Building for a low carbon economy ~ Arup |Thoughts|

Look at the nature of a national economy and it’s clear: the priority for moving to a low-carbon economy must be constructing long-life, loose-fit buildings to house the service sector jobs we need to create. Let me explain why.

A country needs to create jobs – nobody wants high levels of unemployment. So could manufacturing provide these jobs? I don’t think so, as demand for material goods seems to be falling. (The volume of goods destined for purchase by consumers that left UK factories or arrived at UK ports has been declining since 2002.)

So the service sector is key. Over the last 20 years there’s been a huge increase in the proportion of people employed in the service sector – working in retail, leisure, education, health and government services.

Far from being “lightweight” as some economists claim, services have inputs connecting them to the rest of the economy. And as services become more efficient, the per unit service output increases (you get more services from the same number of employees). So unless we then keep consuming more services, unemployment will rise.

Fortunately, services can – in most cases – expand almost limitlessly; they don’t clutter up your home with stuff in the way that material goods do. You can have more TV channels. You can buy more insurance. Though not necessarily desirable, you and your partner can both go out to work and pay for childcare services. 

All these services need buildings (TV channels need studios, insurance companies need offices and childcare needs nurseries). But while the capacity of the service sector must be allowed to continue expanding, does this mean we have to keep constructing new buildings for the service sector?

To deliver a low-carbon economy, I believe we must make sure our service buildings are long-life and loose-fit, capable of lasting and adapting to meet the needs of services we haven’t yet dreamed up.

In the future, we might see more buildings like the Shard – which combines retail, hotel, office and living space – that can be easily reconfigured as demand for services changes.

For me, this is all part of trying to understand the innate nature of our free-market economy to develop sustainability thinking.

Problems with Sabah and the diversification of economy

Sabah is deeply blessed by the abundant natural resources such as oil and gas, forests, mine and land. As the state capital, Kota Kinabalu has the population of more than 700000 in the greater urban area (Inanam, Penampang, Kepayan, Tanjung Aru, Likas) and the main economy of the city is tourism. The land in Kota Kinabalu is relatively flat and thus development is more feasible compared to the rural areas. Resorts nearby city and beaches are built and developed rapidly in recent decades and this makes Kota Kinabalu as one of the fastest growing city in the country.

However, rapid urbanization of Kota Kinabalu leads to high rising living cost and residents are suffering due to the rising living cost and the real estate properties. Kota Kinabalu as an example, has a lot of middle income families. Most of them work as civil servants. The monthly income of average RM3000 is merely affordable for a family of 3. Imagine that you have to pay loan for your house, car, your kid's education (tuition classes in KK is absolutely profitable), insurance, utilities bills, petrol bills etc... It is highly financial burdened for the middle income families. Then, for lower income group, how do they survive? Rob? More part time jobs with lower wages? They are just suffocating in this kind of situation. Hardly to get a decent living. Attitude wise??  To blame who?

However, with proper planning and execution, economy in Sabah is definitely a positive outlook. Geographically, Sabah is located in the east of Malaysia and to the north of Sarawak. The proximity location to China, Korea and Japan, which these countries are the main exporters and the big economy powers in East Asia, can bring fortune to Sabah. Kota Kinabalu as the transportation hub in Sabah can be the leader in the state by providing the good facilities in the harbour for the loading and unloading of goods from these countries. Furthermore, the Sepangar harbour in Kota Kinabalu is one of the deepest harbour in Malaysia and the nearby KK Industrial Park provides the manpower for manufacturing. From the statement mentioned above, Sabah can be transformed into entreport economy which the imported goods can be processed and add values in them and export them.

Apart from that, airport facilities in Sabah are well developed and as the leader of all, KKIA gives one of the best and still the second busiest airport in Malaysia. Close distance from China, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea makes Sabah as the favourite destination to the tourists to visit Sabah.  In terms of tourist attraction, Sabah is among the best and provides world class attraction. From top of Borneo to Tip of Borneo, from the heart of Sabah to Fringe of Sabah, Sabah can give the satisfaction to the tourists and more and more tourists pay the visit to Sabah due to the multi culture and protected rainforests, relatively good facilities provided. Ecotourism is what the state provides currently and possibly in the near future, service tourism will emerge as one of the income contributors to the state. Do you ever think of casino in Sabah? Maybe you should think of it. Of course with rules and regulations bound. This will bring Sabah economy into higher stage.

Vast land in Sabah of course is not only limited to the tourism. The land in Sabah is rich in nutrients and suitable for agriculture activities. Coco, palm oil, rubber and others commodities plantation are getting more and more popular in the state and have become the main income in Sabah since many years ago. Moreover, in highland area of Ranau and Kundasang, the farmers produce crops and vegetation and these products are sold to the market in Kota Kinabalu and Brunei(perhaps). There is also a dairy farm on the highland of Kundasang. The dairy cows are reared on highland and the farm also allows the visit from the tourists. Indeed, the farm provides two types of incomes - agriculture and tourism. Another agriculture activity which is noticeable in Ranau is the tea plantation. Sabah tea has special aroma and this adds value to the Sabah economy.

Natural resources will deplete from year to year. Therefore, there is no necessary to point out the biggest advantage of Sabah. The depletion is inevitable and hence solution for the depletion must be figured out! Diversification of Sabah economy is a must and this will ensure Sabah to progress well socially and economically. In addition, good government with the good policies planned and executed must also be the main factor that drives the economy.

你还再怕什么?

今天下午听了一个很有趣的演说，演讲人是净选盟的筹委之一 - 黄进发博士。
他给了我一个很大的领悟，我是从来都没有想过的，就是为什么当下政府-国阵可以执政那么久而且很正当化“种族主义”，来镇压其他种族。

话说到513，当时得票率低的联盟政府而且差一点就回家种番薯了，然后演变成上街种族大冲突。其实，自从那一年后的每一届大选，我们华人和其他种族都怕了暴乱然后支持国阵，因为国阵会利用恐慌或者暴力事件来恐吓我们普罗大众。对，事实是这样，80年初的孩子们都被灌输着一个概念：“政治嘛，就留给搞政治的人去做啦！留一条命来做一些有意思的东西不是更好吗？”再不然就有些朋友就会对我说：“哈？什么来的？我不懂哦？我没有去注意哦～hm，这个啊，不想去理它，很忙咧~”我想对他们说：“你们是大学生吗？为什么你们只会读死书？而不是留意和观察周遭发生的事情呢？？！！！我们是国家栋梁eh,不是只是会书上的知识而已！我们应该更是什么知识都具备的社会栋梁!” 我真的只能说，可悲可悲~ 很多人，包括我爸爸妈妈都说，政治是肮脏的，不是普通人玩得起的东西，我说：“对，不是普通人玩得起，但是我是赖俊贤，我不是普通人，而且我不是玩。我跟进的，是时事、我了解的，是国家大事”。他们就这样变成丘光耀博士口中的长江一号二号了，一天到晚帮我洗脑，说这个不行那个不行~

如果说国阵一路以来都用政治恐慌来恐吓人民，但是为什么到了那一年308大选，槟城变天，恐慌去了哪里？就套黄博士的那句话：“说好的恐慌呢？” 自从那以后，人民心里有了一个新的理念，就是所谓的恐慌是被捏造的，是不存在的。所以，709净选盟大游行那么多人上街，不分你我，不分种族的这样上街声明，要求公平干净的选举。但是，我们也不难发现，当我们懂了其实国阵/巫统利用恐慌来恐吓人民， 而308后因为没有恐慌，所以就特地在特定和特别的日子里面，找一些替死鬼在在野党或者净选盟的集会/绿色集会当中，做出一些很低级的反应和制造恐慌和暴力事件。当然，我相信有那么无脑的领袖才会有那么无脑的跟班~ 所谓的无脑，我先声明，他们不是没有，而是没有善于利用和处理讯息。

华人和其他种族现在慢慢地开始站出来为自己的利益和未来做出声明，慢慢地，华人开始为国家大事而关心国家了。为什么我们（华人）还要那么怕死呢？难道这个不是你的国家吗？难道政府的腐败就此让你心灰吗？不是！我们要的是一个言论的自由！我们要的是公平公正的权利! 难道我们还要继续在家养老虎吗？709让我们看见全部人开始相信，新马来西亚的诞生，开始相信，只要站出来讲话，都会有人在背后挺你!

308后，709后，恐慌制造不再，恐吓不再。SO？你还再怕什么?

KK 的日落

亚庇，又名KK，是沙巴州首府，是沙巴神山的必经之路。国际机场只是离市区10分钟车程，而且酒店住宿很多，所以游客们不必担心落脚的地方。 说道KK就想到壮观的神山和美丽的海边，上了山后，再过对面岛一日游，简直是赞! KK市区海岸面向西边，所以它的岸上餐厅和茶馆特别多，都是为了吸引游客的到来。面向西边，就能看到由五个岛组成的Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park 国家公园。虽然这个海洋公园离市区码头只有十五到二十分钟的船程，但是它的海水是清澈见底的!很难相信吧~至于海洋生物，是不逊于东海岸的天王级潜水胜地哦!而且由于这五个岛都靠近市区，所以，游客们为了方便，很多都是选择到这边消遣。

日落时分，五彩缤纷的晚霞落幕。船只一艘一艘地返回码头，再加上美丽的日落，让观赏风景的游客们，依依不舍地在附近的岸上餐馆进食。日落总是短暂但美丽，所以，每一次的日落，游客们都带着相机(无论是DSLR还是普通的)都拿出来，摄下每一天的最后一幕风景。

Mabul Island in planning

打从小时候，我就很想出岛游玩。生长在沙巴这片土地，还没有真正地踏在沙巴州世界顶级岛屿。除了上次两年前和foa maincomm到Tioman Island（半岛的小岛，不错一下啦）玩，然后接触到很多海胆！还有真的夸张多的!

沙巴，绝不缺乏世界顶级岛屿，其中Sipadan已经是闻名遐迩了。以种类繁多的海洋生物闻名的Sipadan Island, 吸引不少外地游客到此一游。可惜，Sipadan 没有住宿，政府把全部的住宿搬到附近的岛屿，同一时间也带动了附近岛屿的经济哦!

附近岛屿都有不同的特色，Mataking 可以进行海底婚礼，Kapalai有着东方加勒比之称，Bohey Dulang的神秘感，当然，也少不了Mabul。

毕业旅行的策划本来从去纽西兰，再来成都，然后环半岛马来西亚，再来东马沙巴砂拉越一游，变成现在的只是沙巴8天游。变数太多了，没有在控制范围内，所以变来变去，变到只剩沙巴8天游。都不错啦。来个KK两天，神山两天，山打根两天，Mabul三天，简直是差不多环游整个沙巴了!

Mabul 对我而言，比起其他岛屿来说，他算是比较多住宿的岛屿，但是有很奇怪的说，环境管理方面似乎不错，而且住宿方面，价钱在我们的能力范围（我听说Kapalai三天两夜需要1000USD!)，so,应该是他了!

Mabul的陌生，就在这一次毕业旅行必须要揭开的谜了!

Cities :The Silent Rise of the Smart City

As Google hits the headlines for changes to its privacy rules across Europe, it is worth noting just how important it is to balance innovation, the immense power of knowledge networks and the legitimate concerns of the people who use these technologies.

In the case of Google, the group argues that it is a positive change, merely simplifying a patchwork of privacy rules across separate services and consolidating 60 policies into a single one.

The French data protection watchdog suggests the new rules are a cause for concern, while the EU authorities are investigating and the issue has been raised in Japan and the US, among others.

This is clearly an extremely delicate topic and it will be interesting to see how it develops. But it also holds a particular lesson for those of us championing the greater use of information and communication technologies (ITC) to help create the Smart Cities of the future.

Smart Cities have tremendous potential to improve the efficiency of our urban environments, to usher in a new era of growth through the digital economy and to vastly improve the quality of our lives in all sorts of everyday ways.

At the personal level, we can easily imagine a smartphone app that rings you up to let you know to put your coat on and walk down to the bus stop just in time to meet the No 73 into town.

At the macro-level, our recent report estimates that Smart Cities replicating the energy-efficiency successes of places such as San Diego could save the public and private sector some Euro600 billion per year around the world, while we could reduce carbon emissions by 15% by 2020.

The light-speed evolution ITC, the ‘internet of things’ and the utility generated by the latest smart phones and other devices have combined to put society on the cusp of a whole new age.

We are only beginning to scratch the surface of the potential benefits.

Yet at this critical point, it is more important than ever that we as a society start thinking about the checks and balances we will need alongside the opportunities that Smart Cities can provide in an increasingly hyper-connected world.

This is a major, strategic issue for cities. And it is no idle philosophical discussion either. The Smart City is already on the rise – still patchwork, but silently evolving and becoming more sophisticated, generating ever more efficiency gains for society applied to everything from contactless mobile phone payments to crowd-sourced data generation.

This is far too valuable an opportunity to risk, which is why everyone who supports Smart Cities needs to think about the political oversight, governance and technical controls that will be required to help people in society make important choices about how we use the now ubiquitous data emerging across our cities.

Adapted from ~ "http://thoughts.arup.com/post/details/172/the-silent-rise-of-the-smart-city"

New term: Neo-merito-democracy

When I was in the Lee Kuan Yew Ministerial Forum last year, one of the audiences asked him a question.
" Is that called political conscious when you have participated in the voting for the election ? "
For me, if I were that person, I would not ask like that because my answer was same as Mr Lee.
His answer to that audience was:
"The political conscious is not about having participation in voting alone. I think you were just too excited after the voting and that's not called political conscious! The correct way of political conscious is to have an idea in the social, economic, welfare, progress of the nation etc. ( i.e. current affairs ). So, I don't think you are political conscious enough."
Well, it was not hard to find that in Singapore, the political environment is still stirring around People Action Party which in charge of the country for nearly  half a century. All the best things they can contribute and the people in Singapore enjoy high living standards but suffering from the limited spaces of living and large influx of foreign talents. The policy which in favor to the foreign talents attraction has declined in recent years and still Singapore government wants to retain its foreign talents' help. The methodology of retaining talent is actually very simple. Treat them nicely and make them feel at home (Singapore has done better than its neighboring cousin).
Unlike in Malaysia where the policies in favor of  Malay. The story begins in 1969, when the opposition almost toppled up the Allied Parties government and triggered the anger of the extremists in the Allied Parties. The extremists in the party went to the street and then beat the other races on streets. Hence, 13 May Incident(Riot) broke out. There were casualties and hence, the government went into emergency state under the control of National Movement Council (MAGERAN) in 1970. At the same year, the government started to implement the New Economic Policy which intended to minimize the income gap between the Malay and the other races in the country.
The policy worked well but subsequently, some of the people became too dependent on the policy and the whole procedure and system became corrupted. The government insisted that there was no corruption neither deliberately helping Malays. Indeed and honestly, most of the Malays and the natives(Kadazandusun, Iban, Orang Asli) are still living in poverty. The rich becomes richer, but the poor becomes poorest. Most of the people were exploited by this policy and yet some of them embrace it. The ignorant group who still embrace this policy has become more and more arrogant. Some of them announced that we (Chinese, Indian) should go back to our homeland.
But, where is our homeland? We are holding MyKad(IC in Malaysia) and we speak the same language as you. Why and who the hell are you to chase us out of this beloved nation? You have no rights to say so! Politically, socially, economically, we should stand an equal chance to work together for a better country development, but not to work for somebody else! This is the era of neo-democracy! Not the 60-70s where you cannot say something which is supposed morally right but politically wrong. Now, it's the time for us to join our hands to move into the new era of democracy- Neo-merito-democracy !
Corruption, inequality, non-transparency, political scandals, we had enough! Enough is Enough!!!! And yet you announced that the illegal immigrants as the local natives and we(Chinese, Indian, Kadazan-dusun, Iban, Orang Asli) are not natives or Malaysian, asking us to go back our "homeland", what the fxxk is this?!!!!!!!!! Moreover, you invite Lynas coming to Malaysia to give us radiation from rare earth! Are you kidding me?!

IF YOU INSIST THAT THIS IS HARMLESS, YOU STAY NEARBY FOR A YEAR AND THEN TELL US, "IT'S TOTALLY ALRIGHT!!!!" TRY IT AND I BET YOU WON'T DO IT!
Ladies and gentlemen, please see things with your conscience. This is our country, our one and only country. Where can you find such a nice country with abundant natural resources, colourful demographics and cultures?
We must not vote with our feet anymore. We can't afford to lose a beautiful home like this and witnessing our country fallen just like that! We need to fight for our rights of being a Malaysian, a truly Malaysian!