B1 · Intermediate
12 min
public healthenvironmentsoutheast asiaclimate
Six Hundred and Forty-Seven Schools and the Same Old Smoke
El humo que nadie apaga
Malaysia has declared a state of emergency in Sarawak after smoke from wildfires in Indonesian Borneo closed 647 schools and pushed air quality into hazardous territory. Fletcher and Octavio dig into why this crisis keeps returning and why, after decades, the politics still get in the way of a solution.
Malasia declara un estado de emergencia en Sarawak después de que el humo de los incendios en Kalimantan cierra 647 escuelas y convierte el aire en un peligro para la salud. Fletcher y Octavio hablan sobre por qué este problema se repite cada año y por qué nadie lo resuelve.
5 essential B1-level terms from this episode, with translations and example sentences in Spanish.
| Spanish | English | Example |
|---|---|---|
| niebla tóxica | toxic haze / smog | La niebla tóxica cerró las escuelas durante tres días. |
| turba | peat | Los incendios de turba producen humo durante semanas. |
| fronterizo | cross-border / border-related | El humo es un problema transfronterizo entre Indonesia y Malasia. |
| declarar un estado de emergencia | to declare a state of emergency | El gobierno declaró un estado de emergencia por la contaminación del aire. |
| llevar + tiempo + gerundio | to have been doing something for a period of time | Llevamos décadas con este problema sin una solución clara. |
Picture 647 schools shutting their doors on the same morning because the air outside is too dangerous to breathe.
That happened this week, and it wasn't a war zone.
It was Malaysian Borneo.
Sí, Fletcher.
Yes, Fletcher.
Malasia declaró un estado de emergencia en la región de Serian, en Sarawak.
Malaysia declared a state of emergency in the Serian region, in Sarawak.
El aire era tan malo que el gobierno no podía dejar a los niños salir a la calle.
The air was so bad the government couldn't let children go outside.
And the source isn't a local problem.
The smoke is coming from Kalimantan, which is the Indonesian part of the same island.
Borneo is split between two countries, and when one side burns, the other side breathes it.
Exacto.
Exactly.
Y lo más importante es que esto no es nuevo.
And the most important thing is that this isn't new.
La niebla tóxica, que en inglés llaman 'haze', es un problema que tenemos en el sudeste asiático desde los años noventa.
The toxic haze is a problem we've had in Southeast Asia since the nineties.
Cada año hay incendios, cada año hay humo, y cada año los países hablan de soluciones.
Every year there are fires, every year there's smoke, and every year countries talk about solutions.
Every year they talk about solutions.
That phrase is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, because from what I understand, the solutions haven't exactly materialized.
No.
No.
La crisis más grave fue en 1997.
The worst crisis was in 1997.
Ese año, los incendios en Indonesia eran tan grandes que el humo cubría toda la región: Malasia, Singapur, Brunéi, partes de Tailandia.
That year, the fires in Indonesia were so large that the smoke covered the entire region: Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, parts of Thailand.
Los economistas calcularon que el coste fue de unos nueve mil millones de dólares.
Economists calculated the cost at around nine billion dollars.
Nine billion.
And 1997 was also the year of the Asian financial crisis, so the region was getting hit from two directions at once.
Sí, fue un año muy difícil.
Yes, it was a very difficult year.
Pero lo importante es que después de 1997, los países del sudeste asiático crearon un acuerdo internacional para controlar el humo transfronterizo.
But the important thing is that after 1997, Southeast Asian countries created an international agreement to control the transboundary haze.
Se llama el Acuerdo ASEAN sobre la Niebla Tóxica.
It's called the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution.
Right, the ASEAN haze agreement.
I remember covering its early years.
The problem, if I recall, was that Indonesia, which is the main source of the fires, didn't actually ratify it for about twelve years.
Doce años, sí.
Twelve years, yes.
El acuerdo era de 2002.
The agreement was from 2002.
Indonesia lo firmó en 2014.
Indonesia signed it in 2014.
Y los incendios continuaron todos esos años.
And the fires continued all those years.
La situación es un poco absurda: el país que produce el humo era el último en aceptar las reglas.
The situation is a bit absurd: the country that produces the smoke was the last to accept the rules.
So what's actually causing the fires?
Because when I hear 'wildfires in Kalimantan,' I instinctively picture something like California, lightning strikes, that kind of thing.
But that's not what this is.
No, es diferente.
No, it's different.
La mayoría de los incendios en Kalimantan no son accidentales.
Most of the fires in Kalimantan aren't accidental.
Las empresas y los agricultores queman los bosques para limpiar la tierra.
Companies and farmers burn the forests to clear the land.
Es una práctica muy antigua, pero ahora la escala es enorme porque hay mucha demanda de tierra para cultivos, especialmente para el aceite de palma.
It's a very old practice, but now the scale is enormous because there's a huge demand for land for crops, especially for palm oil.
Palm oil.
Which is in almost everything, which makes this everybody's problem whether they realize it or not.
Every packet of biscuits, every bottle of shampoo.
Exactamente.
Exactly.
Pero hay otro elemento que hace este problema peor: el suelo de turba.
But there's another element that makes this problem worse: peat soil.
En Kalimantan hay grandes zonas de turba, que es como una esponja de materia orgánica.
In Kalimantan there are large areas of peat, which is like a sponge of organic matter.
Cuando la quemas, no arde solo en la superficie.
When you burn it, it doesn't just burn on the surface.
Arde por dentro, bajo la tierra, durante semanas o meses.
It burns from within, underground, for weeks or months.
Peat fires.
I've read about these.
They're almost impossible to extinguish because they're burning meters underground, and they produce a completely disproportionate amount of smoke and carbon relative to the heat they generate.
Sí.
Yes.
Y el humo de la turba es especialmente peligroso para la salud.
And peat smoke is especially dangerous for health.
Contiene partículas muy pequeñas, las PM2.5, que entran directamente en los pulmones.
It contains very small particles, PM2.5, that go directly into the lungs.
No solo irritan la garganta.
They don't just irritate the throat.
Pueden causar problemas respiratorios serios, especialmente en niños y personas mayores.
They can cause serious respiratory problems, especially in children and older people.
PM2.5.
That's particles smaller than two and a half micrometers.
For reference, a human hair is about sixty micrometers wide.
These things go straight past your body's defenses and into the lung tissue.
Y los estudios médicos muestran que vivir cerca de esta contaminación durante años aumenta el riesgo de enfermedades cardíacas, de cáncer de pulmón, y de problemas de desarrollo en los niños.
And medical studies show that living near this pollution for years increases the risk of heart disease, lung cancer, and developmental problems in children.
No es solo un problema de sentir el olor mal durante unas semanas.
It's not just a problem of smelling bad air for a few weeks.
Which brings me back to those 647 schools.
That's not an administrative inconvenience.
Closing that many schools means there were that many buildings where keeping kids inside was safer than letting them learn normally.
Y muchas familias en Sarawak no tienen aire acondicionado en casa.
And many families in Sarawak don't have air conditioning at home.
Entonces los niños estaban en casa, con calor, sin poder salir.
So the children were at home, in the heat, unable to go out.
No es un problema pequeño para la vida diaria.
It's not a small problem for daily life.
Octavio, I want to stay with the political dimension for a moment, because this is where it gets complicated in a way that's familiar from other environmental crises.
Malaysia is suffering.
Indonesia is the source.
But Indonesia is a sovereign nation.
So what leverage does Malaysia actually have?
Muy poca, la verdad.
Very little, honestly.
Indonesia es el país más grande del sudeste asiático.
Indonesia is the largest country in Southeast Asia.
Tiene más de 270 millones de personas.
It has more than 270 million people.
La industria del aceite de palma es muy importante para su economía.
The palm oil industry is very important for its economy.
Cuando Malasia o Singapur protestan, Indonesia escucha, pero normalmente no cambia mucho.
When Malaysia or Singapore protest, Indonesia listens, but normally doesn't change much.
Singapore took a different approach at one point.
They passed laws that let them prosecute foreign companies operating in Indonesia if those companies' fires created the haze.
That was genuinely aggressive legal strategy.
Sí, la ley de Singapur fue interesante.
Yes, Singapore's law was interesting.
Pero el problema práctico es que necesitas probar que un incendio específico vino de una empresa específica.
But the practical problem is that you need to prove a specific fire came from a specific company.
Y eso es muy difícil cuando hay miles de incendios pequeños en una región enorme.
And that's very difficult when there are thousands of small fires across a huge region.
Attribution.
It's the same problem you have with cyber attacks, with certain kinds of pollution.
The harm is undeniable but pinning it to an actor is a different challenge entirely.
Exacto.
Exactly.
Y además hay una complicación cultural.
And there's also a cultural complication.
En muchas zonas rurales de Kalimantan, los pequeños agricultores queman la tierra porque no tienen dinero para comprar máquinas.
In many rural areas of Kalimantan, small farmers burn the land because they don't have money to buy machines.
Es una práctica tradicional.
It's a traditional practice.
Las grandes empresas también lo hacen, claro, pero la situación no es simple.
Large companies do it too, of course, but the situation isn't simple.
I spent time in Jakarta in the early 2000s writing about decentralization after Suharto, and one of the things that struck me was how little control the central government in Java actually had over what was happening in the outer islands.
Kalimantan felt like a different universe.
Sí, y eso es importante.
Yes, and that's important.
Indonesia tiene un problema de gobernanza interna.
Indonesia has an internal governance problem.
Los gobiernos regionales tienen mucho poder, y a veces los intereses locales son más fuertes que las leyes nacionales sobre medio ambiente.
Regional governments have a lot of power, and sometimes local interests are stronger than national environmental laws.
And Sarawak itself is an interesting case, because it has a different history from peninsular Malaysia.
It joined the federation in 1963, it has its own indigenous communities, its own land politics.
The people there aren't abstract statistics.
Cierto.
True.
Y Sarawak tiene sus propios bosques tropicales, que también están bajo presión.
And Sarawak has its own tropical forests, which are also under pressure.
El problema del humo es doloroso porque la gente de Sarawak ya vive con las consecuencias de décadas de deforestación en su propio territorio.
The smoke problem is painful because the people of Sarawak already live with the consequences of decades of deforestation on their own land.
Y ahora también reciben el humo de Indonesia.
And now they also receive Indonesia's smoke.
Double exposure.
That's a real public health concept, actually.
Communities that are already environmentally stressed are hit harder by additional shocks because their baseline is already compromised.
Sí.
Yes.
Y los niños son los más vulnerables.
And children are the most vulnerable.
Cuando los pulmones de un niño están en desarrollo, la contaminación tiene efectos que pueden durar toda la vida.
When a child's lungs are developing, pollution has effects that can last a lifetime.
Hay estudios que muestran que los niños que crecen cerca de incendios de turba tienen menos capacidad pulmonar de adultos.
There are studies showing that children who grow up near peat fires have reduced lung capacity as adults.
Less lung capacity for life.
That's not recoverable.
That's a permanent cost imposed on a generation of children by economic decisions made by companies and governments hundreds of kilometers away.
Y nadie paga por eso.
And nobody pays for it.
Ninguna empresa, ningún gobierno.
No company, no government.
La salud de esos niños no aparece en ninguna factura.
The health of those children doesn't appear on any invoice.
Economists call that an externality.
Which is a very bloodless word for something that's actually quite brutal when you think about who ends up paying it.
Llevamos décadas con este problema y la situación no mejora mucho.
We've been dealing with this problem for decades and the situation doesn't improve much.
Hay más tecnología de satélite para detectar incendios, hay más cooperación diplomática, pero los incendios continúan.
There's more satellite technology to detect fires, there's more diplomatic cooperation, but the fires continue.
Es frustrante.
It's frustrating.
You know, I keep thinking about the climate angle, which we haven't touched yet.
Peat fires release enormous quantities of carbon dioxide.
These aren't just a regional health crisis, they're a global carbon budget problem.
Sí, es un círculo difícil.
Yes, it's a vicious circle.
Quemas turba, produces CO2, el clima cambia, hay más sequías, hay más condiciones para incendios, hay más turba que arde.
You burn peat, you produce CO2, the climate changes, there are more droughts, there are more conditions for fires, there's more peat burning.
No es fácil romper ese ciclo.
It's not easy to break that cycle.
Here's what gets me, though.
This is a problem with a known cause, a known mechanism, and known solutions.
Satellite monitoring works.
Restoring peatlands by rewetting them works.
Enforcing no-burn regulations works, when they're enforced.
The knowledge exists.
The implementation doesn't.
Tienes razón en eso, Fletcher.
You're right about that, Fletcher.
El problema no es científico.
The problem isn't scientific.
Es político y económico.
It's political and economic.
Mientras el aceite de palma sea tan valioso y mientras sea más barato quemar que usar otras técnicas, los incendios van a continuar.
As long as palm oil is so valuable and as long as burning is cheaper than using other techniques, the fires are going to continue.
Oye, antes dijiste algo, 'llevamos décadas con este problema.' That stopped me.
'Llevamos.' I know it means something like 'we've been dealing with it,' but there's something about how that verb works in Spanish that I can never quite get straight.
Ah, sí.
Ah, yes.
'Llevar' con tiempo es una construcción muy útil.
'Llevar' with time is a very useful construction.
En inglés dices 'we have been dealing with this for decades'.
In English you say 'we have been dealing with this for decades.' In Spanish you use the present tense: 'llevamos décadas con este problema.' You don't use the past.
En español usas el presente: 'llevamos décadas con este problema'.
You use the present because the problem is still ongoing.
No usas el pasado.
Usas el presente porque el problema todavía continúa.
So it's 'llevamos' because the situation hasn't ended.
The decades of dealing with it are still accumulating.
If the problem were finished you'd use the past, but because it's ongoing, Spanish anchors it in the present.
Exacto.
Exactly.
Puedes decir 'llevo tres años estudiando español', 'llevamos dos horas hablando', 'llevan décadas sin resolver este problema'.
You can say 'I've been studying Spanish for three years,' 'we've been talking for two hours,' 'they've been failing to solve this problem for decades.' It's always llevar plus the time plus what you're doing.
Siempre es llevar más el tiempo más lo que estás haciendo.
It's very natural in conversation.
Es muy natural en conversación.
Llevo ocho años intentando no decir cosas embarazosas en español.
Though given the smoke these countries have been breathing for thirty years, 'llevamos décadas' hits differently as an example today.
Ocho años y todavía hay esperanza, Fletcher.
Eight years and there's still hope, Fletcher.
Pero sí, 'llevamos décadas con el humo' es la frase perfecta para hoy.
But yes, 'llevamos décadas con el humo' is the perfect phrase for today.
Y también la más triste.
And also the saddest one.