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16 October 2009

Former Director of Hong Kong Observatory Lam Chiu-ying
Lectured at CUHK on Sustainable Development Today

Mr Lam Chiu-ying, Former Director of the Hong Kong Observatory, lectured at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) today (16 October) on ‘Sustaining What?’. Around eighty CUHK teachers and students attended the lecture, including Professor Peter Yum Tak-shing, Dean of Engineering and Professor Paul Lee Siu-nam, Dean of Social Science.

The United Nations addressed the concept of ‘sustainable development’ to the world more than twenty years ago. In Hong Kong, this concept has been brought into action by the Government for about a decade, stressing that environmental factor should also be taken into consideration as the city continues its economic and social developments. However, is ‘sustainable development’ a viable concept to balance the needs of economic, social and environmental developments? During the lecture, Mr Lam shared his observations on the changes of the Earth. He also questioned the concept of ‘sustainable development’ and discussed alternative directions for the evolution of human society. He said, ‘When people talk about sustainable development, they only think of ways to minimize the damages to the environment, rather than to improve it. It’s time to modify this old concept.’

The seminar kicked off the ‘Sustainable Engineering Seminar Series’ co-organized by the Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Social Science, CUHK. Six seminars are to be held under the series, which aims at promoting environmental knowledge among CUHK teachers and students, and encouraging more engineering research projects to contribute to developing green solutions for the problems of pollution and energy over-consumption.

To further promote green research, the Faculty of Engineering plans to organize a ‘sustainable engineering’ research proposal competition to support creative green ideas. The champion will receive sponsorship from the Faculty to implement his proposal.

Short biography of Mr Lam Chiu-ying
Mr Lam Chiu-ying is a Chartered Meteorologist and a fellow of Royal Meteorological Society. He recently retired as Director of the Hong Kong Observatory and Chairman of the Hong Kong Meteorological Society. He graduated from the Department of Physics at the University of Hong Kong. Afterwards, he studied meteorology at the Imperial College, London. He was the Vice President of the Asian arm of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) from 2003 to 2008, and has also been invited by the WMO to lead various expert and consultant missions. As a well respected meteorologist, Mr Lam lectures widely on the subject of climate change, with an aim to raise public awareness about environmental protection.

Mr Lam Chiu-ying, Former Director of the Hong Kong Observatory	(From left) Professor Lam Kin-che, Department of Geography & Resource Management; Mr Lam Chiu-ying; Professor Peter Yum Tak-shing, Dean of Engineering, CUHK; and Professor Paul Lee Siu-nam, Dean of Social Science, CUHK