From ‘Flag causes a flap’, 16 Aug 2010, ST Forum online
(Chee Hoot Peng): I AM a taxi driver by profession and I have one thing to say about the wastage of resources for the Youth Olympic Games.
About two weeks ago, cabbies like myself were given YOG flags to mount on our taxis. However, after an hour of installing it on the vehicle, I had to remove mine because it kept flapping against the roof and creating an unbearable noise.
While I applaud the idea of such flags, not enough thought has gone into their design, which means there has been a waste of funds producing them.
It’s also a phenomenal waste of time. 1 hour to install a flag which could have been better spent, I dunno, picking and dropping passengers? What’s going to happen to all these flag and banners once the YOG comes to an end anyway? There’s probably enough leftover cloth to form a canopy over Orchard Road to contain flooding, or if that isn’t feasible we could set another useless Guiness book record for most buildings wrapped in YOG paraphernalia. Really, the money could have been better spent on adding more long beans to the volunteers’ lunch packs rather than this unnecessary bombast. I believe the media have already done enough souping up of the occasion, with the drama of a boy running 15km to follow the torch relay to boot. Now all that’s left is giving ourselves the proverbial fat pat on the back, notwithstanding the stench of redundancy and environmental degradation left behind. The sound of a flag relentlessly pounding a taxi rooftop isn’t the most unpleasant noise in the world. The dismal sound of silence from our ecological conscience is.
Of course, I couldn’t resist citing this vulgar greenwashing by the SYOGOC in this Feb post ‘Singapore 2010 YOG goes green!’.Yes, the audacity of the exclamation mark. A taxi driver and a volunteer NS man served a crappy lunch have proven you wrong on all counts.
…We strive for minimal impact on the environment before, during and after the Youth Olympic Games so as to contribute to the well being of all participants, be they athletes, officials, spectators or volunteers. We will focus on the following 3 areas:
Clean environmental standards
We aim to maintain high environmental standards through sound practices and technologies in the most cost-effective manner.
Resource efficient YOG
We aim to implement energy efficient initiatives, water conservation features and 3R (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) measures where applicable
Sustainable communities
We strive to inculcate an environmentally friendly lifestyle among YOG participants and the community in support of the YOG
Note the generous use of future tense in this shameless 3 Rs (redundant, recyclable rhetoric). Aim, strive, will etc. The only thing that’s going to be recycled here is the fallacious overuse of the word ‘sustainable’, which, in consideration of all the bright lights, lasers, electricity and fireworks usurped during the opening ceremony, means that the whole YOG became unsustainable even before a single game began. Even an ST blog has no qualms about bragging about the sheer earth-depleting resources what went into making this ‘extravaganza’, in all senses of the word.
1)32 m metallic cauldron
2)6 giant LED screens
3)And the most obscene natural resource depletion of all is the reflecting pool with 200 tonnes of water requiring 8 hours to fill
So much for 'water conversation features'
Further in the article, it’s mentioned that they ‘will also encourage transport operators to use green vehicles to shuttle the athletes, Olympic officials and members of the Olympic family.’ According to this ST report, only 1 ‘green’ bus running on hydrogen fuel cell was used, and this only to ferry athletes within NTU itself. Which means, we’ve not actually been giving way to hydrogen-electric powered ‘eco-friendly’ vehicles as the SYOGOC made it seem. And in considering the additional vehicles with YOG licence plates around, this one single green bus is a mere speck in a sea of fuel-guzzling, fume-spewing, noise-churning monsters. It doesn’t take an environmentalist with a phD to see that there’s a seriously negative eco-balance here, and it probably would have been tolerable (once-in-a-lifetime what!) if it hadn’t been shrouded in peppy sugar-coated lies.
Filed under: 2010, Bureaucrats, Campaigns/Elections, Environment, Noise, Sports, Taxi drivers Tagged: | environment, flag, opening ceremony, SYOGOC, Taxi drivers, taxis, YOG
