Sustainable Living Hong Kong

A Hong Kong restauranteur has, once again, bid the highest price to secure a premium piece of bluefin tuna, the Standard’s gossip column announced with much glee today.

Well, there goes another species then. Nowhere was it mentioned in the paper that the bluefin tuna will soon become extinct, and yet that is the sad truth, and it’s all because more and more people are eating more and more sushi.

Soon, how soon? Five years, according to a marine biologist from France’s Institute for Development Research. Oh, and that’s not the end of it. Many species of sharks are also close to extinction, and when all these large predators disappear from the marine ecosystems, the resulting imbalance would have dire consequences for human beings as well as the rest of the planet.

Incidentally, the types of tuna fished to be canned are also overexploited. One particular brand, John West - which can be found in Hong Kong supermarkets – was noted for using destructive fishing methods to obtain their catch. Every tuna sandwich comes at a price. A child born today probably won’t grow to know what tuna is at all, because by then there’ll be none left.

For readers who are sceptical of what’s said in the previous post, it is worth considering the bind we’ve got ourselves into already.

Scientists have come to a consensus that we have failed to lower carbon emissions and that a Plan B that includes artificial, geoengineering means to lower global temperatures must be explored – just as Richard Turco, a professor in the UCLA Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences who studies such approaches has described them as “preposterous, mind-boggling.”

Do we have a Plan C? Remember what I said earlier, this is not a problem for some abstract future generation; most of us will still be around, unfortunately at a frail stage of life, when it all burns up.

Anyone who’s read the New Year’s Day edition of the SCMP may have come across a comment piece by Razeen Sally, the co-director of the European Centre for International Political Economy, criticising the stimulus packages adopted by governments to avoid recession.

His argument is that governments are taking a leaf from the Great Depression of 1929, even though today’s conditions aren’t as bad, and that the stimulus may actually make things worse. He suggests that today’s downturn is more like the blips of the 1970s and 1980s.

While he may disagree with the politicians regarding the merits of these measures, his agreement with them over the desirability of a return to growth is implicit in his comments. And when the basis for an argument is false, it all becomes pointless.

The problem with the argument is the assumption that the world economy operates in some kind of vacuum, so if it’s out of kilter the solution is to apply the usual economic instruments to adjust the factors of production, etc, to set it right. The world economy, however, does not exist in a vacuum. As the diagram below, taken from former World Bank economist Herman Daly’s book Beyond Growth (Beacon Press, 1996), illustrates, the economy is actually a subsystem of the larger ecosystem, from which it draws input in the form of natural resources and to which it exports output in the form of waste.

When the economy was small, it was, from the profit if not moral perspective, OK to talk about restarting growth, because the ecosystem’s carrying capacity has not been pushed to the limit. That’s akin to the top circle in the diagram. But our problem today is that the economy has got so big, the ecosystem’s carrying capacity is near exhaustion, as in the bottom circle in the diagram. Under the circumstances, talking about growth reflects, at best, our inability to see the failures of conventional economics; and, at worst, the most egregious form of denial.

In his book Supercapitalism: the Battle for Democracy in an Age of Big Business (Vintage, 2008), Robert Reich, professor of public policy at UC Berkeley and former US secretary of labour under Bill Clinton, recalled his early days in Washington DC.

It was the 1970s, and there were little eateries downtown where one could have a cheap sandwich, but then gentrification swept it all away, and by the time he revisited, in the 1990s, the same area was populated by smart offices and restaurants “with linen napkins, leatherbound menus and heavy silverware, which served US$75 steaks and offered US$400 magnums of vintage French wine…”, where bankers and others in the financial services industry wined, dined and hobnobbed.

Whether it’s Washington, New York or Hong Kong, it’s the same story of community loss as those once-vaunted ‘masters of the universe’ descended with their money-making schemes, spinning listings and mergers, complex financial products and loans with suspect underlying assets. They certainly enriched themselves no end as money, unlike people and physical goods, knows no borders. And landlords and property developers are only too happy to entertain those with deep pockets, at the expense of the old shops and eateries around which communities have gathered and bonded – look no further than the demise of yet another historical cha chaan teng, in Central, this week.

Alas, even as capitalism as an ideology becomes severely discredited, governments, including Hong Kong’s, are so desperate for a return to those days of ever-widening income gap that they can’t seem to do enough to bail out the very culprits responsible for the mess in the first place. There is the risk, of course, that if they don’t do so the crisis would get worse, but as more bad news surface, it’s a question of whether the taxpayers’ money would ever be adequate to the task.

Reich argued in his book that technology-fuelled globalisation has done much to push an obsession with profit that has removed any sense of social responsibility from the picture. Forget this thing called ‘corporate social responsibility’; the only way to stop the rot, according to Reich, is to introduce progressive tax regimes that address income inequality and introduce measures to curb the powers of lobbyists. Lobbyists are an industry in the US; whilst one may not as easily meet someone with a business card with that description in Hong Kong, there are nonetheless powerful lobbies in the city whose interests drive government policy.

As the business downturn takes hold, the same lobbies are now clamouring for government help. To what extent would such help be in the interest of Hong Kong as a whole? If the answer is negative, communities will have to form themselves into even noisier lobbies to get heard.

A friend once told me how, whenever he went through old districts like Happy Valley, he’d stop to admire the older, low to medium-rise residential buildings.

“You can tell from the facade how much headroom they’ve got. I always dream of living in a flat with proper proportions. Not like the bird cage I live in…. but the prices are way over my head,” he’d sighed.

There are now new residential buildings with generous floor-to-ceiling height, but whether they have proper proportions is moot. Certainly they won’t be within my friend’s price range – or in the neighbours’ good books.

When the mass market was red hot, developers had perfected the art of building bird cages: residential buildings packed six to eight flats to each floor, with bedrooms the size of modest walk-in wardrobes and a ceiling a tall person can touch with his/her fingertips. Now the mass market’s not doing so well, they are concentrating on the more resilient luxury sector, which, as a Ming Pao report illustrates, has meant exploiting a loophole in the regulations to push the headroom of flats and hence the overall height of their projects.

This is not new of course: architects instructed to make the most of views have long used strategies like stacking apartments on several levels of above-ground car parks accessing which via a spiral ramp is a dizzying experience all its own; which offers the double advantage of saving excavation cost for a basement car park. And of course there’s the headroom.

It’s nice to have a lofty ceiling, but can it go too far? A higher ceiling, along with more generously-proportioned rooms (which surely Hong Kongers would rather have than a big, marble-clad lobby they have to pay for but can’t live in) would reduce the sense of claustrophobia imparted by the city’s typical bird cages. But push beyond three metres and it becomes an environmental nightmare. Consider:

• The additional amount of building materials required to build these buildings (and the cement industry accounts for a big portion of the greenhouse gas emissions in the world)
• The additional volume of space that requires air-conditioning
• The visual impact of these tall buildings on the neighbourhood and beyond
• Their effect on air circulation in the neighbourhood

A previous attempt by the government to introduce some kind of height limit two years ago was abandoned due to opposition from developers. While the Town Planning Board wants something done, concern has been expressed that this would reduce design flexibility – which actually doesn’t really exist in the first place as the developers virtually dictate the design elements they want.

Now, to impose a height limit or not to impose a height limit? That is the question.

Caritas Medical Centre and the Hospital Authority issued, belatedly, apologies for failing to save the life of the heart attack victim.

It’s truly scary to think that the place where one most expects to find help in a medical emergency turned out to be the place least prepared to offer it. The sad news raises some questions. One, what is the percentage of Hong Kong’s population which is trained in cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR)? Of those who are trained, how many refresh their training regularly to be able to apply CPR when such an emergency occurs?

Two, was there an Automated External Defibrillator (AED), ones that can be operated by lay rescuers, near where the man collapsed? Since March 2007, more than a hundred AEDs have been installed at various locations in Hong Kong, ranging from shopping malls to private clubs. Was there one at the hospital?

This seems an opportune time for the Hospital Authority to organise an awareness programme, both to get more members of the public to learn CPR and update the skill regularly; and to know the value of AEDs and call/arrange for their installation. Lan Kwai Fong is the first place in Hong Kong to have an AED and emergency response system in place. Blanket coverage for the city would be ideal.

St John’s Ambulance and the Adventist Hospital’s Wellness Centre are among the places that offer CPR training. I’m sure there are others.

Commenting on the Christmas lighting on both sides of the harbour, Tai Po Environmental Association chairman Yau Wing-kwong has given us an exact figure – 404 tonnes – for the extra carbon dioxide Hong Kong has contributed to global warming during the festive period.

Yau also gave some figures for the amount companies have to pay for burning up so much electricity, and suggested that a rebate scheme similar to one in the UK be put in place to encourage them to switch from incandescent bulbs to more energy-efficient LED lighting.

Well, how ’bout appealing to these companies’ sense of social responsibility instead? Times are hard for a lot of people and charitable organisations must be suffering a big drop in donations, so why not, instead of wasting all this energy contributing to global warming, persuading them to donate the amount spent on Christmas lighting to charities? Surely it’s better publicity for them to be known for such donations than as polluters?

The idea may be a bit late for the Christmas lighting, but Chinese New Year is just round the corner, so rather than changing the lights, maybe building owners can switch off and help the needy instead?

A newly-released study on the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (HZMB) apparently forecast 42.8 billion yuan in economic benefits for Hong Kong following its completion in 2016.

It was forecast to carry 23,000 passengers that year with the number rising to 120,000 in 2035. A Chinese University academic was quoted in the papers as saying that the economic benefits could be even higher.

Now let’s put this in perspective.

A few months ago the International Energy Agency (IEA) released its World Energy Outlook 2008 report, in which it predicted a 6.7% annual decline in world oil production. This is significantly more than the rate it predicted in its 2007 report, which was 3.7%. IEA chief economist Fatih Birol attributed the difference to the fact that the 2007 figure was an assumption, while the figure for 2008 represented the agency’s actual finding after a study of 800 of the world’s largest oilfields.

Even with timely investment, production is expected to peak around 2020 – which is just 11 years from now, and only four years after the bridge’s completion. Peaking, of course, is not the same as running out, but unlike the recent recession-related drop in oil prices, it will mean a consistent upward curve for oil prices.

Now there’s something more. According to a peak oil report commissioned by the US Department of Energy and released in 2005, the report authors warned that “As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social and political costs will be unprecedented.”

By “timely mitigation”, the authors meant “ten years before world oil peaking” – which would be 2010, six years before the bridge’s scheduled completion! Furthermore, the report authors suggested that, to avoid global economic collapse, “a mitigation crash programme” should be started “20 years before peaking”.

That would be 2000 – which means we have already missed the boat. What’s more, not only are we not doing anything to mitigate the impact of peak oil, we are doing everything imaginable to exacerbate it by the measures being put in place to restart economic growth. And we haven’t even begun to look at the impact on climate change of this business-as-usual approach as well as the need to tap highly polluting sources, like Canadian tar sands, in order to keep this approach going.

In urban centres transport is the main user of oil and transport policy is therefore vital to economic sustainability, yet what is Hong Kong doing? Speaking at the Civic Exchange Energy Forum in September this year, Dr Richard Gilbert said that “only 14% of Hong Kong’s fuel consumption is for local transport, the rest is for maritime and aviation use…so the local transport system should be one of the most resilient in the world after peak oil.”

Yes but this mega bridge is designed to serve cross-border traffic, and it will be without a rail element, which would provide a more long-term solution to cross-border transport needs. Also, let’s not forget the push for the construction of a third runway at the airport. Airlines won’t like this, but even Richard Branson can’t develop an alternative fuel fast enough to save air transport and travel from the impact of peak oil. Even without that, congested air space and ecological concerns should mean the idea was shelved from day one, and yet, amazingly, it wasn’t.

Its impact on air travel means that peak oil will also strike a heavy blow on tourism, yet Hong Kong is pushing hard to increase tourism’s contribution to its GDP. So is the city being driven into a wall? Does our government have a Plan B? If not, is Hong Kong’s citizens geared to fend for themselves? Some forward-thinking Hong Kongers are already talking about setting up transition towns; we can’t get ready quickly enough.

The people behind a local website that was set up to alert Hong Kongers to the implications of peak oil stopped updating it a while ago, explaining that they deemed their work to have been accomplished. Well, obviously the situation is so dire they’ve had a change of heart, because the website is being updated once more.

The Hong Kong Observatory, in collaboration with the Guangdong Meteorological Bureau, the Macao Meteorological and Geophysical Bureau, and HSBC, organised an exhibition on climate change. Details:

Date: 16-28 December 2008
Opening hours: Weekdays: 11:00am-8:00pm; Saturday, Sunday & public holidays: 10:00am-6:00pm
Place: HSBC Main Building, Central.

The organisers have called on people to use less gift wrapping during the Christmas and Lunar New Year periods because the manufacture of wrapping paper uses a lot of trees and fuel. Gift wrapping not only produces waste but its disposal and treatment also requires extra resources, releasing a lot of carbon dioxide and exacerbating the greenhouse effect.

As a token of encouragement, the organisers are giving out “Say No to Wrapping Paper” gift stickers which visitors can put on gifts instead of wrapping them. All very well-intentioned, but I wonder what the impact of producing those stickers are.

Although the developer has agreed with Government to reduce the scale of the development, the revised scheme is considered inappropriate for the area and the impact on the landscape, including the many ‘wall’ trees, unacceptable.

To demonstrate their concern, The Conservancy Association will host a green ribbon campaign today:

Green Ribbon Protest
Today (December 18) at 2:30pm
Mega Tower Site
Staircase, Nam Koo Terrace, Ship Street, Wan Chai.

Express your concern by joining the Conservancy Association in marking the doomed wall trees with green ribbons.

For more information, please contact Roy Ng (roy@cahk.org.hk) or Peter Li (peter@cahk.org.hk) at The Conservancy Association, Tel: 2272 0300, Fax: 2728 5538.

To see the Town Planning Board’s comment on the proposed amendments to the approved scheme for Hopewell Centre II (which frees the developer from seeking further application from the Board), click here.