Hi, welcome back! Hope you are not bored with me yet. For this post, I will side-track a bit as I feel that I need another perspective. So, for the past 1 week, I managed to interview 2 well-to-do people from Indonesia. As we all know, not only poor people live in low-income countries, so I am very interested to know how wealth is related to their views on the environment.

1)    Does the environment play a part in how comfortable you are?

For Ivonne, the greeneries around her house make Pekanbaru uniquely comfortable. However, for Agatha’s case, the environment does not play a part in her level of comfort as she is used to not being surrounded by trees and plants. She is comfortable even in the midst of concretes and air pollution.

2)    Which cities are greener, your home city or Singapore?

For Ivonne, Pekanbaru is greener as the forest there is larger, and the air is not as polluted (not counting the current haze situation). However, for Agatha, Singapore is cleaner because of 3 main reasons, cleaner roads, cleaner rivers and less pollution from car fumes.

3)    What is your opinion on the current haze situation?

Ivonne said that she felt terrible, sad and guilty. As the forest fire is happening close to her home, many people are breathing the toxic gases and a great portion of the already greatly reduced forest is destroyed. Agatha also mentioned that she feels bad, but the reason is more scientific. The forest fire reduces the ability for Indonesia to recycle Carbon Dioxide (CO2) although CO2 emission is on the rise.

From these 3 questions, I can see that Agatha and Ivonne has a different thought on the environment although they come from the same country. In the next few questions, I would like to see how important environmental issues to them.

4)    Do your family care about the environment? 

Both Agatha and Ivonne said that their families do not pay attention much to the current environmental problems. Ivonne’s dad pays more attention to his career and his family welfare by doing his best at his entrepreneurship. Meanwhile, Agatha’s family are not aware as they are not directly affected. For example, there is little to no haze in Jakarta, they are not affected by flood and they spend a lot of time in a closed air-conditioned room to avoid air pollution.

5)    How severe is the environmental problem across the world currently judging from 1-10?

Ivonne suggested that it is a 7.5, while Agatha suggested that it is a 6. Judging from these numbers, it suggests that both of them agree that environmental problem is real, but does not require urgent actions.

6)    If you can be more environmentally friendly than you are currently, what is your next step?

Currently, Ivonne has been throwing litter properly and reusing plastic bags. She wanted to step up and bring her bag when shopping. Agatha currently has brought her bag and utensils to reduce the consumption of plastics. Her next step is to bring a container as well, especially for bubble tea.

In conclusion, both agree that environmental issues are real and they are willing to live more environmentally friendly. However, since both are sufficiently wealthy, they can avoid the current impact of environmental problem like global warming, and air, water and soil pollution. This lead them and their family to believe that the environmental problem is not as severe as how the media portray it to be.

So, the next question to ponder is “How to implement green economy in less affluent nations when many of those in power do not even know how severe the environmental problem is?”

Do comment below on what your thoughts on this matter 😊