A French friend in Bangkok posted a few days ago that he was thankful for the man who invented the air conditioning machine (There is a debate whether in fact it was the American man by the family name of Carrier or not but would not get into that here).
I am thankful too, BTW, and wonder how one could possibly survive the ever-hotter Bangkok’s summer without an aircon. The Meteorological Department said, and Buddha forbid, the temperature rose to 41.1 degrees Celsius on Tuesday, April 30, somewhere in Don Mueang district.
Can’t complain, the record heat went to Lampang province’s Thoen district on April 22 at 44.2 degree Celsius and it is definitely not as dry as in Dubai. The Health Department earlier this week said 38 people have died from heatstroke wave in 2024 so far.
The scorching heat wave in Bangkok must have been so debilitating Al Jazeera called me from Doha, asking for a brief on-air interview three weeks ago only to learn that I was indisposed to their urgent request.
Here in Bangkok, we need to acknowledge that not all can afford to live in an air-conditioned environment or work in an air-conditioned environment. At the same time, those who can afford are in fact generating more heat into the outdoor environment as they turn the aircon on. Cars also generate more heat to the environment as well. There is no control as to the proliferation of air conditioners and cars in Thailand’s sprawling capital city. That, combined with more high-rise condos, means an incrementally hotter summer, a heat island.
Can we put a lid on the number of aircon, car, or high-rise condos, and buildings in hope of reducing the level of heat generated, thus creating an urban heat island effect?
What we can do is to apply heat or environmental tax on aircon and car owners and users, high rise building project owners, and use the money to create and fund pockets of green areas, creating new pocket parks, partly fund larger parks and make Bangkok greener – and less hot.
We can debate about the rate of the heat tax to be slapped on each aircon user per annum, say 100 or 200 baht for a smallest unit, 500 baht per annum for each vehicle owned, but it should be clear now and those who are creating more heat at the expense of the everyone else in the city that they must pay to help make Bangkok greener and less hot.
Greening Bangkok (and hopefully making it less hot, and less PM2.5 micro dust air-polluted particularly during summer) should be a priority task of the Bangkok governor, but he (or she) needs support from the national government as well. BTW, I learned from a reliable source that Governor Chadchart Sittipunt has an outstanding invitation to visit Singapore. Perhaps he should head there soon, spend at least a few days with his team, and learn the ropes on how to make Bangkok decisively greener and less hot – heat wise.
