'Green heroes'

Time Magazine (USA) has voted 43 ' green heroes ' as fighters for a clean, green environment. It is the characters from many countries around the world, in words, actions, votes or even checks, that contribute to the voice that represents the Earth reflecting the injustices of their own. People cause to the common home of all of us.

He ' bulldozed ' the Cheonggyecheon River (Photo: Time)

Time divided 43 heroic environmentalists into four groups: leaders and visionaries, activists, scientists and reformers, entrepreneurs and powerful people.Youth presents a few outstanding faces in four groups.

Lee Myung Bak - green bulldozer

In the past, people called him ' bulldozer '. As a young leader of Hyundai Construction Corporation in the 1970-1980 period, Lee Myung Bak contributed to building the country after the war into one of the most developed industrial centers in the world.

However, the dizzying pace has left difficult environmental scars on the beautiful face of Korea. Nowhere is the wound serious like Seoul, a dusty, polluted city, and full of people during the time when Lee ran to the mayor chair in 2002. He once confessed: ' When the economy Korea is recovering from the war, acquiring parks is a luxury '.

Mr. Tulsi Tanti - Suzlon Energy Group chairman (Photo: Time)

And he 'bulldozer' pursued green policy drastically. He affirmed to the people of Seoul that it would break the high-altitude highway system and restore the buried Cheonggyecheon river. His opponents say the plan will cost billions of dollars and cause traffic chaos. But the people elected him to be mayor. And three years later, the Cheonggyecheon River revived, becoming a valuable ecological lung that completely changed the face of Seoul. With Lee Myung Bak, development can completely go along with environmental protection.

Vuong Xang Phat - defender of pollution victims

Beijing passed the Law on Environmental Protection in 1979, but since then the Chinese environment has been increasingly polluted.'When referring to the Environmental Law, many local officials are silly to follow' what is the law ' - Professor Vuong Xang Phat, director of the Legal Aid Center for victims of pollution in Beijing, said. .

During the past eight years, Mr. Wang's center has used the court to teach officials and entrepreneurs what is the Environmental Law. The center's volunteer lawyers have carried out numerous lawsuits to help people who have been turned upside down for polluting products. Since 1999, the center has sent more than 10,000 applications, pursuing more than 100 court cases with the number of petitioners reaching more than 1,700.

Professor Vuong Xang Phat
(Photo: china.org.cn)

Mr. Wang's center has won very important victories. In particular, the lawsuit requires a polluting steel factory in Ha Noi to be relocated, and the case of forcing a chemical factory and a steel plant in Son Dong to compensate USD 730,000 to local people because discharging toxic waste water to kill farmed fish.

The ruined environment is one of the causes of some violence in rural China. But Mr. Wang always opposed violence: 'When we lose the case, we appeal. We always think of ways in the legal framework to win '.

Toyota Prius design team - car exhaust reduction

In 1993, a group of engineers from Toyota Corporation (Japan) was assigned an important task: to design a low-emission exhaust car to pollute the environment. Initially, the group considered a gasoline-powered vehicle, but the idea was immediately rejected because it was not really revolutionary."We want to design an unprecedented product," said Satoshi Ogiso, a team member.

Finally, the group decided to design a hybrid car: using a gasoline-electric engine, called the Toyota Prius. However, starting to work is always harder than planning. The team of ten people initially bulged out more than 1,000 numbers. The biggest challenge is the electric battery: too small, weak, too big, easy to heat. In 1995, the first Prius version was released, and only ran for 100 meters before dying.

Representative of Toyota Prius design team (Photo: Time)

It was not until 1997 that the challenge was conquered and the first Prius appeared in Japan. Since then, more than 800,000 Priuss have been sold worldwide, giving Toyota an environmentally friendly image. The Prius won many prestigious awards: Car of the Year in Japan (1997-1998), North America (2004), Europe (2005). The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rated the 2007 Prius as the most fuel-efficient vehicle in the US with fuel consumption in both the city and the highway at only 5.11 liters / 100 km.

Tulsi Tanti - green business is good business

In 1995, Tulsi Tanti was also the owner of Suzlon Textile Company in Pune city (western India). Because he was so frustrated with the local electric system, he bought two wind-powered generators despite paying a high price.

In early 2000, he read a report about global warming. The report predicts that many regions of the world will sink into the water by 2050 if CO ₂ emissions do not decrease. 'If India consumes as much energy as the US, the whole world will run out of natural resources - he told himself - either stop India from developing, or find an alternative'.

Once again Tanti put his faith in the wind. In 2001, he abandoned the garment industry, shifted to wind power generators, a relatively new business in India. Today, Suzlon Energy, his conglomerate, has become the world's fourth-largest producer of wind-driven generators with numerous factories and farms that exploit wind power across Asia and generate revenues. USD 850 million / year.

'Green business is a good business - Tanti insists - But that's not just about making money. That is a responsibility. ' The motto of Tanti business is so simple.

HIEU TRUNG