Chang Kow-lung (
In a 20-minute address to his staff at a farewell party yesterday morning, Chang talked about his vision for the future of the EPA and the nation as a whole. He said he hoped the nation would produce more Nobel Prize winners and encouraged EPA officials to be more creative in coming up with solutions that use minimal resources to generate maximum utility.
But the pithiest part of his speech came when he explained his resignation.
PHOTO: WANG MIN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
"I am not suited to being a member of the new [EPA] team. In addition to handling environmental protection affairs, the new team will also have to boost the prospects of the ruling party in next year's presidential election by creating the impression that the government's performance has been blemish-free," he said.
Chang's wife Hsieh Bai-he (
"President Chen [Shui-bian (
"Chang is a man of action and does not covet high office. He will not sacrifice his beliefs for the sake of economic development," she said.
A caricature displayed at the farewell party captured Chang's character. Fittingly, the former EPA chief was depicted as a gallant knight.
During his tenure, Chang was entrusted with resolving conflicts surrounding several projects, including a Formosa Group steel plant, a CPC Corp petrochemical plant and the Suhua Freeway.
Hsieh said that now Chang has resigned, these projects would likely proceed unchecked.
Nevertheless, Chang said it was "necessary and normal" that he step down.
"I came [into the job] to generate some ideas. The administration needs to bring in people with better ideas," he said.
Chang earned his doctorate degree in physics from Yale University in 1968.
Before he was recruited by former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), Chang was a professor at National Taiwan University and was involved in environmental campaigns launched by non-governmental groups in the 1980s.
Well known for his opposition to the construction of the Forth Nuclear Power Plant, in 1986 Chang founded New Environment magazine.
Two years later, he formed the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union, one of the active environmental groups in the country.
Chang presided over several initiatives during his term as EPA minister, including suspending the use of disposable utensils in government and school cafeterias and securing initial legislative approval for the greenhouse gas emissions reduction bill this year.
"Environmental protection is his faith and he [Chang Kow-lung] practiced it with the passion of a religious follower," EPA Deputy Minister Chang Tzi-chin (
"He has to work extremely hard to work under this administrative framework, but he had fought the good fight," Chang Tzi-chin said.
When asked what her husband would do in his retirement, Hsieh said the couple planned to travel around the world and to teach physics in developing countries as a volunteer.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS