I have received several queries in regard to my decision to run in the functional constituency (Architectural, Surveying and Planning) seat and asked to comment in particular, now that the dust has settled, on the low number of electoral votes my campaign garnered, which unfortunately resulted in loss of my deposit.
From the outset I had no real intention of running a winning campaign. My only aim was to focus the debate solely on spreading the message of building sustainability and conservation. Electors received from me just one letter, printed on recycled paper, and I produced no posters or any other electoral press kit – everything else was done electronically.
I did minimal vote canvassing preferring to present at company / institutional forums and talk to the media primarily to try and get the message of sustainability and conservation over to the attendees, viewers and listeners.
Naturally I congratulate the winning candidate, the incumbent Professor Patrick Lau, and I am pleased that Legislator Lau has corresponded with me and affirmed his commitment to the cause of sustainable buildings and building conservation hence it is my hope my objective has been partly achieved.
The investment I have made in terms of money and time I consider well worth spent if it results, for all citizens, cleaner air, sustainable living environment, and keeping what little is left with our heritage buildings - never again should we accept another piece of wanton destruction of our heritage like the Star Ferry and Queen Pier.
At the end of the this new legislatures current term in 2012 I hope we can look back and see our representatives have made decisive steps to clean our air, make our buildings sustainable and keep our heritage intact.
I am hopeful that message has been delivered.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Professor Lau, our new AS&P LegCo support sustainabilty and conservation
Below is an email from Professor Lau:
Dear David,
We missed you at the vote counting activity.
Please be assured that sustainability & conservation will be high on my agenda.
Don't hesistate to call on me when you have time to do community work in these areas.
Warm regards, Patrick
On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 10:04 AM, David Chan <david.chan@hk.knightfrank.com> wrote:
Dear Patrick,
Congratulation on your win over the AS&P functional constituency. It was a decisive victory and I think overall is good for Hong Kong.
As discussed before, I did not run a campaign to win but to simply spread the message of the importance of the effect of global warming, sustainability and conservation which I hoped that does include you.
I am hence hopeful that sustainability and conservation will remain high up on your political agenda so that we can build a better HK for us all and the next generation.
All the best at LegCo.
David
Dear David,
We missed you at the vote counting activity.
Please be assured that sustainability & conservation will be high on my agenda.
Don't hesistate to call on me when you have time to do community work in these areas.
Warm regards, Patrick
On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 10:04 AM, David Chan <david.chan@hk.knightfrank.com> wrote:
Dear Patrick,
Congratulation on your win over the AS&P functional constituency. It was a decisive victory and I think overall is good for Hong Kong.
As discussed before, I did not run a campaign to win but to simply spread the message of the importance of the effect of global warming, sustainability and conservation which I hoped that does include you.
I am hence hopeful that sustainability and conservation will remain high up on your political agenda so that we can build a better HK for us all and the next generation.
All the best at LegCo.
David
Today the LegCo result finally came out.
I didn't run a campaign to win so not winning was expected.
I was a little surprise that the imminent effects and consequences of global warming had just so little impact to the AS&P electors. but then I guess I did not do a convincing enough show.
Like the article from SCMP, it took something like Katrina to make Americans start to listen to what it could be like it something is not done.
But what ever it is, I have no wish for something like a Katrina for Hong Kong.
I am hopeful that I am wrong, that the problem really is less serious than scientists are predicting.
I guess at least Dr Lau, the newly re-elected LegCo member did pledge that he will take both sustainability and conservation seriously and will do something about it at LegCo.
It is interesting that we had uses quite a few hundreds of thousands of trees in this LegCo, at least I can say I made the least damage. I also hoped that future elections will be more environmentally friendly, I just don't see in this day and age of technology advances that we need to do this the same way as the last century.
Thank you for those that decided to vote for me, or those that who may not have but considered the message of sustainability and conservation is important and should be much higher up in the political agenda. In the end politics is not going to bring back the star ferry pier and has little impact on global warming, but it does affect our future.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
AS&P LegCo forum or a war of words between IA and IS....
I normally only report on global warming issue.
But I think this is worth sharing as it was basically open war of words between HKIS presidents, senior members of the HKS and HKIA council.
On Thursday 4 sept 2008 7pm till late was the "main" institute arrange election forum, HKIS decided not to have one.
The meeting, organize by the HKIA with members of HKIS, HKIP, HKILA invisted
A joint forum was not a bad idea if the aim is find a new Legislative Councilor representing the Architectural, Surveying and Planning Functional Constituency. A new strong, honest, professional, a person with integrity who was supposedly going to unite the 6100 or so professional members on a common goal and mission to develop a better Hong Kong. it was a closed forum, outsiders were hence not invited. No press was present.
It was one of the last opportunity for the 4 new candidates and the incumbent to talk about how they are the best person to do this job for the next 4 years
This "main event" (which felt more like the Hong Kong version of American idol) was not well attended, only about 40 but I guess still at least allowed the 5 LegCo candidates to speak to members of the all 4 institutes. Of the 6100 members about 40 weret here, primarily "council members, various appointed election agents and helpers (probably take up about a dozen).
There were some argument about seating with the HKIS president decided not to sit upfront for the forum. Kind of strange when the forum sole purpose was for all the candidate to speak.
After another 5-10min of arguing, with senior members of the HKIA shouting across the room about the IS candidate not respect architects, counter statement about improper actions of some members etc. Finally it was decided that the Surveyor candidate would sit in as a bystander.
So after 45 mins, the event finally started, and we all did our standard speech, I did my usual single agenda about the accelerated effect of global warming, that the sea could start flooding in by 2013. Had all this data with me expecting people might ask about this, where the water is coming from, what can we do, if it does come what would HK be like,what kind of flood defense we might need etc.
Not one single question has been asked on these, I also thought there may be some questions about the introduction of a sustainability code. What we can do to upgrade our very outdated building regulations to new energy and insulation requirements. Perhaps some might be interested in how old buildings could be upgrade to better energy efficiency how much we could save electricity cost. Even upgrade of the fire safety requirements to avoid future problem like the recent fire?
How about conservation, someone must be interest in how best we should conserve what little left of our heritage, after all thousands of people did protest about the demolition of the Star ferry pier, Queens pier. people protest, camped and slept overnight, hunger strike etc etc, perhaps these must be interested on that. In the end there was a planner who did question about why did the incumbent decided to take the absent vote. there were some discussion about what each would do and right and wrong of it all (and all that time I was thinking look guys, we lost these pier for good, even if one was rebuilt after all this reclaim, it will just be a monument not quite the working pier that use to serve royals, high ranking civil servant, investments bankers and corporate get together boat rides.
I thought shouldn't we be talking more as to how were can best stop things like this from ever happening again. but the conversation degenerated into rule and regulations of how antiquity board work and there are so much great things already the LegCo had done etc etc..
There were bit and pieces about people political view, whether the candidates are democrats, whether they are pro development. there were some talk about sustainability (a few minutes quite a bit about how bad the government system of engaging consultants.
about how fees are 20% of normal under a competitive tender.
There were ideas about how great overseas countries are in engaging consultants based upon good architectural design. As everyone who have worked overseas knows, this is not really strictly true as the same kind of complaints or new types of equally valid complaints are also said overseas, like bidding a one dollar fee?
Anyway, no point in elaborate on that, other than the grass is always greener on the other side and many of the great ideas about how open competitions are in the wast are limited to grand scheme projects and most other mundane government projects are procure the same way, proposals plus fee. There was the show of 2 year old Al Gore inconvenient truth again (which until recently I have only find out that most of the professional had not seen).
There was a bit more talk about planning, how would transfer of development right would solve the problem of Hong Kong. There were more discussion about democrat, should the LegCo vote for the AS&P member or the view of the party.
Toward the end, the HKIS candidate did decided to say some words about integrity and how he would unite the four institute, some of the audience opening criticize how could this be true if you can't even respect this forum and sit in front on stage and answer the questions?
More back of forth of angry words, other statements which I was too hungry and tired to remember and that was about it, after 2 hours and30 mins, the show of the next Hong Kong Idol was finally over.
I can go home, hopefully see my children before they go to bed. It is interesting that I notice most of the younger members who came to listen has gone, drifted away quietly probably a long time ago, and what was left was council members, some familiar faces that seem to like going to these and ask the "tough questions". There were few tough question at least for me anyway, other than some strange looks, probably thinking what is this guy doing here talking about global warming and conserving what is left of our heritage in Hong Kong.....
"what is in it for him, why is he here?"
I guess these were my thoughts
Can I be wasting my time?
But then, it was getting late, and I was really tired, and was looking forward in seeing my family....
But I think this is worth sharing as it was basically open war of words between HKIS presidents, senior members of the HKS and HKIA council.
On Thursday 4 sept 2008 7pm till late was the "main" institute arrange election forum, HKIS decided not to have one.
The meeting, organize by the HKIA with members of HKIS, HKIP, HKILA invisted
A joint forum was not a bad idea if the aim is find a new Legislative Councilor representing the Architectural, Surveying and Planning Functional Constituency. A new strong, honest, professional, a person with integrity who was supposedly going to unite the 6100 or so professional members on a common goal and mission to develop a better Hong Kong. it was a closed forum, outsiders were hence not invited. No press was present.
It was one of the last opportunity for the 4 new candidates and the incumbent to talk about how they are the best person to do this job for the next 4 years
This "main event" (which felt more like the Hong Kong version of American idol) was not well attended, only about 40 but I guess still at least allowed the 5 LegCo candidates to speak to members of the all 4 institutes. Of the 6100 members about 40 weret here, primarily "council members, various appointed election agents and helpers (probably take up about a dozen).
There were some argument about seating with the HKIS president decided not to sit upfront for the forum. Kind of strange when the forum sole purpose was for all the candidate to speak.
After another 5-10min of arguing, with senior members of the HKIA shouting across the room about the IS candidate not respect architects, counter statement about improper actions of some members etc. Finally it was decided that the Surveyor candidate would sit in as a bystander.
So after 45 mins, the event finally started, and we all did our standard speech, I did my usual single agenda about the accelerated effect of global warming, that the sea could start flooding in by 2013. Had all this data with me expecting people might ask about this, where the water is coming from, what can we do, if it does come what would HK be like,what kind of flood defense we might need etc.
Not one single question has been asked on these, I also thought there may be some questions about the introduction of a sustainability code. What we can do to upgrade our very outdated building regulations to new energy and insulation requirements. Perhaps some might be interested in how old buildings could be upgrade to better energy efficiency how much we could save electricity cost. Even upgrade of the fire safety requirements to avoid future problem like the recent fire?
How about conservation, someone must be interest in how best we should conserve what little left of our heritage, after all thousands of people did protest about the demolition of the Star ferry pier, Queens pier. people protest, camped and slept overnight, hunger strike etc etc, perhaps these must be interested on that. In the end there was a planner who did question about why did the incumbent decided to take the absent vote. there were some discussion about what each would do and right and wrong of it all (and all that time I was thinking look guys, we lost these pier for good, even if one was rebuilt after all this reclaim, it will just be a monument not quite the working pier that use to serve royals, high ranking civil servant, investments bankers and corporate get together boat rides.
I thought shouldn't we be talking more as to how were can best stop things like this from ever happening again. but the conversation degenerated into rule and regulations of how antiquity board work and there are so much great things already the LegCo had done etc etc..
There were bit and pieces about people political view, whether the candidates are democrats, whether they are pro development. there were some talk about sustainability (a few minutes quite a bit about how bad the government system of engaging consultants.
about how fees are 20% of normal under a competitive tender.
There were ideas about how great overseas countries are in engaging consultants based upon good architectural design. As everyone who have worked overseas knows, this is not really strictly true as the same kind of complaints or new types of equally valid complaints are also said overseas, like bidding a one dollar fee?
Anyway, no point in elaborate on that, other than the grass is always greener on the other side and many of the great ideas about how open competitions are in the wast are limited to grand scheme projects and most other mundane government projects are procure the same way, proposals plus fee. There was the show of 2 year old Al Gore inconvenient truth again (which until recently I have only find out that most of the professional had not seen).
There was a bit more talk about planning, how would transfer of development right would solve the problem of Hong Kong. There were more discussion about democrat, should the LegCo vote for the AS&P member or the view of the party.
Toward the end, the HKIS candidate did decided to say some words about integrity and how he would unite the four institute, some of the audience opening criticize how could this be true if you can't even respect this forum and sit in front on stage and answer the questions?
More back of forth of angry words, other statements which I was too hungry and tired to remember and that was about it, after 2 hours and30 mins, the show of the next Hong Kong Idol was finally over.
I can go home, hopefully see my children before they go to bed. It is interesting that I notice most of the younger members who came to listen has gone, drifted away quietly probably a long time ago, and what was left was council members, some familiar faces that seem to like going to these and ask the "tough questions". There were few tough question at least for me anyway, other than some strange looks, probably thinking what is this guy doing here talking about global warming and conserving what is left of our heritage in Hong Kong.....
"what is in it for him, why is he here?"
I guess these were my thoughts
Can I be wasting my time?
But then, it was getting late, and I was really tired, and was looking forward in seeing my family....
Friday, September 5, 2008
In 2013, what could 7meter rise in sea level do to Hong Kong ?
Incoming tide
waterline will surpass legco
Increasing rainfall
And on the other side of the earth.........
Global warming, if the scientists are correct the two polar ice caps and glaciers melts.
So far most computer modelling conducted are wrong - this is happening faster than we all think.
We can wait for legCo to decide, we can wait for 2017 or 2020, we can wait for the new CE.
Global warming does not wait, it will come and politics are not going to stop that happening, when we start building huge flood walls all the way along our coastlines, when government starts to build massive dam liked barriers. Perhaps we can still wait.
Make Sustainability, Conservation and the environment central to government policies, make it a primary objective to reduce carbon emissions, do it now and make a better world for us and the future.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
August 2008 saw second largest summer shrinkage
A few years ago, scientists were predicting ice-free Arctic summers by about 2080.
Then computer models started projecting earlier dates, around 2030 to 2050.
Then came the 2007 summer that saw Arctic sea ice shrink to the smallest extent ever recorded, down to 4.2 million sq km from 7.8 million sq km in 1980.
By the end of last year, one research group was forecasting ice-free summers by 2013.
"I think we're going to beat last year's record melt, though I'd love to be wrong," said Dr Stroeve.
"If we do, then I don't think 2013 is far off any more. If what we think is going to happen does happen, then it'll be within a decade anyway."
Summer ice cover in the Arctic has declined sharply
Rising tide
Countries surrounding the Arctic are eyeing the economic opportunities that melting ice might bring.
Canada and Russia are exploring sovereignty claims over tracts of Arctic seafloor, while just this week US President George Bush has urged more oil exploration in US waters - which could point the way to exploitation of reserves off the Alaskan coast.
But from a climate point of view, the melt could bring global impacts accelerating the rate of warming and of sea level rise.
"This is a positive feedback process," commented Dr Ian Willis, from the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge.
"Sea ice has a higher albedo (reflectivity) than ocean water; so as the ice melts, the water absorbs more of the Sun's energy and warms up more, and that in turn warms the atmosphere more - including the atmosphere over the Greenland ice sheet."
Greenland is already losing ice to the oceans, contributing to the gradual rise in sea levels.
The ice cap holds enough water to lift sea levels globally by about seven metres (22ft) if it all melted.
Natural climatic cycles such as the Arctic Oscillation play a role in year-to-year variations in ice cover.
But Julienne Stroeve believes the sea ice is now so thin that there is little chance of the melting trend turning round.
"If the ice were as thin as it was in the 1970s, last year's conditions would have brought a dip in cover, but nothing exceptional.
"But now it's so thin that you would have to have an exceptional sequence of cold winters and cold summers in order for it to rebuild."
Only a major disaster would stir people into action?
SCMP 3 9 2008
This is the most recent article from a London-Based Independent Journalist Gwynne Dyer.
Interesting read, inside you will find that recent evidences are indicating that melting of the Ice Cap due to Global Warming could be as early as 2013 and not 2050 or 2070 as previously predicted.
The impact of this to Hong Kong - Up to 7 meters rises (22 ft) in sea level. Most of Hong Kong could be under water in 2013?
This is the most recent article from a London-Based Independent Journalist Gwynne Dyer.
Interesting read, inside you will find that recent evidences are indicating that melting of the Ice Cap due to Global Warming could be as early as 2013 and not 2050 or 2070 as previously predicted.
The impact of this to Hong Kong - Up to 7 meters rises (22 ft) in sea level. Most of Hong Kong could be under water in 2013?
A chilling thought.
The point of this article what would it take to make people realize that the problem is serious, in the US it took major destruction, lost of thousands of lives, millions of home, billions in damages of Hurricane Katrina before people started to take notice.
So what could make Hong Kong people take notice, by then could it be too late already? Can Hong Kong survive a direct hit the likes of Katrina?
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