BAG in the News

6th June 2008

'Make climate change teaching a priority'

		Understanding the weather: Students from Science College looking at a demonstration at the Meteorological Service booth at the 5th Science and Technology week 2008 organised by UBD's Faculty of Science.
		Students from Rimba Secondary School looking at another demonstration at the Chemistry booth
		(Above) a robot.

WHEN it comes to climate change, the ball is now in the policymakers' court — they should be changing policies at a greater, faster rate in order to cope with what needs to be done with global warming, said green-living advocate Irene Poh Ai Cheong yesterday.

The senior lecturer at Universiti Brunei Darussalam's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah Institute of Education, who is a well-known figure in the environment-conscious community, believes education should be the top priority for the country's policymakers to consider if Brunei is to see itself as a worthy contributor to the cause.

"I want to teach the students so that when they go, they can teach others. But that may be too late now. I mean, global warming is happening now. In 10 or 20 years, it will be worse. We need to act now," she told The Brunei Times yesterday.

Besides education, said Dr Irene, one of the other priorities for Brunei's decision makers is to start establishing the use of renewable energy to produce electricity. Solar energy, despite being expensive, is a feasible system for the whole country to adapt, she said.

"We could take a bit of the subsidies for petroleum and use it to subsidise solar power generators for households," she suggested, pointing out that Brunei has a problem of unnecessary overconsumption of electricity.

"Increasing the price of electricity may even stop people from wasting it," she added.

Developed countries like Australia and Japan have shown that improving the existing infrastructure to facilitate energy-efficient transportation will make great strides in reducing carbon emissions.

Toyota Prius, the world's first mass-produced hybrid vehicle, has been sighted on Brunei's roads but is not expected to make its way into the country's thriving automobile market anytime soon.

"We can't even have a Prius here, even if you wanted to buy one. There's only two in the whole of Brunei. And they're not selling them because they're going to have to come up with millions of dollars to come up with a workshop," said Dr Irene.

"But, we're spending about $202 million on subsidies for diesel and gasoline!" she exclaimed. "That kind of money could be spent on such workshops, as well as developing infrastructure for energy-efficient transportation."

When everyone does it, the effect is better, added Dr Irene who believes in changing the education system so the teachers are teaching "sustainability" — right from primary level up to tertiary level to instill the concept in Bruneians' mindsets.

"Even this course I conduct, I actually struggle to even teach it, because people don't want me to teach it," she said. Dr Irene teaches two courses at UBD: an elective, "multidisciplinary approach to sustainable development" and a core masters course, "education for sustainable development".

"Some students are keen (on the elective), but the rest aren't because it is not something they can learn by heart and go and sit in an exam to pass. It's something they have to do. They actually have to research and go in-depth with the subject.

"So when it gets too difficult for them, they run away to other courses. I'd like to make it compulsory, because for me, it's something I feel strongly that people should be learning about."

Dr Irene collaborated with BAG Networks yesterday to teach 13 UBD students to create websites on energy conservation projects as part of UBD's 5th Science and Technology Week held at the Chancellor's Hall.

Courtesy of The Brunei Times