Where is the haze and when and why?
My family has been experiencing haze in Singapore. I have cancelled my daily swim and I will tell you my other expeiences in a moment. But you will be wondering which countries are affected and how this affects your business and holiday plans.
Haze in KL, Malaysia.
Haze over the Merlion, symbol of Singapore. Picture from Wikipedia article on haze.
This is a neat summary by Wikipedia.
Yellow dust has also affected Beijing in China, and Korea, but that's another problem, an extra problem. Meanwhile, in Asia we have haze.Who cares if you are not in Asia? Well, there are lessons to learn for the USA and Europe, your overseas colleagues could be affected, and your investments may be affected.
Haze All Over Asia
The haze is bad for business. It doesn't just affect the children, the elderly, the pregnant, the nervous.
Flag of Singapore
Flights
First, the haze can affect flights. You can't land a plane if you cannot see. You cannot fly across the city.
Flag of the USA
As I discovered on the day of 9/11, if the flights in one part of the world are affected, there's a knock on effect in other parts of the world. Planes are turned back or don't set off. People miss their connections and half empty flight are cancelled. The plane from one continent does not arrive so the ongoing section is also affected. A delay in take off means the pilots and crew are over their permitted time and the plane has to wait for another crew to bbe assembled.
Road Transport
Increase in road accidents. Cars run into each other. Poeple try to tailgate and hit the car in front which slows or stops when visibility ceases, causing accidents.
Your air crew may be in airport hotels, and so may the passengers. But if some of them are in the city and cannot get to the plane that causes problems.
Different countries have different solutions. Take India, for example.
Flag of India
Indian Car Pollution Solution
Cars in cause pollution. So oen measure has been to allow cars to operate on alternating days according to the numberplate, odd numbers one day, even numbers the next.
Car Sharing
So if you and your enighbour have cars which fall into different categories, on odd number days you share one car, on even number days, you share the other.This works if you don't have more than half the seats filled by one family.
Pedestrians and Cyclists
I am planning a trip to a company in Singapore. That involves a walk from the station. But we are told not to go outdoors. Sports are cancelled. Construction workers are recalled. The security on the gate.
Zoos
The staff in the Safari park. The animals in the zoo are inside.
Symptoms
What are the symptoms of the haze? I keep clearing my throat, as if I have a sore throat or bad cold starting. My eyes look bloodshot. I keep coughing.
My eyes feel prickly.
Business Meetings
So, I don't want to walk to my business meeting. What are the alternatives? I could take a bus. But that involves sitting out in the open air waiting for the bus if the bus is not frequent.
Offering Lifts
I might get a lift back to the station. I might not.
Taxis And Costs
What about the cost of the taxi? There and back. Twice a day for a week, or more. 28 trips averaging 10 dollars. What if the other person cancels? Waiting for the taxi at the pick-up point exposes me to the air.
Schools Closed
Schools are closed. That means parents have to stay home to look after their children. Shops and services and businesses are closed.
Sports
The swimming pool lessons are cancelled. The golf tournaments.
Restaurants
Restaurants with outdoor seating are losing half their business.
Waiting For Your Driver
I could call a grab or taxi. Both ways if I do not get a lift home. The person kindly offering me a lift wants me to wait at the pick up point outside the station. But that involved standing by traffic fumes and breathing in the haze. I have to arrive early to be sure not to miss the driver.
Motorcycling
Motorcyclists are affected. You could cancel your outing and your trip to the outdoor restaurant. Order food delivered. But the Domonis pizzza and McDonalds delveries and Deliveroo might cancel delivered to protect the health of their drivers.
Social Engagements Cancelled
My Singaporean friend Shan (ethnic Chinese, speaking Mandarin friend who married a men from Australasia, has a second home in Australia. She decided to fly back to Australia last time there was a haze. So her lunch with me was cancelled. I started to feel like the last rat on a sinking ship.
Buying Property
Singaporeans keep telling me to sell my home in the UK and buy in Singapore. If I sell up in the UK I have nowhere to go back to. I am having second thoughts. Will I really want to reture to Asia and the haze when the haze is bad for the elderly?
Wind Direction
The wind blows away the haze. Relief. Then the wind changes.
Where Is the Fire?
Fires are in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Flag of Malaysia
Talks are taking place about fines or punishments for those who are residents of one country, running businesses in another. Instead of waiting for Indonesia to fine the subsidiary company in in Indonesia, fining the main company in Malaysia or Singapore, and vice versa. If it costs only 40 dollars (per foot, per acre or whatever. to clear land by fire, but to clear by other conventional means costs 400, a business is tempted to take the cost effective route. If the government fines so that the balance is changed, or puts poeple in prison, or takes other measures, that might affect the matter.
Who is paying for the preventive measures? It costs money to send out planes, drop water, deploy the army. Add the cost to the emergency services, sending the firefighters, compensating firefighters who lost their lives, ambulances, hospital staff.
Farmers have lost lives trying to protect their crops and cattle.
Shutting Windows
In Singapore we are looking at windows. The open air scullery areas. The maids walking the dog and cleaning the car in the open sided car parks.
Wearing Masks
The number of people wearing masks is increasing. The people across from you on the train are wearing masks.
Masks
Buying Masks
You can buy masks from pharmacies but when there's a spike in the haze the masks run out. Some masks are only effective a few hours.
Masks are unfomfortable to wear.
Before buying a mask check the different kinds. Dust marks are not the same as haze masks.
Tourism Affected
Do you enjoy tourism when there's a haze. Even if you were not worried about your health, the safari park is shut. The walk to the Gardens By The Bay from the MRT means you might take a taxi instead. The cheaper hawker centre, the outdoor food court, will be deserted and closed.
Coffee Shops and Fast Food
The outdoor areas of McDonalds and Starbucks are empty.
Photographs
The picture of the Taj Mahal or another pretty building, the mosque in Malaysia, all shrouded in mist, or against a white sky instead of blue. The 'ordinary' buildings, the skyscrapers, are against a white sky.
Windows and Fans
I wake to feel groggy. The air is stifling. What is wrong. The patio doors to the balcony have only a little gap for air. I close them. The bathroom air is bad. The high window by the shower is adjar, always. I must clea a path to all doors and windows to clear them in a hurry. We used to leave open the doors and windows to create a through breeze and save the cost of air conditioning.
What I Cancel
If a meeting is held in the outdoor void deck of a Community Center, I won't stay. If the get together after the meeting is at an outdoor hawker center (food court) I won't go.
Tip
Look for free masks given away free at hospitals and clinics.
Useful Websites
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Dust
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeast_Asian_haze
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
My family has been experiencing haze in Singapore. I have cancelled my daily swim and I will tell you my other expeiences in a moment. But you will be wondering which countries are affected and how this affects your business and holiday plans.
Haze in KL, Malaysia.
Haze over the Merlion, symbol of Singapore. Picture from Wikipedia article on haze.
This is a neat summary by Wikipedia.
The 2019 Southeast Asian haze is an ongoing trans-national air pollution crisis which affects several countries in Southeast Asia, including Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
Thailand began to experience haze in February 2019 until mid May 2019, peaking in March and April. Later in the year, starting from June-July 2019, Indonesia began to experience haze. Malaysia was affected from August 2019, while Singapore and Brunei experienced haze in September 2019.
It is the latest occurrence of the Southeast Asian haze, a long-term issue that occurs in varying intensity during every dry season in the region. It has mainly been caused by forest fires resulting from illegal slash-and-burn practices, principally on the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan,
Flag of China
Yellow Dust, China and KoreaYellow dust has also affected Beijing in China, and Korea, but that's another problem, an extra problem. Meanwhile, in Asia we have haze.Who cares if you are not in Asia? Well, there are lessons to learn for the USA and Europe, your overseas colleagues could be affected, and your investments may be affected.
Haze All Over Asia
The haze is bad for business. It doesn't just affect the children, the elderly, the pregnant, the nervous.
Flights
First, the haze can affect flights. You can't land a plane if you cannot see. You cannot fly across the city.
Flag of the USA
As I discovered on the day of 9/11, if the flights in one part of the world are affected, there's a knock on effect in other parts of the world. Planes are turned back or don't set off. People miss their connections and half empty flight are cancelled. The plane from one continent does not arrive so the ongoing section is also affected. A delay in take off means the pilots and crew are over their permitted time and the plane has to wait for another crew to bbe assembled.
Road Transport
Increase in road accidents. Cars run into each other. Poeple try to tailgate and hit the car in front which slows or stops when visibility ceases, causing accidents.
Your air crew may be in airport hotels, and so may the passengers. But if some of them are in the city and cannot get to the plane that causes problems.
Different countries have different solutions. Take India, for example.
Indian Car Pollution Solution
Cars in cause pollution. So oen measure has been to allow cars to operate on alternating days according to the numberplate, odd numbers one day, even numbers the next.
Car Sharing
So if you and your enighbour have cars which fall into different categories, on odd number days you share one car, on even number days, you share the other.This works if you don't have more than half the seats filled by one family.
Pedestrians and Cyclists
I am planning a trip to a company in Singapore. That involves a walk from the station. But we are told not to go outdoors. Sports are cancelled. Construction workers are recalled. The security on the gate.
Zoos
The staff in the Safari park. The animals in the zoo are inside.
Symptoms
What are the symptoms of the haze? I keep clearing my throat, as if I have a sore throat or bad cold starting. My eyes look bloodshot. I keep coughing.
My eyes feel prickly.
Business Meetings
So, I don't want to walk to my business meeting. What are the alternatives? I could take a bus. But that involves sitting out in the open air waiting for the bus if the bus is not frequent.
Offering Lifts
I might get a lift back to the station. I might not.
Taxis And Costs
What about the cost of the taxi? There and back. Twice a day for a week, or more. 28 trips averaging 10 dollars. What if the other person cancels? Waiting for the taxi at the pick-up point exposes me to the air.
Schools Closed
Schools are closed. That means parents have to stay home to look after their children. Shops and services and businesses are closed.
Sports
The swimming pool lessons are cancelled. The golf tournaments.
Swimming pool in Singapore.
Restaurants
Restaurants with outdoor seating are losing half their business.
Waiting For Your Driver
I could call a grab or taxi. Both ways if I do not get a lift home. The person kindly offering me a lift wants me to wait at the pick up point outside the station. But that involved standing by traffic fumes and breathing in the haze. I have to arrive early to be sure not to miss the driver.
Motorcycling
Motorcyclists are affected. You could cancel your outing and your trip to the outdoor restaurant. Order food delivered. But the Domonis pizzza and McDonalds delveries and Deliveroo might cancel delivered to protect the health of their drivers.
Social Engagements Cancelled
My Singaporean friend Shan (ethnic Chinese, speaking Mandarin friend who married a men from Australasia, has a second home in Australia. She decided to fly back to Australia last time there was a haze. So her lunch with me was cancelled. I started to feel like the last rat on a sinking ship.
Buying Property
Singaporeans keep telling me to sell my home in the UK and buy in Singapore. If I sell up in the UK I have nowhere to go back to. I am having second thoughts. Will I really want to reture to Asia and the haze when the haze is bad for the elderly?
Wind Direction
The wind blows away the haze. Relief. Then the wind changes.
Where Is the Fire?
Fires are in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Flag of MalaysiaTalks are taking place about fines or punishments for those who are residents of one country, running businesses in another. Instead of waiting for Indonesia to fine the subsidiary company in in Indonesia, fining the main company in Malaysia or Singapore, and vice versa. If it costs only 40 dollars (per foot, per acre or whatever. to clear land by fire, but to clear by other conventional means costs 400, a business is tempted to take the cost effective route. If the government fines so that the balance is changed, or puts poeple in prison, or takes other measures, that might affect the matter.
Who is paying for the preventive measures? It costs money to send out planes, drop water, deploy the army. Add the cost to the emergency services, sending the firefighters, compensating firefighters who lost their lives, ambulances, hospital staff.
Farmers have lost lives trying to protect their crops and cattle.
Shutting Windows
In Singapore we are looking at windows. The open air scullery areas. The maids walking the dog and cleaning the car in the open sided car parks.
Wearing Masks
The number of people wearing masks is increasing. The people across from you on the train are wearing masks.
Masks
Buying Masks
You can buy masks from pharmacies but when there's a spike in the haze the masks run out. Some masks are only effective a few hours.
Masks are unfomfortable to wear.
Before buying a mask check the different kinds. Dust marks are not the same as haze masks.
Tourism Affected
Do you enjoy tourism when there's a haze. Even if you were not worried about your health, the safari park is shut. The walk to the Gardens By The Bay from the MRT means you might take a taxi instead. The cheaper hawker centre, the outdoor food court, will be deserted and closed.
Coffee Shops and Fast Food
The outdoor areas of McDonalds and Starbucks are empty.
Photographs
The picture of the Taj Mahal or another pretty building, the mosque in Malaysia, all shrouded in mist, or against a white sky instead of blue. The 'ordinary' buildings, the skyscrapers, are against a white sky.
Windows and Fans
I wake to feel groggy. The air is stifling. What is wrong. The patio doors to the balcony have only a little gap for air. I close them. The bathroom air is bad. The high window by the shower is adjar, always. I must clea a path to all doors and windows to clear them in a hurry. We used to leave open the doors and windows to create a through breeze and save the cost of air conditioning.
What I Cancel
If a meeting is held in the outdoor void deck of a Community Center, I won't stay. If the get together after the meeting is at an outdoor hawker center (food court) I won't go.
Tip
Look for free masks given away free at hospitals and clinics.
Useful Websites
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Dust
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeast_Asian_haze
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
