RATHER suddenly, a debate has flared up as to the accuracy of referring to the air pollution resulting from the forest and peatland fires of Indonesia as haze. While unimportant to the health problems it afflicts, some clarity is not amiss. Haze, in fact, speaks of the impaired visibility resulting from smog, which is the particle-laden smoke from factory furnaces, automobile emissions, and forest and peatland fires. It is smog that causes the haze or rather the hazy effect where buildings once clearly visible appear as ghostly apparitions as a result. Therefore, it really does not matter what the phenomenon is referred to, haze or smog, the sum total is the attendant health hazard caused by the particulate matter that pollutes the air to varying degrees of toxicity, depending on what is burning.
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