2005 Review: Climate going crazy

Caption: Radar image of Katrina
Image source: USCG Center for Coastal & Watershed Studies

Flooding in Thailand, extraordinary heavy snow in Japan & South Korea, hurricanes, rapid thawing of the west Siberian peatlands, large extent of sea ice reduction…..all these are combine sounding a stark warning that global warming may soon spiral out of contro. It added added the ominous phrase "tipping point" entered the vocabulary of climate science in 2005.
Meanwhile, after Katrina smashed across New Orleans, the US still keep their role of being the “world’s biggest chimney”. The US greenhouse gas emissions reached a record high in 2004 (related report) with 7122 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted, which is 16% higher than in 1990 and responsible for about one-quarter of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. The situation seems not improve this year and they are refused to ratify any related treaty as usual. This year we had 26 tropical storms (14 were categorised as hurricane), 12 more than 2004 and the most for any year since records began in 1928. The warming globe is blamed for more and stronger hurricanes (related report). Just wonder when the US, as well as the rest of the worlds, can learn lessons from climate changes.
Some good news in the year is the Kyoto Protocol is about to begin. Hopefully it can go some help to deal with the crazy climate, at least to raise the cautions and concerns by more countries. A pair of satellites by NASA will soon depart to spot the world's polluters from space. It is believed that they will take on the politically charged task of measuring carbon dioxide and could eventually help determine whether nations are meeting their CO2 emission targets.
Let’s see how things going on in 2006.

Merry Christmas

Photo Source: Trisanta.Com

Enjoy this funny christmas song

if u have time!!
Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas &
a prosperous New Years !!

Turning “rubbish” into gold: a demonstration in the World Cup 2006

Caption: No one expected that the little orange name tag can turn to gold.
Photo source: FIFA World Cup official website

In the environmental context, there is a golden rule that never regards rubbish is valueless at the beginning as nearly all of them are reusable or have secondary values, though most of the time it is a big headache to discover and recover with their value with reasonable cost(both in term of money, energy and other resources concern).
Surprisingly, this golden rule also applied to the German World Cup draw two weeks ago. Just read a piece of news about a German decorator put the orange name tags, which were used in the World Cup draw, he discovered them from the garbage for sale on eBay. The Germany's tag has already bided for 1,000 euros and the prices of different tag continue to go up until the auction finishes on the Christmas Day. Just curious about which country will win the highest bid.
By the way, the German decorator is threatened by a legal action from FIFA as they believed the auction is “a violation of FIFA's name rights”. (They demonstrate what authority is!) So it is very possible for the man to spend what he can get form the selling for the lawyer's bills. In this case, it is hard to say the German is lucky or not. Another dilemma of turning rubbish to gold!!

Related news: FIFA threatens legal action over World Cup rubbish sale

A thought on laziness

By dictionary definition , laziness is “the lack of desire to act or work in general or to do an act or work that is expected of the person. The general tendency to do nothing”. This “natural instinct” is being dominant in my daily life recently after the starting of my long vacation. Just lost incentives to do any mental works but unfortunately, I have to finish 4 ecology field trip reports before the deadlines in mid January.
Being lazy is always considered as an undesirable quality in the social context. This concept is unpreventable to be part of my value system that makes me feel a bit guilty of not working hard or doing nothing. A typical Hongkonger's thought. Well, I think I should consider laziness in the "health discourse", that it is just a kind of inborn and inherent character of everyone to do nothing that makes me get healthy rest. Just like what the French writer Jules Renard said, “Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired." I feel much better now.
By the way, I am still confident that I can finish my assignments before the deadline as I am always a person who works better with time limit and pressure. =P

The Hidden costs of Christmas

When you choosing your Christmas presents or preparing the Chrimstmas party, do u know:
. If you spend around $30 on chocolates and lollies, you'll be consuming 20kg of natural materials (even if the box of chocolates weighs only 1 kilogram) and 940 litres of water
. Every dollar you spend on new clothes consumes 20 litres of water and requires 3.4 square metres of land
. Every bottle of juice you drink consumes more than 50 bottles of fresh water for the processing
Source: Australian Conservation Foundation

It is pretty upset that we are now in the age of consumerism and materialism. People seldom consider the underlying environmental costs of the products they buy and forget about the scarcity of fresh water, clean air, land and resources. While the financial cost of Christmas is commonly measured, the environmental cost of Christmas spending has not before been calculated. Such ignorant is mainly blaming our consumptive culture. But the poor information given by the manufactures and service/products providers, as well as government policy on labelling, are also the fundamental causes that we cannot have informed choices about our spending. Things need to be changed but more than 200% efforts the governments and everyone need to input. Still a very very long way to go.

The McDownload

After the popularisation of televisions, people watch TV instead of chatting with their friends and family in the dinning table. Similar situation for the computer and Internet users, it becomes more and more usual to eat in front of the screen. This triggers the McDonald’s an innovative idea to further commercialise their junk foods:

The McDownload
Author: Barry Fox
Movie, music or game with your Big Mac, sir? That’s what The Walt Disney Company in Hollywood has in mind. Patents filed by Disney reveal plans to drip-feed entertainment into a portable player while the owner eats in a restaurant.
You only get the full programme by coming back to the restaurant a number of times to collect all the installments. McDonalds could use the system instead of giving out toys with Happy Meals, suggests Disney’s patent.
Portable players and modern cell phones store entertainment files in memory cards. They often have built-in Bluetooth or WiFi, too, for wireless downloading. Big files, such as a movie, take a long time to capture, so Disney will break the file into several segments that can be downloaded separately and spliced together by the player.
When the owner buys a meal they get an electronic code that authorises a partial download. If the file is in five parts there is a strong incentive to come back for four more meals.
In the future, a dedicated player sold or even given away by the restaurant could help the scheme to run more smoothly – and create a new market opportunity for electronics companies.
Source: New Scientist (Dec 05)

To be honest, I really appreciate this weird but intriguing idea. In term of business patent application, it is an exciting strategy and I’d like to see how it works and the impact on McDonald’s business. However, the business practices and ethics of McDonald’s are always controversial or even unethical in the environmental and social aspects. Being one of the biggest worldwide operations, I strongly feel that they need to show their commitment and responsibility to integrate social and environmental priorities of being a good neighbor in the community, not just having fancy ideas to prompt their revenues. Although McDonald’s starts showing their responses by publishing biannual Corporate Responsibility Report and working high-profile on charities, their actions seem like greenwash rather than fulfilling corporate responsibility. A little bit worry about our future generation if they cannot think about the McDonald’s practices more critically but being attracts or addict to the “McFantasy” and ignore their negative impacts on health, social and environment.

Link:McDonald's Worldwide Corporate Responsibility Report 2004

Ugly side of racism

Caption: Aussie Pride? ?Mobs rampage in Sydney
Source:The Sydney Morning Herald 2005/12/12

It is ridiculous that racial riots can erupt in Sydney, the biggest city in one of the most “civilized” Pacific nations, or even in the world. The incident sparked by brawls broke out between Lebanese and Aussie young surfers boys in a beach, and than situation is out of control turned up thousands of young Australians set on anyone of Middle Eastern appearance. Of course PM John Howard denied there has underlying racism in this country and said it is only an individual incident or blaming the media incitement for sparking the clashes, it was pretty clear that there is underlying racism running deeply in the Australian psyche, especially the young Australians toward the Middle East people and Muslims. Just worry about how the nation will be if the government and society learn nothing from this lesson.

Carbon Condom

We use condom for safe sex, we also need “condom” to save/safe energy. However, global warming seems only a topic discuss among politicians, scientists and environmentalists; the general public just pays little/no attention on the issue which definitely has direct and indirect impact on everyone. That’s why the Greenpeace launched the “ Carbon Condom” campaign to let the general public knows saving energy is just like using condom for safe sex that is a part of daily life.
At the moment, the UN climate change conference is holding in Montreal. Unsurprisingly, the U.S. repeated their refusal to embrace the mandatory targets of the Kyoto Protocol, plus rejection of any discussion for a long-term global agreement to cut greenhouse emissions. For me, it is really unconvincing that the U.S, as well as Australia, can help to curb the climate change by voluntary efforts. Concrete targets for GHGs reduction and serious efforts are essential to guarantee real actions, not just doing a house of cards that what the U.S. Bush and Oz Howard governments are doing.

Wise or Fool?

A quote from Plato just come up to my head: "Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something."
Just wonder I am the wise or the fool to do the Blog….apparently the later, but I’d like to be the former. =P

Only the best will survive

Just came back from a field trip at Smith Lake, a nation park locates 320km north from Sydney. We did quite a lot of sampling and experiment to study how to detect human impacts on ecosystem and environment.
One of the experiments is to set small mammal traps to trace the biodiversity within the region. A primitive marsupial little mouse, antechinus, was caught. According to my professor, this Australian native animal produce 10 to 12 babies each time and these tiny young will attach babies attach themselves to the mother's teats for about 25 days to a month after their birth. However, the mother antechinus only has 6 to 8 teats which imply that competition starts once they come to our world. It sounds cruel but it just the way of evolution. That is what Darwin said that only the best will survival.
By the way, competition seems start even before life begins as only one of the millions sperm can win the game.

Caption: Babies in the pouch of an antichiuns.

Late Comer

I always think about to share some of my thought in the virtual space but i am too lazy and busy to do so. Also the dial up internet connection hesitate me a lot to do anything in Internet, except writing email. Just found more and more of my friends have their own Blog and I feel so good to read their diary/news/message or anything else. Time for me to contribute.