By Nachel Suwansathien– Fridays for Future, International and Fridays for Future Newsletter Contributor
You peer through the pane of a closed window and place your hand upon the glass. The blazing sun outside seems to scorch the earth, but all you feel is a gentle warmth against your palm. Outside, everything is gray. This is the driest season of the year, and anything that was once green has by now drooped and withered. Heavy, choking smog blankets the world, and everything seems to become one concrete-colored urban landscape. Even the sky is reduced to dreary gray, with touches of blue occasionally emerging. It is unlikely to be truly blue again for several months, until the seasonal rain breaks. You step outside, fumbling to get your N95 mask into position. On the worst of days, a single breath without the protection of an adequate mask is enough to leave your nose and lungs burning. Turning west, you search the skyline, as has become your habit, for some sight of the familiar, majestic, gargantuan mountain that frames your city. However, just as it has been for the past weeks, it is simply gone, as though a magician has waved their wand and eerily conjured it out of existence, with not even a shadow or a silhouette to indicate that it ever even existed.
Everything looks almost …
Apocalyptic.
This may sound rather melodramatic to you, but this is the daily reality here in Chiang Mai, Thailand, during the annual, approximately four-month-long “smoky season.” If you look up Chiang Mai, you are likely to see something about the smoke season pop up. We are rather notorious for it, you see. The burning itself stems from a wide variety of factors, ranging from geographical and meteorological ones to long-standing local traditions, corruption, agri-business corporate giants, and poverty — plus the repercussions of the climate crisis and the seasonal burning in neighboring countries. No one can seem to agree on what the exact cause of all the burning is, probably because of how extraordinarily complex the whole issue is. To list all of the contributing factors would be nearly impossible — not least because most of them are interrelated and amplify and exacerbate one another.
Many people blame the villagers for the smoke season. And, it is true, they perform much of the burning, often high up in the mountains. However, the conclusion, which the media frequently advances, that the smoke is all their fault is overly simplistic and conveniently takes the focus away from why they burn. The villagers themselves claim that they burn in order to cut the costs of growing and harvesting the crops and mushrooms off of which they make their living.
The reality is that the entire system we exist in facilitates this crisis. So, by extension, we are all in some way responsible. As an article by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) put it:
“In recent decades, consolidation in the industry has intensified as agriculture has undergone what is known as “vertical integration,” a transition from small, diverse farms producing a variety of crops and livestock to an industrialized system dominated by big multinational corporations. These corporations reap the benefits while farmers, growers and their workers see their profits evaporate, even as the health burdens of industrial practices increase.”
Although this quotation refers specifically to a United States context, the same issue consistently plagues industrial agriculture systems around the world. That same article cites water pollution, antibiotic resistance, and air pollution as some of the major effects of industrial agriculture.
Here in Northern Thailand, the air pollution is taken to another level. As demand for cheap meat rises, and the need for animal feed increases in turn, the lack of government subsidies forces every part of the industrial agriculture system to cut costs. For example, corn farmers resort to using fire to clear out forests and to incinerate the considerable biomass left after harvest periods. They are often consequently arrested and incarcerated due to policies, which are frequently misapplied and ineffectual, designed to halt burning. And yet, as soon as they are released, the villagers see no choice but to continue burning — for the simple reason that their livelihoods depend on it. Even so, the profit they make is never enough for them to escape poverty.
It doesn’t end there. As previously mentioned, there are many facets to the burning issue. A significant one is the lack of any effort to implement alternative solutions. Even before the days of widespread industrial agri-business, the villagers always burned, whether to incinerate garbage, to clear out fields post-harvest, or to prompt the growth of expensive mushrooms. Chiang Mai has long experienced a period of heavy air pollution after harvest season during the hottest month of the year, though the burning season has never been as long or as severe as in recent years. Seasonal burning has been a part of the locals’ way of life for centuries — and to convince them simply to stop and drastically change their ways without offering an alternative will not work.
Moreover, the smoky season reveals how animal agriculture, which annually emits huge quantities of carbon dioxide, contributes significantly to the climate crisis. As an article published by the Thaiger asserts:
“… Chiang Mai stands out as an example of how animal agriculture is a major and often overlooked part of the climate crisis. While coal burning and gas-guzzling automobiles tend to get the most attention in the climate change debate, food production is a massive contributor to the problem.”
To spell it out: the system of industrial agriculture is largely responsible for the pollution caused by the smoke season. As such, agri-business contributes to the climate crisis, which in turn exacerbates drought and leads to hotter, dryer summers. This kind of environment produces more frequent and fiercer wildfires, which in turn generate more smoke. It is a vicious cycle with no resolution in sight.
The smoke season of Northern Thailand is a case in point, a small-scale representation of the complexities and gravity of the climate crisis. The climate crisis is not merely rising temperatures, but the consequence of a catastrophic system enabled by the consumerist, unsustainable lifestyles many of us practice. It is a representation of how, sometimes, the simplest answer does not tell the whole story, that narratives can be manipulated. There is always more to the story, another perspective to consider.
To solve a problem, we must first understand it. And we will never truly address a crisis if we have heard only half the story.
Resources
โจน จันใด ชีวิตง่ายๆ. (2020, March 19). ควัน [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkGnvsKDNmQ
Newton, T. (2021, March 21). Bangkok fiddles whilst Chiang Mai burns – who’s behind the annual smoke season? Thaiger. https://thethaiger.com/news/opinion/bangkok-fiddles-whilst-chiang-mai-burns-whos-behind-the-annual-smoke-season
Kemasingki, P. (2020, March 26). Doi Suthep burning bright: What’s being done? Why is it happening? Chiang Mai Citylife. https://www.chiangmaicitylife.com/clg/our-city/environment/doi-suthep-burning-bright-whats-being-done-why-is-it-happening/
Yee, T. H. (2016, March 21). Chiang Mai’s headache: Corn-fed smoke haze. The Straits Times. https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/chiang-mais-headache-corn-fed-smoke-haze
Boyle, G. (2021, March 21). Holding those behind the haze to account. Bangkok Post. https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/special-reports/2087139/holding-those-behind-the-haze-to-account
Kemasingki, P. (2020, February 6). Clean Air for Everyone? Chiang Mai Citylife. https://www.chiangmaicitylife.com/clg/our-city/environment/clean-air-for-everyone/
Fronde, N. (2021, April 23). Biochar could solve smoke pollution problem in Chiang Mai. Thaiger. https://thethaiger.com/news/national/biochar-could-solve-smoke-pollution-problem-in-chiang-mai
Shafer, M. (2019, May 17). Do something, damn it! Chiang Mai Citylife. https://www.chiangmaicitylife.com/clg/our-city/environment/do-something-damn-it/
Kendall, D. (2021, April 22). Feeding the beast: Chiang Mai smoke seen as world’s climate change problem. Bangkok Post. https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/special-reports/2103535/feeding-the-beast-chiang-mai-smoke-seen-as-worlds-climate-change-problem
Boyle, G. (2021, March 21). Chiang Mai to host fundraiser to ‘stop the smoke’. Bangkok Post. https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2091887/chiang-mai-to-host-fundraiser-to-stop-the-smoke
NRDC. (2020, January 31). Industrial Agriculture 101. https://www.nrdc.org/stories/industrial-agriculture-101
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