Solutions to a hazy problem

We are getting a little reprieve from the full onslaught of the haze problem for the moment. Last week was frightening and if the haze did not subside yesterday, we are in for big trouble when our logistics and great contingency plans failed to react fast enough. A simple thing like 9m masks could not find their way to the people who needed them. They are probably kept in the deep silos or high security bank vaults and no one has the key to open it.

The economic cost of the haze can come into hundreds of millions, or as one analyst guessed, could even hit a billion dollars. And that is not counting the damage to the health of the people, the ecological system and the cost of medicare. And the numbers did not include the cost to our neighbours in the north. The cost to the people in Riau is their own problem and for them to take care of.

Can there be a long term solution to the haze problem? The plantation owners, big and small, are going to clear land as economic growth and making money are the end alls of life. So they will continue to burn, like an annual religious ritual. There is an almost simple and effective solution to this problem, that is to allow them to do as they pleased as it makes economic sense to the companies to do so. For the cost of a match, they could bring down thousands of hectares of vegetation. Why pay for the bull dozers and the manpower to do the hard and expensive way? The hundreds of millions or billions of losses to Singapore and Malaysia are not their concern.

It only takes the Indonesian Govt to decree that burning can only take place in the month of October after the North East monsoon has started. The haze will go to the Indian Ocean instead. How the Riau people going to live with it by being in the centre of the haze is still a problem but not ours to care.

Another way is to pay for the solution. With the damage done to Singapore and the Malaysian economies in the hundreds of millions or billions, it would be pragmatic and economically expedient to pay the companies what they need to clear the land. This could be only a few millions dollars. Why not, it makes economic sense isn’t it? It is a win win solution. The plantation owners got their land cleared and we have clear skies, and the cost is only a fraction of the damage that the plantation owners would have inflicted on us in Singapore and Malaysia.

Yes, it is like paying a ransom to the thugs to leave us alone while they feast on the loot. Isn’t this the thinking of the day, that as long as it makes economic sense, just do it. We gambled by bringing in millions of foreigners just to increase our economic numbers with not a care about the dire consequences now and into the future. We allowed our banking and finance industry to indulge in all kinds of unacceptable high risk ventures for short term profits, employing the crooks from New York, London and Mumbai to run our financial institutions to the ground. Some may not think so as it is still looking like a rosy apple from the outside while the worms are growing within.

The cost of the solution to pay the plantation owners for clean air is nothing. It only costs a few million bucks which is small change really. The pay of a top banker is enough to foot the bill with change to spare.

What do you think? Oops, I know, talk is free and talking nonsense is a good weekend escapee.