2) Haze

Haze in Malaysia…the never ending problem causes by ‘other’ that effect ‘others’.

Haze is traditionally an atmospheric phenomenon where dust, smoke and other dry particles obscure the clarity of the sky (Wikipedia). Haze affecting us badly during dry season and when will we be free from suffering from haze that cause by ‘other’ as every year we have facing the some problem and our only solution is praying for God to let the rain fall to clean the air..

i) Right now it has impact to me as I suffering cough and sore throat that affect my health which contribute to affect my life and work. Do I need to suffer this kind of things every following year?

ii) Haze is an impact to our country as it been categorized as air pollution (air quality becoming worst day by day). It affected our tourism industry (local or international) as people have been advised to stay at home or limited their outdoor activity. Beside that, it also shorten/limit our view to certain distance and it quite dangerous to the drivers (applicable to all mode of transport) as it could lead to incident and also accident.

iii) Haze also has an impact to community especially to children and elders. People with asthma, breathing problem or lung problem easily could fall sick during haze. Beside that, as nowadays H1N1 become a phenomenal issue, it also could contribute to worsen the H1N1 impact.

Although Indonesia not quite agree been blamed to cause the haze problem to their ASEAN neighbors from their timber and plantation firms that deliberately starting fires to clear land, either for farming or for other use. They (Indonesia government) should be more serious in taking precaution and prevention to cater this problem as it affect the environmental and also living things not only in their countries, but also to their neighbors as it happened mostly every year.

As neighbors, all of us could help to minimize the problem, but the seed of the problem need to be taken care. We sharing the air, but why cannot we sharing the problem..

References ;

INDONESIA FOREST FIRES FLARE, MALAYSIA HIT BY HAZE
12 June 2009 (Reuters)

PEKANBARU, Indonesia (Reuters) - The number of forest fires raging in Indonesia's Sumatra island has increased, with wind blowing choking smoke over parts of Malaysia and slashing visibility, officials said on Friday.


FOREST FIRES WORSEN, HAZE COVERS MALAYSIA
8 June 2009 (The Jakarta Post)

Forest fires continued to rage across the country, blanketing neighbor Malaysia in haze on Wednesday, which caused temporary closure of Dumai's Pinang Kampar airport in Riau as visibility dropped to below 50 meters.
The WWF Indonesia has detected 1,608 fire hot spots across the country on Wednesday, the highest number in the last five days with a total of 5,349.


HAZE SHROUDS MALAYSIA
6 August 2009 (The Straits Times)

KUALA LUMPUR - MALAYSIA was yesterday hit with the worst haze levels recorded this year, as smoke from forest fires in Indonesia caused unhealthy levels of pollution in six areas.


HAZE IS BACK IN S'PORE
6 August 2009 (The Straits Times)

IT'S back. Smoke haze shrouded Singapore on Thursday morning, with an acrid burning smell hanging in the air. The Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) hit its first moderate level since February on Wednesday.


'DANGEROUS LEVEL' HAZE IN RIAU
6 August 2009 (The Straits Times)

JAKARTA - THE air quality in several cities across Riau province dropped to 'dangerous' levels Tuesday, due to thick haze from forest fires that also disrupted flights and forced schools to close.


HAZE WORSENS H1N1 FLU
6 August 2009 (The Straits Times)

KUALA LUMPUR - HAZE from forest fires that was shrouding parts of Malaysia will worsen the H1N1 flu situation by causing more respiratory illnesses, a minister said according to reports on Thursday.

1) Green Building in Malaysia

“To become a world-class city, Kuala Lumpur must also be sustainable. To do that, the city must learn how to reduce its carbon footprint by using natural resources more efficiently, re-use resources and reduce waste. One way of doing this is by designing buildings with minimal negative impact on the environment.” [The Star (Central); 21 July, 2009]

I’m totally disagree with the above statement. Just to become a world-class city we need to be sustainable, not because the environmental itself. Although I’m not an environmental activist that against development, I do care about environmental issue as a normal human being living in a world name Earth. “What should we do to sustain all this things for a better tomorrow in the meantime to fulfill our need for a sake of a better living?”..that is the thing that all of us supposed to consider. Let me brief you about Green Building definition itself to clear the cloud.

Green Buildings (Sustainable Buildings / Environmental Buildings) are designed to enhance energy efficiency, promote renewal energy, reduce air-conditioning costs and improve indoor environment quality (both temperature and relative humidity), and in the process, enabling owners to reap financial incentives under the Kyoto Protocol’s clean development mechanism. The World Green Building Council in the US that rates Green Buildings has developed standards and a rating mechanism to certify such buildings (LEED standards) with Platinum, Gold, Silver or Bronze based on the number of points or credits in line with the recommendations in the ratings standard. [The Star (Health); 7 September, 2008]

Recently, Malaysia has introduced its very own Green Building Index (GBI) on May 21, 2009 as Malaysian Institute of Architects and the Association of Consulting Engineers Malaysia jointly develop a rating system (GBI) to rate and monitor green building. There are two (2) sets of the index, one for residential projects and the other for commercial buildings, which the buildings will be rated, and certified depending on their criteria with Silver, Gold and Platinum. The GBI also is a certification tool that provides guidelines for sustainable development and environment-friendly construction.

The idea was to provide opportunities for developers, and building owners to design and construct green, sustainable buildings that could provide a healthier indoor environment that would save on energy and water.

We must understand that going green with energy recovery improves air quality as well as saves 50% of building energy costs. People spend 90% of their time indoors (in the office, at home, inside cars etc) and indoor air is 10 to 100 times more polluted than outside air. Inadequate quantity of outdoor fresh air in most buildings results in a building becoming “sick” and the indoor air has become more polluted through the furnishings in the room. The occupants of such buildings have no specific illness or identifiable cause of discomfort, but show irritating and nagging symptoms. All these things could affect the productivity of the company as it affecting the performance of the people. "People cannot perform well in their task/work when they sick."

Therefore, I totally agree with the Green Building concept as it cater both, on environment aspect (building energy cost saving), and also health of human being (improves indoor air quality). And we could start from now with doing simple tasks such as changing light bulbs to energy- efficient, or doing away with paint, or installing solar heaters for buildings and offices. [Chief Minister Lim Guan - The Star (Nation); July 26, 2009]. However, Government should involve seriously in green building implementation in Malaysia. Government could enforce a law or give some benefit to promote green building for the residential projects and commercial buildings as it really a good method/step towards a sustainable development, not only to satisfy our greedy need to become a-world class city .

Ref ;

1) GBI standards proposed for upcoming projects in Penang
News [The Star (Nation); July 26, 2009] The Star

2) Greening KL’s buildings
News [The Star (Central); July 21, 2009] The Star

3) Promoting green buildings
News [The Star (Business); April 1, 2009] The Star

4) Green building.
News [The Star (Health); September 7, 2008] The Star