Monday, September 14, 2015

It's that hazy time again.

Driving over the hill from Georgetown to Balik Pulau yesterday with my nephew and his family was like driving in the misty mountains of a Japanese countryside. The illusion made more real by the cool air conditioner inside the car as a drizzling rain outside. In actuality the weather outside was hot and humid with a thick soupy layer of haze that has been hitting the island mercilessly for the past week or so. Yes the haze is back and with a vengeance spreading its smog-like blanket all over the island and in some places one can hardly see the landscape and the best place to be naturally is indoors where there is good air conditioning and do what one is best at under these circumstances; read good novel, work on some sketches, catch up on your watercolors or if you are lucky make love to your partner.
What can you say of haze as it has become an annual event where the forests in Sumatra are being slashed and burnt to make way for plantations especially palm oil. If you look into the matter n no doubt you will find a Malaysian company or two involved in the whole affair. It would be like spitting up at the clouds having it fall right back on to your own face. There is no more sense in complaining as it falls on deaf ears and there is no sense in banging your head against some mad bugger's wall simply because there will always be an excuse to justify even the worse of environmental degradation in our world today. All i can see is nature herself taking matters into her own hand and in time exert her own repercussions in the form of some natural disaster that would affect human lives; like the recent floods in Kelantan primarily caused by the deforestation and logging in the interior of the country.  
Ah, but we never learn and even if we do there are those who are beyond learning blinded by the pursuit of material wealth and comfort.
“Seldom in history has humanity been so shaken, so beaten, so overwhelmed as in these times. Violence, fear, terror, intolerance stalk different regions of our planet,” he said in his inaugural address.
Uruguay president - Vazquez
How sad it is to envision a future bereft of nature's blessed beauty after all the forest have been rendered barren and all its life has been extinguished to be replaced by miles and miles of sterile plantations making the landscape looking like a huge factory where fences and roads dissect through crisscrossing to allow for lorries and tractors to come and go raising dust behind them. The jungle and forests that once was is no more and with it is gone the wild life, flora and fauna some forever never to be seen alive again. More and more of our majestic wild life is on the brink of extinction, tigers, rhinos and elephants are an endangered specie and we still keep on burning to make way for the propagation of the oil palm that would fill the shelves at our supermarkets. Ironically, no matter how much land is cleared the price of the oil on the shelves never decreases but seems to ever be on the increase and the more the price increases the more land is cleared...more Haze.

From bad to worse... the air quality in Kuala Lumpur has deteriorated further this morning as the API reading for the city hits the 188 mark as at 6am this morning.  – The Malaysian Insider pic by Najjua Zulkefli, September 15, 2015.From bad to worse... the air quality in Kuala Lumpur has deteriorated further this morning as the API reading for the city hits the 188 mark as at 6am this morning. – The Malaysian Insider pic by Najjua Zulkefli, September 15, 2015.Thirty-three areas nationwide still recorded unhealthy air - See more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/unhealthy-api-in-33-areas-nationwide-schools-closed-in-3-states-kl-putrajay#sthash.LSGsPrq3.dpuf



      

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