i was shocked to see a story on chiang mai air quality on cnn this morning, so this might not be news to you, but all of the north of thailand is going through a smog "crisis" brought on by a number of factors... making it unhealthy to breathe there. people are being advised to stay indoors & wear masks. levels of harmful particulates in the air are anywhere up to or well above 300 (160 is considered dangerous by most standards), depending on the source.
thankfully (i guess, for us) we returned to bangkok this week, after being out of the country for work, to reports of the deteriorating air quality & the interesting attempts to improve the situation -- anything from blowing water into the air to increase humidity & seeding the clouds for rain to telling the outdoor bbq-ers to stop cooking for a while. the government has actually called for people to start the thai water-throwing festival, sonkran, 2 weeks early in order to help. there has been little improvement, as chiang mai is in a valley (where pollution settles, accumulates, and worsens) & nothing but lots of good, constant rain (not usually predicted until may or june) will clear things out.
in my delicate situation, mike has decided to keep me in bangkok & out of the "garbage air" up north, while he goes back to get some work stuff done & gather a few things so we can work from down south until things hopefully clear (can you imagine going to bangkok for "fresh" air???). he'll be back in a day, and we'll travel to a guesthouse and pray for rain.
for more info, here's couple of articles...
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/search/page.news.php?clid=2&id=30029266
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/search/page.news.php?clid=3&id=30029309
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070313/sc_afp/thailandenvironment_070313105934
Some U.S. based Air Quality listings….
http://www.airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=airnow.fcsummary
Thailand's...
http://www.pcd.go.th/AirQuality/Regional/Default.cfm
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