Indonesia is burning. The greatest environmental disaster of the 21st century. Ignored by US

[Liberal_in_LA]

Indonesia is burning. So why is the world looking away?

A great tract of Earth is on fire. It looks as you might imagine hell to be. The air has turned ochre: visibility in some cities has been reduced to 30 metres. Children are being prepared for evacuation in warships; already some have choked to death. Species are going up in smoke at an untold rate. It is almost certainly the greatest environmental disaster of the 21st century – so far.

Fire is raging across the 5,000km length of Indonesia. It is surely, on any objective assessment, more important than anything else taking place today. And it shouldn’t require a columnist, writing in the middle of a newspaper, to say so. It should be on everyone’s front page. It is hard to convey the scale of this inferno, but here’s a comparison that might help: it is currently producing more carbon dioxide than the US economy. And in three weeks the fires have released more CO2 than the annual emissions of Germany.

But that doesn’t really capture it. This catastrophe cannot be measured only in parts per million. The fires are destroying treasures as precious and irreplaceable as the archaeological remains being levelled by Isis. Orangutans, clouded leopards, sun bears, gibbons, the Sumatran rhinoceros and Sumatran tiger, these are among the threatened species being driven from much of their range by the flames. But there are thousands, perhaps millions, more.

One of the burning provinces is West Papua, a nation that has been illegally occupied by Indonesia since 1963. I spent six months there when I was 24, investigating some of the factors that have led to this disaster. At the time it was a wonderland, rich with endemic species in every swamp and valley. Who knows how many of those have vanished in the past few weeks? This week I have pored and wept over photos of places I loved that have now been reduced to ash.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/30/indonesia-fires-disaster-21st-century-world-media

South-East Asia is choking on Indonesia’s forest fires
THE annual haze that blankets swathes of South-East Asia usually begins to recede in October. This year however the smoggy conditions—caused by fires set to clear farmland in rural Indonesia—only got worse. On October 26th Joko Widodo, Indonesia’s president, cut short a state visit to America to handle the crisis, which has become one of the worst in memory. With the onset of this year’s rainy season delayed by the “El Niño” weather cycle, it could be a month or more before all flames are doused.

The word “haze” hardly does justice to the poisonous clouds that have been billowing across the region since August. On bad days Singapore and parts of Malaysia have been enveloped by a reeking white mist that has closed schools and delayed flights. Lately it has also reached southern Thailand and the Philippines. Meanwhile the millions of Indonesians who live close to the hotspots, mostly on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, are breathing a soupy yellow fog which authorities say has killed at least ten people and caused respiratory problems in more than 500,000.


The blazes are not only a disaster for those who live in the region. Greenpeace says that years of draining and burning peatland, to make way for oil palms and other crops, has turned Indonesia into a “carbon bomb”. Guido van der Werf, a Dutch researcher, reckons that emissions from a three-week period during this year’s fires surpassed Germany’s total annual carbon output. On a daily basis, they may emit more carbon than does America’s economy—which is more than 20 times the size of Indonesia’s. Conservationists also fret about the impact on Indonesia’s endangered wildlife, not least the orangutan colonies in Sumatra.

Indonesia has enlisted more than 20,000 people to control the fires. After some hesitation, it has also accepted help from its neighbours, including Singapore, Malaysia and Australia. The rain that fell on October 28th was useful. But with more than 100,000 fires to fight, the Indonesian authorities badly need more downpours. In the meantime they have built reception centres with oxygen tanks and air-purifiers in the worst-affected areas. A clutch of navy ships is waiting off the coast of Borneo—apparently ready to serve as floating shelters for women and children, should parts of the island need evacuating.

http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21677342-jungles-and-peatland-are-coughing-up-more-carbon-emissions-industrialised-economies-south-east



Sick, hungry orangutans fall victim to Indonesia's haze crisis
ndangered orangutans are falling victim to a devastating haze crisis that has left them sick, malnourished and severely traumatised as fires rage through Indonesia's forests, reducing their habitat to a charred wasteland.

Rescuers at a centre for the great apes on Borneo island are considering an unprecedented mass evacuation of the hundreds in their care, and have deployed teams on hazardous missions to search for stricken animals in the wild.

At the Nyaru Menteng centre in Kalimantan, sixteen baby orangutans have been put into isolation, suffering infections from prolonged exposure to the thick, yellow smoke suffocating Indonesia's half of Borneo island. A devoted carer tries to entertain the youngsters with toys and games as the infants recover from high fevers and serious coughs.

In another enclosure, several orangutans lie about listlessly, too exhausted to move after days hunting for food and water as fires relentlessly encroached on their forest homelands, forcing them to flee.

indonesia's fires labelled a 'crime against humanity' as 500,000 suffer
Haze has caused havoc, with schools in neighbouring Singapore and Malaysia shut down, flights grounded and events cancelled

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/26/indonesias-fires-crime-against-humanity-hundreds-of-thousands-suffer#img-1

Indonesia is the world’s largest producer of palm oil and fires are frequently intentionally lit to clear the land with the resulting haze an annual headache.

But this year a prolonged dry season and the impact of El Niño have made the situation far worse, with one estimate that daily emissions from the fires have surpassed the average daily emissions of the entire US economy.

The fires have caused the air to turn a toxic sepia colour in the worst hit areas of Sumatra and Kalimantan, where levels of the Pollutant Standard Index (PSI) have pushed toward 2,000. Anything above 300 is considered hazardous.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/26/indonesias-fires-crime-against-humanity-hundreds-of-thousands-suffer

[Fred Sanders]

1. Thanks for the article. Americans should have taken a hint as to the seriousness of these fires

when the President of Indonesia cut short a state visit with President Obama....which never happens.

5000 km long string of fires is hard to imagine.

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. Thanks for the chart. It highlights the madness of these fires

[mountain grammy]

18. Yes, madness, corporate madness. The madness of greed.

[SusanCalvin]

2. The world is not looking away.

It was never paying attention in the first place. Our priorities are so misplaced.

[Liberal_in_LA]

4. good point

[840high]

6. yes.

[Hortensis]

42. And yet many millions DID know they were happening.

Not everyone looks away and they've been reported on for decades, but what should all those people who read Newsweek or the New York Times, for instance, have done? It is what it is.

Humanity's major problem isn't a relatively few greedy men, it's the support for their actions that comes from people in general but especially the conservative/authoritarian segments of populations. Here in America greedy interests have encouraged our conservatives to be the worst versions of themselves, and look what it has done to us.

Nations need to learn to encourage their populations, all of us, to be more like our best. This will require laws controlling the use of insidious mass persuasion techniques. THEN we can greatly speed up progress. Right now it's more like 9 steps back for every 10 forward.

[Liberal_in_LA]

3. Indonesia is burning..photos

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/forests/im-tired-being-made-sick-smoke-20151029


http://www.newswiregroup.org/indonesia-to-start-legal-action-against-companies-linked-to-forest-fires/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/formulaone/article-3234855/Singapore-Grand-Prix-disrupted-smog-smoke-huge-forest-fires-Indonesia-spreads.html

?itok=T17HVVRs
http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/10-firms-probed-over-indonesia-forest-fires



http://edition.cnn.com/2015/09/25/asia/singapore-haze-indonesia-schools/

[malaise]

23. K & R

This is a disaster of epic proportions

[Liberal_in_LA]

8. From your link: How Indonesia's fires became one of the world's biggest climate disasters

One of the worst eco-disasters on the planet is currently unfolding in Indonesia. Over the past two months, thousands of forest and peatland fires have been raging out of control, choking the entire region in a thick, toxic haze.

The enormous smoke columns can be seen from space. NASA snapped this satellite pic of peat fires in Borneo on October 19:
https://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/SFwCnS8oh8h7WHedUPrGX7YOz_A=/1200x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/4213871/borneo_amo_2015292.jpg

The fires themselves have been a public-health nightmare, forcing multiple evacuations, killing at least 19, and triggering respiratory illnesses in more than half a million people. Noxious haze and harmful particulate pollution has stretched as far as Malaysia and Bangalore

_____

Why Indonesia's fires have been so bad in 2015
For decades, Indonesia's farmers have been intentionally setting fires to clear away rainforest for farmland and produce commodities like palm oil, a popular ingredient in processed foods and cosmetics. The country's small farmers are legally allowed to burn up to 2 hectares, though enforcement is lax, and experts say many people set fires illegally to grab extra land.

The real problems start when these fires occur in areas rich in peat, a dense, soil-like mixture of partially decayed leaves and branches. Fires in these peatlands can proliferate uncontrollably, smoldering underground for weeks, feeding off the soil, releasing toxic pollutants and vast quantities of carbon dioxide and methane all the while. Peat fires often don't stop until heavy rains come along to extinguish them.

[bbgrunt]

9. I can't believe that this is ignored by the media. This is a huge problem!

[virgogal]

10. Why on earth isn't this getting more coverage?

What a disaster.

[Liberal_in_LA]

11. Erik Meijaard: Indonesia's Silent Tragedy in a Connected World

The Jakarta Globe
Erik Meijaard: Indonesia's Silent Tragedy in a Connected World
There may finally be some positive developments regarding Indonesia’s fire and haze crisis, with rains in Sumatra and Kalimantan starting to reduce fires. But this isn’t over. If previous El Niño fire events are anything to go by, the fire problem with now shift to the eastern part of Borneo and Papua, and could continue well into 2016.

------

My conclusion about the lack of attention to the severity of the Southeast Asian haze crisis is that it is a Silent Tragedy.

Speaking to a radio reporter, her comment that in the eye of the public, Indonesia’s annual fires were “boring” emphasized the silent nature of this tragedy. Fires and haze occur every year in Indonesia. But even after there were catastrophically bad fire episodes, like those in 1982-83, 1988-89, 1997-98, and 2004, there was never any real change in political and societal attitudes towards the use of fire in land clearing.

Unlike other environmental tragedies or natural disasters, Bhopal, Chernobyl, the Nepal Earthquake, or Indian Ocean Tsunami, the Southeast Asian fire and haze disaster did not come in one big bang. Instead the disaster happened over months, affecting people over large geographies, and killing people over time and rarely on the spot. It’s silent, but deadly.

But there might be more to this silence. Maybe, Indonesia, as a land of puppet masters and shadow play, stands out in its ability to keep things quiet and obscure. Talking to an Indonesian journalist who had interviewed university students in Jakarta about the haze, one comment that stuck with me was that “the fires and politics around it were just too sad to contemplate, and no action could possibly help to create change.”

http://jakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/opinion/erik-meijaard-indonesias-silent-tragedy-connected-world/

[virgogal]

12. Thanks so much for the article. I'm too

tired to read it now----off to bed.

I will get to it in the A.M.

[Cal Carpenter]

13. "Why on earth isn't this getting more coverage?"

-- Too far away

-- Death toll isn't high (yet?)

-- Victims are people of color

[hatrack]

20. No Kardashians . . .

.

[JDPriestly]

32. Because it demonstrates one of the true costs of. "Free Trad e"

The TPP, a dogma of modern economics and corporayte profits are at stake!

[Nitram]

45. It has been getting coverage - unless your primary source of news is TV.

I've been hearing about it for years. And this year, as it has increased to the point of a real disaster, I've been hearing a lot about it on both NPR and in the Washington Post.

[cui bono]

14. k n r

[mountain grammy]

15. So much of this is the result of corporate policies..

and getting the products to consumers for profit. The destruction of the environment is a byproduct of corporate greed, and the corporate media has no profit motive to tell us about it.

It shouldn't be too much longer. The human race is self destructing.

[Duppers]

31. ^^^^^^^ This

Welcome to the future of the planet.
I'm so sad and helpless.

[Liberal_in_LA]

39. Don't feel helpless. Sign petitions regarding Palm oil. Look for products using sustainably

Farmed Palm oil

[IcyPeas]

16. I saw this on BBC World News last week. It is getting coverage

in the rest of the world. We are too busy with Trump, et al. The fires will burn for another month.

I have Time Warner Cable and they carry BBC World News. I watch it to see what's happening in the rest of the world. Al Jazeera does world news too.

here's a good link with a few videos (one starts and then the related videos will autoplay or you can pick them from the videos on the right side). It's heartbreaking and criminal - the children aren't wearing masks even. The houses are made of wood so the smoke seeps in.

....The haze is caused by farmers clearing land for plantations for the palm oil, pulp and paper industries,

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34571356

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34612922

[Stardust]

17. K&R

[jwirr]

19. This is extremely sad and upsetting. And man made. So

my question is what do we all use palm oil for? So each year these fires are started to burn off farm land. Is there no better way of doing this?

I know that many small farmers in the US used to burn off fields to keep the weeds down but you do not see this so much. You would think that we could help Indonesia find a better way.

[hatrack]

21. Palm Oil = sugar, candy, snacks

Because it makes much more economic "sense" to burn down Indonesia than pay ten cents more for a box of Milk-Duds.

[jwirr]

22. Got you.

[Liberal_in_LA]

24. Palm oil is the most widely consumed vegetable oil on the planet, and it is in about half of all

You might not cook with it, but you almost certainly eat or use palm oil.

Palm oil is the most widely consumed vegetable oil on the planet, and it is in about half of all packaged products sold in the supermarket. While palm oil is the most efficient source of vegetable oil, its rapid expansion threatens some of the planet’s most important and sensitive habitats.

Palm oil grows in tropical rainforests, and the uncontrolled clearing of these forests for conventional palm oil plantations has led to widespread loss of these irreplaceable and biodiverse rich forests. Plantations have also been connected to the destruction of habitat of endangered species, including orangutans, tigers, elephants and rhinos.

http://www.worldwildlife.org/pages/which-everyday-products-contain-palm-oil

RSPO LogoLook for the RSPO label to ensure you purchase products made with certified sustainable palm oil. This label gives you the confidence that the palm oil was produced in a socially and environmentally responsible way.

Green Palm Label Can't find the RSPO label? Look for the Green Palm label! This label indicates products in support of the transition to certified palm oil. Proceeds from Green Palm certificates help growers fund the transition to sustainable palm oil.

[jwirr]

25. Thank you. There is something we can do to help this situation.

And that is the reason that they keep this story so well hidden. The plantation owners do not want us to know.

[Liberal_in_LA]

34. US manufacturers also have an interest in keeping this under wraps. $$ involved in finding substitut

For Palm oil

[ronnie624]

30. Thanks.

[scscholar]

26. Caused by global warming?

Like all of the fires here in WA?

[Liberal_in_LA]

29. No. Purposely set to clear land to plant Palm trees that produce Palm oil. Fires set where there is

Peat in the soil. Hard to put fire out. Fires burn until heavy rain each year

[lpbk2713]

27. More pics ...

Here: http://qz.com/537511/photos-inside-the-toxic-haze-a-crime-against-humanity-caused-by-indonesias-fires/


So sorry for all the people who have to suffer through this.
Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

[Liberal_in_LA]

33. “For 11 months, they enjoyed nice air from Indonesia and they never thanked us."

Indonesian officials have consistently dismissed the complaints of its neighbors regarding the haze. Vice president Jusuf Kalla said this of Singapore’s concerns: “For 11 months, they enjoyed nice air from Indonesia and they never thanked us. They have suffered because of the haze for one month and they get upset.”



?quality=80&strip=all&w=1024

?quality=80&strip=all&w=1024

?quality=80&strip=all&w=1024

[hedda_foil]

28. The land itself is on fire.and the greenhouse gas emissions are larger than the U.S. emits

Nor do the greenhouse gas emissions capture the impact on the people of these lands. After the last great conflagration, in 1997, there was a missing cohort in Indonesia of 15,000 children under the age of three, attributed to air pollution. This, it seems, is worse. The surgical masks being distributed across the nation will do almost nothing to protect those living in a sunless smog. Members of parliament in Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) have had to wear face masks during debates. The chamber is so foggy that they must have difficulty recognising one another.

It’s not just the trees that are burning. It is the land itself. Much of the forest sits on great domes of peat. When the fires penetrate the earth, they smoulder for weeks, sometimes months, releasing clouds of methane, carbon monoxide, ozone and exotic gases such as ammonium cyanide. The plumes extend for hundreds of miles, causing diplomatic conflicts with neighbouring countries., attributed to air pollution. This, it seems, is worse. The surgical masks being distributed across the nation will do almost nothing to protect those living in a sunless smog. Members of parliament in Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) have had to wear face masks during debates. The chamber is so foggy that they must have difficulty recognising one another.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/30/indonesia-fires-disaster-21st-century-world-media

[Duppers]

35. K & R +1000. Very important thread.

I posted 3 yrs ago on FB about palm oil and habitat destruction. Did anyone give a shit? Only one person (Rob, now deceased).

I swear I try to use less palm oil where I can avoid it.

I hate the blissfully ignorant.

[Liberal_in_LA]

40. You were ahead.of the curve

[chervilant]

43. Please don't hate the "blissfully ignorant."

Please continue to post news of this nature. Many of our younglings gather their news online. Your online activism IS having an impact, even if you're not seeing results.

I am reminded of my advocacy and activism during graduate school (I volunteered to lecture re: relationship violence): after my lectures, students would cluster around the podium to talk and ask questions. Once, a young woman hung back until every other student had gone. She then told me that she had heard me lecture in another class a couple of years earlier, and that my lecture had profoundly changed her life. She told her mother about my lecture, and her mother decided to focus all of her volunteer time on survivors of relationship violence. And, the young woman decided to focus her journalism on relationship violence issues. I had no idea that my lecture would produce such an outcome, and I am so glad it did. I think it's highly likely you've had similar outcomes.

Besides, it's the willfully ignorant who remain an obstacle to our species' ability to face the crisis that's unfolding before our eyes. Those are the individuals I despair of ever reaching.

[Duppers]

44. It's uplifting to hear how you've inspired young people.

Especially this young girl.



On the subject of ignorance, I find that the blissfully ignorant usually are the willfully ignorant.

[Admiral Loinpresser]

36. KnR! n/t

[blackspade]

37. Holy hell, that's aweful.

[Liberal_in_LA]

38. Yes.that is why so much attention on Palm oil

[valerief]

41. Well, we can take comfort in the fact that, at least, a few obscenely rich people

are getting richer from this travesty. At least, the world has that.

Maybe we should send them guns. Guns cure everything, I hear.

Just imagine how bad this would be if human-caused climate change were actually real. We'd be up a creek without a paddle then!

Right now, I'm going to find some kitten clips and wriggling aborted fetus clips. They're more important, after all.

[proverbialwisdom]

46. More here.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141227826

[Enthusiast]

47. Kicked and recommended!

[Dont call me Shirley]

48. The capitalist system has caused such devastating environmental disaster. The bizarre quest

for a greater and greater expansion of more more more more. We must upheave this current destructive system and replace it with a system which rewards environmental conservation, human cooperation and compassion for all beings, sharing and loving.

Stop generating a toxic cloud of hate humanity.

[The2ndWheel]

50. What's so bizarre about it?

We must upheave this current destructive system and replace it with a system which rewards environmental conservation, human cooperation and compassion for all beings, sharing and loving.

You want a system that rewards all beings. If that's not greater and greater expansion of more and more and more, then nothing is.

[Dont call me Shirley]

53. The rewards of conservation, cooperation and compassion are far more than materialistic.

[Omaha Steve]

49. Thanks for posting

K&R!

OS

[whereisjustice]

51. They give us slave labor - why would we protest?

[proverbialwisdom]

52. Recommended.

https://twitter.com/EcoWatch