Belching smoke in Colombo
This sadly is not an unusual sight in Colombo. Despite well-known problems arising from industrial and vehicular emissions and the Central Environment Authority’s Vehicle Emission Testing Programme, we see a number of these wretched vehicles on the road.
This bus belonged to (or was operating under) one of Sri Lanka’s best known travel agencies. Weathering financial woes, it may be the case that they cannot maintain their vehicles as best they can. But should they care about more than just their bottom line?
Pulling up behind this bus and switching off my A/C because it was pulling in all the smoke, I rolled down my window and asked a cop at the junction as to why the Police didn’t pull the bus over for pollution. His answer was surprising – “Oka mahattoyo suddan geniyana bus ekak ne?” (“This is a bus carrying tourists!”)
So I guess that makes it ok to pollute our environment.
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This isn’t the least surprising, even if it’s a bit ironical in a country where the incumbent Minister of Environment is a Sinhala ultra-nationalist (Champika Ranawaka of JHU), who never misses an opportunity to blame the industrialised countries for their emissions causing global climate change. Just look up any of his recent, rhetorical speeches, which the Daily Mirror seems to publish with such regularity. He is just obsessed with western emissions.
And right under his nose, on his watch in his own land, buses carrying Suddas are emitting with glee. But our minister is too busy taking the western governments to task for their historical emissions to do anything about it…
chee to cheelanka
well, you have taken the SL inhibitants basic action of blaming the government.. and the minister.,,, but if this bus is registered to western province (which i would logically assume) the new regulation -put in by above mentioned JHU minster on emmission requiring a test before issuence of the revenue licence should have sorted this. (are you aware of this?)
please dont critisize for the sake of crtisizing… bad people get into government becasue good people dont care or are otherwise busy…
Thank you for putting this up!!! Finally someone is talking about it!!! I travel by trishaws everyday and breathe in what must be tonnes of this stuff – I could take videos like this several times every day! It is not only tourist buses but ordinary buses, vans and trishaws that are some of the worst polluters. I come from a polluted city in India but even there they have managed to introduce and implement some level of emission control and sights like this are not as common as they are here. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when the emission regulations were introduced last year but alas, implementation seems to be rather slow!
I guess other issues such as the high taxes on new vehicles also contributes to this problem, since people continue to use really old vehicles that pollute more. So it is a complex problem but I’m sure implemeting emission testing and regulation will go a long way in curbing i!
surely, buses seem to be exempt from smoking in public places no?
Funny that out of all the smoke-belching vehicles in Colombo and elsewhere on the island you choose to highlight a tourist bus as the offender. I know it’s hip these days to blame Sri Lanka’s woes on foreigners, but have you ever been behind or next to a CTB bus (or any bus, for that matter)? Or almost ANY diesel van going up into the hill country? Honestly, you think tourist buses are the problem? Statistically, I’d say they are probably the LEAST of our problems when it comes to emissions.
That same policeman isn’t pulling over ANYBODY for emissions. So don’t make it seem like it’s just sudas who are getting away with it.
While I don’t want to detract from the focus of this post, and I agree that the emissions issue needs addressing, I find it mystifying that the author of this post was all the while driving a car! Hardly the most environmentally friendly form of transport. Surely an equally important issue is reducing the number of single occupier cars driving around and encouraging a culture of bicycles and other less polluting traffic.
i was hoping that chee lanka would come back, but seems not.. the issue with US (Sri Lankans ) are that we are great critics with a biased view.. power of suggestions, are of little imporatnce while to criticize seems the best ability…
also, as SL’s we a seem so obsessed with a short term view… if we just broaden our reference time for a loger term we can see the positives of most issues.. also..
desmond,
Before you rush to defend the indefensible, it would be good if you at least understood what I was saying in my first comment. I was merely pointing out the IRONY of the situation, and if that’s too much for you to grasp, perhaps you should ask a grown up what that means. Or check out: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/irony
I have better things to do than to criticise your saffron-green minister.
On other comments above, why do we Sri Lankans so often try to shoot the messenger who carries bad news, rather than look at the message itself and wonder how and why?