The Malaysian Nature Society is organizing a birdwatching for newbie event this coming Sunday at 8 o’clock in the morning. It will be held at Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM), not far from Kuala Lumpur.
Come and join us!
Heh. Now I gotta figure out on how to get there. We totally need MapQuest for Malaysia.
If a person is a member of the Malaysian Nature Society — any green for that matter — this piece of news is especially depressing:
SHAH ALAM: A tapir was killed and two cars were badly damaged in an accident in Puncak Alam early yesterday.
The adult female tapir was crossing the road about 6am when it was hit by a Proton Wira driven by an army personnel.
The impact caused the animal to be flung to the opposite side of the road where it was hit by another car.
Below is the tapir in question:
The Malayan tapir is the icon of MNS.
Construction of highways across biologically diverse ecologies disrupts wildlife movement. It effectively divides a single ecology into two, much like how the Berlin Wall once divided Germany into two. The division is unnatural and adversely affects wildlife. For any pragmatic nature lover that seeks to conform to both modernity and conservation, any freeway crossing through natural wildlife habitat should have barriers to prevent “jaywalking” and special underpasses or over-crossings specially built to allow animals to cross such highway safely.
The idea of constructing crossings for animals in the wild is not new. It has been tested in North America. An MSNBC article, “More wildlife getting helped across the highway“, shows how such crossings enables the free flow of human and wildlife alike, while guaranteeing the safety of both. Below is a visual example of such crossings:
As mentioned in the MSNBC article, the picture was taken at Banff National Park, Canada.
It’s time we incorporate green designs into our highways and prevent future accident, in memory of the tapir. Life, regardless of species, is too precious to waste.
Let’s be honest to ourselves this once.
You can’t expect more subsidy and expect taxes not to go up.
You can’t expect the government to give you everything and not expect taxes to go up. You can’t both have your cake and eat it too. Well, George Carlin might disagree but he’s a comedian.
C’mon.
You really want to satisfy your conscience by helping the poor by using somebody else’s money.
And c’mon.
You are more interested in jealousy rather than wealth inequality.
Let’s be honest.
You can’t expect others to grant you justice when you commit injustice to others.
You can’t expect to conserve your liberty if you would violate others’ liberty, every single chance you had.
Honestly, freedom is a two-way street.
You can’t expect a person to respect you when you disrespect others. Respect is reciprocal.
You really can’t expect people to trust you when you lied to them. Trust is reciprocal.
Let’s be honest. Let’s be true to ourselves this once.
You can’t prove that a supreme being exists. Or do not exist for that matter. You may believe or disbelieve in but but knowing and believing are two very different verbs. For all we know, theists and atheists are fighting over something that both of them can’t prove.
What does honesty mean to you?
How is it that your religion claims to monopolize everything that is good in this world but seems to produces only hate?
Let’s be honest. Goodness is larger than religion.
Be honest.
Could you advocate racism but in the same breathe, talk of unity across communal groups? How honest could you answer that question?
Be honest.
Do you call a person as racists but unwittingly realize that you’re a racist too?
Be frank.
Do you sway freely with populism or do you stand firm with your priciples? Have a backbone for once. Please.
Be true to yourself. In your little heart, answer this.
Do you really think you could consume everything today and still expect there’s something left for tomorrow?
And let be honest this one time.
As far as this entry is concerned, honesty is a cliché.
Yesterday, The Star reported that there’s an opposition to a plan to construct a coal power plant in Sabah:
LAHAD DATU: A coal-fired power plant in an area earmarked for eco-tourism in Silam is yet to get off the ground but already it is stoking up anger among several groups in this part of east coast Sabah.
The most vocal opponents to the 300MW plant, said to cost between RM1.2bil and RM1.3bil, are a group of environmentalists, social activists and local businessmen in this booming agriculture town.
They fear the plant will do more harm than good for them and the environment stretching from Darvel Bay to the pristine Danum Valley forest, some 80km away.
According to officials, the power plant would utilize clean coal technology:
KUALA LUMPUR: The technology used for coal-based power plants is different compared to that used previously, Deputy Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Shaziman Abu Mansor said.
There has been a lot of talk of clean coal technology for the past few years in Malaysia but I’m still skeptical on how clean the power plants, including the one in Sabah, would be. Furthermore, I’m unsure how the power plant plans to store the carbon byproduct, i.e. waste.
Regardless the technology used, I wonder though, why do we need a 300 megawatts power plant when we are going to have a 2,400 megawatts Bakun hydroelectric dam soon? Why do we need another 300 MV coal power plant when most output of the 2,400 MV dam would not be used?
Not too long ago, the Sarawak state government wanted to build a metal smelter plant as an economic justification of the construction of the mightily huge Bakun dam. Without the smelter, the state government believes that the construction of the dam wouldn’t be justified, especially when the plan to connect the Malay Peninsula with Borneo via an underwater cable was scrapped due to the Asian financial crisis of the last decade. If the operator of dam really couldn’t find a buyer for its electricity, surely the Bakun dam could accommodate whatever the Sabah coal plant would accommodate. By the way, the Bakun dam is expected to become operational by mid-2009.
Perhaps, certain engineering issues regarding electricity transmission between Bakun, Sarawak and Sabah necessitates the construction of the new coal power plant in Malaysian Borneo?
If there’s none, then somebody better explain.
You’ve heard how the Malaysian government pat itself at the back after the Human Development Report 2006 puts the country on par with the developed world. A Wikipedian has produced a map to put it into global perspective:
Green is considered developed, yellow as developing while red signifies underdeveloping countries.
Within Southeast Asia, Singapore, Brunei and Malaysia are considered as the only developed countries in Southeast Asia. Though I don’t mind Singapore, the inclusion of Brunei and Malaysia does make me frown a bit. Nevertheless, sweet.
Before you jump around patting yourself at the back, the report mentions the state of water pollution in Malaysia (*.pdf):
Water quantity is not the only benchmark indicator for scarcity. Quality also has a bearing on the volume available for use—and in many of the most stressed water basins quality has been compromised by pollution. All of India’s 14 major river systems are badly polluted. In Delhi, to take one example, 200 million litres of raw sewage and 20 million litres of waste are dumped into the Yamuna River every day. In Malaysia and Thailand water pollution is so severe that rivers often contain 30—100 times the pathogen load permitted by health standards.