Pollen pollution

* The long weekend of the first day of Spring has come and gone and the ferocity of the hay fever season is upon us. Strange that I used to look at the hay fever season as something related to an inherited immunodeficiency or increased sensitivity to pollen particles. I NEVER suffered from hay fever in Europe, and now I know it really doesn't only have to do with the foods we eat and the sensitivities we may have towards certain chemicals or particles.
* About 10 days ago on March 12th, the Mainichi News reported locals witnessing a forest fire in the Gunma prefecture not far from Tokyo. So far, so what. The problem is that when the fire engine got there, there was no fire. What they did see was the surrounding countryside under waves of yellow smoke billowing down from the hilltops. In this case, residents feared this may be a fire and apparently it looked like it.
* An isolated incident? Not likely. Japan planted cedars extensively after World War II for cheap timber (like oak growing was shunned in favor of faster-growing species by the wood-guzzling Roman Empire in Southern France and Spain), but has ended up buying cheap timber from the jungles of Malaysia and Indonesia. Already back in 1995, the New York Times was labelling the situation a "man-made disaster" (J. Sterngold, New York Times, 17.01.1995), 10m Japanese suffered from allergy-causing cedar (and cypress) pollen. Well, that was 10 years ago. Recent data from the Tokyo region has become surreal. Although the map is in Japanese, you have pollen count per square cm against days of the month (early March), comparing 2005 and 2004 data (graphs from Kissei Pharm. Co.) taken in central Tokyo. This gives you an average of 262 counts/cm2, with a peak at nearly 1650 counts/cm2. For reference, "low" pollen counts = up to 9 counts/cm2, and "very high" pollen counts = 50 counts or more. That we have a constant AVERAGE that is 500% more than "very high", and peaks at 3300% this level means that we have POLLUTION. No more, no less.
* My eyes itch during the day and I have to wear a face mask when I go out, or walk down the road sniffling and sneezing. Air conditioners spin any pollen present around and around all day until it gets into your eyes and nose, and that's for starters. On Saturday, it rained for a bit during the day and when I left the office around 11pm, there was a slight layer of yellow dust on all the cars around, as if we had had a volcanic eruption and the fine ash had settled on the stationed vehicles. Cars parked out all weekend had started to gain a new yellowish sheen in the Monday sunshine. And no-one is doing anything about it. Not ten years ago, not now, not in the future. Just cough, itch, be unproductive, take medicine (that makes you less sensitive to high-volume particle irritation?!), and take it in your stride.