The National Taiwan University (NTU) Student Association yesterday staged a parade against air pollution on the school’s main campus, urging the school administration to stop investing school funds in highly polluting businesses, such as subsidiaries of Formosa Plastics Group (FPG).
At noon yesterday, nearly 20 NTU students gathered at the end of Royal Palm Boulevard leading from the main gate to discuss air pollution before the march started at 12:30pm.
The event was planned to precede World Earth Day, which is tomorrow, student association president Lin Yan-ting (林彥廷) said.
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
While this year’s Earth Day theme is plastic pollution, air pollution emitted when manufacturing plastic products is also an important issue, association sustainability director Lin Meng-hui (林孟慧) said.
The association planned the protest after discovering that the school administration plans to invest about NT$170 million (US$5.7 million) in FPG’s Formosa Petrochemical Corp, China Steel Corp and Asia Cement Corp this year, she said.
The three firms were among the nation’s top 10 biggest emitters of greenhouse gases from 2013 to 2016, she said, citing data released by the NTU Risk Society and Policy Research Center.
As the school runs on public resources, its management should demonstrate social responsibility by withdrawing investment from polluting firms and clarify its investment principles, she said.
Carbon emissions by FPG subsidiaries make up about one-fifth of the nation’s total, yet group chairman William Wong (王文淵) has taken scant action to reduce pollution, center postdoctoral researcher Chao Chia-wei (趙家緯) said.
When Wong on Tuesday became chairman of the Chinese National Federation of Industries, instead of reflecting on the group’s environmental record, he criticized the nation’s energy policy and the environmental impact assessment mechanism, Chao said.
In addition to NTU school funds, the government should also stop investing national labor funds in FPG, he said.
The student association also called on the government to scrap the planned construction of the new coal-fired Shenao Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Rueifang District (瑞芳) by Taiwan Power Co, which is to install two generators of 600 megawatts each at the site and expects the first to become operational in 2025.
The project “makes us doubt whether the government is really determined to improve the nation’s air quality,” Lin Meng-hui said, adding that more activities on air pollution would be held later this year.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
RSS