PGCC and CGCC

Well, you all know what PGCC is by now – the massive RM25 billion Penang Greenwash… err, I mean Global… City Centre project.

And CGCC? That’s Catastrophic Global Climate Change.

If we go ahead with PGCC, it would only add to CGCC.

If you are not convinced that building 37 “tombstones” (high-rise towers) on the Penang Turf Club green space is a terrible idea, then consider this dire warning published in the Independent:

‘Too late to avoid global warming,’ say scientists

By Cahal Milmo

Published: 19 September 2007

A rise of two degrees centigrade in global temperatures – the point considered to be the threshold for catastrophic climate change which will expose millions to drought, hunger and flooding – is now “very unlikely” to be avoided, the world’s leading climate scientists said yesterday….

In its latest assessment of the progress of climate change, the body said: “If warming is not kept below two degrees centigrade, which will require the strongest mitigation efforts, and currently looks very unlikely to be achieved, the substantial global impacts will occur, such as species extinctions, and millions of people at risk from drought, hunger, flooding.”

Under the scale of risk used by IPCC, the words “very unlikely” mean there is just a one to 10 per cent chance of limiting the global temperature rise to two degrees centigrade or less.

Professor Martin Parry, a senior Met Office scientist and co-chairman of the IPCC committee which produced the report, said he believed it would now be “very difficult” to achieve the target and that governments need to combine efforts to “mitigate” climate change by reducing CO2 emissions with “adaptation” to tackle active consequences such as crop failure and flooding.

Speaking at the Royal Geographical Society, he said: “Ten years ago we were talking about these impacts affecting our children and our grandchildren. Now it is happening to us.”

“Even if we achieve a cap at two degrees, there is a stock of major impacts out there already and that means adaptation. You cannot mitigate your way out of this problem… The choice is between a damaged world or a future with a severely damaged world.”

The IPCC assessment states that up to two billion people worldwide will face water shortages and up to 30 per cent of plant and animal species would be put at risk of extinction if the average rise in temperature stabilises at 1.5C to 2.5C.

This warning should have been splashed on the front-pages of newspapers around the world with large bold headlines. Instead, the reports were largely tucked in the inside pages of our newspapers so that hardly anyone noticed them.

You see, our corporate media doesn’t want to disturb our materialistic lifestyles, which are so harmful to the environment. (After all, even Air Asia is expanding its fleet of aircraft.) It’s bad for business, you know – and could hurt advertising revenue. Better to bury our heads in the sand and pretend that global warming is a problem that only affects other countries.

In the case of the PGCC, instead of allowing dozens of diesel lorries to dump hundreds of tons of concrete and steel every day for the next decade on the last vast green space in Penang, we should be preserving this common green and turning it into a Penang State Park, open to the public. We could turn it into our Garden of Eden and open it to those those seeking respite from the pollution and hustle and bustle of the city. It would be our major contribution to the battle against global warming.

NO to “zero-carbon eco-city” greenwash gimmicks! YES to a Penang State Park!