I know, I’m late and overdue in doing a post on the environment for 15th Oct. But if it’s blogging in support of a cause, every day can be blog action day… there’s nothing too special about this post in that it isn’t anything I wouldn’t normally write about; the only difference being that I’m blogging from Hong Kong…

Initially I had in mind a simple idea… to post pictures taken of those Environment Bureau poster series that I keep seeing in the MTR stations, and let the messages speak for themselves… since I’m being lazy…

“綠色香港 我鐘意“, or, “I love Hong Kong, I love green”:

Which doesn’t actually say much. Gimmicks (the government saying ‘we care’)… or visual marketing… an attempt to reach the subconscious and drive a change in behaviour? If commuters even bother to look. It’s hard to want to read those, when posters with the attractive faces of big shot celebrities are ’round every corner, endorsing such and such a product (face cream, some shampoo, watches, clothing)…

So I thought I’d share some of my thoughts from my first hike into Hong Kong backcountry, over the hills (People may ask of HK: Green? What green? - Just take a look at satellite imagery and may they go ooooh…). We started off from Quarry Bay, and ended up across the island at Repulse Bay, having gone across Tai Tam Country Park.

Much of my impression of HK is hills… endless hills and mountainous terrain beyond the densely-populated towns dotted along its coastline. No matter where you go, it’s hills in the beyond. When we lived on HK island, it was a sea of green treetops behind the apartment high-rises, the clusters of residential establishments built tapering to the contours of the hill they sat on. All my life I had never stepped foot into the open countryside areas which constitute a whooping 75% of HK’s total land area. It just didn’t occur to me that I¹ could actually walk in those hills. Or that it was possible to do a cross country. Until a few days ago. HK isn’t actually that big… but it’s just… hilly. It is green. It’s great. Despite the smog and the noise from the stream of planes and choppers flying overhead, there’s much to see and experience on the wildside. The green outdoors de-stresses and clears the mind. It refreshens the spirit. Despite me feeling like I need clutches to go down the stairs now, and I can’t laugh without feeling the cramps in my stomach…

I think that’s the beauty of nature and the environment. Its presence and appeal is universal. And there’s always pockets of it everywhere… if only we take some little effort in finding out where… and how to get to it. It took me only 15 mins on the MTR to get from home to Quarry Bay for the start of the trail - who says the wild is out of reach?

View of the Tai Tam reservoir from the first peak

Met many familiar friends in both plants and animals here. It’s amazing how many species I could name that were common to both here and Singapore.

Here are all the photos from that day.

¹ I say I, since I do know trekkers and outdoor enthusiasts do trek the hills… but I just don’t didn’t imagine I’d be one to do it.

Hmm. While writing this, the telly has played two environmental-related ads: one is promoting the HK.Love.Trees project, and the other had local celebrities advocating the use of recycling bins in residential and public areas.

I certainly don’t recall having this many green ads being thrown at me when I last came a couple of months ago… …

Some environmental government-related sites for HK:

Environment Bureau
Environmental Protection Department
Sustainable Development
Environmental Impact Assessment Ordinance

A dedicated government department for the environment (which oversees also the task of nature conservation, not like Singapore’s National Parks Board which falls under the Ministry of National Development [why not under the Ministry for the Environment and Water Resources?]), a Council for Sustainable Development established by the Chief Executive, compulsory EIAs for development projects… don’t look down on HK for its pollution problems (much of it comes from China Guangdong anyway); the SAR government is doing a lot (trying to?) and putting in great efforts, from what it seems, to rise to the environmental challenge.

Dear Singaporean friends,

The Myanmar generals brutalising their people depend on Singapore — for banking and trading, private hospitals, even luxury Armani clothes. The government has now condemned the military dictatorship. It’s the first step. Now we need not just words, but action. Let’s send Foreign Minister George Yeo an urgent message of support and encouragement: demand dialogue without conditions in Myanmar, and prepare to act unless real progress is made.

Click below now to send your own email message direct to George Yeo — then tell all your Singaporean friends to do the same, we need an avalanche of messages urgently to persuade the government to act:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/time_to_act_singapore/b.php/

Can we get to 3000 messages within 24 hours? In a democracy, our voices make the difference: everyone can send an email to the foreign minister, everyone can wear red this weekend to show our solidarity with the popular movement now regrouping in Myanmar!

Senior General Than Shwe’s Myanmar cronies (like drug lord Lo Hsing Han and his son Steven Law) trade through Singapore, and the government has invested billions in Myanmar. Singapore has real power over this dictatorship. Used wisely, that power can help free the popular heroine Aung San Suu Kyi, bring about dialogue and reconciliation for Myanmar, and avert a civil war. We need to do all we can to support the UN envoy’s mission.

Foreign Minister George Yeo led the regional grouping ASEAN to its unprecedented statement of “revulsion” over the Myanmar regime’s crackdown. George Yeo has said, “Our credibility is at stake… Unless we put things right, and set Myanmar [Burma] to a new course, we will all be affected and dragged down.” Lee Kuan Yew himself has spoken out. But words are easy to ignore. Will Singapore be shamed, as Myanmar’s generals shrug off the international statements and reassert control? Or will we act?

Let’s send a strong message to George Yeo and the whole government. We must do all we can to put things right — and the next step should be to put Myanmar’s generals on notice: unless they talk to Aung San Suu Kyi, they will not be welcome here. If the bullies of Myanmar and their families feel their haven in Singapore is threatened, they will surely feel the squeeze — and maybe they will see the writing on the wall.

There’s strength in numbers. 700,000 people have already signed a global petition in solidarity with the Burmese people — thousands from Singapore alone. Let’s send the government a message so loud it can’t be ignored — click here to send your own email to George Yeo via the webpage, then tell all your friends:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/time_to_act_singapore/b.php/

With hope and determination,

Paul, Ricken, Galit, Graziela, Pascal and all at Avaaz

PS this weekend, let’s all wear something red as a simple public symbol of solidarity with the people of Myanmar — people around the world have been wearing red to show their support!

This Reuters news article explains the power Singapore might have.

And here’s a blog posting from Singapore Patriot calling for action not words.

Scientists, naturalists, and others from the biodiversity circles gathered yesterday at the Singapore Botanic Gardens to attend the screening of Expedition Linné, a film by the Swedish photographer Mattias Klum (of Nat Geog fame) and journalist Folke Rydén. Inspired by Carolus Linnaeus (Carl von Linné), the father of plant and animal classification, the film prompts us to address the question of how we should “behave and act today in order to survive tomorrow and how can science and research contribute to a better world”.

We left inspired; our confidence and the pride we take in science - and in us being scientists - uplifted and renewed.

Dear friends,

Today, our petition to China and the UN Security Council to stop the brutal crackdown on peaceful Burmese protesters is being delivered to the world in a full page ad in the Financial Times worldwide — but the ad was rejected by other newspapers like the South China Morning Post and the Singapore Straits Times. Our message is an invitation to China to do the right thing in Burma, not an attack — yet even that seemed too much for media that fear Chinese reprisals.

We won’t let our voice be silenced like this. We’re taking our message to the streets, in an international day of action on Saturday — details are on our petition page, and below. And we’re redoubling our efforts to make our voice louder: our petition is approaching 600,000 signatures, closing fast on our 1 million goal.The petition link is below - send this email to all your friends and family and help us reach 1 million voices by Saturday!

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_burma/w.php

I will say no more on this, but know that Singapore does rank in the bottom 20 in a 167-country index of press freedom.

And the ad in question:

Burma is ruled by one of the most brutal military dictatorships in the world. For decades the Burmese regime has fought off pressure–imprisoning elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and democracy activists, wiping out thousands of villages, imposing forced labour, creating refugees.

But last Tuesday Buddhist monks and nuns, revered in Burma, began marching and chanting prayers. The protests spread as hundreds of thousands of ordinary people and public figures joined in, finding the hope they’d lost. The Burmese protests are widening, the international response is building–and the Burmese generals are panicking. Today the Burmese junta banned gatherings of more than 5, and sent thousands of troops to take control of the street–but still the monks and protesters march. Desperate officers have beaten, tear-gassed and fired on their own people, reportedly shooting five monks in Rangoon.

In the past, Burma’s military rulers have massacred the demonstrators and crushed democracy. The world must stand with the Burmese people at this time, to show the military rulers that the world will not tolerate repression and violence.

The next 36 hours are crucial. Leaders have called an emergency session of the UN Security Council–but only a decisive initiative will prevent a massacre like the one from 1988. Already 85,000 people from 192 countries have signed our emergency global petition.

Show your solidarity to this movement for peace and democracy and sign the emergency petition supporting the Burmese people. It’ll be delivered to UN Security Council members and the UN press corps all week:

“We stand alongside the citizens of Burma in their peaceful protests. We urge you to oppose a violent crackdown on the demonstrators, and to support genuine reconciliation and democracy in Burma. We pledge to hold you accountable for any further bloodshed.”

Show your support - sign the petition now!

I attended the Interdisciplinary Forum on Global Warming and Climate Change at the National University of Singapore (NUS) yesterday. A turn-up of about 150 people, tertiary students mostly, and a few representatives from NGOs and other research and academic institutions.

A break-down of the talks and topics covered:

• ‘Climate Change - Living in the Anthropocene’
  Associate Professor Jeffrey Philip, Obbard
  Deputy Head (Research), Division of Environmental Science and
  Engineering & Associate Director, NUS Tropical Marine Science Institute
  
  
• ‘The Unspoken Root Cause of Global Warming’
  Dr Scott Valentine
  Researcher, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy & Asia-Pacific Centre for Environmental Law
  
  
• ‘Happy Planet Index and Sociology – (Un)Happy Planet Singapore: Culture, Lifestyle and Footprints’
  Assistant Professor Daniel PS Goh
  Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
  
  
• ‘Changing the Moral Landscape - Alternative Perspectives on Current Environmental Problems’
  Associate Professor Cecilia Lim Teck Neo
  Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
  
  

A summary:

The first talk was pretty broad, covering the basics of global warming and climate change - the science, some facts, and putting things into a policy perspective. Nothing new addressed there; one of the take-home messages being that it is vital that there be an international framework to tackle global warming, since national frameworks are becoming inadequate.

Second speaker touched on whether the problem or the solution lay with population, consumption, or technology. No solid consensus here either. He did however emphasise a new way of looking at climate change, and that is that it’s a symptom. Global warming is a symptom that the earth is ailing, and we are contributing greatly to its ailments. Global warming is not the illness itself.

The next talk was more engaging. About using GDP as a measurement of national development (not recommended, not adequate!), and about GHI, or gross happiness index. He compared Singapore with Malaysia and Hong Kong, and made his point that although Singapore had the leading GDP, our GHI was the lowest… which means that our national resource use efficiency was the poorest. He pressed the case for the need for carbon offsetting, and the use of an emission ‘credits’ scheme. That we need to get away from status-based consumption, and move towards post-materialistic values that would encourage sustainable consumption. From kiasuism to green values. To an apathetic society to a real democracy. From a lethargic people to a people with rich social capital. An alarmingly vocal presentation all in all, alerting us to the importance of urgent civil and governmental action.

And the last talk? Ok, I do have a great interest in philosophy, and I do philosophise. But that last talk was nothing like what I expected it to be (I thought it would be like Tim O’Riordan’s talks of civic virtue, environmental ethics and well-being, personal satisfaction, awakening of consciousness and all that… but nope). To be frank, I have no idea what the Prof was on about… her slides and her messages have totally eluded me. At least I tried to listen. No offence meant to the Prof, I’m sure it can get exciting if you really really take some effort to understand the main themes, but people all around me were 釣僅魚 (fishing aka nodding aka dozing off)…

As usual, I took to the mic. No questions, just comments. It was all doom and gloom thus far, so it was a humble attempt to inject some sense of optimism - that through changing our consumption patterns and organising our personal choices, we are the ones, through our individual actions, collectively, that would hasten the pace towards this tipping point… where sustainable living is no longer an uphill struggle, but an integrated facet of our lifestyle. Or somewhat to that effect.

I think the time has come when gleaming new knowledge from attending such forums has reached a plateau (well, ok, apart from a few bits and pieces of interesting information… which were, well, interesting), and these events have come to serve primarily as a networking platform. I sometimes wonder if I’m an extrovert. I think I am… at times. I do love to meet new like-minded people and talk about issues. I like to engage people. A pity there wasn’t enough time for socialising; a 20 minute break in between and the forum having ended an hour overtime meant that most participants just scooted off as soon as the panelists have been presented with their tokens of appreciation. Overall thoughts for this Forum, and for similar others, is that we could do with more action, less talk, or perhaps more talk on what to do. We keep beating around the bush, repeating the same things over and over again… and then leaving the table without having actually achieved anything. A sense of motivation should and could be instilled; follow-ups are always important, and these are great opportunities from which to embark on new initiatives or to strengthen existing ones. Which reminds me, I’ve got work to do.

I knew that picking this book up would mark the start of a period of time in which I would be rendered incapable of accomplishing anything remotely constructive… other than reading the book… which is precisely why I only picked it up after I had (more or less) finished writing up my thesis (it’s still not to satisfaction, but I’m so tired of it I simply couldn’t be bothered anymore). I love this new release more than Hawken’s Natural Capitalism, and I thought that was good!

A snippet from the first chapter, The Beginning:

I sought a name for this movement, but none exists… … after spending years researching this phenomenon… I have come to these conclusions: this is the largest social movement in all of human history. No one knows its scope, and how it functions is more mysterious than what meets the eye.

What does meet the eye is compelling: coherent, organic, self-organized congregations involving tens of millions of people dedicated to change. When asked at colleges if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science that describes what is happening on earth today and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t have the correct data. If you meet the people in this unnamed movement and aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a heart. What I see are ordinary and some not-so-ordinary individuals willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in an attempt to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.

Blessed Unrest is an exploration of this movement - its participants, its aims, its ideals.

From the back cover - Advance Praise for Blessed Unrest:

Blessed Unrest is exciting, compelling, and very important. It describes the growing unrest that I encounter around the world, the frustration and courage of those who dare to challenge the power of the political corporate world. Paul Hawken states eloquently all that I believe so passionately to be true - that there is inherent goodness at the heart of our humanity, that collectively we can - and are - changing the world. Please read and share Blessed Unrest, a celebration of the awakening of the human spirit. It will inspire and encourage millions more to take action.
- Jane Goodall, UN Ambassador for Peace

This is the first full account of the real news of our time, and it’s exactly the opposite of the official account. The movers and shakers on our planet aren’t the billionaires and the generals–they are the incredible numbers of people around the world filled with love for neighbor and for the earth who are resisting, remaking, restoring, renewing, revitalizing. This powerful and lovely book is their story–our story–and it’s high time someone’s told it. Nothing you read for years to come will fill you with more hope and more determination.
- Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy and The End of Nature

Blessed Unrest is a beautiful, soulful, crucial book. It is a manifesto of hope for the 21st century grounded squarely in the hearts of engaged people around the planet. Paul Hawken chronicles and testifies on behalf of this “movement with no name” with his charismatic intelligence and insight. This book makes the invisible visible. I believe Hawken when he says we are part of the Earth’s immune system each time we exercise our active compassion in the name of social justice and ecological health. I love this book. It is a field guide for all that is possible.
- Terry Tempest Williams, author of The Open Space of Democracy

Edit: Watch the Blessed Unrest video at its site!

Public voting for the Friends of the Earth’s green film competition is now open. Even if you’re not placing a vote for the People’s Choice award, some of the entries are quite interesting to watch.