Stop whining, Singaporean cry babies!

WHILE Singaporeans continue to gag and choke on clouds of acrid smoke billowing from Sumatra, Indonesia minister Agung Laksono’s helpful advice is, in effect, ‘shut up and grow a pair’.

“Singapore should not be behaving like a child and making all this noise,” the minister coordinating Indonesia’s response, told reporters. “This is not what the Indonesian nation wants, it is because of nature.”

By ‘nature’ I can only assume he means the wood of the matchstick which sparks the flames igniting the diesel poured over forests to cheaply clear them for more palm oil plantations – to better line pockets all the way up the food chain.

Quit whining – AP photo

While Laksono was tutting,Singapore’s air pollution index hit a new record high, soaring to 401 by Friday lunchtime. Any reading above 300 is “hazardous” while a reading above 400 is deemed “life-threatening to ill and elderly people,” according to NEA guidelines.

But sssssshhhhhh, don’t make a fuss, right Laksono?

Some outdoor leaving drinks I’ve planned for tonight may now be less festive than they could have been, I guess… Perhaps I should theme them an Apocalypse Party.

DRESS CODE FOR DRINKS

And here’s what it looks like.

Things NOBODY would miss #15

AND SO Singapore suffocates under a pernicious yellow cloud of choking smog.

Created by illegal land clearance forest fires in Indonesia, the “haze” drifts from Sumatra across the Malacca Strait, creating the city-state’s worst pollution crisis in more than a decade.

Asthmatics fight for breath; pedestrians walk the streets coughing into face masks; schoolchildren peer from their classrooms at lunchtime, all outdoor playtime cancelled.

An elderly man dons facemask to get his daily exercise in Singapore on Wednesday, while the sun struggles to burn through the acrid haze.

End-of-term parties are being scrapped by the hour. Ben and Jasper’s year-end sports days, and many other galas like them, have been called off, or reduced to hit-and-giggle affairs inside air-conditioned sports halls — small consolation for many, like Jasper, who had been expected to break his school’s record for the 600 metres in his age-group this week.

The air is thick and acrid, even indoors, and many are choosing to stay off the streets all together if they can.

No wonder.

The National Environment Agency has advised Singaporeans, especially the elderly, children and people with respiratory problems, to avoid prolonged exposure outdoors. The pollution index on Wednesday recorded its worst figures since 1997 – a year which, officials estimate, cost the region some $9bn in economic losses.

All this, simply to line the pockets of a handful of landowners, clearing forest for palm plantations.

The sooner the wind of change blows through Southeast Asia with regard to illegal fires, the better.

I’m very sad to be leaving this wonderfully vibrant, fast-evolving republic – but things like this do make it a lot easier.

Things we won’t miss #2

The stinking, choking haze with from time to time shrouds Singapore.
NASA’s near real-time Global Fire Map shows us why. Terima kasih, Indonesia…

NASA’s global fire map shows the reason for the haze shrouding Singapore