Tuesday, 30 October 2012
Monday, 1 October 2012
Subang Jaya: Thriving but filthy
Monday September 3, 2012
By TAN KARR WEI
Subang Jaya has come a long way since the township’s birth three decades ago. It comes under the Subang Jaya Municipal Council, which also oversees Bandar Sunway, Puchong and Serdang. Starting today, StarMetro will highlight news, issues and events from the areas under MPSJ’s jurisdiction in our Greater Subang column.
Subang Jaya was developed by Sime Darby on a former plantation in the 1980s. Starting out as a modest residential area, the township has matured into a thriving neighbourhood with busy commercial areas such as SS15 and USJ10, among others.
It was originally governed by the Petaling District Council before it was handed over to the Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ) formed in the mid-1990s.
The SS15 commercial centre is a thriving commercial area in Subang Jaya with myriad food outlets, financial institutions, private colleges, businesses and even a wet market.
However, another thing that is quite hard to miss in SS15 are the random piles of garbage and bulk waste such as old mattresses and broken furniture left along the walkways in front of the shops.
With drains that are filled with rubbish and greasy stagnant water, rat-catching operations have been carried out frequently to control the rodent population.
SS15 Business Community member Datuk Samson Maman said compared to other commercial areas, SS15 posed a unique problem because many of the upper floors of the two- and three-storey shoplots had been converted into student hostels.
“The top floors do not command a high rental rate so it becomes more attractive to unit owners to partition their premises and rent them out to students.
“Whenever the students move out, it is more convenient for them to just throw out their old furniture on the sidewalk.
“It is quite difficult to nab the culprits because they do the dumping at night when there are not many people around,” he said.
Rubbish contractors appointed by the Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ) only collect a maximum of five bags or 240 litres of domestic waste (which includes waste from food outlets) six days a week from each lot in commercial areas, and most of the bulk rubbish are left in front of shops or at the backlanes.
As part of its licensing regulations, the council currently requires all business owners to pay any one of the 19 contractors on its panel to collect rubbish exceeding the limit at a price to be negotiated between the two parties.
“Most offices do not exceed five bags but the problem arises because the rubbish generated from the higher floors are all thrown at one area on the ground floor and the contractors would consider it as rubbish from just one unit.
“Most landlords do not provide bins for their tenants so the rubbish just end up wherever is convenient for them, either in someone else’s bin or in front of the shoplots,” said Samson.
On the requirement to pay for the collection of additional rubbish generated, he said most operators were reluctant to fork out the extra money because of an existing clause in the licence application which required restaurant owners to appoint a pest control company from MPSJ’s panel.
“They are paying about RM360 a year besides other fees, such as for putting tables and chairs outside their premises or to rent a parking bay.
“Most of them are also reluctant to pay because rubbish from either the residential units or businesses could end up in their bins,” Samson said.
He added that the council’s requirement for businesses to provide roller bins also posed other problems to operators.
“The 240litre roller bins are not cheap and can cost between RM200 and RM300 each.
“The bins usually go missing and many people are reluctant to replace them.
“Some of us will chain them to permanent structures but that poses another problem because it could be blocking the five-foot ways and it also makes it difficult for contractors to pick up garbage from the bins.
“We hope that MPSJ can look into providing community bins where the contractors have ownership of them.
“That way, they can chain the bins so that they do not go missing and have access to the keys to facilitate rubbish collection,” he said.
Waste management consultant Jaron Keng Zi Xiang said food waste made up for about 50% to 60% of rubbish that end up in the landfills.
“Even if people separate their recyclables, it will only reduce their waste by about 20%.
“Separating trash at its source and using biodegradable waste for composting is an option, but it is hardly carried out because it is time-consuming and not economical.
“Compost material cost a lot more than chicken dung fertiliser, so people are reluctant to buy it,” he said.
Keng is also the secretary of the Green and Blue Group — an environmental awareness association — which currently runs a composting project in Universiti Malaya.
An environmental engineering graduate who is currently pursuing his Master’s in public policy, Keng said the problem of rat infestation in SS15 would never be properly solved as long as people threw rubbish into drains and waste water runs through these drains.
“It is as much a behavioural problem as it is a structural one. Most people have the perception that drains are dirty so they do not think twice about throwing things in.
“Also, the drainage system in Malaysia is such that a lot of water from the sinks go straight into the drains instead of into the sewer system, especially in older townships.
“As such, wastewater is not treated before it flows into drains and rivers.
“Even with a grease trap, only solid waste is being filtered and the dirty water still ends up in the drains and rats are attracted to the dirty drains.
“To compound the problem, you will find people washing their dirty dishes by the drains behind many restaurants.
“Wet markets also add to the problem because the water from the washing goes directly into the drains,” he said.
Keng said there were structural and technological methods to counter these problem but those would only be rendered effective with proper guidelines and strict enforcement by the authorities.
Jaron Keng Zi Xiang is Secretary of Malaysia Green and Blue Environmental Protection Society .
Thursday, 20 September 2012
Time to re-boot: Towards a new environmentalism
With the IUCN Congress coming to an end, Dr Joe Zammit-Lucia argues that the environmental community needs to re-think its approach. "Faith in ‘business as usual’ to deliver the changes needed owes more to the hopes of those favoured by the current status quo (and fearful of the costs of any change of direction) than to a coherent analysis".
This quote from a 2008 IUCN Report was directed at those responsible for making policy decisions. It is time we also directed these words to ourselves - how we define environmentalism, what we are about and how we hope to achieve positive change.
Stalling or building on success?
The success of the environmental movement is undoubted. Awareness of environmental issues is high. Environmental concerns have started to become embedded in everyday parlance, values and social norms. Investment in alternative energy and species and ecosystem conservation has reached a scale that was unimaginable in the mid-1970s. The last quarter of the 20th century truly represented the golden age of conservation. Surely we should be able to build on that success. As we go through 2012, why does it feel like we might be stalling rather than moving forward with confidence?
There is no doubt that we have seen setbacks. The ink is not yet dry on the UN climate change convention signed in Durban but, since the Copenhagen fiasco, progress achieved in climate negotiations has been, at best, disappointing, at worst disastrous. Neither have we made the progress we had hoped for in other areas of conservation. We are living through difficult economic times. As a result, budgets have been slashed and conservation and environmental issues have been marginalized. They are seen as a potential further drag on growth prospects and money spent on conservation efforts can be re-directed to what are seen as investments with greater economic productivity.
Gaining the initiative
The easy way out is to complain and blame the failure of progress on "short sighted politicians" who do not have the courage to make the changes that need to be made. This would be a self-serving abrogation of our responsibilities. If our message is not resonating, the first place to look is in the mirror. How can we re-think what we are about and be more effective at putting ourselves at the centre of the political debate? How can we regain the initiative?
The world has changed and continued success depends on our ability to change with it; to learn how to be effective in the new, fast moving, unstructured, freewheeling, post-modern world of the 21st century. The challenge for the environmental movement is to find ways to connect with, and remain relevant to, an urban, cyber-linked society that is disconnected from the natural world. People for whom conservation issues risk being seen as peripheral or downright damaging as economies become more strained, jobs more difficult to come by and social exclusion a reality.
A new sustainable environmentalism
What I am proposing are the elements of a new environmentalism - one that can be successful in today’s world – and maybe sustainable in tomorrow’s.
1. Create a vision of a positive and tangible future: The first and most difficult task is to turn our attention away from continuously bombarding people with messages of doom and gloom and to set about the much tougher task of creating a vision of the sort of future that we are offering people. A future that can credibly promise that which people care about - jobs, security, social cohesion, improving living standards.
2. From activism to environmentalism: We are surrounded by environmental activists - people who see the world exclusively through the lens of environmental issues. This perspective is all too easily dismissed as the rantings of single-issue lobbyists. What we need is a new type of environmentalist - one that can work to incorporate environmental concerns into the real political, social and economic world. In other words, we need to stop looking at society through the lens of the environment and learn how to look at the environment through the lens of our societies.
3. Results before ideology: If we are to achieve results, we must leave zealotry and ideology behind. A small but vocal few still put ideology before results. Some may object to the globalized capitalist system - but it's the system we have and, if time is as short as we claim, then we have to learn to work with it and take advantage of all it has to offer.
4. Offer solutions not problems: It’s not productive to tilt at windmills. Many argue that the increasing human population and the pursuit of economic growth are both incompatible with a sustainable future. Yet nobody has come up with practical, effective, credible and socially-acceptable alternatives. A no-growth economy is a zero sum game where, except in some utopian fantasy, resources will inevitably be seized by the powerful from the powerless. Let us focus our efforts and our rhetoric on those areas where we can offer credible and practicable long- and short-term solutions. We have many of those areas available and we don't need to be distracted by that about which we can complain but for which we have no answer.
5. Learn to work with others: Many in the environmental movement understand that the issues are so substantial and the routes to improvement so complex, costly and wide-ranging that we cannot achieve our aims without working closely with industry in all its forms. From resource extracting companies to the global financing companies that we will need to fund the necessary investments; from corporations that create the goods we all consume to those who have a deep understanding of people's behaviours and how to influence them. Without wholesale engagement with the business world we cannot achieve our aims - and a number of environmental organizations are already leading the way.
6. There is no conservation - only development: “Conservation” has, sadly, come to be associated with people who try to hold things back; those who look to the past more than they look to the future. The reality is that starting from where we are today, we can only go forward. Having a biodiversity hotspot supported as such by eco-tourism is not just conservation it is development. It represents a conscious choice to develop that area in one particular way. All our “conservation” choices are (sustainable?) development choices and will be more productive if viewed and approached that way.
7. Earning our living: Governments are indebted and in dire financial trouble. Huge private wealth is not being created in the way it used to be a few short years ago. Environmental issues are too important to have to rely on charity, philanthropy and government handouts of taxpayers' money. If the environment is truly as valuable as we make it out to be then it should be a powerful economic force. It should generate wealth in its own right. It can be an “industry” that employs people and contributes to economic and other well-being. We talk about "the green economy" but too often it is an empty phrase used as an excuse for arguing for more subsidies, more taxpayer money, more giveaways from the wealthy. Sustainability can stand on its own two feet and contribute to vibrant, growing economies. A number of environmental organizations are already being successful in earning their living directly by bringing tangible value to people and organizations. We need more to follow their lead.
8. Focus on People Not "Nature": Finally, environmentalism is about people - not about nature.
Reblog from GoodPlanet
Friday, 7 September 2012
Extinction fears shadow global conservation forum
South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak © AFP/Pool/File Jung Yeon-Je
07/09/2012 9:23 am
JEJU - (AFP) - The world's largest conservation forum opened in South Korea Thursday with warnings that reckless development was ruining the planet's natural health, pushing thousands of species towards extinction.
"In order to save the earth, all nations must work together, recognizing that they are bound by a common destiny," South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak told the opening ceremony of the World Conservation Congress.
Lee said the state of the natural world had been "severely compromised", with unrestrained development reducing biodiversity and nearly 20,000 species facing extinction.
"Separated from nature, we cannot imagine ways to resolve climate change, poverty or shortages of water, food and energy resources," the president said.
More than 8,000 government officials, NGOs, scientists and business chiefs from 170 countries have gathered in the Korean resort island of Jeju for the 10-day congress focusing on the environment and biodiversity.
The quadrennial conference is held by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), whose president Ashok Khosla stressed the need for a holistic socio-economic approach to conservation efforts.
"Conservation policies and action cannot succeed for long unless nations and communities use their resources efficiently, distribute the benefits equitably and empower their citizens actively and inclusively," said Kosla.
The conference is taking place against a drumbeat of scientific warnings that a mass extinction looms, as species struggle to survive in a world of depleted habitat, hunting and climate change.
In a report issued at the Rio+20 world summit in June, the IUCN said that out of 63,837 species it had assessed, 19,817 run the risk of extinction.
At threat are 41 percent of amphibian species, 33 percent of reef-building corals, 25 percent of mammals, 20 percent of plants and 13 percent of birds, the update of the prestigious "Red List" said.
Many are essential for humans, providing food and work and a gene pool for better crops and new medicines, it said.
Experts say that only a fraction of Earth's millions of species, many of them microscopic, has been formally identified.
In recent years, biologists have found new species of frogs and birds in tropical forests -- proof that the planet's full biodiversity is only partly known.
"Of the species that we know about, hundreds of extinctions have occurred among birds and dozens among amphibians, and for invertebrates and insects we really do not know what we may have lost," Tim Blackburn, director of the Institute of Zoology at the Zoological Society of London, told AFP last month.
UN members pledged under the Millennium Development Goals to brake the rate of loss in species by 2010, but fell badly short of the mark.
After this failure, they set a "strategic plan for biodiversity" under which they vowed to prevent the extinction of "most known species."
With 11,000 volunteer scientists and more than 1,000 paid staff, the IUCN runs thousands of field projects around the globe to monitor and help manage natural environments.
© AFP
Visit more Environmental news from Good Planet Info.
Thursday, 6 September 2012
KL Eco Film Festival is Coming Soon
What is the 5th Kuala Lumpur Eco Film Festival?
The Kuala Lumpur Eco Film Festival (KLEFF) is the nation's first and biggest film festival on environmental films from all around the world. Started in 2008, the KLEFf has travelled to more than sevel states in Malaysia, including Sabah, offering Malaysians a unique chance to catch some of the best and award-winning local and international environmental-themed films in several official festival venues in the country. Apart from film screenings, the Festivalalso offers the public a unique chance to learn more about environmental issues, actions, solutions and efforts in which they (the public) can be part of. This comes in the form of exhibitions, on-site workshops, forums, talks and other activities. The weekend festival aims to inspire more Malaysians to adopt, practice and embrace sustainability in their daily lives. This year, the Festival will be held at the fairground of Dataran Tunku Canselor and the film screenings will be held at the Experimental Theatre.
There are several interesting workshops for youth, it is hoped that the Festival would attract more youth to participate in the sustainability-related talks and events.
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1. Hijau Workshop for Youths
Saturday, 13th October 2012
2.00pm- 5.00pm
Dewan Kuliah A, Pusat Asasi Sains (PASUM), UM
2. The Role of Youth in Sustainable Campus: Inspire & Be Inspired
Saturday, 13th October 2012
3.30pm- 4.30pm
Dewan Kuliah B, Pusat Asasi Sains (PASUM), UM
3. Making Underwater Documentaries:
Saturday, 13 October 2012
2.00pm- 5.30pm
Dewan Perdana Siswa, UM
4.Sustainability For Kids Series Workshop Sunday, 14 October 2012
- DIY Solar Cooker Workshop
11:00 am - 1:00 pm
Dewan Perdana 1, Blok D, Kompleks Perdana Siswa (KPS), UM. - DIY Pinhole Camera Workshop
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Dewan Perdana 1, Blok D, Kompleks Perdana Siswa (KPS), UM.
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5. The Hero's Journey in South East Asia: The Voyage of Alfred Russel Wallace as interpreted through the writing of Joseph Campbell
Thursday, 11 Oct 2012
9.00am - 10.30am
6. Communications For Good: How NGO Can Develop Effective Communication Campaigns
Friday & Saturday, 12-13 October 2012
9.00am-4.30pm
Bilik Wawasan, Rumah Universiti, UM
For more information, you may visit www.ecofilmfest.my for seat reservation. It's free of charge!
The Green and Blue Group would share more information on green events and seminars with you in the near future. Please share this page with your friends!
Amazonian deforestation may cut rainfall by a fifth: study
A federal police officer walks by planks at an illegal sawmill in Valdinei Ferreira Jango in northern Brazil © AFP/File Lunae Parracho
06/09/2012 9:29 am
PARIS - (AFP) - Deforestation may cause rainfall in the Amazonian basin to decline disastrously, British scientists said in a study published on Wednesday by the journal Nature.
Rainfall across the vast basin could lessen by 12 percent during wet seasons and 21 percent during dry seasons, potentially inflicting astronomical costs on farmers and reducing hydro-electricity output from receding river flows.
University of Leeds researcher Dominick Spracklen and colleagues put together a computer model based on satellite data of forest cover and rainfall patterns.
Air that passes over dense tropical vegetation carries at least twice as much rain as air that passes over land with sparse vegetation, they found.
The reason for this, they said, lies in a phenomenon called evapotranspiration.
Tropical forests are highly efficient at sucking water out of the soil, much of which is then delivered to the atmosphere as vapour through leaf pores.
This not only helps to keep the local humidity of the forest at a constant level -- it also charges the winds with droplets which are deposited further afield as rain.
Deforested land, though, is far less effective at recycling water this way, which means the air above it is less moist.
Factoring in logging trends in the early part of the century, which indicate 40 percent of the Amazon will be deforested by 2050, the team say the loss of rainfall across the river basin, from east to west, will be dramatic.
Luiz Aragao, an environmental scientist at the University of Exeter, said the change in rainfall would be especially worrying for eastern and southern Amazonia.
On the assumption endorsed by many climatologists that global temperatures will rise by some three degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) by century's end compared to pre-industrialisation levels, the impacts there "could be huge," he said in a commentary.
"Changes in regional climate could exacerbate drought-related tree mortality, which in turn would reduce carbon stocks, increase fire risks and lower biodiversity.
"Such changes might also directly threaten agriculture, which generates $15 billion (12 billion euros) in Amazonia, and the hydropower industry which supplies 65 percent of Brazil's electricity."
On the plus side, Aragao said the logging trends used in Spracklen's model could be pessimistic, as Brazil has pledged to limit historical deforestation rates by 80 percent by 2020.
© AFP
Extracted from Good Planet Info 6th Sept 2012.
Sunday, 22 April 2012
Earth Song (On The Road)
This maybe is the funniest Earth Song music video you have watched! Please enjoy the show.
Happy Earth Day 2012!
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