Energy Conservation

Read this.

I spent almost the whole of my childhood life learning and being encouraged by my teachers at school that I should be proud to be a citizen of a country, which produces oil. For years as well, I'd taken it for granted that there would never be a problem of oil shortage in Indonesia, as well as any other vital production like rice, woods, fabrics, etc.

Well I was wrong. In real, every now and then we always have to import something from other countries. Clothes, shoes, even soap. Why? Cause we believe that they are in better quality than those produced by our factories. Alright, some items perhaps are. But why does this also apply for rice? We PRODUCE rice. We eat rice everyday. We even have this feeling that if we have not eaten rice in a day, it means we have not really eaten. We can see rice fields everywhere in Indonesia, but in big cities, and we enjoy the sight of them. But when it comes to buying the rice of our own, why do we prefer to buy the one of Thailand imported, for example?

As in oil, it's aaalways been cheap to buy petrol in Indonesia. The government's subsided a lot to keep the oil prices low. Just lately it raised the price for the sake of a better allocation of subsidy in other fields such as education, and so many people already complained about it. It affected the high class people more, of course, for they need a big amount of petrol for their cars, but for the low and middle class people, the raise is still rather fine. Though it also affects the prices of basic needs like rice, sugar etc (which need to be transported from one city to another). But as in the fare raise on bemos or buses, or any other public transportation, it wasn't that much, seriously. Only Rp 200 raise (from Rp 1,300 to Rp 1,500). Have you already figured out the problem and the solution or do I still need to explain?

Ok, one more clue. Indonesia has ALWAYS had a problem of pollution and traffic jam. Too many private cars, too much pollution, bad traffic rules (or bad traffic users?). In the industrial area like in Rungkut Surabaya, where I live, people can spend hours on the road just to get to 2 kilometres ahead. Jakarta is even worse. I really can't imagine myself staying in the city too long, where I can get a serious brain damage just from getting stress on the daily traffic jam. I even thought walking was a faster way to get to my destination there. So do you get it now?

We have just too many cars, where one car is mostly occupied by only one person, the driver. For many middle to high class people, going by public transportation is just a very uncomfortable way to travel to their destinations (reasons: they're dirty and filthy, smelly and hot, or maybe unsafe). Not to mention the time wasted for the switch of bemos or buses of different routes. But if you think again, when more people are making the best use of public transportations, pollution and jam's problems can be surpressed (cars will be kept home unless the whole family is going out together), petrol will be more sufficiently distributed (we can't help the raise of the world's petrol's prices, right?), and MAYBE, I think almost positively, that the comfort of the passengers will be more taken care of. Why? Cause there will be more demands on the use of the bemos and buses and trains. More incomes will be contributed to the transportation section, so THEREFORE there should be an improvement on the facilities of the units. Am I right or wrong?

The only problem that should be solved, according to me, is if you dare to look into yourself, and change your point of view about public transportations. Now if you can be honest to yourself, you DO think that going by your own cars, besides giving you comfort, give you more prestige and "status" in the society, right? Do you think you can ever hop on a bemo where you need to share your seating space with so many others, stay on that thing without air conditioner, and sometimes have to "enjoy" they fishy smell from one of the buckets that one of the passengers bring with them, for the sake of conserving energy and getting less pollution on the streets?

The answer is all yours. I just wish you would agree with me a little in this, and perhaps.. just perhaps.. we can build a better city life in our country.