Day 6, still going strong! Admittedly, a desire to get some fresh air and move is building up - I guess that's just perfectly normal... We had another good day, added many pages to my 1993 diary, made some progress in reading my book (which I gradually like less and less, but want to finish it now), did our daily exercises. These are becoming a bit more challenging, but that's great because it helps to solve the desire for physical activity. Sure, not the same as a good trail run, but at least you get to move! And, wrote blog post number 6 (7 even, including the "saga prelude").
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| Our daily view. Same as the previous 5 days, what a surprise. Hey hey, not so fast, it's not the same. The sun was shining most of the day today, with a heavy storm apparently building up above KL this late afternoon. Made a nice contrast! |
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| Yes, I know, food again. You see, in quarantine it's the small things that matter. So today's lunch was great! It was buttered, flavoured rice with a chilli con carne-like side and potato wedges - quite different from previous meals and quite yummy too! |
Today I wanted to use the opportunity to look around me, and use some of the observations to talk about: ecological concerns, climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, ... After all, that is still the origin of the name of the blog; it's about awareness of what's going on with our planet, and what we all can do about it. Corona, quarantine and planet, what a combination. There's the obvious stuff, which you all know (I hope). Chances of viruses going from animals to humans increasing, because more and more human-animal conflict as there is less space for nature. Reducing emissions in 2020, first time since long, thanks to corona lockdowns - for now. Economic challenges, potentially causing a further delay in climate-related investments. And so on... I don't want to go into the macro side of things. But a few things from our daily life here, as illustrations.
Firstly, travel. We don't own a car. We hardly drive a car, and if we do it's typically a share car (like Cambio in Belgium or Socar in Malaysia) - in Belgium even usually an electric share car. We use public transport a lot, plus we cycle - a lot. Our biggest "climate sin" by far is flying. Plane transport generates a lot of greenhouse gas emissions, typically more than 100 g/km CO2 (per passenger) and much more - especially on shorter flights. So a single trip Brussels - Kuala Lumpur will be at least1 million grams - or 1000 kg, a ton - of CO2 emitted. An average car will be similar to a plane in terms of emissions - per passenger km - but you don't do 10.000km in less than a day... As a comparison, the average emission per person both in Belgium and Malaysia is just over 8 ton! The past years we have significantly tried to reduce our air travel (and if we do, we buy carbon offsets), and the covid19 pandemic has only reinforced that. (side note: air transport is causing "only" 2% of global emissions, so there are other and better ways to reduce emissions in fact - read further)
OK, enough about transport. I think we all know it, it's just so hard to change. Although... just look at how many truly enjoyed the reduced traffic during lockdown, and the increased cycling. Let's hope some of this remains. On to the more obvious things in the room: plastic and other waste!
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| For drinking water we have no other choice than to use the 500ml liter water bottles provided by the hotel. We forgot to bring our water filter unfortunately, otherwise we could have used that instead... If we assume we drink 1L per day, it's around 60 bottles for the two of us during the quarantine. There have been already around 30.000 people in quarantine so far, since 24 July only. That means... 1.800.000 water bottles! |
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| We get such a pack of plastic cutlery and tissue every day - but we luckily brought our own, so we leave it outside now and they don't add more. Luckily. There's really no need for this! |
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| We're not the only ones talking about this, I took this from the FB group. It's amazing, this person kept all the plastic food boxes and washed them. Let's hope they are indeed recycled because I think all waste will be collected and incinerated. Unfortunately. |
OK, plastic is the very obvious one, it has had so much attention. But what about this: clothing! The fashion industry is responsible for - hold on tight - 10% (that is TEN PERCENT) of annual global emissions, and growing fast. It's a much bigger concern than flights! So, before you buy another shirt, sweater, whatever, remember it's really climate-unfriendly and consider again. Here's a Worldbank article about it, but there's a lot more about it online.
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| When we left Malaysia, nearly 7 months ago, we left for our bicycle trip in Taiwan. All we took is on our bicycles! And only 1 of these panniers (each) are clothes! We lived out of these panniers for the entire time, missing nothing - and in quarantine we need even less. So an entire wardrobe can be replaced by... 1 bicycle pannier. Imagine. I know, it's not good for our consumption driven economy, but we could all do with much (much) less. It's true for clothes, and for so much more. Decluttering... Feels good, does good. |
Next: food! A third of all emissions comes from agriculture (wow) and about 30% of all food, produced on earth, is wasted. Eliminating food waste would mean: eliminating around 8% of all emissions! It's unlikely to happen to that extent, but some efforts could make a big difference. On top of that, eating local helps a lot as well: again less waste, less transport. Here's a short BBC article about the food topic.
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| Our food here is probably mostly locally grown and sourced, which is a good thing. Portions are also well balanced, and I think overall waste is limited. Worth noting: a lot of produced food is actually wasted at the origin or during distribution, rather than at the consumer's side. |
Tomorrow something more lighthearted, I promise. But meanwhile I hope you have gone through the above and given yourself a few minutes, at least, to think about it.