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Ensearch For a better environment

"ENSEARCH is a non-profit association of organisations, professionals, students and people with interest in learning and promoting effective ways to manage the impacts of human activities on the environments. The members of ENSEARCH Believe that all are responsible for managing and mitigating the impacts of their corporate, professional and daily living activities on the environments. Thus the motto off the association is; ENSEARCH for better Environment."

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 ENSEARCH GREEN LENS
Seeing Malaysia’s Environmental Issues Through an Expert Lens

HAZE IN MALAYSIA: ARE WE READY FOR ANOTHER EPISODE?
Understanding the causes, impacts and actions needed to address recurring haze.

The Haze Is Back. So Is the Excuse.

Kuching choked this month. Serian shut over a hundred schools. Parts of Selangor joined the unhealthy list. 

Again. And someone in every WhatsApp group will ask why this keeps happening to us.
It keeps happening because we let it.

Why the Sky Turns Grey

Haze is smoke. 
Fine particles from land and peat fires, mostly in Sumatra and Kalimantan, mixed with water vapour and carried our way. 

Land there is cleared by burning because burning is cheap. 
Peatland burns worst of all. It smoulders underground for weeks and resists every hose sent to fight it.

El Niño is the accelerant, not the cause.

Drier air and higher heat simply make fires easier to start and harder to put out. 

Then the southwest monsoon does the rest, blowing smoke north into Sarawak and the Peninsula every year between July and September, almost on schedule.

Man lights the fire. Weather just delivers it to our doorstep.

What It Does to Our Lungs

This is not just dust in the air. Once pollution readings climb past the moderate range, the air turns hostile first to people with heart and lung conditions, then to everyone. 

Fine particles slip past our body’s defences straight into the lungs and blood, inflaming airways and straining hearts. 

Children, the elderly, pregnant mothers, diabetics and anyone already struggling to breathe pay the heaviest price for fires they did not start.

What We Must Actually Do

Treating this as an annual inconvenience to wait out is no longer good enough. 

We prepare, or we suffer.
Check the air quality reading before stepping out, and cut strenuous outdoor activity once it turns unhealthy. 

Wear a proper N95 mask, fitted snugly, not a loose surgical one that does nothing against fine particles. 
Seal the home. Windows shut, air conditioning or a purifier running, especially where children or the chronically ill live. 
Drink water. 
Skip the cigarette and never light an open fire of your own. Watch for persistent cough, chest tightness or breathlessness, and see a doctor early rather than late.

None of this puts out a single fire in Kalimantan.

Only enforcement, regional accountability and an end to slash and burn farming will do that.

But our lungs cannot wait for a regional agreement to be signed. 

Protect your own breath first. Demand clean air second. Start both today…
Ravindran Raman Kutty for Ensearch