Archive for July, 2010

0 Comments | New Straits Times, Jul 30, 2010 | by Andrew Wong

RECENTLY, local website iProperty.com conducted a survey to gauge how many Malaysians are aware of the green issues facing the world. The results, it said, were nothing short of surprising.

Of its 277 respondents, 90 per cent said they know we are now living in the green-age where reduce, reuse and recycle is the mantra, along with the call for sustainability and being carbon light. That’s good: It shows we’re not living in trees.

But that’s not the surprising part: What is, is the fact that of the 90 per cent in-the-know, 42 per cent simply couldn’t be bothered to apply their head knowledge and do their part. Add them to the remaining 10 per cent who don’t know green to be anything more than a colour, and the whole picture becomes pretty worrying.

“Malaysians are known to be a rather complacent lot,” analysed the website.

“Unless fined and prodded by the government like in Singapore, this attitude (of apathy) is expected to change only gradually.”

Putting the results down to a general lack of green education, it said “perhaps the public perceives the green movement as a larger- than-life concept that involves major lifestyle changes rather than taking simple steps at home such as recycling paper, using organic/ biodegradable products, conserving electricity and the list goes on”.

Besides education, the indifference is also largely due to the generous government subsidies for electricity, water and fuel, which have led many of us to abuse these resources and cause further environmental degradation.

Hand on heart, do you switch off all your lights when you leave a room? And do you sometimes sleep in your parked car during lunch hour, with the engine and air-conditioner switched on? Raise the price, of RON95 to market value, though, and this phenomenon might disappear faster than a shy streaker.

It may be a sharp and painful awakening, but if even Indonesia’s fuel can cost more than our rich nation’s, then any economic downside may only be meagre compared to the overall gain. Which besides healing earth, includes relieving our roads of unnecessary cars, thus impacting positively on productivity and performance.

On a recent trip to China, I read another survey undertaken by the Beijing Social Facts & Public Opinion Survey Centre that said 40.2 per cent of its 1,000-plus respondents believe a moderate price hike would help boost energy savings and cut emissions.

The Chinese study also said almost 90 per cent “are willing to buy energysaving products even if they cost more” than conventional ones, which contrasts fairly clearly with the iProperty poll.

“China targets to reduce carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product by 40 to 45 per cent in 2020 from 2005 levels,” said the report, adding that “51.8 per cent believe efforts by individuals would have a big effect on China’s goal”.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, an expert with the Beijing Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Centre said it’s not the rich and affluent who are more aware of the importance of conserving energy but the lower- and middle-income classes.

“High income groups pursue a quality of life and would not care about how much energy they are consuming,” he said.

Here, it’s quite the opposite as energy-saving hybrid cars can only be afforded by the upper middle classes, the cost of incorporating photovoltaic cells to power a home can run into the tens of thousands and the incentives for individuals to go green are nonexistent.

Even developers at large don’t have any compelling reason to equip their projects with resource-saving features, other than because it’s a trendy thing to do
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