the neo earth

I’ve never been a fan of cemeteries, in fact, I would very much like to be cremated by alkaline hydrolysis and then have my remains dispersed into the sea.

To be honest, I never knew that Bukit Brown was known as Bukit Brown, I’ve always thought it to be the Lornie Road Cemetery. That said, I knew the place existed, and is also rife with traditional Chinese cultural activities that I may or may not agree with. Proof? An old article by the Straits Times on cars parked along Lornie Road during the Chinese “Qing Ming” festival of tomb sweeping, where Chinese pay their respects to their ancestors with a visit to the tombs. Perhaps the internet is now flooded by articles about Bukit Brown, so much so that cars parking alongside Lornie Road is no longer of importance, or that Google has failed on me – I can’t find that article!

If you’ve asked me just over a year ago if the damages done by the plans to build the highway could be mitigated after it was being built with more tree planting, I would naively say yes. But having learnt the characteristics of carbon sinks, and the different types of tree planting, I would contest such a move. Over the past year, I’ve learnt a lot – the tree you see along the streets are not the same as those found in woodlands (not Woodlands!), and quoting a phrase I learnt at the Biosphere – Mother Nature is very resistant, some species will still remain after everything else falls apart, but we humans may not be there to see it. So yes, go ahead and remove Bukit Brown, but when you’ve done that, do not regret the ecological impact you may have failed to predict.

For now, I need some comments on these posters and decide which is better!

While visiting MoMA on my last trip to New York City, I chanced upon an artwork that intrigued my thoughts on creating a series of posters focusing on environmental issues.

Since I returned from my trip, I’ve been pondering through my thoughts on how I could put that art work to use. And that was how the “If only” series was born. Let’s hope it doesn’t end here, and here is a draft of my work:

I appreciate all fair comments to help me improve on this poster!

[03/27/12 - Just updated it again! Thank you all for the feedback!]

I remember a couple of years ago when I was volunteering at an ad-hoc call center of the local chapter of a certain international organization involved in the disaster relief efforts in Myanmar. People were calling in then to enquire about ways they could donate money and if it’s possible to bring it down to our headquarters. Surprisingly, few knew how to get there – but that’s not important. So over and over again I repeated directions to the building, and some still couldn’t get it. So, I took out the laptop, wrote an email to LTA and requested for a signboard to point to the building, which I was surprised isn’t in place yet, given the history of the building. How hard can it be, given that there are signboards to seemingly everything. Well I found out, pretty hard, this is the reply that was given:

Dear Mr Leong
Thank you for your request.
We note the purpose of the signs.  However, we are concerned about the safety of road users.  Advertisements such as signs displayed along public streets  distract road users and pose safety hazards to them.  In addition, they clutter the streetscape.  In this respect, we are unable to display the signs along Penang Lane.
Please feel free to contact me for clarifications.  Thank you.
Lame-O-Guy
Road Infrastructure Management
Road Operations & Community Partnership
Land Transport Authority

I’m kidding about the name – but the rest of the message, has been copied in its entirety. I replied to the message, but never received any reply. So it surprised me that sometime ago, MediaCorp launched a moving billboard – literally. Touted as a new Out-of-Home (OOH) platform, the “On-The-Move Billboard”, features three large display panels: 7.3m x 3m on two sides and 2.1m x 3m on the rear.

How much of the economy should we sacrifice for the sake of our environment has been a much debated issue for decades now. Governments from all over the world, gather year after year during climate change conferences to discuss the issue of how much of their economy should be sacrificed for a sustainable environment. Yet, not once have they realistically thought about how much of the environment have we been sacrificing for the economy?

You may laugh at the thought, but do you know, that the climate change you experience today is a result of the doings of the past generation? Climate studies focus on a classical period of 30 years, which could mean that what we are experiencing today, is likely a result of a build-up of “sins” of the past 30 years. Yes, go ahead and blame your parents or the you 30 years ago, but bear this in mind, your children and yourself of the future will be casting the same blame on you if you do not take any action now.

In the movie 2012, we saw a world, indifferent towards everything else but preserving the future of mankind – must we wait for such a day before we reconsider our actions? In the movie, our chaotic world calmed after 2 months of violent weather, and all refugees were returned to land where they find a new world awaiting them. Will we be able to do the same if we turn our world upside down?

Our government is constantly going  on about how much it did for our environment, but quizzed further about the exact positive impact it has created, how much it has spent to positively combat climate change, it remains mum, and points to the economic sustainability we have to maintain. What is the use of having so much money in reserves, if we are never going to spend it? Are the figures in the bank better to look at or a better environment we can live comfortably in, more important?

Our obsession with instantaneous wealth has led us to ignore the fact that failing to be green, eventually erodes our wealth. The extra load brought about by the myopic decisions to keep policies less stringent and leave environmental initiatives to the private sector will only amass greater costs in the future. Our hunger to maintain easy economic growth through fancy buildings, cars, and even people i.e. population surge, will only hamper the healthy growth of our people. What makes us economically comfortable does not necessarily make us environmentally so and we eventually have to spend more to maintain that lifestyle.

Recently at an environmental awards ceremony, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, Vivian Balakrishnan mentioned that young people are more aware about the environment, and are more active proclaiming their causes for the Earth. Yet, in a study done before the General Election, statistics show that the environment ranks among the least important concern of young voting Singaporeans. The same opinion echoes through the audience at a recent forum I attended where grassroots leaders vote for the top concern they want the mayor to address.

Perhaps, there really is an increase of awareness for the environment, but the focus has always been too small to begin with, there just isn’t any impact. Obviously, the pace of our move towards  a greener lifestyle has not been able to match that of nature. Because combating climate change requires more than just plain gimmicky marketing and awards, we are doomed for good if we choose to be obstinate about dollars and cents over common sense.

Photo by Andrew*’s on Flickr

Each year, 6 billion of these plastic cards are produced worldwide

I was at an IT fair recently when I signed up for my first credit card – sometimes I think to myself, how are credit cards related to such fairs? Although I’ve been using credit and debit cards for many years, that day was the first time I’ve signed up for a credit card on my own. I was amazed at how easy it is to obtain a credit card despite having started on my job for only 2 weeks.

Each time I walked past a banks’ booth, its credit card officers will come up to me and shove a copy of the banks’ brochure in my hands. One of the banks in particular had 7 credit cards in its brochures, each with different features for my pick. I could have applied for every single card it offered that day without paying a single cent.

I then asked the credit card officer what is the purpose of having that many cards, to which he replied, they serve different purposes and target groups. If that’s so, why am I eligible for every card out there? In fact, less with the design and privileges of the different cards, I can’t spot any other difference with them. In that case, why can’t they simply combine the privileges of all these cards into one? They all belong to the same bank anyway.

In the end, I applied for 3 cards from that particular bank. One gave me the discounts of lifestyle facilities, while the second, the convenience of taking public transport, and the last because the credit card officer said, take a MasterCard (the other 2 were Visas). Initially excited over the benefits, I was only stricken with guilt when the packages arrived just yesterday. Not only did the packages come with thick stacks of brochures, there was also an additional card for a ready credit line which I did not remember signing up for.

According to statistics obtained by Sierra Club, the annual production of cards totaled over 6 billion worldwide. Enough to form over 50 stacks the height of Mount Everest, or even reach the Moon! Made of Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), these cards last forever in landfills around the world. Yet, no one seems to take notice of the damage credit cards are doing to our economy and our environment. Perhaps its monetary benefits to GDP figures outweigh that of economic stability, or perhaps its convenience outweigh that of its environmental damage, but one thing for sure, its use is here to stay.

While Sierra Club noted the indifference in attitude of issuers such Visa, MasterCard, JP Morgan-Chase, there is still a lot a consumer can do. First and foremost, stop applying for credit cards which you do not need. One less card in a market where each consumer holds an average of 3.5 cards makes a difference. You may also want to look out for cards with annual fee waiver for at least 5 years (the lifespan of a typical card), unless you are very sure that the waiver will be carried forward every year. Although not exactly measures that will prevent more plastics from being released into the pool of growing economies, these actions will at least help to minimize our carbon footprint and hopefully mitigate a climate crisis.

With the incoming wave of Near-Field Communication (NFC) technologies promising more convenience for credit payment with mobile phones and stickers, are we also seeing the end of these rectangular plastic cards? Then again, mobile phones also pose the problem of electronic trash as each model gets refreshed every 6 months to a year. The only solution then, is to limit our appetite of wants over needs.

If you hate junk mail just like me, say “aye!”. Well, I believe no one likes having their mailbox – whether the online or a physical one – to be spammed with junk. Not only does it obstruct the view of the more important messages, the physical copies of such unwanted messages is also physically taxing on our environment. To make matters worst, advertisers are lured by the accessibility and affordability of these methods. Printing of the hard copy spam mails only gets cheaper when the quantity increases.

Besides the environmental damages resulting from the depletion of our forests, junk mail can also be a nuisance to our living environment. A recent post Facebook by opposition MP Pritam Singh, clearly shows the extent of the problem. In the post, he asked residents for their cooperation in keeping the estates clean – an issue which was also brought up by the Prime Minister- and posted photos of areas where he found trash lying around. Not surprisingly, the letter box area was filled with a sea of flyers. While the Housing Board has tried to alleviate the problem by installing locks to the flaps - only the postman has the key – and creating a boundary for the trash, Singpost’s Admail did nothing to help. In fact, it made things simpler for advertisers by offering to send the junk mail for them, betraying the right of access given to the postman.

So instead of making things simpler for the advertisers, we should use every possible mean to discourage the printing of flyers. To start off, the Ministry of Information Communication and the Arts should implement a National “no junk mail” database. This, will alert advertisers of people who do not wish to receive advertisments in their mail, eliminating the redundancies of sending to people who would eventually dump the flyers. Registrants  will also be issued a sticker to be affixed on the mailbox to alert advertisers that they do not wish to receive any flyers.

As a “fine” city, it is without a doubt that such a policy will come with a fine for offenders. Offenders who flout the restrictions for more than 5 units a month will be liable for charges and fines. The goal is to eventually eliminate the use of printed flyers, saving our trees and keeping our neighborhoods clean. And just like the water conservation tax levied on excessive use of water, we could implement a “tree-conservation” tax. The amount to be varied in an incremental way, will help to reduce excessive printing, especially for promotional activities.

The proposals mentioned may not be easy to implement – no new policy is ever easy. Yet, it is an important step towards a cleaner and better environment for everyone.

These days, the world seems to be circling around everything that’s “Green”. Pro-Environmentalism is “cool”, be it with Hollywood actors or world politicians. Just take a look at Germany – the world’s largest political party advocating environmental causes, the Green Party recently scored its most remarkable win in a state election over the democrats who have been holding on to power for almost 60 years.

This it seems is not enough for environmentalists around the world. It seems that environmentalists around the world have tried hard to designate at least a day every month as an “environment day”. Just to name a few: there’s Earth Day (April 22), Earth Hour (last Saturday of March), World Environment Day (June 5), etc. Not that such commemorative days aren’t good, but surely environmentalists understand the meaning of “economies of scale”? By pushing for relatively similar messages through such campaigns seems like a waste of resources that could have been better spent. In fact, I did a search on the difference between Earth Day and World Environment Day (WED), found out that the main difference between both campaigns is simply the initiator. While WED is backed by the United Nations and has been around since 1972, the Earth Day kicked off in 1969 from the United States. Other than that, both campaigns share relatively the same objectives.

As an environmentalist myself, I am totally against replicating similar movements. Not only is it a waste of resources, it dilutes the message as the impact of each message starts to dwindle. However, this isn’t what made me so pissed today. Lately, I developed a habit of collecting environmental related articles from newspapers for my scrap book, and while I was looking through the pages of a certain tabloid, an advertisement caught my eye. The advertisement by French hypermarket chain, Carrefour, was promoting “Go Green with Carrefour” on World Environment Day 2011. The event supported by local environmental big wigs, the National Environment Agency and Singapore Environmental Council promoted the use of reusable bags, rechargeable batteries and LED table lamps.

As perfect as the advertisement tries to be, it was a major disappointment in my opinion. Besides the promotion for the rechargeable batteries and LED table lamps, Carrefour also advertised the sale of 2 other products: Russet Potatoes from the USA, Danone Mineral Water. Ironically for the promotion that aims to bring environmental awareness to our shoppers, Carrefour didn’t seem to realize that promoting bottled drinks ain’t helping the environment at all. Furthermore, I wonder how environmentally conscious one can be if he/she chooses to eat potatoes that traveled half way around the world. Not only does this look bad on Carrefour, it also undermined the support given by the NEA and SEC.

I’m not sure whether I’m the only one who found these inappropriate, but I certainly do hope that Carrefour will review it’s policy on such marketing efforts. As for the organizations which play a supportive role of such events, the time has probably come for more stringent checks on whether partners have tried to unfairly profit from each campaign, and possibly lead them towards the right direction. It is one to lend a good name in support of a good cause, but to allow a good “non-profit” name to be tarnished by profiteering intentions is simply not worth it.

Japan’s energy crisis gave us a number of lessons. It showed us how dependent we can be on energy, and especially so on the much hated nuclear energy. Environmentalists all over the world scream in chorus of the anti-nuke chants as Fukushima Daiichi laid in ruins. But more importantly, the destruction upon the city showed us how much energy we waste on beautifying our cityscapes. The colorful lights that run all over the signboards and buildings, the huge LED panels with music blaring in the background, the spotlights cast upon the magnificent towers  to make them seem even more impressive.

Some time ago, I had the opportunity to meet the permanent secretary of the National Climate Change Secretariat, an agency under the Prime Ministers’ Office. While most participants of the dialog session were interested in how NCCS could help them to help the community, I was more interested in the policies  that would shape the future of our Green economy in the country. I wanted to know the stance that Singapore has on fighting climate change.

I fully agree that we should not let fighting change affect our competitiveness, in fact, I believe we should make it our competitive advantage. What bothers me more about the Kyoto Protocol and COP15 are the complicated formulas that nations have come up with to mitigate their unwillingness to adopt green policies. The figures circling around the “business-as-usual” operations only put the common folk into more confusion.

Big time international policies aside, I also wanted to find out what other motion has the government put forth to clear the puff around us. So at the end of the dialog session when the permanent secretary, Mr. Tan came over to my group and asked if we had any more questions, I jumped to the gun and asked, “Sir, I used to live in Buffalo where the responsibility of being sustainable didn’t just lie in the hands of the people, but also that of the city council. Besides the policies and campaigns to be environmentally friendly, the city breathes sustainability. You don’t get the light pollution we have here, and even street lights turn off in an alternate fashion, traffic lights go into the flashing amber mode, on roads where traffic is not as heavy. Will Singapore consider doing something similar?”. He thought for a moment and replied that it is not possible for Singapore as a city to take similar measures, our buildings have to be lit, our streets have to be lit, and our traffic lights have to be lit. These lightings provide the night scene that we have, as well as safety and security of our streets. To that, I couldn’t fully agree.

Yes it is important that we create a landscape that we can be proud of, but at what cost? Is it so important that as we brighten our streets for the Formula 1 race downtown, we have to further brighten the buildings in the vicinity for them to look good? Are the street and traffic lights being sufficiently utilized? The park behind my house used to operate on a schedule that shuts it off at 12 midnight and comes back on at 5.30am for about an hour or so. Few years after the park was built, the lights were changed to dimmer ones and started operating through the night. I believe the rationale for this move is to allow the park to be used through the night, but seriously, no one does. The dimmer lights were not bright enough to provide the security one will need while walking through the park past 12 midnight, and they are better off taking on the streets in front of my house (the row of houses separates the park and the street). So is this really essential? Aren’t we saving to waste?

Similarly, Mr. Tan mentioned that it is impossible to turn off any traffic light in Singapore. I am sure most Singaporean drivers, especially those who have accustomed to 4-way stops can attest that this is not true. The only exit from my estate on to the main road is a perfect example. The main road outside the estate is one of the most used roads linking 2 towns, and during peak hours, traffic congestion on the main road is a norm. However, off peak traffic couldn’t be more different. Even during the day, stretches of the road can be empty for 10-15 seconds, yet cars are kept waiting for 2 minutes for the lights to change, and I’ve seen on numerous occasions when drivers simply ignore the lights and move out.  Keep in mind that this is the only exit in a fairly large and growing estate with an average of 2-3 cars per household, yet the presence of traffic signals is of no importance at certain times of the day, what about the many under utilized junctions around the island?

Our government is known to introduce campaigns and policies to get the people working on an initiative, but it is high time that the government itself walk the talk. Have our senior civil servants and ministers really walked the grounds to understand the problems? Plainly dismissing suggestions based on numbers from their statistical sheets will do no better good than claiming that a meal at the hawker center costs S$1. “Listen” has become the new buzzword in parliament, and let’s hope it brings about the necessary changes to make Singapore a better place.

Are we far too bright?

I came across this in the Straits Times forum just the other day, “An offence to leave engines running”:

We refer to the letter by Ms Chua Mei Ling, “Running engines add to pollution” (April 3).

Leaving a vehicle engine running unnecessarily is an offence under the Environmental Protection and Management (Vehicular Emissions) Regulations.

The National Environment Agency conducts regular enforcement checks in areas where drivers of vehicles are observed to have left their engines running without good reason. Motorists caught could be issued with a warning or fine.

The writer can provide us with the necessary details to do a follow-up by contacting our call centre on  1800 CALL NEA (1800-2255632).

Tan Quee Hong, Director, Pollution Control Department, National Environment Agency

I certainly haven’t had the chance to see anyone being caught for the act, but enforcement is definitely in place. How regularly are the checks conducted? Well, that is difficult to answer but I would think that Taxi drivers form the bulk of the culprits, followed by couples engaging in some heated action in the carparks of the Lower Pierce Reservoir. If they aren’t, I suggest the enforcement officers change their target locations.

P.S. I wonder if hybrid vehicle owners who reason that they are charging their batteries substantiate the argument?

While searching for details of a van that my mom was intending to purchase, I found out about this awesome database by the National Environment Agency. If anyone of you ever had trouble making a direct comparison between cars for fuel economy, this will help a lot. It’s a database with every single model of vehicle (I suppose) that is registered in Singapore.

This probably came as part with the mandatory Fuel Economy Labelling Scheme following the inclusion of motor vehicles as registrable goods under Environmental Protection and Management Act (Cap. 94A). The only problem I see with this database is the likelihood that it goes into the bin of white elephants. You see, NEA had a revamp of their website some time back, and this database is not linked from any of the new pages as far as I can search. I have this habit of trying to back-track any interesting website that I find, and the furthest I got from the main page is the Fuel Economy Labelling Scheme page. The only way to get to this database is by searching on Google.

The good news however, is that I did try to find the latest cars in the market, and I found cars registered in 2011. Check it out if you are aiming for a new car, and wants a comparison for the most fuel economical car out there!