Green Steps By The New Administration

The government's own Taiwan Journal reported today that:

Taiwan's new administration announced it had begun introducing guidelines for government departments and agencies to save energy and reduce carbon emissions, which are considered one of the major causes of global climate change.

[On] May 22, Presidential Office high-level officials began using smaller cars instead of limousines, reserving the larger vehicles for visiting foreign dignitaries.

Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chi-kuo has instructed the ministry to use a video conferencing system, so that officials in remote areas do not have to travel to Taipei for meetings. In addition, the MOTC plans to install technology that is able to adjust settings on air conditioning systems based on a room's humidity and temperature. It was estimated that such a system would reduce energy consumption by up to 30 percent.

All moves in the right direction, for sure, but the government also needs to pump money into MRT schemes instead of road-building programs, and tackle the massive CO2 emissions of certain private enterprises, such as the Formosa Plastics Group.

The ideas are right but the goals could be more ambitious:

[Yeh said] employees were also being encouraged to use public transportation at least once a month.

Once a month? Why not twice a week?

Plastic Agriculture

Taiwanese farmers use a lot of plastic, but the more I think about it, the more I understand it. Plastic sheeting (like the stuff shown here) retains moisture and stops weed growth. With regard to the second goal, it may be preferable to pesticides. But a lot of it stays on the ground, chewed up into little pieces and bleached by the sun. What will the landscape be like in 50 years if this continues?

Illegal Dumping

Water-saving toilets can do a lot for the environment. Toilets that biodegrade after a few years would be another great invention (biodegradeable ceramics are already used in medicine). Why oh why do people have to dump them in the countryside? Is there some Taiwanese superstition connected to toilets, like there is with dead cats?

50 Ways To Help The Planet - A Checklist

Take a look at this and see what else you can do for the environment. To put a more local twist on some of the 50 items, rather than worrying about coffee stirrers (no. 44), we should be worrying about disposable chopsticks and plastic straws.

Few people in Taiwan use dishwashers, so no. 3 isn't of much relevance here. The recycling rate for glass (no. 5) isn't very good; discarded Whisbih bottles are all over the place. No. 7 urges people to dry their clothes on a line, not in a dryer. One advantage of Taiwan's warm climate is that people here don't need dryers.

I'm already vegetarian at least one day a week (no. 8). A lot of Taiwanese are vegetarian twice a month for religious reasons. As for buying local (no. 22), I do when it comes to beer. No. 24 is "invest in your own coffee cup." For Taiwan, this should be "invest in your own tea cup," as millions of styrofoam cups are thrown away each day.

There are no excuses the lack of telecommuting in Taiwan (no. 33), as this article explains. Plastic bags are massively overused in Taiwan (no. 40), but there's hope they can be made to decompose.

I don't pay my bills online (no. 47). I'm not sure how this can be done in Taiwan. I do know that if you pay automatically by bank arrangement, they still mail you a receipt. Here in Taiwan, bank statements mailed out at regular intervals (no. 48) are rare. Banks and the post office issue account holders with a passbook which gets updated everytime you deposit or withdraw money.

Wasteful Taipower

Taipower, this island's state-run power utility, has been complaining that rising oil prices are pushing it close to bankruptcy. Here's a way they could save a bit money, and do something for the environment at the same time: Stop sending out two letters in two envelopes on the same day to the same house, like they do to me and hundreds of thousands of other people.

Rice And Methane

Looks nice, doesn't it? But according to the New Scientist, rice fields are a massive source of methane, a greenhouse gas that's more potent than carbon dioxide.

What can be done? Weaning Taiwanese off rice is even less likely than weaning them off air-conditioning.

Converting the land into forests would be good for Taiwan's CO2 situation, but would surely add millions of food miles, as replacement rice would have to come from Thailand, Vietnam or the USA. Even if that weren't an issue, the rising price of food guarantees they'll be no cuts in local agricultural production in the near future.

Where Tainan HSR Station Should Have Been

I took this photo from the platform of Sinshih TRA Station in Tainan County. As you can see, the high-speed railway crosses the old TRA line about 100 meters southeast of the platform. To me, this would have been an excellent place for Tainan's HSR station. Passengers would be able to transfer from HSR to TRA to go to downtown Tainan, quicker and better for the environment than the current 35-minute bus journey. Also, they'd be a lot nearer Yongkang - the biggest city in Tainan County - and the science park, which is the destination of many business travelers.

There are plans to link Tainan HSR station with the city by light-rail. Ground has yet to be broken, however.