And the head of the EPA atoned for his sins, or something.
Environmental Protection Administration Minister Lee Ying-yuan, center, offers incense at Longshan Temple in Taipei yesterday.
Maybe they’re actually getting somewhere in pollution reduction.
Temples over the past decade have made efforts to reduce incense burning, he said, adding that after negotiating with the government over the past few days, they made a compromise that “one stick of incense shall be used in each burner, no more.”
The temples also urged the central government to supervise local governments in building specialized incinerators for burning joss paper (commonly known as “ghost money”), to stop them from being gathered and burned along with garbage, Lin said.
This is a time for the temple leaders to step up, show they care about the well-being of our land and the living beings on it. Instead of polarizing “religious freedom” and “environmental protection,” they could step up and educate their followers to stop adding more toxic particles into the air. Which, really, is the last damn thing this country needs.
Isn’t it a time to go digital with these offerings, anyways?
In June, Taipei’s Lungshan Temple (龍山寺) moved to cut its number of incense burners from three to one to curb emissions of PM2.5 particulate — particles measuring 2.5 micrometers or less that are small enough to penetrate the lungs.
Lungshan Temple vice chairman Huang Shu-wei (黃書瑋) said the measure was taken after most temple staff, including himself, developed health problems caused by the dense smoke produced by burning incense at the temple.
Xingtian and Lungshan temples approved the government’s environmental protection approach of asking the public to reduce the burning of incense and ghost money, saying that the number of their worshipers has not declined after they acted in support of the policy, but actually increased.
For example, before Lungshan Temple reduced its number of burners, the PM2.5 concentration inside the temple could reach as high as 400 micrograms per cubic meter, but now the concentration has been lowered to about 100 micrograms per cubic meter, data showed.
EPA data show that during the annual Dajia Matsu pilgrimage procession, the PM2.5 concentration along the procession has been measured at as high as 1,550 micrograms per cubic meter. It could instantly surge to 4,188 micrograms per cubic meter when the procession arrives at a temple, much higher than the WHO average daily concentration standard of 25 micrograms per cubic meter, the data showed.
Some ghosts may be sad that they have to wait longer for their children and grandchildren to join them, but overall I think this is a positive development.
The custom-designed checks for spirits bear individualized serial numbers, the temple’s seal of approval, auspicious red stamps and written guarantees that they are payable by all the banks of the netherworld, Chen said.
I don’t understand why they need checks to reduce the overall volume of paper being burnt. I realize most ghosts alive (dead) today wouldn’t be terribly interested in things like bitcoin, but shouldn’t the authorities be promoting reusable credit cards?
Burning gilded paper is about having peace of mind.
Oh, I see. It’s all about weaning them off the gold standard by any means necessary.
