“Classes are canceled,” Bryan, the Thai-speaking farang conduit through which all communiques from on high were transmitted, declared at the foreign teachers’ office. “Too much smog.”
That was December 2018, the first time I had ever considered schools could be canceled on account of air pollution.
Related: On Thai Medicine (and Science vs. God)
Having recognized its pointlessness in Thailand unless one has a masochistic desire to live out a Kafka novel’s protagonist’s nightmare, I had long before abandoned ever asking — for any reason, whatsoever — why.
So I didn’t.
I took the W and choked on smog — the price of freedom from the office.
Every year — without fail, from roughly December until March — the following melodrama plays itself out in the preeminent Southeast Asian city, as farang (foreign Westerners) look on in bemusement as if Alices in Wonderland, through the looking glass:
· Bangkok air quality, as measured by 2.5pm particulate matter, which is none too clean no matter the time of year anyway, plummets dramatically from baseline and Bangkok regularly cracks the top 10 most polluted cities on Earth due to a variety of factors: the omnipresent industrial and traffic pollution, wind patterns, and ritual rice field burning to the north and beyond Thailand’s borders
· Government appears entirely unprepared for the situation, despite it occurring like clockwork annually
· It devises a series of absurd mitigation strategies, each more ridiculous than the last, involving spraying water from canons mounted on skyscrapers and from drones
· None of this does much of anything except waste money
· Pollution season ends
· Government declares victory and pats itself on the back until next pollution season
· Repeat
Related: Converted Pagan Headhunters and the Shining City on a Hill
Via The Independent (emphasis added):
“Several flights were diverted at Bangkok’s airports this week as the Thai capital continued to battle dangerous levels of air pollution covering the city’s skyline.
Flights were diverted from Bangkok’s Don Mueang International Airport to Suvarnabhumi Airport on Sunday morning, as air pollution in the city reached hazardous levels.
Poor visibility, which dropped to just 150m around 7am, disrupted air traffic at the airport.”
This pollution season, the Thai Prime Minister was kind enough to return from her vacation to Davos, rejuvenated by the fresh mountain air free of poors sucking up precious oxygen and apparently inspired to tackle this crisis that “transcends national borders,” to declare a fatwa on air pollution that may or may not include carbon taxes.
Via Bangkok Post (emphasis added):
“Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra is poised to issue further instructions at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday to combat the haze problem, according to government spokesman Jirayu Houngsub.
The issue of PM2.5 pollution will be the focus of the cabinet meeting after Ms Paetongtarn, upon returning from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, at the weekend, said the escalating pollution crisis transcends national borders.
According to the premier, Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampongsa has been asked to hold talks with Asean to seek regional cooperation to tackle the crisis under existing regional frameworks.”
This is obviously going to end well for all parties involved, and for Thai sovereignty, and for schoolboys’ and schoolgirls’ lungs.
“The voice of god is government
In god we trust sinners repent!”
Ben Bartee is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.
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