Haze Lesson

HAZE has become headline news these days and seem persist for next few days to come. Singapore's known for its geographical location which favor city state to free from natural disaster. This time, lion city cannot escape from haze coming from neighbor country, Indonesia. It started from forest fire and unfortunately wind blew the smoke toward city state. It quietly controlled Singapore's famous skyline and people started to notice on last Monday. Singapore's NEA officials keep busy with reading PSI from hunting stations across the island. Singapore's environmental and foreign ministers keep in touch with their Indonesia counterparts to register Singaporean's serious concern. 

Yesterday was apparent getting some form of recovery after PSI reading hit at 90 by 3:00pm and surrounding are a bit clearer than a day before. It was first time PSI went down below 100 mark which is margin between unhealthy and moderate levels. After seeing a bit recovery in Tuesday, today fresh haze is coming to republic's skylines and PSI reached 170 at 2:00pm. It show the situation worse than previous days and bad for people who inevitably need to go outside for work. Singapore is asking Indonesia to take urgent action and Indonesia is responding by citing the reason which is linked to Malaysia and Singapore's investor's firms who have fired crops to clean for plantation. Blaming each other won't solve the problem and people are vulnerable to hit rock bottom unless both side cooperate effectively to overcome crisis.

The haze has finally shown us that we are living in the same planet and we can't afford to ignore others' activities. I previously thought such haze days are meant for Chinese cities as a result of over industrialization in pursuit of modernization. We cannot afford to take every time and we got to give back somewhat, either direct or indirect means. Singaporean might have thought that they are super clean and green in the region and its people may have proud for their nation. For the time being, we have been victims of environmental damage, regardless of irresponsible investors or fast deforestation or dry season. 

Time to heal our wounded planet.