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nuclear power for peaceful purposes) and the power station authorities here who are no doubt employing consultants to help them understand the risks involved, and that therefore everything will be just fine on the day.
Before I go on, let me make my own position clear. Wearing my hat as Chairman of the Special Committee on Air Pollution, I am convinced that we cannot afford to add another gram of air pollution to our already very polluted air. We cannot under any circumstances afford another coal or oil fired power station just as we cannot afford another incinerator. You just have to look out of the windows of this building to see how temperature inversions give us almost a Los Angeles look. So that assuming all the forecasts for power requirements are correct and we do need more electric power, then we can only get this power from China because we have run out of space to produce it ourselves. And if China decides that they also have enough pollution, and they certainly do have, then they are quite justified in producing the extra power both they and we need by nuclear power. I am not against a nuclear power station. What worries me is how we in Hong Kong are going to cope with the possible effects of such nuclear power station. As far as I can ascertain, the Hong Kong Government is not making any proper contingency plans.
Let me therefore ask the Government some relevant questions:
(1) Is Government satisfied that their present background radiation monitoring is fully sufficient? And if not, will they make sufficient funds available immediately to purchase the numbers and types of instruments necessary to give them internationally accepted standards of monitoring? (2) Has Government made a proper dispersion study which, because of our many micro climates may be extremely complicated, to indicate in case of an accident where most of the radioactive fallout will accumulate? (3) What plans have they made to check food and water coming in from China in case of contamination across the border of food and water by a minor accident at Daya Bay?
(4) What plans have they made to replace our food and water should there be a major radioactive contamination caused by an accident at Daya Bay?
(5) What plans have they made for full scale evacuation of the Hong Kong population should there be a major accident at Daya Bay?
Mr. Chairman, I believe that this matter is so serious that it requires a public enquiry.
My second subject is going from the sublime to the ridiculous and would be laughable if our Government weren't taking it so seriously. I am referring to what has become known as E.R.P., (or E.R.P.E.S. in the vernacular) which Government says stands for Economic Road Pricing but which could also stand for Expensive Research Pigheadedness.
Make no mistake, this Government which keeps on telling us how they govern by consensus and how they have such first class communications with all citizens, has declared electronic warfare on its citizens. Because the electronic snoops (Government calls them 'loops', but they really are snoops) will not just go across the road but across the pavements too, ostensibly to record motor cycles who might want to try and beat the toll, but in fact once they are across the pavement there is nothing to stop Government from hanging E.N.P.'s (Government says that means Electronic Number Plates, but it also stands for Esoteric Nonsensical Protuberance) on a pedestrian to find out where he is. Government will, in fact, hang these E.N.P.'s on all vehicles regardless of whether they will have to pay toll or not. The enforcement side is going to be taken care of by cameras, which will indiscriminately photograph every car passing certain points around the snoops and a computer is then supposed to sort out who is cheating and who isn't. What guarantee can any citizen have that in fact the computer will know what it is doing? We all know the sort of mistakes that computers are capable of, and the Courts are going to have a fine time with test cases brought by irate citizens who have been wrongly accused by idiot electronic machines.
I won't go into details here as our Secretary ferociously times our allotted fifteen minute span and I do not want to be cut off in mid flight, but just want to point out that years ago I suggested (and I personally agree that some sort of road pricing will become necessary here sooner or later) a very simple free of charge method of road pricing by different colour coded licence plates which allow whoever pays for the gold plate to drive at anytime and anywhere in the Territory and if you only have a white plate then you can only use your car in the evening, at night, on weekends and holidays. This was turned down, believe it or not, because the police said they had insufficient manpower to enforce it. For the HK$500 million dollars they are going to spend on the E.R.P., they can employ quite a few more policemen!
We, in this Council, have a budget of just over HK$1 billion. In other words, Government is going to spend almost half of our yearly budget on this nonsense. District Boards are asking us for help in building complexes to be used as community centres in the various districts. We can't do that because we haven't the money which Government is spending on this electronic warfare instead! So perhaps we should all put Government on notice that if they really go through with this nonsense, if they really declare electronic warfare, then every citizen should have the right to electronically fight back. And having seen some of the electronic gadgets available nowadays in real warfare, I have no doubt that some bright spark is going to come up with a system which will interfere so crassly with the E.R.P. that in the end the HK$500 million will turn out to be either insufficient since the system will have to be amended constantly to keep up with the countermeasures on sale in our shopping arcades, or a complete waste of money, and I very much fear it will be the latter.
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a
Make no
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nuclear power for peaceful purposes) and the power station authorities here who are no doubt employing consultants to help them understand the risks involved, and that therefore everything will be just fine on the day.
Before I go on, let me make my own position clear. Wearing my hat as Chairman of the Special Committee on Air Pollution, I am convinced that we cannot afford to add another gram of air pollution to our already very polluted air. We cannot under any circumstances afford another coal or oil fired power station just as we cannot afford another incinerator. You just have to look out of the windows of this building to see how temperature inversions give us almost a Los Angeles look. So that assuming all the forecasts for power requirements are correct and we do need more electric power, then we can only get this power from China because we have run out of space to produce it ourselves. And if China decides that they also have enough pollution, and they certainly do have. then they are quite justified in producing the extra power both they and we need by nuclear power. I am not against a nuclear power station. What worries me is how we in Hong Kong are going to cope with the possible effects of such nuclear power station. As far as I can ascertain, the Hong Kong Government is not making any proper contingency plans.
Let me therefore ask the Government some relevant questions:
(1) Is Government satisfied that their present background radiation monitoring is fully sufficient? And if not, will they make sufficient funds available immediately to purchase the numbers and types of instruments necessary to give them internationally accepted standards of monitoring? (2) Has Government made a proper dispersion study which, because of our many micro climates may be extremely complicated, to indicate in case of an accident where most of the radioactive fallout will accumulate? (3) What plans have they made to check food and water coming in from China in case of contamination across the border of food and water by a minor accident at Daya Bay?
(4) What plans have they made to replace our food and water should there be a major radioactive contamination caused by an accident at Daya Bay?
(5) What plans have they made for full scale evacuation of the Hong Kong
population should there be a major accident at Daya Bay?
Mr. Chairman, I believe that this matter is so serious that it requires a public enquiry.
My second subject is going from the sublime to the ridiculous and would be laughable if our Government weren't taking it so seriously. I am referring to what has become known as E.R.P., (or E.R.P.E.S. in the vernacular) which Government says stands for Economic Road Pricing but which could also stand for Expensive Research Pigheadedness.
a
Make no
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
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231
mistake, this Government which keeps on telling us how they
govern by consensus and how they have such first class communications with all citizens, has declared electronic warfare on its citizens. Because the electronic snoops (Government calls them 'loops', but they really are snoops) will not just go across the road but across the pavements too, ostensibly to record motor Cycles who might want to try and beat the toll, but in fact once they are across the pavement there is nothing to stop Government from hanging E.N.P.'s (Government says that means Electronic Number Plates, but it also stands for Esoteric Nonsensical Protuberance) on a pedestrian to find out where he is. Government will, in fact, hang these E.N.P.'s on all vehicles regardless of whether they will have to pay toll or not. The enforcement side is going to be taken care of by cameras, which will indiscriminately photograph every car passing certain points around the snoops and a computer is then supposed to sort out who is cheating and who isn't. What guarantee can any citizen have that in fact the computer will know what it is doing? We all know the sort of mistakes that computers are capable of, and the Courts are going to have a fine time with test cases brought by irate citizens who have been wrongly accused by idiot electronic machines.
I won't go into details here as our Secretary ferociously times our allotted fifteen minute span and I do not want to be cut off in mid flight, but just want to point out that years ago I suggested (and I personally agree that some sort of road pricing will become necessary here sooner or later) a very simple free of charge method of road pricing by different colour coded licence plates which allow whoever pays for the gold plate to drive at anytime and anywhere in the Territory and if you only have a white plate then you can only use your car in the evening, at night, on weekends and holidays. This was turned down, believe it or not, because the police said they had insufficient manpower to enforce it. For the HK$500 million dollars they are going to spend on the E.R.P., they can employ quite a few more policemen!
We, in this Council, have a budget of just over HK$1 billion. In other words, Government is going to spend almost half of our yearly budget on this nonsense. District Boards are asking us for help in building complexes to be used as community centres in the various districts. We can't do that because we haven't the money which Government is spending on this electronic warfare instead! So perhaps we should all put Government on notice that if they really go through with this nonsense, if they really declare electronic warfare, then every citizen should have the right to electronically fight back. And having seen some of the electronic gadgets available nowadays in real warfare, I have no doubt that some bright spark is going to come up with a system which will interfere so crassly with the E.R.P. that in the end the HK$500 million will turn out to be either insufficient since the system will have to be amended constantly to keep up with the countermeasures on sale in our shopping arcades, or a complete waste of money, and I very much fear it will be the latter.
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