Torpedoes useless in battle against annual smog
So the perennial burning season has started! No doubt there will be the usual rash of “why can’t something be done about it” letters complaining about the black ash that falls from the sky and covers people and property, about an increase in respiratory problems and about hospitals that try to cope with them.
Every year the problem is the same, as is the effort to control it – which amounts to nothing. The slash-and-burn hill farmers will be blamed once again and the main culprits, the big agro-giants, might possibly get a slap on the wrist. But it is rather like the government’s plan to reduce van accidents by controlling vans rather than the drivers – attempting to solve the problem by concentrating on the symptoms rather than the causes.
Leaving aside the agro-giants, who could do with an Article 44 reining-in, the symptoms of the January-February air pollution are easy to understand: surplus rice straw, sugar cane, potato haulms and corn stalks after the harvest. What to do with it all? There is too much to plough back in without mulching it – and there are no mulching machines. Baling the straw is okay if you need the straw and can find a baler. Burning is easy, costs nothing and the average farmer is unlikely to lose much sleep over the resulting air pollution. His choice is an easy one.
Those in government who live in Bangkok are, for the most part, unaffected by the problem, so they’re also unlikely to lose sleep. Their choice therefore as to whether to do something is equally easy: in time-honoured fashion, ignore the problem and it will go away – until this time next year. One can’t help thinking that a fraction of the money spent on one Chinese submarine could provide sufficient mulchers and balers to go a long way towards seriously reducing the perennial smog in the Kingdom. But then I always was a dreamer!
Johnny Thoyts
Korat
