Given the green light
I was sceptical about all the Go Green hoopla until a trip to Japan inspired me to change my ways
Ignatius Low, Straits Times 16 Dec 07;
THE whole Save The Earth movement hit me in a big way recently.
I was grocery shopping at Carrefour hypermarket with a friend, for a party for more than 60 guests that same evening.
We had spent almost two hours scouring the aisles and were next in line at the cashier's till with two trolleys stacked to the brim with food, utensils and drinks.
The cashier - a sweet, middle-aged woman - looked at all our groceries and a worried expression appeared on her face.
'Um, so sorry to tell you this but today is Bring Your Own Bag Day so I have to charge you 10 cents for each plastic bag,' she said quietly.
'What?' I said. 'Does it have to be today, of all days?'
'I will try to minimise,' she said bravely, starting to process the items.
Something in me snapped. And the environmental rebel in me, the one that used to mindlessly stab my plastic fork into styrofoam cups for fun, appeared.
'Never mind, auntie,' I said. 'Please use as many plastic bags as you need. In fact, I want to use as many plastic bags as I can on Bring Your Own Bag Day.'
The final tally? 41 bags.
I gladly paid up the $4.10 and walked out of there with a smile on my face.
IN MY more rational moments, I can explain why I - and perhaps some in my generation - can sometimes view the current green movement with a mix of bemusement and cynicism.
The first reason is that there is a sense that we've heard this sort of thing before.
In the late 1980s, if you remember, there was a big hoo-ha over holes developing in the Earth's ozone layer. Since ozone absorbs harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun, there were health and climate risks from its continued depletion.
Without really understanding them, we bandied about terms like chloro-fluoro-carbons (CFCs). I remember people being nagged about buying CFC-free fridges and air-conditioners, and to avoid releasing CFCs needlessly by using hairspray or by crushing styrofoam cups.
Mind you, when you examine the science behind the previous issue of ozone depletion and the current issue of global warming, you'll find they are quite different. Ozone depletion actually cools the Earth's stratosphere.
But people tend to skip over the details. As far as they are concerned, we started the 1990s saving the earth and now we are doing it again.
The second reason for this cynicism is that every time the big environmental problem appears, there just seems to be so much hype around it.
Some of this is necessary, of course, since a global problem deserves global attention.
But as more politicians and celebrities start supporting the cause in high-profile campaigns, and corporations start capitalising on the business opportunities created by heightened consumer awareness, you sometimes stop to wonder if people's hearts are in the right places.
Still, these are relatively minor irritations, and a sense of deja vu or an aversion to hype should never be reason enough for anyone to dismiss the real problem of climate change.
The big problem I have had with actively supporting the cause is whether my individual actions can really make a significant difference for the collective good.
And I need to be assured of this, particularly if I have to make tangible sacrifices in everyday life.
Sleeping without the air-conditioner on at night, for example, is a noble thing to do, according to the messages being put out today.
But it will also cause me serious pain, and I won't do it if I have very little way of knowing what real impact my sacrifice will have.
To get more people like me on the bandwagon, therefore, baby steps are needed.
The ideal situation is for someone like me to be able to keep my current lifestyle as much as possible and still be able to save the earth in some tangible way.
This is a challenge of both technology and information. And a recent visit to Japan showed me, for the first time, that it can be done.
At a briefing on its new environmental strategy, the Matsushita Group that makes National and Panasonic appliances demonstrated washing machines with a new heat pump system that reduced power consumption by 70 per cent, and light bulbs with a new 'quadruple coil' that reduces consumption by 80 per cent.
Among changes made on the factory floor, the company now produces lead-free plasma screens and also cuts six plasma panels from a piece of substrate, instead of the usual one. This production process reduces carbon emissions by 50 per cent.
It was also at the Panasonic 'eco-ideas' showroom that I learnt that technology has progressed in such a way that, in general, appliances today consume as little as half the energy they used to before.
So often, swapping a six-year-old appliance for a new one goes some way towards reducing carbon emissions.
In other words, smarter technology is now allowing people to become more green from the very outset, even before they modify their behaviour.
And if, all things being equal, paying slightly more for a 'greener' air-conditioner or TV results in a tangible pay-off in terms of power consumption, then there will be customers like me who will surely bite.
The problem is in getting us to make an informed buying decision.
In Japan, this information gap is being plugged by a new programme where the Government releases information - based on independent tests made on comparative models - on how energy-efficient each brand and make of appliance is.
Perhaps, the day will come soon when more environmentally conscious consumers demand a similar system in Singapore.
Greenpeace has also started an informal ranking of how green big consumer brands like Nokia, Samsung and Sony are - based purely on their publicly stated strategies and policies.
Perhaps one day someone will publish a more rigorous assessment of how green companies are - from their manufacturing processes to the materials they use in their products.
For now, however, I've been inspired enough to try and do little things for the earth.
Like walking the five minutes from my apartment to the Great World City mall, instead of driving there.
And digging out the instruction manuals of my air-conditioners to actually learn how to operate the timers.
And doing some proper research about energy efficiency the next time I decide to change one of my household appliances.
Baby steps, to be sure, but everyone must adjust at their own pace, if they are to adjust at all.
Going green is a lot easier said than done. And right now, there just needs to be more doing than saying.
