Tag Archives: cement

What Way If Not the PJD Highway?

While many Petaling Jaya residents don’t want an elevated highway through their community, they are still keen to drive. This is Part 2; read Part 1 for an interactive trip along the PJD highway.

TRAFFIC jams are a painful part of life in the Klang Valley. The Malaysian way to ease traffic, however, appears to focus largely on mega infrastructure: huge, tolled highways that cost hundreds of millions of ringgit to build.

In 2022 alone, two elevated highways were completed: the Damansara-Shah Alam Elevated Highway (DASH) and the first phase of the Sungai Besi-Ulu Kelang Elevated Highway (SUKE). 

And the government is evaluating the proposal of yet another elevated highway: the Petaling Jaya Dispersal Link Expressway (PJD). However, unlike the earlier highways, the PJD would pass through some of the most crowded residential and commercial areas in Petaling Jaya.

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The True Value of Limestone

Quarrying limestone is worth billions but how does that compare to the ecological, touristic, cultural and historical values of this ecosystem?

DRIVING on the North-South Highway to Batu Gajah, Perak from Kuala Lumpur brings back many childhood memories of my balik kampung ritual.

We would pass limestone hills topped by dipterocarp trees fighting for space at canopy level while the sun created shadows in the hills’ crevices.

These views always made me ask my mother, “Do you think dragons live in these hills and caves?”

(Photo: Perak’s limestone hills are valuable as a source of raw materials for construction but is that all they should be valued for? | Gunung Kanthan pic by Sakyamuni Caves Monastery) 

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Cement Matters in Climate Crisis

It is in virtually everything that is constructed but cement has a climate impact that needs addressing. 

CEMENT is a key material in construction. According to the UN, the cement industry is the fourth largest carbon dioxide (CO2) emitter by fuel type after coal, oil and gas.

And Asia dominates as the emitter of industrial greenhouse gasses emissions from cement, iron and steel, reports the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2014).

But compared to fossil fuels, cement is not as widely known for its contribution to the climate crisis.

(Photo: From buildings to pavements, cement is everywhere around us. | Photo by SL Wong)

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