Categories
ASEAN Environment

[1145] Of haze in Thailand; bad news for Malaysia

Is there hope for us not to go though the hazy experience we had gone through in the previous years?

I have strong feeling that the answer is unfortunately no. Even if Indonesia rectified the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution, chances are, it would change nothing.

For last few weeks have seen northern Thailand as well as Myanmar and Laos engulfed in haze with level comparable to what had occurred in Southeast Asia last year. It is so bad that emergency has been declared:

CHIANG MAI, Thailand (Reuters) — Thick smoke from forest fires and slash-and-burn farming has spread over northern Thailand in the worst haze in 14 years, disrupting airline flights and irritating eyes and lungs, officials said on Monday.

The smoke from fires in Thailand and neighboring Laos and Myanmar slashed visibility in scores of towns and villages, including the major tourism hub of Chiang Mai. [Thailand haze ‘worst in 14 years’. Reuters via CNN. March 14 2007]

Meanwhile, more than two thousand kilometers south:

The Republic experienced a slightly hazy start to the week, with the overall PSI just falling out of the “good” range.

At 7pm yesterday, the PSI reading went into the “moderate” range for a reading of 52 — the highest level in March. [Singapore not spared from Thailand’s worst haze in 14 years. Today via Channel News Asia. March 20 2007]

I checked the Air Pollution Index at the Malaysian Department of the Environment and found out that for March, the readings for Kuala Lumpur having been hovering between 40 and 60. It seems, a typical day unaffected by haze would read in between 20 and 40.

The haze in Thailand is caused by open burning. Farmers in Myanmar look to clear out their land through the easiest method and that method is open burning; same story, different location.

Some however have blamed it on El Niño:

The average dust particles smaller than 10 microns around Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second-biggest city, are now around 240 micrograms per cubic meter of air, double the 120 micrograms standard, Kasem said.

He blamed the drought on the El Nino weather phenomenon hitting Thailand and neighboring Myanmar and Laos. [Thailand May Declare Emergency in Haze-Hit Northern Provinces. Bloomberg. March 13 2007]

Talking about El Niño, it seems that its effects on Malaysia has been rather mild. Instead of having a hot dry season, it is typical for rain to fall on almost daily basis. Sometimes, it rains so heavily that it floods.

Now, here is the killer: Thailand, Myanmar and Laos are parties to the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution. If Thailand, Myanmar and Laos are parties to the agreement and the parties are doing nothing to fight the haze, I starting to doubt having Indonesia as a party would improve the likelihood of Malaysia seeing a haze-free 2007; I am rethinking the need to encourage Indonesia to ratify the agreement as well.

Categories
Economics

[1144] Of overly concerned with Gini coefficient

I am willing to admit that extreme wealth inequality might be undesirable in building a stable society. Extreme inequality could create unnecessary tension in a society that could in turn bring about disregard for property rights. In spite of that, I am unconcerned with the current state of wealth inequality in Malaysia. Regardless of my take, whenever the Gini coefficient for Malaysia changes by an infinitesimal amount, some would make mountains out of molehills. These people are being overly concerned about inequality. Some wealth inequality is still okay.

Many factors could cause such inequality. From the way I see it, the most common cause is the incentives to be better; the strive to be better. A system that rewards success and punishes failure causes inequality. There is no doubt that some deterministic factors — like being lucky enough to be born into a well off family — play a role but I would like to concentrate on a factor; abilities.

A person’s abilities, controlling for luck, determine how successful the person would be in his life. By successful, I mean wealth accumulation. Inclusion of individual preferences would further excite inequality. On top of that, there are uneven returns across different fields; different occupation offers different returns. For instance, an average teacher would probably earn less than an average engineer despite both are equally able in their respective field, given everything else is the same.

If a person wants a totally egalitarian society in term of wealth, the simplest way to achieve such end is to ensure that everybody has the same abilities, preferences, etc. With exactly similar attributes, the path that everybody follows would be the same; everybody would share successes and failure and hence, being rewarded and punished together. Consequently, everybody’s returns would be exactly the same. Voila! Wealth equality.

If such method is unpalatable because it leads to authoritarianism, the other way is the Robin Hood method: forced wealth redistribution that is ever so popular under welfare state arrangement.

Robin Hood or not, to me, instead of wealth inequality, a more pressing matter is poverty. Instead of forcing those at the top and those down below to converge at an average to achieve better Gini coefficient, I would rather lift the median up; fight poverty through economic growth.

You may ask why poverty is of greater concern than inequality to me?

Well, what is the point of having a Gini coefficient of zero — perfect wealth equality — when all of us earn below a dollar a day?

Equality in poverty is not in my list.

Categories
Humor Science & technology

[1143] Of between communication and food

Q: What would you get if you eat too much BlackBerry?

A: Bluetooth.

Categories
Kitchen sink

[1142] Of Metroblogging Kuala Lumpur is now live

After nearly two months, Metroblogging Kuala Lumpur is now live. We however are still looking for contributors and if you are interested, join us!

Meanwhile, come and celebrate MBKL with us.

Categories
Economics

[1141] Of eeriely familiar rhetoric in Venezuela

In Venezuela, Hugo Chávez the socialist, while going on a fool’s errand:

Mr. Chávez champions these ideas, which will take effect in January, as ways to combat inflation, which in recent weeks crept up to 20 percent, the highest in Latin America. Officials blame ”hoarders” for shortages of basic goods and price increases for food on the black market. Mr. Chávez says the renaming and redenominating the currency will instill confidence in it. [Venezuela to Give Currency New Name and Numbers, NYT, March 18 2007]

Isn’t that familiar?