stop burning? 

Left a local eatery about 2.30pm yesterday. Short drive home ( 3k ) about halfway home 3 pick ups, new looking and with about 2" road clearance, wide wheels etc, blasted past, each one leaving a huge cloud of black smoke behind. Not joking when I say everyone had to slow down as it was almost impossible to see for about a minute until the fairly light breeze cleared it.

[johng]

This morning on 7HD news they reported that so far country wide 2560 vehicles have been checked for emissions

and  a massive 29 vehicles where found with 45% or more "bad smoke" 

which where then spray painted to stop them being used !

another whopping 127 vehicles had "bad smoke"  in the 30-45% range and these where given a notice to get the engines fixed.

Is there any wonder that the air quality is so bad with this sort of pathetic "crackdown"   not to mention the burning fields,forests and rubbish. ☹️

[puck2]

On 1/19/2020 at 9:22 AM, GeorgeCross said:

been following this closely for the last week and here is what i have noticed. the gulf air pollution is coming from cambodia crop burning. have a look at the following image that shows a "smear" of red pollution being blown west on the prevailing wind directly from cambodia.

 

 

nasa fire satellite data backs this up, yesterday 150 fires in thailand, 900+ in cambodia

 

stop the fires stop the pollution

 

 

now all Prayut has to do is put out his own countries fires AND ask Hun Sen to stop their burning!
good luck with that 

 

 

Your view; Cambodia is the main culprit of the "gulf air pollution".

How do you explain this situation  ----->

 

from:

https://www.windy.com/-PM2-5-pm2p5?cams,pm2p5,2020012210,11.566,100.415,6

(open it please).

And your answer to my former question (I repeat it) isn't logical.

Why is the pollution in Bangkok ~ 160 p.m. and more, in Cambodia only 138? Even if all pollution particles of Cambodia would have been blown to the BKK-area ( what isn't possible), then BKK would have only ~22 p.m. articles (160 minus 138). And that isn't reality. BKK area has had already a high pollution before the satellite shots. And that's surely not from Cambodia.

Don't deny that the overwhelming pollution is (Thai) home made. 

 

[GeorgeCross]

21 minutes ago, puck2 said:

 

Your view; Cambodia is the main culprit of the "gulf air pollution".

how do you e4xplain this situation  ----->

 

 

err cr@p data?

 

lets look see..

 

i dunno you decide?

 

(windy, airvisual, aqicn.org/forecast/asia)

 

all i know is i'm sitting in it and tracking it every day and we aren't producing it in hua hin (we don't have enough cars or burning fields).

the wind is blowing from the east across the gulf not from bangkok and when that red dot from cambodia hit us our aqi went from 100-180 overnight.

 

 

 

[otherstuff1957]

All of the images here show that this is not just a Bangkok problem.  It affects all of central and northern Thailand.  While exhaust gases are a factor in Bangkok, farmers burning fields are likely the culprits in places like Kanchanaburi, which has just a polluted air as Bangkok!.

[GarryP]

18 minutes ago, otherstuff1957 said:

All of the images here show that this is not just a Bangkok problem.  It affects all of central and northern Thailand.  While exhaust gases are a factor in Bangkok, farmers burning fields are likely the culprits in places like Kanchanaburi, which has just a polluted air as Bangkok!.

And yet the government bangs on about vehicles. This is a national problem and, while for Bangkok vehicles do have a role to play, the chief cause is agricultural burning. 

 

Between 2010 and 2019 the area of land used for growing sugarcane increased by 40 percent (mostly over the past few years). Previous governments pushed many rice farmers to grow sugarcane instead of rice because their land was 'more suitable' for sugarcane (I believe that this was a water issue). However, the area used for growing rice has remained roughly the same. As a result, we have not seen a move from one to the other but rather simply an increase in sugarcane production. As a result, stubble burning has remained stable, while sugarcane burning has increased greatly. I think this means that total burning has increased, but I could be mistaken because surely the government knows best?

 

And for those that say in the case of Bangkok it is about vehicles, as there is no farming being done in Bangkok, studies have shown than PM 2.5 particles can travel as far as 720 km.      

[mike787]

THis may affect tourism.

[ExpatOilWorker]

10 minutes ago, GarryP said:

And yet the government bangs on about vehicles. This is a national problem and, while for Bangkok vehicles do have a role to play, the chief cause is agricultural burning. 

 

Between 2010 and 2019 the area of land used for growing sugarcane increased by 40 percent (mostly over the past few years). Previous governments pushed many rice farmers to grow sugarcane instead of rice because their land was 'more suitable' for sugarcane (I believe that this was a water issue). However, the area used for growing rice has remained roughly the same. As a result, we have not seen a move from one to the other but rather simply an increase in sugarcane production. As a result, stubble burning has remained stable, while sugarcane burning has increased greatly. I think this means that total burning has increased, but I could be mistaken because surely the government knows best?

 

And for those that say in the case of Bangkok it is about vehicles, as there is no farming being done in Bangkok, studies have shown than PM 2.5 particles can travel as far as 720 km.      

The irony is that the sugarcane industry was encouraged by $150 oil in 2008 in order to generate ethanol for the much "greener" gasohol. 

[puck2]

19 minutes ago, GeorgeCross said:

 

err cr@p data?

 

lets look see..

 

i dunno you decide?

 

(windy, airvisual, aqicn.org/forecast/asia)

 

all i know is i'm sitting in it and tracking it every day and we aren't producing it in hua hin (we don't have enough cars or burning fields).

the wind is blowing from the east across the gulf not from bangkok and when that red dot from cambodia hit us our aqi went from 100-180 overnight.

 

 

 

You don't want to lose face.

Logic problem again: your lowest screen shot demonstrates that the Thai pollution in the middle is extremely higher than that in Cambodia. Ah .. your explanation: all smoke from Cambodia flew to Thailand.

 

Give it up: the Thais are the main polluters in their home country.

 

I ask myself why we here in the Mae Hong Son Province do not yet have a remarkable air pollution. You would pretend: the smoke from Cambodia or Myanmar! did not yet arrive, depending on the wind direction.... I would say: extreme burning did not yet start. In different words: Pollution depends on the burning in Thailand.

[crickets]

money talks....fresh air walks

[Skeptic7]

Every cool season the mountains are on fire all around us. The smoke is thick and black ash rains down. Of course all that burning has nothing to do with it! ????