BANGKOK’S FILTHY, CHOKING AIR: LOOKING AT THE BRIGHT SIDE

‘From this foul drain, the greatest stream of human industry flows out to fertilise the world. From this filthy sewer pure gold flows. Here humanity attains its most complete development and its most brutish; here civilisation works its miracles, and here civilised man is turned back almost into a savage.”

So wrote the French historian Alexis de Tocqueville in 1835. The occasion was his visit to Manchester, one of the great engines of the Industrial Revolution in the English North. His theme was the familiar trade-off between industry and quality of life, prosperity and public health.

Life in those days for the typical Mancunian was — in the Hobbesian formulation — nasty, brutish and short: 27 years from birth, on average. The environment did no favours. Black clouds of exhaust from burning coal hung in the air. Open sewers carried off waste in all its unlovely forms.

My thoughts turn to that era whenever I sit on a motorbike taxi, sucking in the filthy Bangkok air. I console myself with the fact that as bad as the air quality has become in the city, other places have had it — and still have it — far worse.

The Air Quality Index is the US Environmental Protection Agency’s measure of harmful particulates in the air. AQI gives a rough estimate of air quality at a moment in time.

Bangkok’s readings of the last few weeks have flirted with 200, the threshold for “very unhealthy” air. “Hazardous” levels are 300 or more. Beijing and other Chinese cities, by contrast, regularly tip the scales at 999. (Someone may want to check those instruments for clogging.)

Clearly it’s a matter of perspective; things could always be worse. But that’s cold comfort for the Bangkokian who works outdoors, or rides a bicycle, or commutes every day amid a film of ozone and toxic dust.

What, if anything, can be done? City officials promise more electric trains over the next decade. With mass transit figuring heavily in the city’s plans, why not introduce a tax deduction for commuters’ mass transit expenses? In Japan, companies are allowed to pay their employees’ commuting costs and write off the amount. The Japanese seem to do pretty well. (Tokyo’s recent AQI readings: 30-60 range.)

Suwanna Jungrungrueng, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration’s deputy clerk, said that “a measure regulating vehicles in city areas based on the numbers of their licence plates will be implemented similar to that in Paris, France”.

Presumably this will mean banning cars with even-numbered plates on certain days, those with odd-numbered plates on others.

In fact, we needn’t look as far afield as France for this style of solution. Try Indonesia. Car-free Sunday mornings are a new tradition in Jakarta, offering at least a brief respite from the city’s famous pollution.

“Tens of thousands of residents from across the capital come to the centre of the city on Sunday mornings,” reports the Jakarta Post, “to jog, bike, walk their dogs or simply enjoy the capital’s wide and tree-lined streets that are usually packed with private vehicles on weekdays.”

Are car-free days a viable option for Bangkok? You don’t have to be a hardened cynic to imagine city drivers taking the mick: “The authorities in their air-conditioned offices have made a rule? Good! Now let them enforce it.”

There’s reason for hope. The rise of electric vehicles will help. A cleaner power mix for the country will help. Will that mix include nuclear? Don’t laugh.

Here was Kijja Sripatthangkura, the boss of Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding, Thailand’s largest private power generator, just last week: “Ratch expects knowledge and technical learning from the nuclear power plant in China” — that is, the Fangchenggang plant in which the company holds a stake — “to be applied to future nuclear power in Thailand, as Thai energy policymakers have set to build the first nuclear power plant in the next decade.”

Should Thailand build a nuclear plant? It’s a no from me, but those Thai energy policymakers will be the ones making the call. Better get the French on the phone.

Christopher Caillavet is Chief Sub-Editor of Business at the Bangkok Post. Send comments to christopherc@bangkokpost.co.th