Who can say that the topic of the haze has not been discussed at all this week? OK, this only applies if you’re in Malaysia, of course! Weather conditions have been so bad these few days, especially in PJ! The Department of Environment has issued a ban on all open burning in Malaysia, and if you disregard the rule, apparently you could land up with a RM500,000 fine and jail. I guess this shows how serious the situation is! Of course, what I thought was totally unnecessary, was the DOE director-general’s statement saying that this ban does not cover grilling or barbequeing!

One wonders how honest our Malaysian government is being with the public. In the New Straits Times, this statement was issued, “Malaysians will have to be content with general information on the haze as the Government has no plans to make the Air Pollution Index (API) public. ” What is the real reason that the government wants to hide this from us? We can already see, just by looking out of the window, that this situation is most probably the worst that we have ever experienced. In The Star, there was an article saying that the API was as follows:

Does this mean that in PJ, the situation is not considered hazardous yet? I can hardly believe it…you can practically smell smoke in the air as soon as you step outdoors, and you can barely see 500 meters in front of you.

Anyway, I was checking the status of visibility in PJ, and as of 3pm today, the visibility was 0.3km! That’s practically the same as the distance as my house to the office! OK, that’s me boasting about how my office is so close to my house.

Another minus point for this whole situation, is the fact that this haze has the possibility of lasting until October, when the monsoon season begins! Honestly, doesn’t this all make you want to do something really bad to Indonesia…I mean, it is practically their fault that the haze situation is so bad!

Fine, fine…enough whining about the weather…

Related posts:

1. My nice long week away from work ...
2. Pampered Malaysians… ...
3. Shocked, flabberghasted, astounded! ...
4. Little bits of information… ...