Power outages and sweltering heat in Vietnam, people struggling to cope
vietnam.postsen.com
vietnam.postsen.com
I spent 4 years in Vietnam and 2 of those traveling 15,000km+ by motorbike (across Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos). I've been to the remotest parts you can possibly get to and seen more than even the locals have of their own countries.
All three of these countries are eco-nightmares.
They've dammed up all the rivers in the north, which has affected just about everything. When the rivers are running during the wet season, there is plenty of power, but as soon as the dry season rolls around, entire rivers run dry. Only to have massive flooding when it rains again. Slash and burn entire mountains for farming, so that when it does rain, there are massive landslides.
The trash and pollution is out of control. It is literally in the culture to use plastic, for everything and to just dump/burn it everywhere. There isn't a single place that isn't rife with trash.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the country and the people are lovely. I just wish they cared about what they are doing to the planet a bit more. The government controls what the people think (case in point, the helmet "law") and abysmal education of their people. They could easily tell people to cut down their plastic/trash usage... or stop blocking all the rivers... but that's not in line with profit/corruption... so it won't ever happen.
I think this allocation of blame is unfair. I moved from a developing country - the plastic culture originated from the west. The difference is that developing world does not have the massive taxpayer funded garbage collection that is present in the west. And does not have the rigorous fines for fly tipping. And cannot pay other developing countries, like Philippines, to illegally take our trash.
Westerns norms are to offload the trash problem onto the taxpayer - we just don't realise we are subsidizing PepsiCo. The problem is hidden. And in India/Vietnam/etc. the taxpayer can't afford this subsidy, so the problem is plain to see. But both societies suffer.
Once western industry adopts single use plastic everywhere, it is really difficult for a small developing country to avoid it. Firstly, half the products consumed in developing countries are produced by western companies, or designed by western companies and produced locally/in China, say Coke bottles.
Even if you consider local manufacturing, imagine you are starting local production of cheese or whatever. You are going to import western industrial machinery, that is setup to package things into plastic. You are going to hire western consultant to help you configure the production line. You will import western best practices. You might even have to import packaging materials.
For example. Go buy a bunh mi and they wrap it in a bag, and place it in a grocery bag (to hang on your scooter). Want a pressed sugar cane drink? Plastic cup, plastic lid, straw and plastic bag.
To your point since there is no trash pickup (it’s usually an old lady that comes at 4am in each district with a cart) there is discards everywhere. Especially in rivers and the like. These are all local things. The culture there is much of a porch culture that you hang out and talk. Each house often has a shop of some type that the tenant lives above and has a “hustle” to make money. So it’s not one where folks go get weekly groceries or whatnot. You want dinner you go get whatever you want, bunh mi, pho, or broken rice and pork? etc from said shop. You want rambutans, you go get some. Cooking and the like is often for special occasions.
The trash problem is huge there. And when I asked they often blamed it on being ocean trash from the west. Even when asking about the trash issues on the Mekong at the northern end of the delta.
While they also burn their fields around the same times annually for crops, they constantly burn trash in much of the country and the smog issue is real in many parts, except maybe Da Nang which is a special case and in fact that provincial leader (was quite popular and successful) was promoted to the capital and then mysteriously died.
Fun fact. Vietnamese don’t have a word for smog. They call it fog. I actually got sick when in Hanoi and i am 50/50 on whether it was from the smog to be honest (the only folks in my party that didn’t get sick there were the folks that lived in Vietnam).
During my time on the motorbike with my gf, we made a huge effort to not use plastic. It was a struggle. We brought our own cups, reusable bags, etc... we'd give them a cup for that delicious sugar cane, then they'd pour it in a plastic cup because that is what they were so trained on, remember we gave them a cup, pour it in our cup and then immediately toss the plastic cup. I can't tell you how many times that happened.
> I actually got sick when in Hanoi and i am 50/50 on whether it was from the smog to be honest (the only folks in my party that didn’t get sick there were the folks that lived in Vietnam).
100% is was from the pollution there. Summers are brutal in Hanoi.
Perhaps it's for ensuring consistency (of product volume, ratio of ingredients, etc) for all their products.
It comes from a machine that squeezes the sugar cane directly into a cup.
It wasn’t western trash on the banks of their rivers or in the city corners.
No doubt there may be some trash that does cross the oceans and hit their coast. But it’s by no means the bulk of the source.
Frankly that trip somewhat made me aware that there isn’t much European and US can do for pollution at a global scale. I’m not saying we shouldn’t try, but that the indias and chinas and Vietnam’s dgaf and are working on the day to day and don’t have a huge concern for the big picture since there really isn’t time in the day. So we are pissing in the wind of sorts, though we should focus on keeping our nations and beaches and rivers cleaner.
That's exactly it. That said, I'm living in southern californai now, we have a recycling bin that people just throw trash into. Nobody here cares either.
Heck, this is one of the compost bins! https://imgur.com/cdPEo0i
Sure, developing countries don't have the infrastructure to recycle. The point of criticism here is reduce.
Datapoint: I'm vietnamese and think the use of plastic is unnecessary. It doesn't take much education to understand that plastic is bad, especially when the government has no hesititation to govern people's thought.
[1] https://www.facebook.com/groups/otosaigon.news
[2] https://www.facebook.com/groups/otosaigon.news/posts/1965346...
The real contribution to plastic waste in Vietnam, is just 99% of Vietnamese.
Anyone can set up a shop anywhere in Vietnam and they all hand out insane amounts of plastic.
Even the charity work I did there to help feed people amounted to filling up plastic bags to hand out.
He didn't assign blame; you did.
All he did was observe the pretty commonly known fact that plastic pollution is out of control in the region. You're the one who started pointing fingers.
Perhaps it would be more appropriate to talk about cause and effect, not blame / morals
> They could easily tell people to cut down their plastic/trash usage...Profit/corruption
I don't think thks would work.
I come from another region with the same problem. I know people who manage local factories that produce food and drink wrapped in single-use practic. They buy machines from Italy, they import bottles, caps, everything. Local suppliers look to what west does and they copy.
Imagine that tomorrow, overnight, US and EU governments clamp down on their companies domestically and stop producing single use plastic. It will be gone from developing world withing a few years.
I think the problem of plastic is problem of industry. It cannot be solved through invividual action. It has to be solved in the factories that produce this crap by the billions.
100% it won't change in Vietnam unless the government there does some strict mandates and education. It doesn't matter what the US/EU does. You really have to spend time in the country to get an understanding of how it is literally ingrained in their culture to just dump trash wherever they want and use plastic endlessly. They really don't see the problem with that. Once it gets into the culture, it'll take many generations to extract it.
I recall a few years ago it took a couple weeks in USA for people to shut themselves into their homes, fear being close to their neighbors, and wear face masks at grocery stores and while driving in their own cars. Sufficient fear will cause mass obeying and hating those who don't obey. It can be done again.
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=4e484f24-4885...
Are you maybe saying it a cultural thing? As in, it would be too difficult to convince people to pay somewhat higher taxes and then adhere to littering/dumping/burning laws?
It really has nothing to do with money since it is a communist country. The government could decide to allocate resources (ie: people) towards dealing with the mess. That's effectively what they do in the cities.
In Saigon, I lived on Truong Sa in a 5th floor apartment, so I had a great view of a large stretch. This street is along a river running through the middle of the city. Every day, there was several boats that would go up and down collecting the trash that people would dump into the river. All day long, I could watch people just stop their bike, get off, walk over to the river and dump their trash into it. The lazy ones would just dump their trash on the street or in the gutters, which tend to back up during rains and cause more flooding.
oh dear, thats so gross
Picture of some random beach somewhere... whole entire coastline is trash and Vietnam is shaped like and the size of California... https://imgur.com/fp6D7Ca
When I went to the world heritage site, Ha Long Bay, I went out in a kayak and picked up a whole bag of trash. I didn't even need to take a bag with me because I just found plenty floating around to use.
This is also a country that still eats dogs (and cats) and really anything that moves. You won't ever get them to stop making waste. https://imgur.com/ItvSF6T
If an undeveloped lot isn’t checked on, it will quickly become a dumping ground for neighborhood trash. And at least they put it somewhere other than just on the ground.
And there is nothing stopping the country from having a public trash collection service. Labor is cheap. It’s just lack of political will: corruption why it’s not done. Plus lack of enforcement to punish people who litter.
Singapore is clean not because people don’t litter (they do to a surprising extent). But the law is vigorously enforced (with warnings then fines, then mandated trash pick up duty as punishment), but also widespread and frequent cleaning. Most busy areas get trash collection twice a day.
No reason why Vietnam couldn’t do it.
Plenty of reasons, it is just that none of them are any good. =)
Is it? I pay for both recycling and waste collection, per bin. It's not via my taxes
https://voiceofsandiego.org/2022/11/18/san-diego-dumps-centu...
That right there is what saddens me more than almost anything else about modern "civilized society". Too much of humanity has come to not only accept that "profit/corruption at any cost is perfectly normal" mindset, but some actually even try to defend it. It's often the root cause of so many of humanity's worst nightmare scenarios (many of which are coming true "in realtime" these days), yet many of us will fight to the death against any change of the "status quo", despite the fact that it's highly likely to literally kill us all (as well as other life that lives here alongside us). Just because "it's always been done that way" (It hasn't, BTW. Constant change is more typically the normal state of reality, and it's pretty much always been that way.) doesn't mean it's ever been the right way or the best way.
It’s pervasive in every police interaction, every interaction with government officials, to the point you cant get by day to day without paying bribes. Even in everyday things like getting a passport or registering your residence, let alone major interactions like buying a home or starting a business.
And it’s widely accepted by both the people taking bribes and giving them that it’s just “how it is”. It’s upfront, in your face and very few think it’s a big deal.
The US (or other Western countries) are nowhere close to that.
It really is just a different type of corruption. In the US, the bribes just come in the form of political donations, or giving someone's family member some work. I owned a bar/nightclub and we were expected to donate to the fireman's fund. I donated to Mark Leno too, despite not liking the guy at all. I mean, look at the people who got the contracts to build trump's border walls!
But it’s poisonous. The country will never develop beyond something like Malaysia with that level of corruption. One reason why Singapore is so wealthy is the crackdown on corruption. It’s just not tolerated.
And if disagree it’s anything like the US. When immigration officials ask for “tips” to do their job it’s beyond anything you’d see in the West.
https://www.asiaone.com/singapore/i-felt-i-was-held-hostage-...
US did a pretty good job of preventing that sort of thing with more fair access to jobs.
That said, Jared Kushner didn't get the Saudis to give him billions of dollars because he's some magical savant. The corruption is right in front of our faces, yet people just tolerate it differently here.
How is that corruption?
“The grift from this family is breathtaking,” Mr. Christie said. “It’s breathtaking. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Kushner walk out of the White House and months later get $2 billion from the Saudis?”
“That’s your money he stole,” he continued, adding, “That makes us a banana republic.”
Vietnam isn't a fan of China, so there is less of the China dams in Vietnam. I'd put that blame solely on Vietnam.
That has to be the most absurd piece of advice I've ever read on this site. Thanks for the laugh.
This was a just a cash grab.
What they should have done was at least made a requirement for the quality level of helmets. Those plastic crap helmets everyone wears to comply with the 'law' (and I've been guilty of wearing them), don't do anything to protect you.
What is more insane is how a single quack doctor was able to convince an entire country to not put helmets on young kids because it might hurt their necks. That's the real absurd thing here.
The stupidity literally has studies done on it...
Opportunity for community incinerator/generators that produce power burning discarded plastic…?
[1]: https://www.iucn.org/news/viet-nam/202205/grid-integration-r...
I agree. As it's an issue that affects all of humanity, every human everywhere who can contribute to solutions of all kinds in some positive way should be willing to do so, and those who can't contribute in a positive way should just get the hell outta the way and stop interfering with those who can and will. I never understood how any human could bring themselves to fight back against changes that benefit literally everyone (including themselves), yet that's exactly what we've had ever since "climate change" became a political issue more than an existential issue for most people.
It's also something the fossil fuels companies who are the primary source of the problem should be forced to help with, since they've profited so greatly from their lies and actions, and since they've made it crystal clear they won't willingly do anything to even start to clean up the mess they've made. They should be required to invest some (rather large) percentage of their ill-gotten profits directly into sustainable energy technology transition. I'd even be entirely fine with them earning some share of profit back off those new sustainable technologies if the investments they made were large enough to really move things along hella quicker'n they're currently going.
Everyone needs to change their ways (and they are, just slower than would have been sensible for various reasons).
But you can have all the experts you want but if you struggle with getting quality labor, corruption, inefficient courts to arbitrate disputes, nothing much gets done.
It’s like the new international airport being built for Ho Chi Minh City. Land disputes delayed things for years. Then PM got involved so work started. Then all the foreign contractors pulled out because the timelines and budgets were just not within the realm of feasible.
> Temperatures this week are expected to hover between 26 and 38 degrees Celsius (78.8 and 100.4 degrees F), weather officials say.
Heat waves are particularly difficult to deal with when the overnight low is not cool enough sleep well.
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/vietnam-capital-d...
But the rise of AC's popularity in developing countries creates a troubling dilemma: How do we cool people without heating up the planet?
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/23067049/heat-wave-ai...
> Regardless of whether humanity gets its act together and drastically cuts emissions of the greenhouse gases that are warming up the planet, billions of people today and into the future desperately need to cool off. Their lives and livelihoods are at stake, making this one of the most urgent technology and policy challenges. But staying cool amid the heat poses a paradox: The tactics for cooling can end up worsening the very problem they’re trying to solve if they draw on fossil fuels, or leak refrigerants that are potent heat-trapping gases. And the people who stand to experience the most extreme heat are often those least able to cool off. Solving this conundrum requires untangling issues of equity and justice, as well as developing better tools for cooling beyond just ACs. It also requires rethinking the role of cooling in society. It is not a luxury, but a necessity for living in the world that we’ve created for ourselves. Ambient temperatures are so foundational to our well-being that it’s easy to overlook their importance and the threat they pose. Extreme heat has been the deadliest weather phenomenon in the United States over the past 30 years, according to the National Weather Service. That’s because heat has so many ways of hurting people. High temperatures make it harder for humans to shed excess heat. When air reaches temperatures higher than body temperatures, more heat flows into the human body than flows out. That can cause hyperthermia, heat stroke, and death. Some medications can become less effective with heat, while others can make people more susceptible to high temperatures.
...
> Cooling technologies, particularly air conditioning, have been reshaping societies around the world since Willis Carrier invented a device to prevent humidity from messing with ink at a Brooklyn printing plant in 1902. These changes have had far-reaching and unexpected effects. In his 2014 book How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World, author Steven Johnson connected the dots between the spread of air conditioning and the election of Ronald Reagan: ACs made the southwestern US more hospitable, and the growing population of the region became an important base of support for Reagan. Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first prime minister, said air conditioning was the sine qua non of his country’s formation.
> There are now roughly 2 billion air conditioners in use around the world today, with half of those units in the US and China alone. Cooling systems like ACs, fans, and ventilation account for about 20 percent of energy use in buildings globally, according to the International Energy Agency. That adds up to two-and-a-half times as much electricity consumed globally for cooling as the entire continent of Africa uses. Cooling is not just for people. Refrigeration and freezing are essential for producing, storing, and transporting food, medicine, electronics, and, as Carrier found, books. By 2050, AC energy use is poised to triple on its current course, according to the IEA — which is roughly equivalent to the amount of electricity China uses today. Within the current crop of air conditioners, there is wide variation in efficiency and the power sources they use. The spaces they cool aren’t all insulated the same ways, either.
...
> It’s also a law of nature that you can’t cool a space without heating up another. In cities, the heat from running ACs at night can raise ambient temperatures by 1°C, or 1.8°F.
> Air conditioners pose another direct problem for the climate. Many of them use refrigerants that are also powerful heat-trapping gases. Chemicals like hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) can be upward of 12,000 times more potent at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. Small coolant leaks multiplied by billions of AC units could be devastating for the climate.
...
> At the same time, there is going to be a massive market for sustainable cooling technologies. “There are billions of people that aspire to be wealthy, and as your income starts going up, you’re going to want to have access to cooling,” Kyte said. The electricity that powers air conditioners needs to come from sources that don’t emit greenhouse gases, so dialing down coal, oil, and natural gas power on the grid and ramping up wind, solar, and nuclear energy is crucial.
...
> So while billions of people are facing more devastating and extreme heat, protecting them and avoiding as much warming as possible benefits everyone on Earth. Air conditioning is now an unfortunate necessity, but it’s also an opportunity to address some of the underlying injustices of climate change.
And for me, it turned out to be true. When I moved to North America, I thrived intellectually in the fall, winter and spring seasons. It was so much easier to concentrate and think when your body isn't overheating.
Of course, summers in the northeast however are hot and humid and not conducive to intellectual work unless you had A/C. (I didn't in my apartment, so I hung out in the computer labs at school 16 hours every day)
[1] The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization
This is already becoming a reality in some areas and it's certainly possible that entire regions of the world, many that are HIGHLY populated, will become uninhabitable during parts of the year. Scary stuff.
Theoretical survival limit is 35 °C (95 °F), equivalent to a heat index of 70 °C (160 °F).
It's incredibly obvious that the standard of living enjoyed by US, western europe, parts of east asia and middle east simply cannot be extended to the whole world. I think we're going to let billions die over decades in these regions, banking on increasingly capable automation to replace the labor from that population that our quality of life depends on.
We disproportionately created this situation, we disproportionately benefit from it, and we will disproportionately survive it, all at the expense of the majority of humanity in the increasingly "less habitable" parts of the world.