Labour Day 2013

1st of May is the Labour Day. A Day celebrating the contribution of the workers for nation building and services rendered. It is also a Day to raise awareness on the welfare of employees and need to protect them from manipulation and abuse. This especially so towards the child labour and the vulnerable group. Agenda 21, the global blueprint for sustainable development recognises the contribution of workers as one of the major groups in helping to achieve sustainability. It is stated in Chapter 29 of Agenda 21 that welfare, capacity and capability of workers should be strengthened and enhanced. Workers being the bigger group in job place, production line and also as the consumers have role to play in sustainability. For those in the production line, adopting green or 3R concept in manufacturing for example will help protecting the resources ot the Earth from dilapidating. As consumers, making sure that spending is not excessive and fulfilling the needs rather than the greed shall be helpful as well. As those involve in the supply chain of production or become part of the whole life cycle of products, contribution of workers is undoubtedly very important. Hence, achieving sustainable development without acknowledging the contribution of the workers is not completed. Happy Labour Day.

Green Aside

Since 20th April 2013, streets, public place, garden and junctions throughout the cities in Malaysia have been decorated with new facade. A facade that is not green, peace or pleasant or even at time danger to the motorists and road users. Many of the road signs have been blocked because the buntings and banners or boards have been erected too close to the signs. Trees and plants are not spared from this. The vegetation have been victimised with too many buntings nail on them. I presume, the notion of loving the trees and protecting our environment has been put aside. Is this our value or we can temporarily shelve our value for bigger picture at the national level? Well, the arguement will go on until 5th May 2013 and repeat again every 5 years. Can we come out with better idea of doing publicity? Pre-requisite is not to damage the hard or soft landscape we have.

Earth Day

The Earth Day of 2013 will be celebrated worldwide on 22th April 2013. The theme of this year is The Face of Climate Change. While global warming is real and impacted everyone, many are not aware about the effect as many do not see the direct effect impacting their daily routine. Many might have taken note of the effects of climate change but decided do nothing as the changes might not be that significant yet. Individually, of course yes as individual with higher resistence power will make climate change mitigation or even adapdation plan more friendly to them. They are able to protect themselves. But, what happen to those vulnerable who cannot afford to even meet their daily end need? Collectively, everyone has equal responsibility towards climate change, but individually those posing higher capacity should do more for the Earth. The face of climate change is changing every second. Although changes are unavoidable, change for the betterment should at least be the call of the day. For changing towards a better face, at least the smiling face of human, we should do more of protecting the environment and preventing speedy change of excessive climate circumstances. Happy Earth Day

Freedom of Choice

Today marks the nomination day of 13th General Election of Malaysia. It is a day political parties presenting their candidates for the choice of people. It is also a starting day for people to listen the candidates' pledge, to read the manifesto and to analyse the candidate with calibre to serve the people, community and nation. The choice is with the people, or in precise the voters. Freedom of choice is the underlying principle of public participation, to whom the public participation forms a major contributing component for sustainable development. We tend to choose things that we familiar and used to without taking an initiative to think further or to try to be more adventurous. This is understood as human nature is very much comfortable with the present life style they have, if they are enjoying it. Some do not like change because they have the fear of changing for worse scenario. Some do not like change because they might have some personal experience. Some do not like change because they have countless interest in not changing. For people to step out from the comfort zone required extra and concerted efforts from those who aspire to bring changes. For those people who aspire for changes will need a lot of courages. If we choose to embrace sustainability, then action must be taken to walk the talk. If we choose to NATO (No Action, Talk Only), then nothing is going to happen and we will have ourselves to blame if our own backyard is getting unsustainable. Whatever it is, the undenying fact is everyone has a choice to choose.

Earth Hour 2013

WWF initiated Earth Hour 2013 would see millions of people around the globe switching off the lights on 23th March, 8.30pm to 9.30pm. It is a day to raise public awareness on climate change and its impact. It is commonly acknowledged that energy sector contributing the highest carbon emission to our Earth. Hence, finding ways to reduce non renewable energy consumption is the way forward. Electricity generated from coal is major source of carbon emission as 1kwh electricity will be generating 1kg CO2 and equivalent. Reminding people to not consume electricity over and above what needed, hence is essential. The day of Earth Hour will witness many activities of dessiminating information about environmental conservation and protection. This, especially so with many businesses using this to conduct their corporate social responsibility programmes. While holding an awareness programme is commendable, using that as a gimmick to attract people coming all the way from far, some with fossil fuel driven private vehicles might not be appropriate and go against the call for prudent in energy consumption. While switching off the light for an hour is not that difficult, practicing it daily and using electricity sufficiently for basic need remains a big challenge. Do we not putting our electrical appliances on stand by mode? Can we walk to the neighbourhood shops instead of riding on a car? Can we switch off the bathroom lights after using it? We might want to replace malfunction bulbs with the energy saving or LED lamps. Can we procure 5 star energy saving appliances? If you want a vehicle for travelling and if you can afford, why not buying a hybrid or electric car? Can we adjust the temperature of air condition to 26 degrees celcious and only on it when you cannot withstand the heat or humidity? Can we have green building or retrofiting our building towards energy efficiency? Why not generating renewable energy, a feet encourages by the Sustainable Energy Development Authority of Malaysia. Happy Earth Hour 2013

World Water Day 2013

Tomorrow is the 2013 World Water Day. United Nations has designated the 2013 is UN International Year of Water Cooperation with UNESCO taking the lead. The World Water Day held 22nd March each year is a mean to focusing attention to fresh water and advocating the importance of managing fresh water resources sustainably. UNESCO has been chosen due to its significant and long standing roles and on the issue of fresh water conservation. This is timely reminder as many of us have forgotten that this God giving gift for neccessity to sustain human life has been ignored. The importance of water and its value to society has to be reminded and reinstated. For Malaysian, the average consumption of 202 liter water per person per day is much higher compared to the world average of 165 liter per person per day. We, hence become very wasteful and generous on the usage of water. The consumption pattern can be changed if we are willing to change our lifestyle, attitude and value on water usage. Have you done anything in celebrating the World Water Day? You might want to install the rain water harvesting system in your premises. Are you recycling the waste water? Are you using the glass to hold water from tap during teeth brushing time? Have you changed the toilet flushing tank to the capacity of 6 liter or below? Thankful to the Water while celebrating it.

Environmental Talk

I spoke to an audience of about 50 people in Paradigm Mall last Sunday on the Sustainable Living in Malaysia: Towards A Low Carbon City. It is an environmental talk in conjunction with the Lions Environmental Photos Display. As it is an open court with many public walking by and onlookers, I made my 20 minutes presentation in a simple, graphical and easy to understand format. The best practices and examples are taken from daily routine and can be done by even ordinary man on the streets so that the audience can relate the talk to their own experiences and living environment. In order to keep the audience focus, questions with prizes are also offered along the presentation. Questions like which day is the World Environment Day, the three different colour code for recycling bins, examples of impact of climate change, CO2 emission for walking and etc were asked. While many responded well, there are questions unanswered. Perhaps it is due to capacity building, level of understanding and knowledge acquisition. I reckon that effective public awareness and education programmes are urgently needed.

Welcome 2013

Welcome to 2013. Beginning of every new year will witness many people having new aspirations, new objectives in life, new scope of works, new responsibilities and the least might be acquiring new clothes, new car, new hairstyle and etc. At least for me is having new scope of work, that is becoming the "driver" for my kid going to school now. It is a long journey considering that we have 6 years of primary education. The year 2013 will be a challenging year for all walk of Malaysian. Everybody is anticipating the 13th General Election by March or later before June. As such, many planning and implementation of works are pretty much undecided or subjected to change. These include the submission of development projects, infrastructure works and even decision to procure. I believe it will be a difficult task to achieve the target of having twice OSC meeting a month. Keeping the town clean and tidy when it comes close to the election time. With the uncertainty in global economic and political scenario now, it is anticipated that submission for new development projects might be slowed down or stagnant until thing is clearer. For MBPJ it will be exciting when it comes to 2nd of January as the organisation, councillors and staff will welcome Datin Paduka Alinah bt Ahmad, the first Woman Mayor in Malaysia to take over the helm from Dato' Haji Mohamad Roslan bin Sakiman. Changes and transformation is eagerly awaiting by all. While former mayor has done an excellent job and loveable by all walk of society of Petaling Jaya, it will definitely be another milestone for PJ to have the service of an experience personnel especially in the segment of corporate, land and property administration and development. For developmental planning, submission for all types of application will have to go through the OSC Online system starting from 1st January 2013. It will excited to watch over the process and readiness of submitting persons to do so. The OSC Unit and other technical agencies are ever ready to receive and to process the application and to teach the consultants. On the same day also, submission of landscape plan applcation will have to be done concurrently with the planning permission submission. This is to avoid the discrepencies used to happen for landscaping purpose after all other plans have been approved or infrastructure has been built. Many others measures to expedite the process and to reduce the red tape is in the midst of discussion now. It is with the hope to help facilitating the developmental process, and to make the businesses to love PJ as a friendly partner in delivery, of course the pretext is all should become a socially anf environmentally responsible corporate. For low carbon green city of Petaling Jaya. It is fascinating and exciting as many programmes are on the pipeline. The market organic waste composting project in Jalan Othman is expected to take off by March. The pilot project on low carbon city focusing on waste sector with KeTTHA is on going since end of December 2012. The possibility of using treated water and effluent from IWK plants for landscaping purpose is under study now. The retrofiting work to turn MBPJ HQ into a green building will be starting with a budget allocation of almost RM 1 million. Hopefully, these will be sustained and remained as one of the top priorities of MBPJ. Wishing everyone a Happy New Year 2013.

World Environment Day

With the turn of local events for past week, I have almost forgotten about the arrival of the World Environment Day today. Only recollect after yesterday launching of Assessment Rebate Scheme for environmental friendly house owners for Petaling Jaya and organiser of a seminar for requesting my paper to be presented today. The theme for this year celebration is focusing on "Green Economy" and what to do with us. During the agro society time, people planted vegetables feed animal for self consumption. They will give away excessive produce to neighbour in exchange of other services. Later with the industrialisation revolution, people venture into non agriculture sector have to buy food items. This change of event created new dimension in economy. Of course, the initially "green" produces were reinvented and all type of products, environmental friendly or not are offered in market. I presume only after realising that environment quality is degrading and current economic model is not helping us much on restoring what we used to enjoy, that people arre looking at green economy. I presume this is call of going back to the basic, the agro time producing sufficient for own self and consume for biological need. Green economy is closer to every individual. It is a way of money saving. For exame consume less energy and water by changing our way of life can save us few cents. Eating vegetables planted from the pot at our backyard can be an answer to the high cost of green from market. Walking to the neighbourhood shops instead of driving will not only reduce fuel cost but gjve us an opportunity for exercises. The list is endless. It is only a matter of our choice. Even rejecting the not so green products is a way of saying YES we support green economy. However some concerned about manipulation by businesses and at the end of the day it turns out to be a marketing gimmick. While many might not be able to choose and demarcate the very green products, it is duty of authority to educate and regulate so that people might not have felt shortchange. Happy World Environment Day 5th June.

Mother Day

Mother Day is a Day for all the moms. It is a Day remembering the contribution and scarify mother have made and the hardship they have gone through for the family and upbringing of children, and some even looking after the grand children. Mother works relentlessly and unswervingly throughout the Year. Therefore, only celebrating it on the 2nd Sunday of May is, to me an unfair treatment to the mother. Perhaps, we should have all year celebration for our mom rather than a specific Day. Many might not agree with this as it is human nature of forgetting to appreciate good work because we always take for granted what we are receiving every day. For example, we always think mother wake up early preparing the breakfast for us is a normal daily routine. We presume mother will up keep the house and wash our dirty linen without any notification. We make so much assumption about our mother. We thought our mother is our maid, our banker, our protector during hardship and our friend during unhappiness. Of course, our mother will never say NO for playing these roles. When we have this perception implanted with us, then presumably we will not remember to repay the good gesture of our mother, let alone celebrating it. Hence, sparing a day to remind us about what our mother has done and deserving some recognition, perhaps is not a bad thing to do. Of course, businesses especially the gift shop, restaurant, bakery outlet, jewellery shop and hospitality sector will support the Day. Happy Mother Day P/s: This year 2012 is so special for me because my mom is celebrating her birthday same day with the Mother Day. A Double Joyful Celebration for my family

Labour Day

1st of May is the Labour Day. A day in celebrating the employees' contribution and dedication, I think. If this is the spirit, then perhaps the celebration should be initiated by the employers and not entirely the responsibility of the employees to organise event for celebration and hence seeking recognition. Then again, if both the divides can celebrate together, it must be a sign of smart partnership and collaboration. People always say no sound is loud enough without clapping both the hand. It means any work or job is the produce of collaboration between the employers and employees. Without anyone will definitely making the job incomplete. Some would like to name the day as Workers Day because the words of labour implying the contribution of employees have been belittle. This is so because in the past they are providing energy and time only in return for remuneration. In present day, this is not true that only energy and time is paid, but rather other services or talent such as consulting or ideas are getting rewards too. Perhaps workers are also not a word to reflect the emerging changes on employment sector. For proper recognition, perhaps we can have a more appropriate terminology such as Employees Day. Previously, we have a chain of production that demarcated clearly the link between different of workers and the boss. For writer, you will need to get a publisher to publish your works. For song composer, the boss of recording company is important to get your song be sang and produced. Whoever artist he decided to sing it will have a bearing on how popular your song can be in the market. The employers and employees relationship is obvious in making the chain of production work effectively. With the advancement of technology especially the ICT which provide plenty of opportunities and platform for all, the relationship between employers and employees are also evolving. The writer does not necessary to secure a contract with publisher first before writing. He can upload it to the web site and market it with the social media for getting readers. And mind you, world is the market size we are talking about. Similarly, for song composer, he can produce a demo and upload it for sharing and listening. In this respect, no clear employers exist. They are the so call freelancers and their own boss. Is this group of people celebrating the Labour Day? I do not think so because they might have no employees to celebrate with. With the growing number of this group whom relying on ICT to be their own boss as mean of living, will the number of people celebrating Labour Day decreasing? Happy Labour Day, anyway before the time comes for us celebrating the contribution of employers and employees together.

Almost There Symptom

In conjunction with the Earth Day celebration, a public lecture entitled "Climate Change: It's relevant to the Local Authorities and Community" was held last Monday. One of the interesting point highlighted by the speaker is "almost there" symptom that failing the low carbon, sustainable development and green programmes. Almost there means something has been done but not completed yet and the unfinished job is becoming the contributing factor for failure or making the intended objectives unattainable. One of the example quoted was our National Administrative Centre, Putrajaya. In encouraging efficiency of green travelling and reducing the private vehicles trip, buses with NGV operated are installed and information on routing are displayed and updated at the bus stop. However, many commuters do not take the bus because it was reported that the buses do not come on time as scheduled. It left the commuters with no choice but travel with private vehicles. This further aggrieved the parking problem in Putrajaya as all buildings have been designed with park and ride concept in mind and hence very few parking lots are provided at the destinated place. As a result, illegal parking is becoming rampant all over the place. This is an example of almost there with little hiccup that dampen the objectives of a programme. Similarly, it is a symptom of almost there if we consume more treated piped water even though a rain water harvesting system was installed. It simply means that we want to conserve rain fall but cannot impact it into reducing our water consumption which should become ultimate aim. This symptom is related to either lack of thorough planning or attitude of the stakeholders. Planning is always failed by the efficiency in execution. While proposals can be very comprehensive to be outlined in the plan, it remains useless unless it is executed as planned schedule. For example, we spoke about TOD (Transit Oriented Development) in which higher intensity of development shall be given for those projects within the vicinity of public transportation hub. This concept was conceived with the assumption that the dwellers or workers there will commute with public transportation such as rail or buses and hence little trip generation using the road space will occur. Ideally this should be the bottom line for such concept to be successfully carried out. However, the concept will not be effectively operationalised unless other supporting factors are in place. For example, the rail line and its area of coverage meet the demand of the travellers. No point of me taking the train reaching the destinated station but have to spend another hour or to take a taxi ride to my work place. Secondly, the public transportation service must be affordable, convenient, efficient, safe, comfortable and connectable. For me, we can have tip top infrastructure and services but program still cannot work if the attitude of the stakeholders is remained third class or unchanged. For example, the nation wide recycling campaign failed to achieve its desired goals after a decade of implementation. We do not see the recycling practice becomes a value and culture amongst the community members. We only witness the primary school pupils bringing the recycable items to school because the school is making it a mandatory activity and for competition purpose. Once the students move up to secondary and college level, the interest of recycling diminishes rapidly. I presume it is a symptom of almost there, temporary or permanently.

Public Lecture on Climate Change

YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO THE PUBLIC LECTURE ENTITLED: "CLIMATE CHANGE: IT'S RELEVANT TO LOCAL AUTHORITIES AND COMMUNITY" DELIVERED BY DR GARY WILLIAM THESEIRA OF THE MINISTRY OF NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT, FOLLOWED BY A PANELIST DISCUSSION FEATURES DR AIZI RAZMAN ISMAIL OF MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT; MR NITHI OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION SOCIETY MALAYSIA AND YOUR TRULY. THE DISCUSSION WILL BE CHAIRED BY PROF DR PHANG SIEW NOOI FROM SUNWAY UNIVERSITY. IT IS A PROGRAM TO CELEBRATE THE EARTH DAY 2012.

PLEASE REGISTER. SEE YOU ON 23/4/2012 (MONDAY), 2.45PM AT MBPJ BILIK GERAKAN, JALAN YONG SHOOK LIN, 46675 PETALING JAYA.

Earth Hour 2012

Today is the Earth Hour. Millions of people world wide is celebrating the Day by switching off their light between 8.30pm to 9.30pm. The Day is a day to remind people on the effect of climate change. Switching off the light will reduce demand on electricity, and hence the burning of fuel which is one of the major contributor to carbon dioxide generation. However, to me this is not the main purpose of organising Earth Hour, but rather on this Day, what commitment we should make to ourselves that we are going to do to combat global warming, to minimise degradation of environmental quality, to conserve natural environment, to produce less waste, to generate less CO2 and etc. It must be a personal pledge and action through out the Day, and not confining to an hour starting from 8.30pm. We might think of reducing our carbon footprint and water footprint. Perhaps sleep early is a good choice as no electricity is supposed to be used. On this respect, the activities planned by many commercial establishments during that hour, to me is not favourable. Celebration activities that involve shopping crowd to participate is a commercial marketing decision and part of the corporate social responsibility of the businesses to raise awareness. However, I must say that I would not agree to such celebration activities if many people from far and near making a special trip to join the celebration. These are people who might not want to come to shop but choose to do so with plenty of activities and prizes are promised. They might come with their own vehicles which will generate more CO2. They might eat and shop more with their lavish spending habit. The streets are jam up with sudden increase of vehicles.

To me, less celebration with mass gathering is better answer for the intended message for Earth Hour. Happy Earth Hour 2012.

School Holiday vs Liveability

This whole week is anticipating traffic less on the road. Even eating outlets have lesser patrons. Most are staying put in the shopping malls or tourist destination. This is school holiday week. It seem that school plays an important role on many of us especially the society. The usual peak hour jam at school area is gone temporary. The usual rush lunch hour at restaurants is not happened. All these because of parent are not in hurry to send their children to school, all during the same time. Many parent are taking days off to bring their children for vacation and hence relieve the city from flowing of cars. Even many organisations are organising events or seminar at tourist spots in the name of "lawatan sambil belajar". In short everybody is in holiday mood.

How liveable of our city is if everyday is the school holiday. Can it be done? Perhaps yes if we let all our school closed physically or in other words no children goes to school everyday. For example, different time schedule for primary and secondary school or having cyber and virtual teaching. Why not with the advancement in technology. Or may be the school will only accept students from the same neighbourhood within walking distance, however with the gurantee that our city is safe for children. This might be too idealism of asking students to stay home for self learning with virtual monitoring of teachers from far. If that is the case then perhaps prime land of our school site are too valuable for dvelopment, i presume.

Whatever it is, enjoy the precious limited time for stuck less on the road and queue less for food.

Green Year 2012

I would like to start the Year of 2012 refreshing on what has transpired last year. It must be a fruitful and good year for Green Movement of Petaling Jaya moving forward as many focuses have been given to initiatives that are initiated by the Petaling Jaya City Council. Many were pioneering moves and become a popular talk amongst the residents and local authorities, even the moves are commended by readers of newspaper. Below are some of the listing of all paper cuttings about green efforts done by the Petaling Jaya Low Carbon Green City Task Force. It is a remarkable achievement considering that the Task Force of Petaling Jaya Low Carbon Green City has been only 1 year old. Many innovative and creative actions have been implemented. Kudos to the members of the Task Force which includes the councillors, departmental representatives and NGOs.

First Local Authority in Asia offering Green Rebate on Property Assessment

Elderly go green to stay active:

Year-end Goodies

Proposal to give rebate to those adopt the green way:

Pro Environment Policy gets the thumbs up:

PJ Gearing towards A Green City

Recognised for their green contribution

Awareness Talk on Climate Change

Harness Positive Thinking for the Environment:

Greener 2012 Budget for MBPJ:

MBPJ Budget: Residents seek more participation:

First of its kind: Free parking for hybrid-car buyers in PJ

PJ Folks invited to Nominate the Green Figure

49 Residents got Rebate for Green Efforts:

MBPJ's Effort is Commendable:

PJ residents advised to recycle items that are still in good condition:

Surprises in MBPJ budget:

PJ City Council introduces several initiatives to inculcate environment-saving habits:

Macau team visits MBPJ to exchange ideas and experiences:

Mayor PJ cycling to work:

MBPJ to hold recycling used cooking oil for biodiesel contest:

MBPJ Leading in Low Carbon Efforts, Focusing on 6 Areas of Environment:

Green Cities start with low carbon and CO2 emission reduction:

Green PJ Half Marathon:

Green Budget 2012 of MBPJ:

Green Rebate for PJ House Owners:

MBPJ declares Engine Off Zone:

National Recycling Day 2011

National Recycling Day on 11th November is a Day many would like to not remember or celebrate. For Agencies that do not have the strategic recycling action plan or even the 3 colour bins within their compound, it is nothing to shout about. For residents who produce the same amount of rubbish everyday although they might have started collecting the old newspaper for sale, it is nothing so glad. For waste collectors, if the working of collection is getting more complicated and difficult, it simply means waste has not reducing. So, when we pose the questions to these stakeholders, I believe many would prefer to forget the Day with ease.

Having said this, shall we not celebrate the Day? Of course not. Continue efforts on promoting the awareness of 3R is a long term battle. People need to be constantly reminded about the importance of 3R and its' way forward. If voluntarism measurement is not working effectively, then perhaps economic and legal instruments should be applied indeed. So this is the Day of telling others what they should do for the next 364 days before the arrival of next celebration.

It should be a Day to recognise those who have done good on the ground, the unsung heroes. The initiatives of these people should be highlighted and be given proper recognition as a way to spur others to follow suit. More than often, we forget about them whenever there is a celebration or if they got invited, they will usually marginalise during the whole duration of functions. Then, we have to ask ourselves who should we celebrate for? Not the unsung recycling heroes?

Happy celebrate National Recycling Day and make it everyday is a recycling day.

World Town Planning Day 2011

We will blame the planners of unplanned action whenever we stuck in the traffic jam. We will refer to the negligence of planners if a slope erosion happened resulting in the fall of high-rise buildings. We will tell others if the disabled people cannot move around freely due to physical obstruction. Even the littering rampant on the road is attributed to lack of rubbish bins in the strategic area, a planning negligence by the planners. All urban issues and problems are associated to the planners, does not matter whether it is due to lack of foresight, design fault or lack of maintenance or simply because of the users' negligence. Planners become the easier target for any wrong doings affecting to the quality of living environment. Many have discarded the role played by other stakeholders in the development process. These include the land owners who would like to maximize the profit, architect looking at the aesthetic value of building and efficiency of the building, local planning authorities, the agency to process and to decide the application, builders who are supposed to construct as planned but some time choose not to do so, users who suppose to make good use of the facilities and to care for their living environment, the service providers to maintain the environment in liveable condition. Ultimately, it is a collective effort in making the planned settlement into a liveable and sustainable place within the carrying capacity of our Earth.

Hence, celebration of the World Town Planning Day on 8th November everyyear is not exclusively by and for the planners. It is a Day to be recognised for good planning and to refresh on bad planning. It is a Day to share, learn and relearn on making our living environment a liveable and sustainable one.

To celebrate the Day with all stakeholders, OSC Unit of MBPJ is having the tea break retreat for all walked in customers. Please join us for the joyful day.

Happy World Town Planning Day.

World Habitat Day 2011

First Monday of October every year is declared World Habitat Day. Today, 3rd of October is the Day. World Habitat Day is organised to raise awareness on the need of having quality, affordable and sustainable settlements and at the same time to celebrate achievements that enhancing the living environment for human being. It is a Day celebrated world wide especially in UN-Habitat at Nairobi, Africa.

While many have been achieved for improving the living environment and shelter for people, many have yet to be done simply because of the effectiveness of programmes and capacity of the organisers and beneficiaries. For example, eradicating the poverty is top agenda of the list, but the income disparity is getting wider now not only between the developed and undeveloped countries but also inter cities or even rural and urban area in a developed country. The job opportunity is shrinking in the developed nation because of shifting of industries based to other countries. The quality of living environment in the urban area is not at par with those in the rural area due to high cost of living expenses. The vircious circle of poverty amongst the agriculture society at rural area is repeating for the service oriented society in the urban area simply because the earning is never sufficient to cover the cost of living.

Definitely some structural change of the economic model, governance system and society norm or value need to be revisited. Perhaps it is time to refresh all these in this Day.

Happy World Habitat Day 2011.

PJ Car Free Day 2011

Given a choice, you would like to save cost and feel good. That's the sentiment of those people participating in the Car Free Day 2011 celebration organised by MBPJ recently. The Campaign saw the councillors and officers came to work and meeting by LRT, Community Bus, Walking and cycling on 28th September 2011. It is a symbolic gesture of showing the Council seriousness in supporting effort to reduce carbon emission and creating a green and low carbon city of Petaling Jaya.

Save cost means reducing expenses on the fuel of car and feel good means you are doing good towards protecting the environment. Many do not mind taking the public transportation if the mode is efficient, reliable and affordable or even walking and cycling if it is conducive, comfortable and safe of doing so. Providing feeder bus service to ferry people from their origin to the LRT, Bus and Commuter Stations and later from the stations to place of destination are important to encourage people to shift to public transport as a way of commuting. It is no point of talking tireless to people of asking them to reduce generation of car trip without providing viable option. Similarly asking people to cycle and walk on busy road is not of help. Dedicated and well connected lanes should be built.

While waiting for that to realise, it is right to do something within the influence and means of everyone and not to waiting everything falls in place. For example, do we drive and shop within the neighbourhood centre with vicinity of less than 10 minutes walk? If yes, is that possible to change the habit? Do we develop the habit of switching on the engine of car while waiting someone? If yes, then perhaps we should get down from the car and wait elsewhere if we anticipate to wait for longer time. Many daily routine can be changed and brought benefits to the environment but was overlooked due to our negligence or even attitude of do not bother. So, it is time to change from within.

In this respect, the celebration of Car Free Day in which some councillors are cycling in short distance is not only about raising public awareness, but a statement made on our commitment. Study showed that if a person doing something repeatedly for 3 months, then it will become a habit. Hopefully, this will develop into a habit and routine in time to come.