The Man Who Foresees Storms

Q: Climate change in Burma has become worse lately. What do you think should be done?

A: It is not quite so easy—the whole world's climate has changed for the worse. But that doesn't mean that we have to give up. What we can do is prioritize reforestation.

A study has been made with regard to global climate change. It has shown that agriculture, industry, deforestation, population growth and a few other factors are the main effect on the global climate.

After examining the impact of these different sectors on climate change, the latest study shows that climate change within a country is mainly related to its GDP.

Q: People have alleged that, in the past, smugglers and those involved in illegal shipping paid off staff at the DMH in order to get them to release false reports about potential storms at sea, thereby deterring government patrol boats from going out and clearing the way for smugglers to land. Can you comment?

A: This is not true at all. There was no such case. There is no way the DMH could act like that. It was all just speculation by people who are unaware of DMH procedures. At that time, the weather forecasts were issued by the DMH headquarters in Rangoon. No individual person could release an independent news report.

Q: How do you feel when you think of Cyclone Nargis?

A: I have many suppressed feelings connected with Cyclone Nargis, because we knew about five days in advance that it would strike the country.

I don't want to blame anyone in particular, but we have paid a high price for not having the experience to deal of this kind of natural disaster. We underestimated it.

The only thing I have in my head now is never to let anything like that happen again. To do this, we have to add, fix and improve our system wherever possible. Taking our lesson from Nargis, we need to be fully prepared.