A Bangkok school, Pramochwithaya Ramintra School, putting up a banner urging drivers to drive slowly around the site earlier this week in hope of having less PM2.5 kicking back up into the air from the road was indeed a desperate act of individuals handling the hazardous air pollution that both the local and national government have failed to eliminate over the years.
Better off Thais can buy more and more expensive air purifiers to save themselves from the worst. Some who can afford temporarily fled the capital to places with cleaner air in Thailand or even abroad. Bangkok governor Chadchart Sittipunt’s suggestion that people work from home is not really solving the problem at all, it is merely an act of dodging the problem for a few days.
The national government, led by PM Srettha Thavisin, said the matter is a national agenda but while Bangkokians and Thais in the provinces constituting half of the country suffer from having to breath the harmful air over the past week, Srettha was “lucky” to be on an official visit to Japan where the air quality is far cleaner and safer.
Factors preventing PM2.5 micro-dust particles from being eradicated are numerous. Is the government committed to alienating some giant agricultural businesses involved in mass plantations of plants used as animal feed only to see the agricultural waste burned as the cheapest and irresponsible way of doing business – both in Thailand and in some neighboring countries up north?
The same can be asked but sugarcane plantations and farmers. Can the government punish them, if not offer an incentive to these farmers and businesses so they do not need to create perennial annual air pollution?
How about pushing harder to phase out outdated public buses belching more micro-dust particles? On the other hand, Bangkok Metropolitan Administration can plant more trees and find space for more public parks and pocket parks, but we are not seeing much being done by Chadchart.
Thus, Bangkokians and other Thais are now in a reactive mode and try to find their own personal solution like the school in Bang Khen district of Bangkok, or families buy more expensive air purifiers. They basically have lost faith in the government’s ability or will to solve the problem.
(Last month, speaking at a French Embassy-organized event on tackling air pollution, at the Alliance Française, Chadchart admitted he has been unable to solve the PM2.5 air problem. And there was no apology. It was a statement all too apparent for us to see when we look up at the grey sky.)
No wonder today’s poll release by Dusit Poll revealed that 74.53 percent of respondents said they think the government cannot solve the problem. The government, both local and national, hopes rain or wind will save them, or they hope they can put up with criticism for the next two or three months and people will simply stop complaining as the cool and dry season ends.
On the part of civil society, there is no permanent movement or lobby group to demand accountability from the government. Having one might be a good start. Some of us also think PM2.5 micro-dust particles would not kill most of us right away, although the health impact, especially on the infirm is enormous.
From January to March this year, the Public Health Ministry said 1.3 million people in Thailand suffered from air-pollution related illness.
