Star Ferry coming in to Wanchai

In early June I was in Hong Kong & Shenzhen once again, exploring some opportunities associated with real-time energy & environmental monitoring.  Chris Tung in HK and Dr. Yu Yanqui in Shenzhen were especially helpful on this trip, arranging for me to make presentations about this subject in their respective cities.   I had previously worked with Chris on a study for the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and he set up a presentation at his law firm K&L Gates for colleagues, clients, and selected guests.   Dr. Yu arranged for a similar presentation at the Shenzhen International Technology Promotion Center for Sustainable Development, for a group of energy and environmental officials associated with a newly developing emissions exchange there, and I got some very useful feedback from both audiences.  Other business meetings kept the schedule pretty full — although I still found time to ride the Star Ferry back to Wanchai from Kowloon on a beautiful summer afternoon.

The rough life in Cheung Chau

Another high point of this visit — and another ferry ride! — was a delightful weekend trip to see Liam Salter (pictured right).  Liam runs a carbon consulting company called RESET (see previous Oct. ’08 HK posting), and lives out on Cheung Chau, a 35 minutes trip from Central on the ‘outlying islands’ ferry.  The lanes & alleyways are very narrow there – special vehicles are required for police & fire & trash collection – and we first walked around the island, & then had lunch in an open air restaurant overlooking the beach, a few hundred paces from Liam’s home (nicely nestled in a lush, green setting).  Liam’s wife Ina Pozon coordinates the Asia Water Project: China project, a research/web-portal effort which targets China’s environmental concerns on the water side, and I had a chance to meet her too, as well as the rest of the family.  I have to admit that I’m more than a bit envious of Liam’s lifestyle — it makes suburban Philadelphia seem more than a bit conventional and bourgeois!

Still another highlight was a chance to catch up with Hubert Tose, whom I had previously worked with at IETG & Anemone.  An even earlier HK posting (August ’07) showed Hubert in the Hong Kong Tatler, and by hanging around with him, I too was able to make the ‘high society’ scene in HK on this trip….  with proof,  a photo in the Asian Tatler!  The reason for this was an invitation to the Asian premier of ‘Sharkwater,’ an award-winning documentary film decrying the ongoing slaughter of sharks in the world’s oceans.  The target, of course, is their fins — long used to make ‘shark fin soup,’ a Chinese delicacy since the Ming Dynasty.   Demand for this luxury item has increased along with China’s growing economic power, and the film highlights the devastation this has caused for that creature, as well as the ocean’s ecosystem.   HK has been a center of the fin trade, and although demand in the city is apparently decreasing, that of the Mainland has been increasing – yet another powerful example of very short-sighted thinking (or, better yet, lack of any thinking at all) on the environmental front.