An Inconvenient Truth

Caption: An Inconvenient Truth is the first climate documentary to get mainstream distribution. Former US vice President Al Gore is featured and is the narrator in the about the truths of global warming. Photo Source:Paramount Classics

"Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb. If the vast majority of the world's scientists are right, we have just 10 years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced. If that sounds like a recipe for serious gloom and doom - think again. This documentary offers a passionate and inspirational look at former Vice President Al Gore's fervent crusade to halt global warming's deadly progress."

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH is a climate documentary made by the former US vice president Al Gore. I’ve been waiting for this movie for long time and it showed in the Sydney Film Festival few weeks ago. Unfortunately, I missed it… too bad! I have to wait until September when it is shown in the cinemas.

Some criticisms said that the motivation of Gore make the film is to gain publicity as he is a possible presidential candidate in 2008. However, the film also make a change in the cinematic landscape in which documentaries from all sides of the political spectrum are finding audiences and affecting the political conversation. No matter what is the motivation of the documentary, it still gives a powerful lecturer on climate as it borrow a Hollywood marketing playbook to propagandize impacts of climate change as well as raining people’s environmental consciousness.

Global warming has been a passion of Gore's since he was a student a Harvard University. After losing the presidential election and leaving office five years ago, Gore pulled together a nonpartisan slide show on the effects of global warming and took it on the road, making hundreds of appearances since then at universities and colleges, and for lawmakers, environmentalists and anyone else who will listen.

View Movie Trailers Here
Official Website: An Inconvenient Truth

Too much money, Too less sport (2)

Days before the big kick-off, there also have been complaints from the German organisers that the marketing of this tournament has reached unacceptable levels.The amount of money paid by the World Cup sponsors rise sharply in past few years: US brewing giant Anheuser-Busch paid 40 million dollars (31 million euros) to be one of the 2006 World Cup’s 15 official sponsors, sparking outrage in Germany where all but one local beer will be banned from the stadiums in favor of Budweiser. Polls in Germany also showed that the public is growing sick of World Cup-related advertising and product tie-ins. Just wonder whether there have limits of money-making.

The side effect of money that ruins the sports not only can be found in the World Cup as it is also the core cause of the Italian match-fixing scandal. The Football Federation's prosecutor charged Juventus, AC Milan, Fiorentina and Lazio, as well as 26 individuals for sporting fraud and violating fairness and probity. Juventus almost certainly face relegation as a result of the scandal, while AC Milan may receive lighter punishment.

I am quite depressed by the news as once I was a very big fan of the Italian Serie A., especially during the age of Roberto Biaggio and the time when Del Piero started his career in Juventus. What is happening now is too bad...anyway, hopefully the scandal can give some sorts of lesson to the sports world.

More information: FIFA deny World Cup spoiled by money-making

Too much money, Too less sport

Photo Source: freshegg.com

Sport is the world’s most common language. The World Cup,as one of the biggest sports events, it is supposed to be a platform of building bridges across boundaries and ethnic. However, due to its enormous profit making potential, every one just tries to to make big bucks from the global frenzy and distorts the real spirit of sports, I think.

In some cities and countries, the broadcasting right is snatched by paid TV and high prices are set which avoid some lower income groups and poor people to enjoy all the 64 matches. Although the first and the last few matches are broadcasted for free everywhere, watching the process of how the teams going to the final is definitely the heart of World Cup, but such right is being deprived from some poorer people. Sports is no longer being a bridge across different people, but a potential tool to deepen the problem of social injustic as some poorer social groups are being excluded in this universal event when money is involved. What is underlying the “sports spirit” nowaday is more likely refer to the partnership between football, the economy and television which need to find a way to benefit all sides. Sports now is a bit over commericalised and capitalised. So sad to reckon this reality.

The Dirty Secret of China's Economy

Photo Source: The Globalist

According the latest statistics from the China's top environmental agency the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), the mainland's pollution scourge costs almost 10% loss in gross domestic product of the country, which is roughly about $200 billion a year. That's why an article used the title "The Dirty Secret of China's Economy" to criticize the country's economic development.

China is a remarkable growth story. But it is also fast becoming an ecological wasteland, home to world-class smog, acid rain, polluted rivers and lakes, and deforestation. Environmental problems play a role in the death of some 300,000 Chinese people each year, according to World Bank estimates.”

- Brian Bremner, "Business Online"

It is quite true that with the China’s “Dragonomics”, it is unrealistic to expect China to be very clean or environmentally sound. Indeed, the Chinese government shows quite a lot of initiatives about how to make China greener and more sustainable. For example, the newly released 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010), which is the guideline for development directions, propagates more energy-saving, higher value-added industries as well as expanding the services sector as a call for turning away from rough, polluting, and energy-wasting industries that had been made as early as the mid. The 11th Five-Year Plan further stipulates that the industrial sector must cut energy use by 20 percent.

The Chinese Government also suggested heaps of schemes to deal with different environmental problem, such as Green GDP etc. But many skeptics wonder whether all these are just done for greening the Beijing Olympics 2008 and the country will lose interest after the Game. Although I am also quit suspicious about the environmental program for the Beijing Olympics is some sorts of greenwashing, I am still optimistic that the Chinese Government does learn some lesson from the Western mordernisation. So, it is too early to say whether they will lose interest and will do badly in environmental protection after the Olympics. Let’s see.

More information:
The Dirty Secret of China's Economy
Green GDP — The Real Chinese Revolution?

Football, Solar City – Gelsenkirchen

Caption: Gelsenkirchen- a model to move dirty energy source to sustainable and clean solar energy (Photo Source: FC Schalke 04 and the City of Gelsenkirchen Official Website)

Immediately after the World Cup opening match in Munich on 9 June 2006, the second match of the tournament is kicked off at the FIFA World Cup Stadium Gelsenkirchen, a city once know “the city of a thousand fires” for its dependency on coal-mining, now has shifted its energy focus dramatically to become a national solar energy technology centre.

The city was once dominated by the coal industry, however, the coal crisis in the late 1950s brought about a structural change away from coal and steel. Today, Gelsenkirchen is more renowned for cleaner solar energy and has developed into a national business and research centre for solar technology. More than 21,000 of jobs in the renewable energy sector are also created throughout the transformation. Moreover, the end of coal to exploitation has also made way for a rich cultural landscape with mineshafts being replaced by theatres and cabarets.

Green power and solar energy debates have been lasted for years in Australia. However, moving to solar energy means a decentralization of electricity service and a reform of economy structure, which involves heaps of vested interests and large corporations. The myth between government-business relationship is definitely the biggest barrier for the clean energy transformation, from my point of views. That’s why the solar energy development in Australia is always stayed within the academic domain, while centralized nuclear energy plants development dominated the policy agendas in Oz.

(The next match in Gelsenkirchenis the quarter final between England/Ecuador and Portugal/Holland on 1 July. I do looking forward a good game in this Solar City!)

More about the city:
Science Park, Solar City, "Stairway to Heaven"
The history of the city of Gelsenkirchen

Hydrogen Bus to Ferry Football Fans in Germany

Caption: Two hydrogen are being tested by football fans in Berlin. Environment-friendly hydrogen-fuelled buses will be a common sight in European streets in the future. (Photo Source: MAN Nutzfahrzeuge Group )

Football fans in Germany traveling from the stadiums are riding hydrogen buses during the World Cup. Two 12 m single-deckers hydrogen buses are being tested in the Berlin bus network to transfer World Cup visitors coming or going from the Olympic Stadium or the Tegel Airport.

This project is a part of a sustainability development program HyFLEET to contribute to the establishment of a safe hydrogen infrastructure for the European future. The buses will be tanked at a service station that the station is itself part of the experiment: a steam reformer will generate, on site, gaseous or liquid hydrogen meeting the majority of the fuel needed to feed the buses. Fuel cells from a Sweden-based company will be used to power and heat the tank station. Fuel hybrid vehicles are used in other "Lion's cities”, such as Hannover and Hamburg, to shuttle visitors between World Cup games in order to achieve better urban-driving efficiency and lower emissions.

However, when adopting new hybrid vehicles, questions about in what way the energy source is clean and renewable, what energy use to produce the hydrogen fuel cell and what are the negative environmental impacts associated should also bear in mind.

More Information:
First hydrogen buses for Berlin: today's step into the future of mobility
Hydrogen Buses for Football Fans at the FIFA World Cup in Berlin

How China involves in the Germany World Cup

Photo Source: Yahoo! FIFA World Cup

Although China is unable to qualify for the Germany World Cup, everyone one in Germany is still able to feel China’s “involvement”- it is because most of the flying German National flags are made in China!!

Some flags manufactures announced that the number of different national flags used in the Germany World Cup is far more than the number in 2002. In the past few months, one flag manufacturer already used more the 300 thousands square meter of clothes to make national flags and half of them are used for the German one’s. The company now produces 30 thousands flags every month instead of 150 before the World Cup. The cheap price of the flags(1 euro to 2 euro) is also another reasons for the drastic sales boost. It is believed that such cheap price is solely because they are “Made in China”!

Relater Article: How China involves in the Germany World Cup 2006 (Chinese Article)

Green Goal

It has been a while I haven’t update my Blog. Last week was the final week of semester and I was so busy with all presentations and assignments in last few weeks. My work doesn’t final yet as I still have one 4000 essay to go. This week seems much busier…not because of study but the World Cup!! Vive de fútbol!

As Australia also participate in this year (after missing the competition for 32 years), the Aussies are just suddenly being so crazy about this sport. Everything here, news, commercial or non-commercial stuff etc, are link with the competition to draw people’s attention. Similar situation in Hong Kong as the World Cup fever is just sweeping across the city and driving almost everyone crazy. So do I.

Some environmental protection project is also taking in place with this soccer fever as it can probably yield twice the result with half the effort when everyone’s attention is on the topic. A Green Goal™ was piloted in The 2006 FIFA World Cup™ which is assigned a central role to protecting the global climate. For the first time ever at a FIFA World Cup, the event’s effect on the climate will be minimized by conventional methods of energy efficiency, use of renewable energy sources and support for environment-friendly transportation. Unavoidable greenhouse gases, emitted throughout Germany, will be balanced by investment in climate projects, ensuring the 2006 FIFA World Cup™ ends up "climate neutral". Tight, measurable targets also set to minimize the environmental impacts from this sports event. For example, they set rules to restrict plastics, food and drink packaging and promotional items in the stadiums and introduce high-tech energy management systems to reduce 20 per cent in electricity consumption on both and match and non-match days.

It is a very positive and effective strategy to incorporate environmental considerations into the World Cup and I can see including environmental impacts and considerations are increasingly being factored into important sporting events. What an uplifting news for the environment! Although it is very possible they are not doing as good as they can, but at least they moved the first step!

Link: 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany: Green Goal