Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Smogblogging

Here's a picture of the smoky haze that occasionally covers Singapore, coming from Indonesia where rainforest is being chopped down for more agricultural land. The culprits include major palm oil distributors. When this happens, people with respiratory problems (including an older colleague of mine who's kind of stuffed up with a sinus headache) are miserable.
This was taken in the late afternoon yesterday, and we're looking west, so the sun would usually be about at the top of the picture. It would also usually be a seascape including a lovely view of the harbor. (If you click to enlarge and look very closely you can barely see tall crane structures in the distance, above the corner of the balcony.) This wasn't a rainy day or anything -- it's all rainforest destruction smoke.

Thanks to philosophy colleague Weng Hong Tang for taking this photo for me.

1 comment:

Charlene said...

That is amazing. We used to have fifty "air alert" days in Louisville, KY during the summer. Here it was chemical plant venting and automobiles. Then there was the Air Quality laws and this past summer with 80+ 90 degree days we only had 2 air quality days.

I'm not sure what kind of law you'd need to stop burning to clear land there.