OPINION

Stop wasting time

Re: "Race to sustainable abundance", (BP, July 26).

Mr Bloomberg should join the billionaires' space junket club and buy three one-way tickets to Mars for himself and his two co-authors, all Global Ambassadors for the United Nations' Race to Zero and Race to Resilience campaigns.

The Martians might enjoy their fairy tale.

Imaginatively dreaming of "a race to sustainable abundance ", Mr Bloomberg and his co-conspirators extol the virtues of economic growth and blithely inform us that "work to cut emissions is well under way" when we all know the promises of the Paris agreement are not being kept, limiting global warming to 1.5ºC is already impossible, and breaching the Armageddon-delivering a 2ºC increase is all but guaranteed, at least without a radical global transformation of every aspect of life, the likes of which the world has never witnessed, and is yet to imagine.

In their ode to misleading optimism, our global ambassadors tell us the solutions to cutting emissions "are largely known" but make no mention of the two elephants in the room, the impossible unmentionables, necessary to arrest global warming and save humanity, namely the dismantling of laissez faire capitalism with its dependency upon ever increasing growth and consumption, and the construction of new forms of national and international governance, free from near-term bias and special interest politics.

As the UN Secretary-General's special envoy for Climate Ambition and Solutions, might I suggest Mr Bloomberg adds fundamental economic and political reform to the top of his solutions' agenda, for without addressing these two issues he will be wasting his very valuable time.

Reform outdated laws

Re: "Government asked to expedite regulatory guillotine", (BP, July 29).

To give credit where it is due, I support Gen Prayut's efforts to reform outdated laws and regulations that hinder business activities and public services -- the so-called "regulatory guillotine".

We've fallen badly behind our regional competitors, notably Vietnam, and accelerating regulatory reform within six months is urgently needed.

Such reform should include the Immigration Bureau. We should encourage foreigners to invest and live in Thailand for decades, for we badly need their skills/funds.

For example, after building up trust over, say, three years, instead of reporting every 90 days, we should make it semi-annually, then annually.

Instead of requiring the same documents every time, after the first visit, we should ask them to report only if there are changes in a given document.

I'm happy that Khun Kobsak Pootrakool, former minister to the PM's Office, chairs the committee on the regulatory guillotine.

I knew him as one of the Stock Exchange of Thailand's brightest stars when I was there.

Pointless, clueless measures

Re: "Special Covid train dropped", (BP, July 27).

As a resident of Ubon Ratchathani, I was astonished to learn the government was advising people to stay off the roads on July 26, as a train would be arriving at the station in the morning carrying people infected with Covid variants.

There they will then be met by several buses to transport them to hospitals in various towns in the province, including Ubon Ratchathani itself.

Apparently, this is because the hospitals in Bangkok, where the infections are allegedly levelling off, following the lockdown, cannot cope with the numbers of infected patients and are running short of staff to treat and care for them.

Once the patients have been taken out of Ubon, the authorities want to disinfect the city, especially the route where the buses went; I am being serious even though it is hard to believe that any official can be that obtuse.

This pointless measure is to try and make people in the area feel safe, when the government, rather than taking medical staff to the patients, and getting on with building more temporary hospitals -- much like the Nightingale Hospital in London -- they are taking patients with the disease and generously spreading them around the country.

One wonders how long it will be before the wonderful healthcare staff here accidentally spread the virus to other areas within their communities, and we see hospitals in the province unable to cope with the number of cases, and we are all forced into lockdown. Perhaps then we can transport the excess cases back to Bangkok again?

It seems utterly logical to my simple mind to do one's utmost to contain an outbreak of a highly infectious disease rather than intentionally spreading it around.

The government must be utterly clueless -- with respect!