YOURSAY | It’s not often PAS leaders talk about the environment

YOURSAY | ‘It should push ‘green’ sermons amongst the religiously-inclined.’

Tuan Ibrahim urges M'sians to adopt green lifestyle

Newday: Happy Earth Day, Environment Minister Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man.

The Covid-19 isolation is showing us how much waste businesses and factories have been dumping all this while which ends up in our rivers after it rains. It’s a staggering amount compared to now – with these businesses closed, pollution has reduced.

One thing you can do is to get Department of Environment’s vigilance and enforcement up to scratch.

Ensure cooperation, and not silo mentality, among various agencies. Too many times in the recent past, agencies will say it is “not my problem” and that is not good enough.

Tracking the sources of industrial pollution, targeting and publicly naming and shaming illegal dumpers should be done. A hotline to phone in tips that is confidential would help.

The Environment Ministry needs to make sure the public health disaster of bauxite strip mining never happens again.

Root out corruption among public servants, plant bucket loads of trees, stop crony logging and destruction of water catchment.

The list is almost endless when it comes to what we can do to help Mother Earth. Push “green” sermons amongst the more religiously-inclined.

There are so many ways we can encourage a green lifestyle. Stay strong on the message, minister.

Anonymous_14043: Environment minister, your immediate tangible responsibility is to prevent the annual haze from happening, which is around now till October.

Due to dry and hot seasons, some have already started burning forests to clear plantations. Liaise with your counterpart in Indonesia before it gets out of hand.

Otherwise, news organisations will keep recycling their reports like a broken record as nothing is being done.

Boeyks: Adopt a green lifestyle, Tuan Ibrahim tells us. But are the party members and politicians following this lifestyle?

Annonymous: Being green means to drive efficient and cost-effective hybrid cars or the local low-cost executive class Proton Perdana where the annual maintenance is only around RM4,000 compared to RM10,000 for a Mercedes Benz.

Kelantan leaders use luxury Mercedes Benzes which are oil guzzlers, paid for with taxpayers’ money. They pollute the environment. Not to mention, it goes against the moderate lifestyle religious PAS leaders are supposed to live.

Why ignore local more cost-saving cars? For PAS leaders to then advise living a green lifestyle and buy local products when they are using luxury imported cars is not in line with what the rakyat are being told to do.

Anonymous_3f4b: The environment minister and his PAS ministers and exco colleagues in the Terengganu and Kelantan must walk the talk first before preaching about adopting a green lifestyle.

For starters, they must abandon their chauffeur-driven Mercedes Benzes and use bicycles to get to work thus saving on fuel consumption, cutting down air pollution and reducing costs to the administration.

This is what ministers in the developed countries in Europe are doing unlike the third world mentality of Asian countries where the principle is “to do things in style”.

Constitution Is Supreme: First and foremost, Tuan Ibrahim, stop the uncontrolled logging in Kelantan where your party, PAS, is the government and it is plundering the forest with no end in sight.

If you cannot do this, then stop talking about protecting the environment.

Mosquito Brain: This is Tuan Ibrahim’s leadership by example for you. Virgin and forest reserves are being plundered. Rivers and streams are polluted. Wildlife reduced to near extinction.

Orang Asli reserved lands have been trespassed and its people are crying for help in Kelantan.

Yet, the minister is talking about clean water and a green lifestyle.

Pakcik Kiah: This is funny because how much greenery is left in Kelantan after the logging?

How many Orang Asli settlements - the original bumiputras/settlers of Malaya - have been spared environmental disasters by wanton illegal logging activities sanctioned by the state government?

Can you, as an unelected minister, answer these questions first before giving advice on living a green lifestyle?

Dummies Dhimmi: Yes, for us to understand what you mean by green is for you to lead by example.

Stop illegal logging in Kelantan. You denied that the timber certificate was withdrawn from Kelantan for being unsustainable.

Stop threatening to drive Orang Asli away by logging their habitat. Start there first.

CH Y: Food delivery packaging is not green. Driving your own car is safer than taking public transport right now in the time of Covid-19.

We need air conditioning at home during the movement control order (MCO) as we have to stay at home. So it’s hard to go green.

Anonymous122277: Talk is easy, Tuan Ibrahim. Can you act fast on returning many containers of plastic waste to the original countries, stop Lynas operation and providing your KPI to address polluted rivers and solid waste in our country?

Hello World: Tuan Ibrahim sounds like a four-year-old who has just been given his first Ladybird book “Let’s All Learn About The Environment” at nursery.

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