Agencies responsible for air quality are incompetent – Nida Poll

[FinChin67]

2 minutes ago, Jimbo2014 said:

Now LOS is officially Land of Smog.  They will pay a heavy price in tourism and cleaning up the environment and their short sighted greed will be paid by long term poverty, misery and poor health.  Just a shame the rest of us who chose to call Thailand home are now being dragged into the putrid mire with these incompetent fools.  Diesel cars, crop burning and unregulated factories are the main causes but the insane government cant call out two of those because of it affects their own business interests.  With an unaccountable government interested only in kickbacks on submarines and tanks its unlikely to change soon.

On traveller forums (in Europe) many has written that they go elsewhere and mention pollution & dirty beaches as reason. Main reason still being Thailand getting really expensive and not so friendly but now as environmental movements take hold (some militant and some not) it will drop the visitor numbers. Like in Sweden were people already suffer from shame taking a flight...????

[saengd]

6 minutes ago, Jimbo2014 said:

Now LOS is officially Land of Smog.  They will pay a heavy price in tourism and cleaning up the environment and their short sighted greed will be paid by long term poverty, misery and poor health.  Just a shame the rest of us who chose to call Thailand home are now being dragged into the putrid mire with these incompetent fools.  Diesel cars, crop burning and unregulated factories are the main causes but the insane government cant call out two of those because of it affects their own business interests.  With an unaccountable government interested only in kickbacks on submarines and tanks its unlikely to change soon.

There is no effect on tourism, this has been going on since before you were born, it's only the media that has brought the subject to the fore.

[mickey rat]

Nope, it's not getting better any time soon! We are moving on after nearly 27 years in Thailand. Life wearing a dust mask, air filters for every room and no exercise outside or breathing poison is where we draw the line. The noise, litter, and daily stupidity we could live with. 

[Vacuum]

17 minutes ago, mickey rat said:

The Zombies next door cleaning up their yard are burning garbage! Keeping LOZ clean after all! ???? 

Call the cops...

[MJKT2014]

44 minutes ago, mrfill said:

A westerly would send smoke from Cambodia to Vietnam i.e. the other direction.

What difference does it make whether someone gets their bearings wrong? The smoke is still coming from Cambodia right? It's all over the Nasa satellite images.

[GeorgeCross]

15 minutes ago, stouricks said:

So where does the air to breathe come in? 

 

aircon hepa filters work really well and have a nice side effect of pushing the unfiltered air back out where it came in from albeit very very slowly!

 

 

[Jimbo2014]

13 minutes ago, saengd said:

There is no effect on tourism, this has been going on since before you were born, it's only the media that has brought the subject to the fore.

No my friend.  Firstly Im over 50 years old so unlikely before I was born.  Secondly Ive been in Bangkok for 25 years and I can tell you authoritatively that, while Bangkok air quality has always been bad, its never been this bad and throughout Rural Thailand and Chang Mai.  The pollution levels right accross SE Asia are now off the charts - it is a Smogappocalypse and emergency response is needed.  Tourism will be affected as there are many other options now for tourists and global media is louder

Edited January 20, 2020 by Jimbo2014

[Skallywag]

Burning of sugar can needs to be stopped, alternatives can be profitable once the infrastructure is in place...  Brazil, Hawaii, and Australia are using this "green harvesting" now.  "The Green Protocol is a voluntary agreement established between the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA), the ORPLANA sugarcane planters organization, and the government of state of São Paulo to end the use of burning in sugarcane harvesting. Further, Brazil has become the world’s second largest ethanol producer by using its sugarcane for alternative fuel."

[saengd]

1 minute ago, Jimbo2014 said:

No my friend.  Firstly Im over 50 years old so unlikely before I was born.  Secondly Ive been in Bangkok for 25 years and I can tell you authoritatively that, while Bangkok air quality has always been bad, its never been this bad and throughout Rural Thailand and Chang Mai.  The pollution levels right accross SE Asia are now off the charts - it is a Smogappocalypse and emergency response is needed.

Sure the problem has got worse over the years but you don't think farmers 50 years ago burned their fields, just like today....really, what did they do? And you don't think that all surrounding countries suffered from the same problem and the wind didn't blow the pollution into Thailand....really?

 

BTW I'm 70 years old and I can recall this problem existing in the early 1990's.

[GeorgeCross]

15 minutes ago, Jimbo2014 said:

No my friend.  Firstly Im over 50 years old so unlikely before I was born.  Secondly Ive been in Bangkok for 25 years and I can tell you authoritatively that, while Bangkok air quality has always been bad, its never been this bad and throughout Rural Thailand and Chang Mai.  The pollution levels right accross SE Asia are now off the charts - it is a Smogappocalypse and emergency response is needed.  Tourism will be affected as there are many other options now for tourists and global media is louder

 

agree. when i googled "deforestation rates thailand/cambodia" it was obvious what the problem is - here's a snippet from wikipedia:

 

Quote

Cambodia's primary forest cover fell dramatically from over 70% in 1970 at the end of the Vietnam War to just 3.1% in 2007, when less than 3,220 square kilometers of primary forest remained. Deforestation is proceeding at an alarming rate: nearly 75% of forest loss has occurred since the end of 1990s.

 

and what do they do with most of this newly deforested land? well plant crops all over it and then burn it every year at harvest time.

 

meanwhile in thailand:

 

Quote

forest cover has declined from 53.5% in 1961 to 31.6% in 2014 as a result of population growth, infrastructure development, agricultural expansion, illegal logging and uncontrolled forest fires. On average, the annual deforestation rate was estimated at 0.6% or 140,000 hectares per year, from 1973 to 2014

 

thats why it's getting worse every year. its not rocket science guys

 

 

Edited January 20, 2020 by GeorgeCross

[spidermike007]

Construction sites are a very minor issue. Sugar cane burning is a major issue. Is anything being done about that? Are alternative crops being encouraged? Are alternatives to burning being discussed?

 

What about diesel? Thailand is one of the few nations in the world that is actively promoting the sale of diesel vehicles and trucks. Most other nations have figured out how much of a hazard they are to humans. When they are not maintained properly (how many Thais engage in regular maintenance on their vehicles?) they spew excessive PM 2.5 into the air. 

 

How about converting the diesel power plants to natural gas? What else is being done by this stunningly incompetent administration, and the non visionary leaders within the hapless army? They are literally killing the people with their indifference and lack of planning.

[Xonax]

1 hour ago, saengd said:

Signs have been posted around where we live in CM, no burning from now until end April, penalty THB 25,000/30,000, first time we've seen anything like that.....excellent.

Talk is cheap and so are signs!

[zappalot]

meanwhile, yesterday Jan 20, about 1 km from the runway of bkk suvarnabhumi airport...: 

 

[Fore Man]

1 hour ago, GeorgeCross said:

 

maybe i can help. in my house my Sndway825 is telling me its 45mg inside and 109mg outside with NO air purification and which correlates pretty well with my local station which is less than 2km away:

 

 

this is because the air outside goes up and down on the winds, the air inside stays constant to the last time i aired it out

 

though struggling to find sub 50mg periods to do that now 

 

 

PM2.5 and larger particles can easily enter into a home unless it has been hermetically sealed. Here in Chiang Mai we went as far as to stop using our leaky front door entrance, taping over all the seams abutting the jambs, and started using a side door from the garage. That door led into an anteroom which we could use as a barrier of sorts from the rest of the home. I added flexible silicone strips to the bottom of all doors to seal off that small gap that allowed air to flow into rooms. We taped over all window casings too and I found that these measures did improve our AQ somewhat.  The plain truth is that even after we took the extreme steps as I did, our home still leaks like sieves and the only really useful preventative measure we can take us to run air purifiers 24/7. We added HEPA filters to our ACs or learned how to correctly set our units already equipped with such filters. By doing all these things, the PM2.5 readings in our home were reduced from the 80s+ down to single digits. We employed Xiaomi purifiers, but their displays only show PM2.5 concentrations and not total contaminants in the air. But I can assume that by greatly lowering PM2.5, we are also lowering the total contamination as well.

 

Thailand refuses to get its act together and enforce laws already enacted.  People here will continue to pollute and burn everything they can with no regard for the impact on their own health, much less that of their families, neighbors and fellow citizens. We came to the difficult realization that the only meaningful action we could take was to pack up and leave for a more wholesome place to live.  It is not hard to predict the future for the Thai populace, one in which hundreds of thousands, if not millions, will suffer from lung and heart diseases, early onset of emphysema, cancer and cardiovascular problems. Mortality rates will reflect this extreme shortsightedness of the government and its people to prevent the inevitable tragedy that will befall this kingdom. When you see medical doctors leaving their jobs and take up positions in cleaner locales, then you realize just how bad things are. I bid you all good luck and for those of you who chose to, or are forced by circumstances to stay, I encourage you to take every preventative measure that you can.  If you can leave then do it and don’t procrastinate. Don’t be put off by wearing a mask when nobody else will.  It’s your life and your health at stake.  The Thai government could care less for whatever medical dangers they are forcing on its people and its guests through their ineptitude and apathy. But you can act on your own behalf...and you must. 

Edited January 20, 2020 by Fore Man
Fix typo

[RobbyXNorway]

Too much burning anything in Thailand, for sure. But also in the neighboring countries.

 

But one thing i find hilarious is smokers complaining about the air quality.

[newnative]

2 hours ago, saengd said:

Signs have been posted around where we live in CM, no burning from now until end April, penalty THB 25,000/30,000, first time we've seen anything like that.....excellent.

Pity it's not 'no burning from now until the end of time'.   As always, enforcement is key.  

[Jimbo2014]

27 minutes ago, saengd said:

Sure the problem has got worse over the years but you don't think farmers 50 years ago burned their fields, just like today....really, what did they do? And you don't think that all surrounding countries suffered from the same problem and the wind didn't blow the pollution into Thailand....really?

 

BTW I'm 70 years old and I can recall this problem existing in the early 1990's.

Agreed but its scale now

[hotchilli]

5 hours ago, webfact said:

Most of the respondents to a recent opinion poll accuse government agencies of incompetence and complacence in the handling of air pollution in Bangkok.

Incompetent, complacent, but firmly entrenched and taking a nice salary.

[maddermax]

There are many contributors to the smog. At this time of year the farmers are burning their waste from the crops. It's a case of re-education and innovative funding. By giving them nitrates and teaching them how to turn their dead greenery into compost they can fertilize their fields to produce more.

In the case of burning hydrocarbons EGAT are improving their performance in this respect by burning LNG instead of oil. However, they are still burning coal up in the north.

Then we come to diesel vehicles. This is a case of a lack of enforcement by the police and authorities.

Of course, renewables are the answer, ie, wind and solar power. Those of us who have solar panels are horrified by the PEA policy relating to private homes having solar panels. One would have expected them to allow us to generate as much power as possible and pay us for the excess returned to the grid. Firstly the rate paid for our excess power is only Baht 1.68 against the Bahe 4.08 charged. Unfortunately, what they do is charge us for all we use in our home then pay us at the lower rate for the energy we generate. Not fair and does not stimulate domestic householders to register for their scheme.

[ThailandRyan]

Yesterday, here in Nonthaburi near the Ministry of Public Health the air was horrible.  I took a short walk around the park on the Monistries grounds and what did I see but burn piles of leaves being burned, which just adds more to the poor air quality.  Off course who would have thought that the Government Compound responsible for one's health would be making it worse... go figure....Thainess strikes again.

[4MyEgo]

1 hour ago, mrfill said:

A westerly would send smoke from Cambodia to Vietnam i.e. the other direction.

From where I am sitting, Cambodia is located in the southwestern section of the Indo-Chinese Peninsula in South East Asia. It is bound by Thailand to the northwest and west, therefore if a westerly was blowing it would be sending it to Thailand.

 

Maybe I am looking at the map wrongly, but it does appear to be west of Thailand.

[johng]

5 minutes ago, ThailandRyan said:

on the Monistries grounds

More monastery burning here.

[saengd]

6 minutes ago, 4MyEgo said:

From where I am sitting, Cambodia is located in the southwestern section of the Indo-Chinese Peninsula in South East Asia. It is bound by Thailand to the northwest and west, therefore if a westerly was blowing it would be sending it to Thailand.

 

Maybe I am looking at the map wrongly, but it does appear to be west of Thailand.

The other way around, a Westerly wind would send smoke from Thailand into Cambodia. The South West monsoon is what triggers the monsoons in Thailand, those winds come from the Bay of Bangladesh, over Myanmar and into Thailand.

[outsider]

5 hours ago, webfact said:

Most of the respondents to a recent opinion poll accuse government agencies of incompetence and complacence...

 

The sentence should just end at 'complacence'. Then it makes perfect sense for everything. Everything.

[Fore Man]

Just now, saengd said:

The other way around, a Westerly wind would send smoke from Thailand into Cambodia. The South West monsoon is what triggers the monsoons in Thailand, those winds come from the Bay of Bangladesh, over Myanmar and into Thailand.

To embellish...when describing a wind, the cardinal direction used refers to the direction an air current is moving from...it’s source...not the direction of its flow. 

[Srikcir]

5 hours ago, webfact said:

accuse government agencies of incompetence and complacence in the handling of air pollution in Bangkok

Look at their solutions:

Water spraying drones https://qz.com/1531305/thailand-fights-bangkok-air-pollution-with-water-spraying-drones/

Water Canons

GIANT air purifier

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmVMvXiy8SQ

Just a hopeless approach to what requires methodical scientific and nationally integrated solutions already implemented by developed countries. Pollution has no nationality!

[Exilerunner]

I can only sign what @Fore Man here already detailed. Having a PhD and coming 5 years ago, I heard of pollution in Shanghai with AQI of 500 back then (they are now on par with us in BKK because they tackled it) but I did not think in my wildest dreams that I have to deal with that in Thailand. Until I did wake up to bad coughs in the middle of the night and by accident read in the news about the pollution. Started wearing the mask last winter and for this winter I taped our entire room and got a Xiaomi air purifier MI2s for 3500 THB. Ok now but feel bad for Thai people on the street ....

[AlQaholic]

NASA's fire map as of today.  

https://firms2.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/#z:6;c:102.5,14.9;d:2020-01-19..2020-01-20

same same every year. Just this year the absence of winds make it worse, especially for BKK.

 

[brian2f2f]

2 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I bet there was also enforcement of those laws involved.

Thailand has already lots of laws but little enforcement. 

What enforcement?

[AlQaholic]

Let's contrast that to Australia.....