A Bat Home

First, it was the sunbirds making their nest on my balcony, now the fruit bats have come to hang out at the entrance.

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Oblivious of the human traffic, it hangs in there...

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There it is...

The Green Corridor of Singapore

These photos were taken from a walk conducted by the Singapore Nature Society on the 26th of June 2011, along the Bukit Timah railway tracks that are to be de-commissioned, after the land is returned by the Malaysian Government to Singapore.

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The return of this long stretch of rail track land from Tanjong Pagar to Woodlands had been a point of contention between the two governments for many years.

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Alongside both sides of the tracks are lush greenery. Ironically, it is because of this railway line that this long green corridor has been kept for so many years, as you would see lots of urbanised developments on both sides of the rails.

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The Nature Society is proposing to the Singapore Government to maintain a Green Corridor on this railway tracks. Let's see how far we succeed in keeping this bit of green.

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The Golden Palm Tree

An Extract from "The Making of the Golden Palm Tree", author Michael Chua

The world population has risen steeply, since the Second World War, due to the conquest of many diseases, increased food production and improved sanitation and hygiene. Alongside this population boom, came the impetus to develop houses, hospitals, schools, factories, etc to serve the increased population. This rapid urbanization in the last century has burned a trail of damages to the environment which we now see is causing climate change and mayhem in some nations.

While we need to continue to develop life supporting wealth to humankind, it is timely that development has to be done in tandem with nature and perpetually balanced with nature to achieve continued harmony and prosperity.

Harmony with nature is of paramount importance as humankind is part of nature and therefore ought to flow with the pace and rhythm of nature. It is amid the natural rhythm and balance that we find bliss.

The Golden Palm Tree has funded the Sepang Gold Coast Environmental Interpretive Centre for the protection of wild life around Sepang. Even before the construction of the resort, it has already contributed to the cleaning up and replanting programme of mangrove samplings along the (river) Sungai Sepang. These mangrove plants have been around for thousands of years. Mangrove swamps protect our coastal line at Sepang Gold Coast and also forms an important habitat for biodiversity.

The rivers at Sepang are now clean from debris and flotsams, thanks to the hard work of the boatman, our guide and the hired cleaners. It is through involving the common people in the cleaning process that the environment can be protected.

I asked the guide at the mangrove river boat ride how he would urge people to protect the environment and he said that he would ask people to treat the environment as their home. “How would you like it if other people come to your home and destroy your home? You wouldn’t like that, so do the same for the wild life at Sepang. As the environment is beautiful, it will attract more tourists to the place and bring prosperity to your business…”

It is through young men like this guide that more will step forward to protect these mangrove swamps and coast lines, which are the habitat of many creatures like the otters, sea eagles, kingfishers, egrets, mud skippers and the ubiquitous colourful blue swimmer crabs. You can see these wonderful creatures and more when you hop on the mangrove river ride. Then, you will also have the chance to plant a mangrove sapling by the river bed and do your part in protecting the environment.

The Golden Palm Tree is designed as an ecologically friendly resort with energy saving insulation building materials, water treatment plants and building the sea villas on raised stilt platforms with minimum disturbance to marine life. The raised platforms have become an artificial reef offering shelter to the marine life beneath. Fishermen at Sepang Gold Coast have said that there are now more fishes in the sea since the resort is constructed.

All these environmentally friendly installations added significant costs to the resort and savings can only be realised after many years. This means that ecologically sustainable development essentially requires long term commitment.

Besides the infrastructure, the other half of ecological sustainability is the service and training to hire locally and scout for local farms as their food suppliers.

As a result, the local cottage industries are now bracing themselves to get ready for more tourists. The local famous Seafood Bak-Kut-Teh (seafood pork rib soup) is already serving two bus loads of tourists every other day. Others like a local bird nest farm has decided to set up a showroom and visitor centre for tourists to understand and appreciate the process of harvesting bird nests and the health benefits of consuming them. They are also clearing parking lots for anticipated tour coaches coming to their showroom. Local fruit farms, fish, prawn and crab farms that are already suppliers to the resort’s restaurants will also see increased demands when Sepang Gold Coast ‘food paradise’ is completed. This will bring you the best chefs and restaurants in the region, so that you can wine and dine in the idyllic settings of the sea.

In the world of large corporations and institutional finance, cottage industries offer us a softer and gentler side of commerce in a more human scale, where products can be designed and packaged closer to the customers’ tastes and lifestyles.

Together with the resort, the restored environment and these cottage industries, the heritage of the people in the Klang Valley can be conserved for the many generations to come and enjoy.

For other articles of the Golden Palm Tree, click here.

Technology - The Straggling Bus and a Non-stop Express Train

Innovative proposals from China...
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No time is wasted. The bullet train is moving all the time.

If there are 30 stations between Beijing and Guangzhou, just stopping and accelerating again at each station

will waste both energy and time.A mere 5 min stop per station (elderly passengers cannot be hurried) will result in a total loss of 5 min x 30 stations or 2.5 hours of train journey time!

The Chinese are innovative enough to come up with a non-stopping train concept. When the train arrives at a station, it will not stop at all.

The passenger at a station embarked onto to a connector cabin way before the train even arrive at the station.

When the train arrives, it will not stop at all. It just slows down to pick up the connector cabin which will move with the train on the roof of the train.

While the train is still travelling away from the station, those passengers will board the train from the connector cabin mounted on the train's roof.

After fully unloading all its passengers, the cabin connector cabin will be moved to the back of the train so that the next batch of outgoing passengers who want to alight at the next station will board the connector cabin at the rear of the train roof.

When the train arrives at the next station, it simply drops the whole connector cabin at the station itself and leaves it behind at the station.

The outgoing passengers can take their own time to disembark at the station while the train had already left.

At the same time, the train will pick up the incoming embarking passengers on another connector cabin in the front part of the train's roof.

So the train will always drop one connector cabin at the rear of its roof and pick up a new connector cabin in the front part of the train's roof at each station.

If you are reading from facebook, click here.

Read also PRT

Environment - The Buddha and the Environment

Date: 21st April 2009

Time: 7.30pm

Place: The Buddhist Library, Singapore

Speaker: Mr Joe Lim, from the Singapore Environment Council (A non-government charity)

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Mr Lim started by saying that for the Dhamma and the Environment, the hardest part is the practice. So here tonight, we are here to influence more people and like the Dhamma, to convert it into practice.

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Is climate change all doom and gloom?

Young people feels that it is unfair as they did not destroy the climate.

If everyone does something (to protect the environment against destruction), then it will not be doom and gloom.

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The Rich are more wasteful. The following is some comparison:

Waste in OECD = 3 x that in China = 10x that in India = 100x that in Africa

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At that rate, we will need a second earth by 2030.

The wastes in Singapore is also quite high. This could be attributed to its industries like the seaport and the oil refineries.

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It is the first time in history that there are more people living in cities. Cities occupy 3% of land, but 75% of energy.

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A video called "The Story of Stuff" was screened:

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The Dhammapada has aspects related to the environment. There is a whole chapter related to flowers. In one, it mentioned a flower with no fragance - which means words that sounds beautiful but do not result in practice.

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In the Uposatha sutta (UD5.5), it describes the ocean beautifully. For details, read here

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My comments:

The linear production consumer system can be made cyclical, as illustrated in the last part of the video. Then we can achieve:

1. Sustainability.

2. Equity

3. Green chemistry

4. Zero waste

5. Closed looped production

6. Renewable energies

7. Local living economies.

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The good news is that there are already technologies that are able to take mixed waste, treat them and separate them automatically for reuse, with the remaining organic wastes used to generate electricity. Therefore, the issue of the green revolution is not the technology, but about 'political will'. 

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Unfortunately, politicians in many countries, particularly developing countries, like to see their investments paying back within their term of office, so that it can benefit them.  This term is usually a period of five years. Hence green technologies are not implemented because decisions are made for the short term. If decisions are made for the long term, then after say 7 or 10 years, recyclables will be recovered and reused, and electricity will be generated free.

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If you are reading this from facebook and cannot watch the video, click here
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Environment 9 - Permaculture

I found a great video on Permaculture. Gardening has its psychological benefits as well. Also note that Nature loves diversity. Hence our need to be tolerant! :)

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Environment 8 - Mozzies

My bedroom is swarmed by mosquitoes. A few weeks of continuous dry weather have bred many of these blood-sucking creatures.

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I tried the chemical-aerosol spray. It didn't get rid of them. Perhaps they have developed an immunity to chemicals. Then, I tried electrically activated chemical repellent - that didn't work either.

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I am now trying the organic repellent - heated on the dish to create an aroma hated by the pesky creatures. It seems to work the first night. I guess insects can develop an immunity to chemicals quickly, but not to their natural repellents.

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However, last night, it didn't work quite that well, as after initially ridding them off, more flew in, in the middle of the night, keeping me awake. Haiz! I am going to report it to the estate manager tomorrow morning. I guess there must be a breeding ground somewhere.

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Design Follies 2a

In my previous post about "Design Follies" last April, I blogged about this short curly bicycle lane complete with bollards on each end, in Pasir Ris, Singapore.

To my surprise, I found that they have removed the bollards. Could it be that someone had read my post and persuaded the authorities to remove them?

However, cyclists are still not encouraged to use them - still a folly!

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Seen any follies where you are? Let me know.

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Technology 6 - Air Car

A car that runs on compressed air and emits cold air. No pollutants. Takes three minutes to charge up, costing about $3 and will last 200 kms on the road. It is at prototype stage at the moment and will sell around end of 2009 for less than $20,000.
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It will still need electricity to compress the air, but that can be more easily controlled compared to combustion engines.
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Wikipedia Reference, click here

Environment 7 - Global Warming?

By now, many of you are probably convinced that the global climate is warming up. The famous Al-Gore documentary, "The Inconvenient Truth" (which I did a private screening last year to a small group), sold the idea that the world is warming and that there are disasters looming.

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Is that really true?

Some prominent scientists believe otherwise. This video shows how they substantiate their claims against the rise in global temperature due to the build-up of carbon-dioxide in the Earth's stratosphere.
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So what do you think?

Do you think you have been sold FEAR?

If it is so, what do you think is the motivation for selling this FEAR?

Is it to support a set of expensive policies that will benefit some people peddling solutions to the perceived problems?

If carbon-dioxide is not the culprit for temperature rise, what will happen to the proposed carbon-credit exchange? Will it work?

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I think, we should clean up the air and water ways against pollution, that are detrimental to our health. At the same time, we should remain open to other scientific evidence against the (now) mainstream perception that climate change is largely due to the amount of carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere.

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For posts related to the environment, click here

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Social Enterprise 3a - Appropriate Technologies

I have found more Youtube videos on implementing appropriate technologies in developing countries and empowering the poor...
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Appropriate Technologies.

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Appropriate Technologies Gaining Ground in Developing Countries

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Renewable Energy Opportunities for Women

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Myths about the Global Poor

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Finally,... Is it 'Simple'?

Social Enterprise 3 - Simplicity

Problem: Lack of clean water for a remote village without electricity or affordable energy source. River water is some distance away and has to be laboriously carried manually in buckets.

My immediate idea to a solution is to install pumps and pipes to bring water from the river, through a water treatment unit, to the villagers for consumption. I think most engineers would think of doing just that. However, it is a solution the village cannot afford. They do not even have the resources to buy diesel to operate the pump.

I am therefore very impressed with what an organisation called PlayPump International does. See the video below...

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What's more the solution is fun, self-sustainable and serves the villagers' needs.

Environment 3b - Flowers vs Weeds

These are bramberries. They are lovely fruits found in abundance and also sold in supermarkets. Since they are highly perishable, they are not that cheap either. However, in the wild, they are mostly considered as 'weeds'. I think this is because they have long thorny vines that take over your land quickly. They are so robust that your other garden shrubs would die in competition with them.

This is a blueberry plant. They are low shrubs and bear these blueberries which are very good for taking out the toxicity in your guts. We had those in the garden bearing lots of fruits when we first moved in. It was a wild garden. Then as we organised the garden and shifted it to a discreet shaded corner, they bear less fruits. They like their natural spot to grow. In a prominent spot, we treated them as 'weeds', and that's why had them shifted.

These are morning glory flowers. Lovely flowers, but as they are such robust plants they can take over the undergrowth of the forest too.

These are wild strawberries. They are about 1cm in diameter on average, but very fragrant and sweet. More so that their cultivated cousins. They grow together with grass. Actually in Chinese, strawberries are called, "grass berries". So, they can easily be seen as weeds, until you see them bearing those delicious fruits.

.These are tiny flourescent flowers I found while taking a walk in the woods. Don't what their name is, but they look lovely to me and therefore, I won't consider them as 'weeds'. Yet, I don't see them being cultivated in standard gardens.

Environment 5a - Balance

The tub of the beer drowned many slugs in the garden. The one further down the garden which we filled with beer the day before, however, is bone dry in the morning. I think the deer might have drunk it. There is this deer that wanders into the garden in the night every now and then to sleep. Now we have one drunk deer! :(

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Environment 5 - Balance

A slippery problem

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It has been a rainy summer. Slugs abound. Slugs are tough creatures, they multiply every four weeks and can stay dormant in dry weathers for up to 4 years!

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Hedgehogs and birds who are their natural predators die after accumulating the human introduced 'slug poison' eaten by slugs. So now there are too many slugs.

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It is hard to say who the 'bad guys' are, but ecology needs balance. This prevailing imbalance has cost my friend her veggie patch tomatoes, as they were eaten almost entirely by slugs.

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There are ecological ways to get rid of slugs, by introducing nematodes (worm like creatures) and hedgehogs that feed on them. A hedgehog eats up to 120 slugs a day. You can also leave a tub of beer in your garden and very soon you will see many of them coming for a drink, then get drunk and drowned in the alcohol. Sounds familiar! haha.

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Note for the pure Buddhists and other non-killing religions, that the last method also amounts to murder. Or is it man-slaughter slug-slaughter or abetting suicide? :)

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Environment 4 - Political Small Talk

Somewhere in the European Union. Two politicians talking.
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Politician A: I am proposing that we subsidise 75% of the cost of all energy saving upgrades to existing buildings.
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Politician B: What??!!!! SEVENTY-FIVE PERCENT!!! NO!!! THEY WILL ALL BE RUSHING INTO IT YOU KNOW!
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Politician A: THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT WE WANT!
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Design Follies 2

This is another in the series of "Design Follies". To read my earlier post on the topic. Click here.

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Design follies take different routes. Not all of them are designed to be silly from the start. Sometimes they started out as being useful design, like this entrance to the bus, which has done away with steps and is so low that a wheelchair can go up easily.

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This one I managed to capture, is a city sight tour bus for tourists. However, I think the design merits must have not been communicated widely enough to bus companies, as when it comes to using them for public buses, they put a barrier up!!!

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Why do they need the handrail in the middle obstructing the access of wheelchairs and prams?
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This is the rooftop of a bus stop. The part I am focusing on is at the end of the red tiles where the gutter used to be. It is now filled up with concrete. The gutter drain used to be there to direct the rain water orderly down to the ground. That was a very appropriate design, such that rain water won't be dripping all over the place when it rains.

This gutter is now filled up because it collected dead leaves and choked up, leaving stagnant water there and breeding mosquitoes. With the high incidents of dengue hemorrhagic fever and people dying, I think we can put up with water dripping everywhere. So, this is still a good design that has even kept up with the times. :)

You can figure this one out yourself from the pix. I haven't seen anyone cycling up the bicycle lane. With the slope, the short run and the bollards, who would bother. (Note: When you are pedaling the bicycle yourself, every little slope requires extra energy. And the narrow space in between the bollards can be a painful path if you hit them. )

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These government apartments in Singapore were built ten years ago. At that time, they built the flats with elevators going to every alternate floor. Sometimes, in between two floors. However, as the population ages, the government realised that there will be more old weary legs that can't take them even one flight of stairs, not to mention the occurences of more wheelchairs in the near future. They now realised that they need the elevator to stop at every floor.

That was a "pennywise pound foolish" design savings. In order to save a bit of money, now they have to spend a lot.

However, don't expect the government to own up to this folly. When it comes to politicians, trust them to package something to their advantage when they need to. This correction is now sold to the people as "upgrading". That is, upgrading of the value of their property and enhancements of their assets. The majority of the people were sold.

As if this is not enough, if you are in the Opposition constituencies, you will not be privileged enough to enjoy the benefits of the upgrading. "No upgrading for you because you did not vote for me." Now they are even using their design folly as a weapon against the Opposition, knowing that there are also old people living there on the receiving end of their design folly.

This is an elegant glass vase of contemporary design. Good to look at but difficult to carry around. I broke the previous one, when washing them with detergent. It slipped off my hands and slammed itself on the sink, breaking into bits.

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That is the reason why old style vases always have a 'neck'. The 'neck' is there for a reason - to hold. But as it has always been there, we gradually take them for granted and design something more modern, arguably better to look at, but difficult to handle. Does that sound familiar?

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This one is familiar. To end your Windows session, you click the "Start" button. Steve Balmer's (Microsoft's CEO) mother picked this design flaw out. She picked a flaw many of Microsoft designers somehow missed!

Probably equally familiar is this humble air-con remote control. It has the start and stop controls on the same button. As a result, it is difficult to know whether the air-con is on or off sometimes. Occassionally, after coming home from work, you would realised that you have unwittingly left it on the whole day.

Environment 3a - Flowers vs Weeds

Incidentally, got this from my "Daily Contemplation" email.
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TODAY'S CONTEMPLATION
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A weed is but an unloved flower.
-- Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 1850-1919

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Bucky Group 19 - Environment and Demographics

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We re-visited our discussions about Environment and Demographics in the Year 2008.
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ENVIRONMENT
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Someone asked, "Biodiversity - what is it?"

Is it where there is many types of biological species co-existing?

Tanjong Sutera, an eco-resort, is now surrounded by vast oil palm plantations. There are only a few companies owning the plantations and they have recently merged to become yet bigger and therefore more capable of buying more tracks of forested land for their crop. Palm oil is a valuable commodity and now they are even used to make biodiesel. There is little the common man can do to stop oil palm plantations encrouching into forested land.

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I think it will very difficult to persuade plantation owners not to continually expand. I think in order to stop the environmental encrouchment, the alternative must be more attractive to them. Joo Hock reiterated that Bucky said that for a new system to replace the old one, the former must be a more attractive and valuable option.

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In this context, crops like japrotha that grows in sub-tropical arid lands and can be used as biofuels should be encourage in a massive scale. Perhaps when they are grown in abundance, then prices of oil palm will be moderated and make it unattractive for the plantations to expand.
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There are also alternative renewable energies will change the equation, for instance, solar panels are expected to go through leaps of efficiency gains in the next few years from its present efficiency rate of 10%. Panels at 42% efficiency are already achieved in R&D laboratories.

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Pollution

We discussed about vehicle carbon dioxide emissions and how at the traffic lights, Bucky likened that to the time of horse carriages where all the horses are running on the spot and wasting all their energies. This problem will be eliminated with the use of electric vehicles.

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I often see bus drivers and taxi drivers keeping their engines on idle and spewing out smoke, as they sit inside resting or sleeping. I feel that we should be more courageous to stop these irresponsible acts. We can also take down their location, time and number plates, and report them to the National Environmental Agency (Singapore), who will take the appropriate action. I was told they could fine them.

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There are lots of new and effective technologies out there that can serve to clean up our enviroment. Some of them are relatively inexpensive too. What is lacking are financing and the political will (read patience) to implement these technologies.

DEMOGRAPHICS
Lama Lok brought out a book he is reading, "Asia Future Shock" by Michael Backman. It speaks about Asia in twenty years' time, where:

• We will need an extra 250 million females in India and China, as both countries still practise female infanticide.
• Vietnam will be the next Asian economic Tiger, followed by Burma
• "Malaysia Boleh" (literally "Malaysia Can" - their national slogan), will not be quite what they say at all (to put in mildly)
• The "Asian Switzerland" will be Singapore.

As we speak, China is now thinking of ways to abolish the one-child policy gradually, as they recognise that they will have a huge grey population and not enough young people to take care of them. People are also living longer.

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Is it necessary to increase younger population?

I think old people can be educated to stay healthy and independent to reduce the reliance on their young; and also proper building and transport design and technology should help them further.

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Question: Is there any point of living a longer life when there is no quality of life in a developing country?

For that, one of us supports euthansia and legalisation of suicides.

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I wondered aloud if the pollution of the waterways with oestrogen has caused the suspected increase in the number of gays.

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[I mentioned the recent article in the Economist magazine, where oestrogen from contraception pills have found their way to the sewage system and then to lakes where male fishes have turned female. They stopped producing sperms and instead have eggs. Read another article here.

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Independent from oestrogen pollution of the water, male amphibians can turn when there is not enough of them around, in order to reproduce and perpetuate their species.]

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Immediately, I got an outrage from someone who claims that it could be that more gays are now 'coming out'. That there are gays since the dawn of mankind; that there is homosexuality in the animal kingdom and there are gays in dolphins and whales...etc. (Is that the humpback whale? oops!) Is this nature's way of limiting the world population, as gay couples cannot reproduce between themselves?

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