6 Dec
Jakartass & Canute v Climate Change
The Guardian has asked: “What single breakthrough would best advance the fight against climate change?
Wrong question.
How about “What single individual action would best advance the fight against climate change?” and each single individual can ask “What single action can I do in the fight against climate change?”
We can’t shut down factories, demolish shopping malls or, as my old mate King Canute discovered, hold back the tides. However, we can all do our bit to reduce Jakarta’s carbon footprint and mine is that old favourite – pontificate.
The following are a few suggestions, specific to Jakarta, which, if the powers-that-be care to think about them, could go a long way to making our lives much more pleasant. All it should take is a willingness to adjust lifestyles.
I venture to guess that 90% of the motorists are first generation. In other words, their parents didn’t have personal transport so current drivers do not have an ‘inherited’ road sense and hence the lack of discipline which is an enormous contributory factor to the chaos on the streets.
* Leave the car at home.
– set up a registered car pool and campaign to be entitled to subsidised fuel.
– cars entering city limits – the further afield the better – should pay a hefty congestion charge.
(This is in addition to the non-subsidised market price for fuel which the Government has just agreed to.)
– walk
– cycle
– demand to use public transport.
Yeah, yeah, I know this is wishful thinking. Or is it? Isn’t it time for the citizenry to demand some basic rights?
The freedom to walk is surely one of those. Demanding public transport is another. And consider whether public transport should be provided by private companies.
If enough people refuse to commute by car or motorcycle, it would cause such chaos to Jakarta’s business community that there is a chance that this will force City Hall to:
– provide footpaths, sidewalks, pavements everywhere – if necessary at the expense of a traffic lane.
– build cycle lanes – if necessary at the expense of a traffic lane.
– provide better railway services.
– ban inter-city trucks from the inner city during rush hours. (This was a traffic law during the latter years of the Suharto era.)
* Switch off air conditioners
Air conditioning is also relatively modern. Setting thermostats to 16ºC is ridiculous and does nothing to improve productivity – colder blood is slower blood.
– use fans instead.
– design buildings to increase ventilation.
– surround buildings with gardens, albeit an array of potted plants
– design new buildings with ‘ventilation shields’ to deflect direct sunlight and create a cooling external airflow.
*Introduce compulsory composting
– and community recycling of plastic, paper and glass.
– refuse to accept plastic bags in supermarkets and other stores.
Most neighbourhoods have collection sites for their rubbish, from where it is taken by municipal trucks to rapidly filling landsites.
There’s money in muck!
There’s money in ideas too, so please feel free to add suggestions.
Maybe someone in Bali is reading this.
Your old mate Canute or Cnut to give him his proper name, and believe me he was a right cnut, did not “discover” he couldn’t turn back the tide, he knew it all along but had to prove his inability to his sycophantic courtiers to get them to wise up. Or at least that’s the story I was taught, maybe they’ve changed it now.
On your other points not much disagreement, except for the aircon, man, it’s hot in Jakarta! Hot and sticky! I gotta have that aircon.
Glad to see a lot of the pavements are being repaired around town, that’s long overdue, nothing worse than having to take a taxi or ojek to make a journey which would only be ten minutes on foot if you could actually walk there.
Oh, I knew about C’nut all along, Miko, but I’m allowed poetic licence, aren’t I?
I agree about the pavements, but will the ojeks stay off them?
Later:
Oigal ~ that’s a sound idea which will surely appeal to the tax man. Add the notion of paying more for fuel according to the length /engine size /cost etc., and the government will be quids in and will be able to upgrade the motor pools available to those in the know.
Tone. what can we say, eh? Excuses, excuses.
It’s all your bloody fault. And your wife’s..
my wife has a job that involves a lot of travelling round to meet clients. from where we live to where she works there is no public transport
luckily she gets a company car.
there is not a hope in hell of getting her back on public transport. on a couple of occassions she was groped and she has plenty more tales of friends of hers who have had less than pleasant incidents occur to them.
i walk home from work but walking to ain t an option unless i wanna get hot, sweaty and uncomfortable the whole day. oddly, i don t
I still reckon the easiest thing for Jakarta to ease the traffic and up revenues (Only 1.3 Million Income tax payers indeed).
You own a car, then must supply a tax number and if you can afford a car/bike you can afford to pay tax.
Same for companies..
Then re-direct that money into the public transport system (ooops “a” public transport system there isn’t one yet)
Whoa,,!! steady..
more for fuel according to the length /engine size /cost etc..
I never said that!!! No modern human should be condemned to drive those piss ant rice burners..and gawd/s sake get some decent bikes into the country, not thos 2 stroke, pollution and noise machines…ringgg diinnng diiing
Whoops, sorry, O. I meant Miko.
There’s an ‘i’ and an ‘o’ in both your names so it’s easy to get confused.