Editor;
Re: “Why put something in your lungs that doesn’t belong”? Human Being, Jun 27 Mailbag. Mr Being, our bodies were not created with alcohol or fatty foods in our stomachs either, or wings attached to our back for jumping out of airplanes or skis attached to our feet for skiing down mountains but a lot of people ingest those things or do those things. Why? Because they enjoy them.
It appears that you are all missing the point.
Even if you don’t drive a car, you ride in taxis or buses or whatever. You purchase products manufactured in factories that billow smoke into the air and you cook at home creating yet more pollution. In other words, you are polluting the air that I breathe.
The difference between us is that I am not complaining about it, I am not verbally abusing you, or calling for your segregation or taxing the hell out of you.
Why you have all ignored that one simple fact and continued on with these never ending declarations of your right not to have your air polluted is a mystery to me because you are all guilty, either directly or indirectly of polluting the air we all breathe. The question of who is the most guilty is an enigma that no one seems to want to deal with. You have all chosen to believe the surgeon general of the U.S. and I have chosen to believe the World Health Organization. I made that choice while sitting in front of a shopping mall smoking a cigarette and watching the stalled traffic on Sukhumvit Road in Bangkok one day. A glance at the smoke from my cigarette and then at the smoke billowing from the cars convinced me.
So please, until someone does a study to try and ascertain what percentages of pollution come from which offender, lets put a hold on the “your polluting my air” declarations. All of which are designed to be the final word of the debate, but are in fact boring and repetitive.
John Arnone,
Yasothon
