View: Haze caused simply by greed

Monday August 10, 2009

I REFER to "Malaysia hopes Riau projects will tackle haze" (The Star, Aug 8).

I think the haze problem has gone beyond the "hope" and the "pilot projects" stage. Most Malaysians have become very impatient with haze, and I believe nothing more than immediate action and solutions will satisfy them.

We must begin with the right premise if we want to solve the problem. Haze is not caused by a natural phenomenon. So stop thinking that haze is caused by forest fires that start "naturally" during the drought season.

Haze is caused by greed, pure and simple. Any other arguments would be a fallacy aimed at truncating the demand of citizens to have a pleasant living environment.

How does greed work? Simple, it is called privatising profits and socialising costs.

When polluters burn forests to clear lands for plantations, when factories and businesses emit excessive filth and dirt into the atmosphere and when vehicles billow thick dark smoke, the aim is to save cost (by not adhering to pollution controlling devices) at the expense of the public.

Please don't expect them to self-regulate and do the "right" thing. Human greed would have prevented them from doing so.

This is where the Government comes in. The Government must firstly have the right regulations and, secondly, enforce the regulations relentlessly.

If it involves trans-border pollution, the countries must talk and apply pressure and sanctions. The problem is each country in Asean is probably a culprit itself. We lose the moral high ground when our own backyard is full of filth.

Economic growth and wealth creation have taken complete precedence over other aspects of human welfare.

We all know it is wrong, but the economic system and the market mechanism we practise today can never make it right. Transparent and corruption-free state intervention is a must. Polluters must pay the equivalent of the damage caused.

For A(H1N1), each of us can exercise some preventive control.

For haze, there is nothing an individual can do. But do we need to wait for someone to die of haze before the authorities are prompted into action?

T.K. CHUA,

Kuala Lumpur.

This article was taken from: The Star Online: News:Opinion 10 August 2009