The harmful effects of incense burning have been proven by numerous studies in Taiwan and abroad, including nearly 50 master’s and doctoral theses in the nation alone.
It is true that folk religious activities do not account for a big proportion of the sources of PM2.5 air pollution, which can penetrate the lungs. Heavy industry and motor vehicles are the two main sources of PM2.5, and have longer-lasting and more far-reaching impacts.
Nonetheless, because incense is burnt in close proximity to people, it subjects them to a high concentration of pollutants, so it can still have a considerable impact on health, especially that of children, temple employees and people who live near temples.
Anything that is bad needs to be remedied and most people will support finding alternatives. By doing so, temples can be seen to fulfill their social responsibility.
Government officials and people who run temples are duty-bound to guide and educate the public, so why are they at loggerheads?
Consider how the problem has been handled in Changhua County. The Nanyao Temple (南瑤宮) in Changhua used to receive a big subsidy from the city government to buy large quantities of firecrackers.
However, environmental groups called for an end to the practice, and the mayor accepted their request. When city hall stopped subsidizing the temple’s firecrackers, it started using electronic firecrackers instead.
As for incense burning, the temple encourages worshipers to place no more than one joss stick in each incense burner, and it plans to take a step further by cutting the number of burners.
However, more importantly, Changhua has made a big effort to reduce industrial pollution.
The county government rejected Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp’s application to renew its coal-burning license, so there are no more dirty coal fumes in densely populated Changhua City. By closing down the coal-fired power plant, the Changhua government removed a major source of pollution and won the public’s trust. Since then, the company’s share price has surged, proving that this is a triple-win strategy.
A less fortunate case is that of Yunlin County. After what happened in Changhua, the central government intervened strongly in Yunlin, where the county government eventually approved a license for Formosa Petrochemical Corp to continue operating a coal-fired power plant at its naphtha cracker in Mailiao Township (麥寮).
The company only signed a memorandum, which is not legally binding, saying it would convert its generators to natural gas by 2025.
Having made repeated concessions to industry while tightly restricting temples’ incense burning, how could the county government hope to persuade the public? How could it expect the public to believe that it was really acting out of concern for public health? People might suspect that as the government could not impose controls on industry, it was instead picking on the soft target of temples to show that it was doing something.
When the government has lost the moral high ground, squandered the public’s trust and discarded it core values, it will find it hard to win support even when it is clearly doing the right thing. To turn this situation around, the central government would do well to take a page from Changhua’s book.
Chien Jien-wen is a pediatrician and a board member of the Changhua Medical Alliance for Public Affairs.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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