Conscientious Contentions

Why is Keith Bradsher* busybodying in a Malaysian’s affair?

He wrote: “But the construction and design may have serious flaws, according to the engineers, who also provided memos, e-mail messages and photos from Lynas and its contractors.”

There’s more: “An engineer involved in the project said that the blueprints called for the plastic waterproofing but that he was ordered to omit it, to save money. The plastic costs $1.60 a square foot, he said.”

Bradsher has been writing some critical expose on a major FDI for the state of Pahang which had caused** some people some mighty headaches.

Allegations such as the above should not be aired so openly, Mr Bradsher.

That’s not the way we do things here. Nope. We prefer to do loads of “kajian” (Research? Studies?) before putting on a huge smile and say everything is “Okay”. If it’s not, then we’ll do a fair bit more of kajians until it is.

All this talk about the rare earth plant being a contamination risk is causing undue alarm on the populace. Now, some of them have gone on and protested against the whole project.

Perhaps if you had not written way back in early March on the same matter then the furore would have been more subdued and the plant would be up and running faster than you can say, say, Bukit Merah.

What’s in it for you, really? I mean, not even our mainstream journalists here are probing too deeply into such an outwardly, rosy-looking project that is worth much, much moolah to the country.

What? There’s a 12-year tax holiday, you say? Hmm....

Well there is that 0.05 percent research grant per revenue and the, ahem, spill-over impact on the surrounding area’s economic wellbeing.

Your article have now gone on to open a can of worms right before the authorities could announce today the results of an independent international review of the plant. (See **)

What if someone – would anyone, though? - asks the abovementioned points and there is no answer?

More headaches. Sleepless nights. Un, ahem, CLEAN-shaven days.

* Keith Bradsher is the Hong Kong bureau chief of The New York Times. Wonder where he gets his sources from? Pretty close to the project to get such delicate info.

** Had caused are the definitive words as the Menteris announced the Independent Panel okaying of the project with some 11 recommendations. Not sure if these addresses the concerns you've raised, though...

Naturally Late

The way forward for the country may well be 30 years late if Denmark is to be of any example.

At least this is my reading from NYT’s Freidman “The Copenhagen That Matters” which is basically about the painful steps took by the EU country with 5 million people after finding out she was overly dependent on Middle East black gold.

Sustainability policies and active acts often come into place only when matters become far too pressing.

It was unfortunate for the so-called “Climategate” to have happened when it did as it took much of the sting of global warming from the world leaders attending the Copenhagen 2009 Climate Conference.

So in the end, NOTHING came from the much hyped event.

We did promise a 40% reduction in CO2 emission by the year 2020.

Whether it’s a promise (conditional that it was) we can deliver is at best a gamble.

Let’s face it: environmental matters seemed the least of our concerns.

If my reading in the political direction of the country is correct, Malaysians care only about one thing: The Economy. At least that seems to be the thrusts where the current government is concerned.

Never mind lo.

During a trip to Kitakyushu many, many moons ago, I discovered that it was disgruntled mothers who kicked off the so-called green movement of the city.

Grabbing the matters of their children’s wellbeing by the balls, the mothers of Kitakyushu in the 1960’s began pushing hard for a cleanup of the smog-filled industrial city, complete with its mercury enriched sludge-filled bay.

Those days are long gone for the city after much effort and funding.

We don’t have anything resembling such catalyst that could push for such a concerted effort to be made.

Sure, our verdant forest and green hills continue to be raped and plundered for the red earth, space and valuable timbers that it has plenty, but, hey, that is happening not in my neighborhood.

Just last weekend during a trip up north I came across a hill in Kedah with a grotesque half cut look of exposed red earth and green forest.

The hills in the once paddy-king state look a lot like molehills that jut out amidst flat plains.

I supposed the hill will be completely leveled in my next trip up north.

It’s a sad reflection of the country that we seemed to be going backwards in recent years in all matters concerned, so much so that the winning of the ASEAN Games football gold is welcomed with quite the euphoria.

It is like we are starting from scratch again.

Just where is it that we took a wrong turn in realizing this dream of a country which would flourish together with its populace?

I have asked this same question over and over again in many posting but until now, there is simply no answer.
Instead we get braggarts boasting boastful rhetoric’s, institutions neglecting their responsibilities, authorities acting like Maharajahs of old and countless other abomination in clear signals of a country slipping into an abyss.

M Nasir could well be spot on when he sang: “Jangan sampai makan rasuah, Nanti bangsa jadi musnah..” all those years ago.

When you think of it, all the above has a common denominator and it is that of bleeding the country’s resources to fatten ourselves up.

Well, a select few of us anyway.

Sustainability be damned.

Green Thoughts

Ever heard of the phrase Greenwash?

I heard it the first time during a seminar on Green Buildings; spoken by a construction professional from New Zealand.

Without quoting verbatim, what he essentially said was this:

“The most effective methods to go green are usually the most cost effective and lay in good designs. Putting costly so-called green implementations to achieve the same is green wash.”

Going Green refers to moves by developers and building owners in getting accreditations for environmentally friendly design, implementations, management etc. with the recently launched Green Building Index Malaysia making it easier for local buildings to do so.

The essence of what the chap from NZ says is building designs that conform to the environment instead of the other way around do wonders in terms of environmental sustainability.

Things like building orientation, ventilations and openings, layouts; these are all built into any building’s design right from the start.

Adding green stuffs such as solar panels (easily one of the most expensive items any building could have) would make it iconic, shouting the building’s green intentions.

A not-so-great parable would be that of driving a hybrid around town when a bicycle is the best thing an environment could ever ask for.

Something like that.

The guy’s reasoning is spot on really: construction and environmental sustainability do not go so well hand in hand as the former would almost always have to pollute and plunder no matter what.

Going Green looks towards minimizing all the destructive impacts from construction by providing marks to environmentally friendly practices.

A detailed look into this subject would require a really, really lengthy discourse which I neither have time nor energy for.

You could certainly see some of these thinkings in the following art exhibition at the Artist’ Space in Concorde Hotel, Shah Alam.

The solo (at least I think it’s one) exhibition from Sabak Bernam-born Azhari Tasis is from this Saturday, July 4 to the end of the month.

It’s entitled: “Modernization, the Future and the Environment” and the show’s on from 11am to 11pm except on Sunday.

A sample is produced below.

Uneasy co-existence? You decide.

World Car Free Day aka Missed Opportunity

It’s a definite irony that I heard for the first time (shame on me!!) about the World Car Free Day stuck in a traffic jam whilst driving to work this morning.

Not that I could’ve done anything even if the knowledge of such an initiative had come earlier, but it was nonetheless a missed opportunity to do something good, to give something back to Mother Earth.

Of course, it had to also be on a Monday this year for a test of resolution and commitment to do good, but I would have imagined that things would probably be status quo for Malaysian motorists any which way.

I wonder, too, if any of our leaders would do something similarly philanthropic as did Lee "Cycling President" Myung-bak to celebrate the World Car Free Day.

There were nonetheless some levels of coercion on the part of the authorities by way of roadblocks and actual buses-only lanes, but there was no mistaking the political will to celebrate such an occasion.

Is it a worthwhile escapade to undertake every Sept 22?

Do we really have to ask?

Next year, then.

Where the Grass is Greener..

If you were given a chance to migrate, which country would you choose?

Tough one, isn’t it? The thing about being in a foreign land is that it’s almost always better in it being a short to medium term stay. Maybe. I wouldn’t know for sure as the only foreign countries I have ever visited are England, Singapore and Japan.

In Japan, however, is a country this country should (and did, some time ago) look to for a clear direction of where we could be in the near future with the right actions today.

It was mid last year that I manage to squeeze into a short trip to Kitakyushu in the island of Kyushu; the southernmost island of Japan’s big four including Honshu, Hokkaido and Shikoku.

The sky was deep blue the day I arrived in Kitakyushu; the highway bus trip bypassing a clear (though, not crystal) Murasaki river, tall bamboo forests, beautiful paddy fields - some sandwiched between factories - and traditional Japanese homes dotting hill slopes.

Kitakyushu city itself was a mixture of old and new buildings. Once one of the most polluted in Japan, the city literally took charge of its cleaning up process.

It took the bull by the horns (I do so love clichés…) by enacting several environmental laws, setting up pollution monitoring centers, reorganizing its sanitation and public sewage facilities and dredging up the Dokai Bay; once dubbed “the Sea of Death” by locals.

Apparently, it was a group of mothers – tired of their children being maligned by the soot-filled skies – who fired the first salvo for Kitakyushu’s future with a documentary, "We want our blue skies back".

At the time, the annual average dust fall was a stratospheric 80 tonnes (!!) per square km every month. Ironically, it was Kitakyushu (and Japan’s) relentless march towards industrialization that was the cause.

Nothing signaled this long gone days then the now-decommissioned Yawata forge; a mammoth monument of how far the city has progressed to ensure its future generations do not suffer the way its children of the 1950s and 60s did.

The forge stood right in horizon outside the city’s Environmental Museum, where I witnessed a delightful one hour-long diorama on the dark days. Perhaps it was the soft female voice narrating the story that fascinated me, but I found myself empathizing with the “actors” and their concerns.

I might not have understood every single word, but the message stood out clearly. Shifting from villages to schools, from backlit rooms and shadowy actors to open courtyards, from the views of mothers to fathers and children, the script said without shouting: "Enough."

Later when freed from the formal itineraries, I took a walk along the Dokai bay one late afternoon, and saw that it was not empty boast that the clean up had been successful. The water was as blue as the sky was blue and the breeze calming.

There were several fishing boats docked at the harbour area, but you could second-guess that fishing was not the main economic lifeline of the city with several large factories located at the bay’s edge.

Kitakyushu is, however, an early sleeper with the major shops and shopping malls closed by 9.30pm latest. The smaller shops continue late into the night. Non-Japanese speaking tourists would find it a bit difficult as most of the signage and maps are in Nihon-Go.

Traveling around the city is nonetheless a chinch with a well-integrated public transport system. My Japanese friends claimed that the trains and buses hardly ever miss their appointed schedule. It was a boast well justified with a self-witnessed attention to punctuality from the few days of commuting I managed to do.

A typhoon hit Kyushu the day I left. From my window seat, I could see the rain dropping on the island even as I kissed a soft goodbye to a city that impressed me with its dedication for its future generation of populace.

(This posting is inspired by Jailani Harun’s EMail From Yasuo Fukuda's Cabinet . )