Sunday, August 9, 2009

I Hate Slash And Burn Agriculture

I'm back in Singapore, and when I woke up this morning, everything smelled bad. That's because poor Indonesians are burning up their rainforest for more farmland. The south wind blows the smoke into Singapore. I don't really know what can be done about this -- you hope there'd be some way for a rich country like Singapore to make it worth the Indonesians' while to not burn up their rainforest. And there are some cross-border efforts to deal with this, but the acrid smell this morning was proof that things aren't working out that well. (I'd guess that dysfunctional Indonesian political institutions are part of the problem, but I don't know the situation too well.)

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