Friday 9th October 2009 saw the launch of a new project by the health promotion organisation สสส to make Chiang Mai a healthy city. The launch included video presentations of great stories from Brazil & Estonia.

Out doing ourchiangmai.com their new website is at  ourbetterchiangmai.org .  Something for all Chiang Mai folk to get behind.  (Thanks to youtube.com for the following)

5:00

with help of 50 000 volunteers more than 10 000 tons of garbage gathered andEstonia was cleaned up from illegal waste.  www.teeme2008.ee  Next …

Cities should be a solution not a problem for human beings. The city of Curitibahas demonstrated for the past 40 years how to transform problems …

The story from Curtiba which has done wonders in areas such as public transport , waste management and open space provision, unlike some of the horror story cities of Brazil, includes active and imaginative leadership from the city’s Mayor.  At our launch however, although invited, no representative from the Tessaban attended.

กำหนดการพิธี “ไหว้สา-ขอขมา น้ำแม่ข่า ไชยมงคลแห่งเมืองเชียงใหม่”

เนื่องในสัปดาห์วันอนุรักษ์และพัฒนาแม่น้ำ คู คลอง แห่งชาติ

และเพื่อเป็นปฐมฤกษ์สำหรับกิจกรรมรณรงค์เพื่อฟื้นฟูรักษาน้ำแม่ข่าอย่างยั่งยืนของชาวเชียงใหม่

วันอาทิตย์ที่  13  กันยายน  พ.ศ. 2552

ณ วัดชัยศรีภูมิ์ (ปันต๋าเกิ๋น) และบริเวณริมน้ำแม่ข่า (แจ่งศรีภูมิ-อัษฎาธร) ต.ช้างม่อย อ.เมือง จ.เชียงใหม่

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หมายเหตุ :- กำหนดเวลาอาจยืดหยุ่นตามความเหมาะสม / จอดรถโปรดใช้เส้นทางริมถนนอัษฎาธร-แจ่งศรีภูมิ

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เรียนเชิญ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

ร่วมจัดและสนับสนุนโดย  สำนักงานทรัพยากรน้ำภาค 1 พร้อมด้วยหน่วยงานภาครัฐ และภาคประชาชนชาวเชียงใหม่

ติดต่อข้อมูลเพิ่มเติม โทรศัพท์ 081-7165970 / 081-8815621 / 084-3736311 / 087-3039631 / 081-8814780 โทรสาร 053-892535

********** โปรดช่วยประชาสัมพันธ์ต่อๆกันด้วย เพื่อน้ำแม่ข่าอันเป็นที่รักของเราทุกคน **********

The network of activists and government and NGO folk concerned with issues of forest fire and smoke haze which met a number of times early in 2009 will reconvene:
9:00 am
Tuesday 18th August 2009
@  Chiang Mai   YMCA

For further details please contact Khun Keow 0818815621

350 ppm co2

This was taken at the beginning of March during the week of worst pollution. It is looking down Loi Khroh Road towards the city and Doi Suthep beyond.. Now bear in mind that the sun is setting behind the mountain and the least you would expect to see would be a silloutte.

This can’t be good publicity for Chiang Mai as a tourist destination or as retirement community. Addressing this problem is difficult but the city can play its part. Reducing traffic pollution and finding sollutions to the problem of forest/agricultural/backyard burning should be a priority for us as a city.
Start with yourself: Consider how much you use your car and whether you could alternatively use public transport or even a bike. Chiang Mai is not as dangerous as people assume, buy a decent pollution mask off the internet and then go for it. The technique is never to make any sudden movements and to always check around you before you do any kind of manouvre.
 If you have to drive your car (and you probably don’t), turn the engine off when you’re at the lights. I’ve recently noticed that all fourway traffic lights follow an anti-clockwise rotation; knowing this allows you to anticipate the change and turn your engine back on.
Small things, I know, but awareness is the first step towards change.

We are so lucky to have this National Park on the edge of our city

This mountain gives our city so much:
Not only a nice spot for a picnic or a view of the city, it has some excellent hikes with some great flora and fauna. There’s interesting birdlife- I’ve seen fireback pheasants and lots of racket-tailed drongos-  And there’s interesting plantlife -look for the raffelesia flowers near the enormous fig tree-
It’s better than the zoo.
Not just that, but Doi Suthep also gives us cool, clean air and water. Every evening a cool wind rushes down its slopes and into the city, blowing away some of that ever-present pollution. And; there are numerous streams which flow off its slopes, that fill our dams and fill the moat. All for free!
It is an icon of our city and we should do everything we can to keep it healthy and clean.

Here is a video showing the new cycle lane in action in Chiang Mai on the Iron Bridge.  This is a project that has been promoted by the Chiang Mai Sunday Bicycle Club:

ไฟแดง !

อย่ารอให้เกิดมลพิษ

กรุณาปิดเครื่องยนต์

     ถ้าคุณต้องรอไฟแดงเกินกว่า 10* วินาที

ประหยัดเงิน  ผลการวิจัยพบว่าประหยัดน้ำมันและเป็นการดูแลรักษาเครื่องยนต์   ให้ใช้ได้นานยิ่งขึ้น

รักษาสุขภาพ ของตัวคุณเอง และคนรอบข้าง

ลดมลพิษในเชียงใหม่    ลดภาวะโลกร้อน

รายละเอียดเพิ่มเติมได้ที่  www.ourchiangmai.com

To download and print click here ไฟแดง !

From: Hak Hakanson , San Sai,  Chiang Mai

I was wondering why my eyes were burning. While the outside temperature is reasonable, I’ve just closed up the house and turned on the aircon to try to isolate myself from some of the vile soup. Of course, the aircon draws power coming from the generators east of Lampang which burn soft coal, so I am now contributing to the air pollution.

Following the lead from the article which follows, I calculated the PM-10 average for the last 10 days, when the readings suddenly jumped decisively over 100:

Source: http://www.pcd.go.th/AirQuality/Regional/QueryAir.cfm?task=findsite

For 25 Feb through 06 Mar, it is 131: well on the way towards the 161.7 average of two years ago. With one day this year already at 191, we’re well on the way to at least matching the 303.9 reading of 14 Mar 2007.

See the following article from 2008:

Air pollution levels in Chiang Mai rising – February 27th, 2008

http://www.earthoria.com/air-pollution-levels-in-chiang-mai-rising.html/comment-page-1

. . . In London, the United States and the European Union as a whole it is considered a serious pollution ‘episode’ if the PM-10 level exceeds 50 - see the London Air Quality Network website.

For some reason, the Thai Pollution Control Department has set the ’safe level’ to be anything less than a PM-10 of 120. Just to illustrate how high the levels can get to in Chiang Mai, on 14th March 2007 PM-10 levels reached 303.9 – catastrophically high by any standards.

By way of comparison, the World Health Organisation came up with a weighted list of average PM-10 concentrations in residential areas of cities larger than 100,000 throughout the world. A selection of these follows:

Sudan	246
Pakistan	180
Iraq	178
Saudi Arabia	106
Indonesia	102
Syria	102
Myanmar	89
China	87
Thailand	76
Israel	52
Greece	47
Spain	40
United States	25
Malaysia	24
Denmark	23
Germany	22
United Kingdom	19
New Zealand	16
France	15
Sweden	13

I decided to work out the daily average for Chiang Mai over the last year from February 2007 to February 2008 and came up with the following:

Chiang Mai

49.85

I then worked out the daily average for March 2007 only and it worked out as the following:

Chiang Mai

161.7

When is the best time to visit Chiang Mai? The answer would depend on the state of your respiratory system – but I’d say avoid March if possible!

Off hand, I’m wondering why any tourist would want to come here — unless perhaps to catch a view of the temples before they are dissolved by air pollution.

I mentioned my impact on the power plant because:

MAE MOH POWER PLANT
Egat loses Lampang pollution case By Ekkapong Praditpong
The Nation
Published on March 5, 2009

Chiang Mai – The Chiang Mai Administrative Court yesterday ordered the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) to pay compensation to villagers affected by the pollution caused by its lignite power plant in Lampang’s Mae Moh district.

. . . The court considered the Pollution Control Department’s air-quality report from November 1992 to August 1998 that found the level of ambient sulphurdioxide (SO2) in the area at beyond 1,300 micrograms per cubic meter for 50 out of the 70 months measured.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/03/05/politics/politics_30097191.php

Compare the SO2 pollution rates here today, 2.1, vs the average monthly rate of 1,300 around the Mae Moe power plant. Those folks reallyhave it tough.