ADRIAN
CHU
SIN
CHUNG
332874
What is sustainability to me?
I come from Mauritius, a small developing island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. We do not possess the technological or financial means to be as sustainable or as able to address world challenges as developed countries such as Australia. In the context of Mauritius, which I consider my native environment, sustainability would be the ability to use our available resources to meet our needs, to preserve the little we have to sustain our children, and to make the most of our resources to live as well as we can. However, our main resource is the human resource, but unfortunately owing to the lower levels of education and income, the population is often uncoordinated, undisciplined and lacking the knowledge to efficiently tackle challenges that are presenting themselves to the world societies. This is why I chose the red card during the tutorial, because I strongly believe that in a country that still can’t rely on technological advancement and government regulations, individual action and commitment is the way to go, at least for a start. Only when this small step is made that we shall be able to aim for larger schemes. The reason why I chose this picture is because it shows the hands of children holding a planet. The analogy here is that everyone, even children need to collaborate into preserving the planet. The symbol of children represent innocence and the future, how they all must hold on together to create a future that they can share. Children also represent the absolute idea that if children can work to build a better future, and anyone should be able to contribute to that.
The theory is that when governmental agencies are unable or unwilling to take action in any matter, including environmental issues, it it the responsibility of the population to start acting on a small scale and gradually build momentum to such an extent as to be able to influence policies. At first I thought this was impossible, and although I have not yet seen an example of where community action has managed to significantly influence local or international policies, something I came across made me realise that there were people who actually had enough courage and conviction to take matter in their own hands - a video that shows a 12-year old girl - Severn Suzuki - whom with other members of ECO (Environmental Children’s Organisation) raised money and went to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Suzuki talked about how as a child she viewed environmental issues, and the consequences that inaction would have on her as a child. The video was so viral that it was later popularly known as “The Girl Who Silenced the World for Five Minutes”. This video has had many implications for me: first of all, if 12 year olds could by themselves raise the money to travel 5000 miles and speak to an international convention, then the will to save the planet did exist. Second, when Suziki was indeed ‘silencing’ the world, it was not with big words such as ‘carbon tax’ or ‘energy rating’ or ‘alternate energy’. She simply said that she was afraid to go out in the sun because of the hole in the ozone layer, she said that she was afraid that she might never fulfil her dream to see large herds of animals because there might no longer to animals. She said that she is afraid to breathe the air because she does not know which chemicals are in there. If she has managed to hold the attention of the world for 5 minutes with her speech, it is because what she said is meaningful to people - small everyday occurrences that are affected by larger environmental issues. And this is why I think that it is there that she should start, because this is what people understand, and most people will only care for things that they understand, and that has a direct impact on their everyday life.
What is the best way to implement this modus operandi? Education. Like I said, people will only care for things they understand. Only through education can these values be transmitted, and the best moment to start is with children who have not yet been used to this lifestyle that we direly need to change. Problem: what do we do with those who have been used to a certain lifestyle? Well the answer is education again. In Mauritius, municipalities have just started small scale projects such as providing bins for rubbish and recycling, but at the end of the day, you can’t really tell the difference between either bin because people just dump anything anywhere (if not on the ground itself). What to do then? In many cases I have seen children reprimanding and instructing their parents about recycling. I have seen pedestrians telling off a scavenging officer because he dumped all the garbage in a single collection without separating them. As a future architect, I need to educate my future clients about good practice, about the need of investing more in insulation, passive systems and eco design, that even if it is a larger initial investment, it is both environmentally beneficial, and it becomes economical in the long term. There is not one person or one organisation or one agency responsible for saving the planet. We all need to work at it together.
“Il n’y a pas de petits gestes quand on est 60 millions a les faire” Ministere de l’Ecologie et du Dévelopement Durable “There are no small actions when there are 60 million of us to do them” French Ministry of Ecology and Sustainable Develpment