The Big Talk

Just read a very interesting article. It is an article written by a mother about how difficult she feel to tell about climate change to her children, whcih is no more easier than giving a sex talk to them. To certain extend, it is a bit going to an extreme but i feel it is hailarious to use such way to address the urgency of global warming.

Each Other — Where We Are

The Big Talk

How to tell a six year old where all the birds and bees have gone

by Sandra Steingraber

Published in the September/October 2008 issue of Orion magazine

I WAS GOOGLING MYSELF recently (in an attempt, if you must know, to locate an essay that I had published somewhere), and I managed to misspell my own name. So I was directed to the one source that had mangled my name in the same way. And that is how I was confronted, in an obscure blog, with the question, “Why isn’t Sandra Steingraber [with dyslexic spelling] talking about climate change?”

It was unsettling. As the days went by, I began an imaginary argument.

Look, I first wrote about receding glaciers in 1988. I was assigning Al Gore to college students in 1992. Not long ago, I made climate instability the centerpiece of a commencement address I gave at a rural college in coal-is-king Pennsylvania. And if you think all the trustees were pleased with that theme, I invite you to give it a try. So the question is not “Why is S.S. not talking about climate change?” The question is “Why is S.S. not talking about it AT HOME?”

Okay. Why don’t you talk about it at home?

Because I have young children and because I believe that frightening problems need to be solved by adults who should just shut up and get to work.

So, how long are you going to keep hiding the truth from your kids?

That’s as far as I got before three other notable things happened. First, Elijah asked to be a polar bear for Halloween. As I pinned the chenille fabric, it occurred to me that his costume might well outlast the species. I decided not to tell him that.

A month later, Elijah asked his sister for a weather report. Faith walked out onto the porch, spread out her arms in the manner of Saint Francis, and came back in. “It’s global warmingish,” she said and went back to her cereal. No comment from me.

And then I overheard a conversation on the playground. One child said, “I know why it’s hot. Do you?”

Another said, “It’s because the Earth is sick.” They all nodded. I said nothing.

IT’S TIME TO SIT DOWN with my kids and have the Global Warming Talk. I carried off the Sex Talk—and its many sequels—with grace and good biology. Surely, I can rise to this new occasion.

On the surface, procreation and climate change seem opposite narratives. Sex knits molecules of air, food, and water into living organisms. Climate change unravels all that. The ending of the sex story is the birth of a family. The climate change story ends with what biologist E. O. Wilson calls the Eremozoic Era—the Era of Loneliness.

But then I realized that the two stories share a common epistemological challenge. Both are counterintuitive. In the former case, you have to accept that your ordinary existence began with an extraordinary, unthinkable act (namely, your parents having intercourse). In the latter case, you have to accept that the collective acts of ordinary objects—cars, planes, dishwashers, iPods—are ushering in things extraordinary and unthinkable (dissolving coral reefs, daffodils in January). So, I reasoned, perhaps the same pedagogical lessons apply: during the Big Talk, keep it simple, leave the door open for further conversation, offer reading material as follow-up.

Of which there is no shortage. In fact, a veritable cottage industry of children’s books on climate change has sprung up almost overnight. These range from the primer, Why Are the Ice Caps Melting? (Let’s Read and Find Out!), in which lessons on the ravaging of ecosystems also offer plenty of opportunities to practice silent e, to the ultra-sophisticated How We Know What We Know About Our Changing Climate: Scientists and Kids Explore Global Warming, by foremost environmental author Lynne Cherry, in which middle school readers are cast as coprincipal investigators. This new literary subgenre is impressive. Reading its various offerings, I found myself admiring the respectful tones and clear explanations. These books describe global warming as a reality that no longer lingers in the realm of debate. And yet, they are not, for the most part, scary. Indeed, the first sentence in the inside flap of How We Know What We Know is “This is not a scary book.”

And here is where the pediatric versions of the climate change story depart from their adult counterparts. The recent crop of books on global warming intended for grown-ups focuses on the surreal disconnect between the evidence for rapidly approaching, irreversible planetary tipping points (overwhelming) and the political response to that evidence (mostly zilch). The children’s books profile heroic individuals fighting to save the planet—in ways that kids can get involved in. To read the children’s literature is to see the world’s people working ardently and in concert with each other to solve a big problem . . . and enjoying a grand adventure while they’re at it.

Is this the fiction we all should be laboring under? I don’t know. I do know that a fatalistic mindset, which afflicts many adults but almost no children, is a big part of what’s preventing us from derailing the global warming train that has now left the station. On this, I wholly agree with sociologist Eileen Crist, who argues that fatalism, masquerading as realism, is a form of capitulation that strengthens the very trends that generate it. I do know that we grown-ups need visions of effective challenges and radical actions that can turn into self-fulfilling prophecies.

I also know that I needed something to say to my six year old when we walked home from the library in April—no leaves to offer shade, the bank’s LED sign reading eighty-four degrees—and he turned his ingenuous face to mine to ask, “Mama, is it supposed to be so hot?”

So I am working on my talk. For inspiration, I have arranged on my desk three documents. One is an essay that Rachel Carson published in Popular Science in 1951—eight years before my birth. It’s entitled “Why Our Winters Are Getting Warmer,” and it includes a drawing of Manhattan deluged by seawater. Another is Carson’s essay “Help Your Child to Wonder,” published five years later. The third is a book by poet Audre Lorde that includes the sentence: Your silence will not protect you.

My talk features a story about a boat in which we all live—people, butterflies, polar bears. A storm starts to rock the boat. The waves are chemical pollution, habitat destruction, industrial fishing, and warfare. Now along comes a really big wave. Global warming. The already-rocking boat is in danger of flipping over.

Then what happens? I don’t know. For the first time in my life, I have writer’s block. Somebody help me out here.

Source: http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/3229

Tapped Out

Found a new book on the market. It talks about how the people, machines, economies, and cultural trends that have made bottled water a $60-billion-a-year phenomenon even as it threatens local control of a natural resource and litters the landscape with plastic waste:

Product Description from Amazon.com

An incisive, intrepid, and habit-changing narrative investigation into the commercialization of our most basic human need: drinking water. Having already surpassed milk and beer, and second now only to soda, bottled water is on the verge of becoming the most popular beverage in the country. The brands have become so ubiquitous that we’re hardly conscious that Poland Spring and Evian were once real springs, bubbling in remote corners of Maine and France. Only now, with the water industry trading in the billions of dollars, have we begun to question what it is we’re drinking and why.

In this intelligent, eye-opening work of narrative journalism, Elizabeth Royte does for water what Eric Schlosser did for fast food: she finds the people, machines, economies, and cultural trends that bring it from nature to our supermarkets. Along the way, she investigates the questions we must inevitably answer. Who owns our water? What happens when a bottled-water company stakes a claim on your town’s source? Should we have to pay for water? Is the stuff coming from the tap completely safe? And if so, how many chemicals are dumped in to make it potable? What’s the environmental footprint of making, transporting, and disposing of all those plastic bottles?

A riveting chronicle of one of the greatest marketing coups of the twentieth century as well as a powerful environmental wake-up call, Bottlemania is essential reading for anyone who shells out two dollars to quench their daily thirst.

The topic sounds really interesting to me and will see if i have a chance to get one soon.




IHT Book Review: "Bottlemania"

"Bottlemania" Official Website

First Chapter- "Bottlemania"

Lonesome George

Just watched a very interesting documentary about the loneliest animal on the planet - Lonesome George. Lonesome George is the name given to the last remaining Pinta Island Giant Tortoise in existence; when he dies, his race will be completely extinct.

Due to his extremely rarity, Lonesome become a conservation icon, celibate pensioner and officially the rarest living creature on Earth of his native Galapagos Islands. Behind the conservation icon, he is also showing the crudeness and irresponsible of human activities that done to our own mother nature. Many wildlife is still in the hardship of preserving their unique life with threats from illegal fishing, the demands of a booming population and an ever-expanding tourism or so-called eco-tourism industry.

The documentary I watched called “Lonesome George and the battle for Galapagos” from BBC, and just showd in the Peral. It is very well filmed. It not only talks about the personal story of Lonesome but also brings out the social and environmental implications behind the tortoise.

The documentary made me a bit sad as it shows clearly how selfish and greedy of human being who extracts and squeezes the last sort of environmental resources for money (which is only papers attached with a vague value). For instance, the documentary mentioned that fishermen in Galapagos over fish the sea cucumbers and tortoises for their customers from far east ( I bet the majority of “far east customers: are Chinese….); national parks has to give out some land as residential or hotel areas for the influx immigrants due to the booming eco- tourism industry; fishermen got angry and attacked the conservation officials when the government imposed policy to prevent over-fishing…..it really sucks!!

Now what I can only grumble here... but i do hope that i can be more sensitive to reduce my personal footprint on our nature.

Story of Lonesome George

New missions for Super Mario, Master Chief & Kratos

For more information: Clash of the Consoles

Securitization of Environment

Recently I read few pieces of news about the correlation between war and climate change. This reminded me a report I read few years ago. It was a Pentagon study on the potential catastrophic consequences of national security related to climate change.

Rather than predicting how climate change will happen, the Pentagon report dramatized the impact of climate change could have on society if the nations are unprepared for it. It said that the destabilization of the geo-political environment may lead to skirmishes, battles, and even war due to resource constraints such as disrupted access to energy supplies, food and fresh water shortages. They also predicted that military confrontation may be triggered by a desperate need for natural resources rather than by conflicts over ideology, religion, or national honor. The increasing number of environmental refugees will become an un-neglectable issue too.

I was stunned at the first time when I read the report. Not because of its scary prediction, but how come this report can be released by the Pentagon when their head boss the Bush Government was expressing an opposing view and rejected to ratify of the Kyoto Protocol at that time.

Anyway, the US politic is always non-understandable. What I am happy to see is the discussion of both climate change and the concept of environmental security already moved into the mainstream. Not only has public awareness of climate change seemingly reached a tipping point, but the likely security repercussions of the unsettling changes to our planet’s climate are now increasingly acknowledged and analyzed. I am also happy to see that there is a sign that Australia will leave US itself alone and ratify the Kyoto Protocol soon. It is surely a very positive move that the international community is working together in combating the climate challenge.

Yet, there is still more to be discussed and to be worked on to protect our mother earth.

Wiser use of computer for our environment

Source: Operation Greenhouse Effect

Read an interesting news about how to be more environmentally friendly by activating the power management functions on our computer. It is said that it can save up to US$75 per year in your energy bill. Here you are:

1. Turning your computer off completely when you know you will not be using it for more than several hours, such as overnight.

2. Setting the power management functions on your computer to put both your monitor and computer (CPU, hard drive, etc.) into “sleep” mode after a certain amount of time of non-use. Set your monitor to go into standby mode first, followed by your computer.

Use the following guidelines to make sure your computer is properly sleeping:

1. Certain applications will run in the background and prevent your computer from going into sleep mode. Be sure to close these down completely.

2. If you use a virtual private network (VPN), disconnect it when you’re not actively using it.

3. Some applications which continually scan can prevent your computer from going into standby mode, such as Wi-Fi antennas & infrared ports. Anti-virus software can be set to scan more periodically yet still be safe.

4. Some Web sites will not allow your computer to enter into sleep mode because of active advertisements and banners. Close down all Web pages when you are not viewing them to allow your power management function to work properly.

5. If you have set a screensaver (like that fish tank) for your monitor, you may not realize that it is actually wasting energy by preventing your computer from going to sleep.

6. Unplug the peripherals when they are not charging or synchronizing as they also prevent the computer from going into standby or “sleep” mode.

More things you can do to help save energy in your computing use include:

1. Increase your memory (RAM) to reduce disk usage, which can be a power draw.

2. If you have a desktop computer, upgrade to an LCD flat panel monitor instead of a CRT monitor, which can account for half the energy use of a desktop computer.

3. Power supplies for your peripherals (such as your mobile phone or iPod) still draw power even if the peripheral is not plugged in. Switch them all off when you leave the room or go to sleep.

4. Shut off that printer. Printers also have a sleep mode that still consumes a significant amount of power.

5. Replace wireless mice and keyboards with wired mice. Wired mice and wired keyboards use relatively little energy and they avoid unnecessary wasting of batteries.

More information about offsetting your own carbon footprint :

Carbonfund.org

Carbon Footprint

A brilliant commercial video

The way i celebrate my birthday......

.....it was what i did on my b-day in 2007.

http://www.greenpeace.org/china/en/press/release/1129930

《Go Green》: Music & Well-Being

Source: Greenpeace Works

One of the greatest song ever, spreading the environmental message through music!!

Songwriter and music producer Dave Stewart works together with activist group Greenpeace to come up with ways that can promote environmental causes in a rockie way.

Lyrics

What happened to the unborn babies
when their life is left up to maybes
When toxic chemicals are released in the air
and the land and the sea
All the dangerous climate changes
it’s human greed that made this
If it’s not a flood, it’s a drought, tsunamis about
you and I can change it
What happens when the water’s no longer fresh here
we created a dirty mess
Now let’s join hands and hearts
Greenpeace has made the right start
Let’s move now

Go green, Greenpeace
Go green, Greenpeace

Nuclear bombs unlocked
humans beings have run amuck
Thousands dead while laying in bed
I’m asking now can we stop
Life is so precious, every bird that sings
follow the natural course of things
As human beings, within our means
what can we bring
Take charge now, get yourself up
This is home where can you go
Take charge now, get yourself up
This is home where can you go

Go green, Greenpeace
Go green, Greenpeace

Go green, Greenpeace
Go green, Greenpeace

How long can we keep holding on
How long can we keep holding on
How long can we keep holding on
How long can we keep holding on

Go green, Greenpeace
Go green, Greenpeace

Go green, Greenpeace
Go green, Greenpeace

Listen to the music: Greenpeace Works
《Go Green》@ Beijing Midi Festival: Greenpeace China

PR War? Current Food Safety Scandals in Hong Kong

Food Safety is a very hot issue in the city at the moment.

Last Tuesday (2007/01/22), environmental pressure group Greenpeace claimed banned chemicals have been found in samples of mainland strawberries and tangerines being sold in Hong Kong local markets. They campaigned for urgent food safety legislation as well as clear standards for residual pesticides on fruit and veggie. Greenpeace than converged on the Centre for Food Safety (CFS) and dumped buckets of fresh fruit at its front door in order to blast the authorities for being incompetent in halting imports of tainted food products into the territory.

This action was held between 10:30am-11:30am. Around 40 medias attended the actions and the news become the headline news for the mid-day TV and radio news broadcasts. An official response was released by the CFS saying that “the department would not comment on the results of tests carried out by other organizations” and emphasized their test is based on International standard.

Around 3:00pm the same day, CFS suddenly called up all medias that they were going to have a PC at 6:00pm to announce “something”. Information Officer from the CFS did/could not explain details about the PC and just mentioned that they would release something about “fish”. The PC turned out was the CFS said it had received complaints from 14 people who fell ill after consuming oil fish said to have been wrongly labeled as codfish, which the products were bought from the supermarket giant ParknShop. Than, this food scare erupted across the whole city and ParknShop becomes the main target for public impeachment.

If people view these two issue cynically, it can be concluded the CFS uses one food scandal to override another food scandal, than shifting all/part of the public’s target from CFS to ParknShop. Using a scandal to prevail another scandal is an old, simple and direct media/PR strategy, but it does work at most time.

Maybe it is too skeptical and the comment is a bit in hindsight, but the current food scandals is a good demonstration about how the HK authorities to tackle humiliations.



News Links:

Greenpeace in toxic fruit fight

Label mistake revealed in oilfish saga

Fancy a Green Christmas

Photo Source: Environmental Denfense

A time of goodwill and celebration often accompanies by extra environmental impacts, such as seasonal increases in eating, drinking and spending which results in million tonnes of extra waste with our christmas funs. (PingPad Dec 2005: Hidden Costs of Christmas). Lots environmentalists proposed that a Green Christmas can be even more satisfying than a white one when it means giving and receiving gifts that can help keep the planet healthy long.

There are heaps of way we can make this holiday season helps the world to be a greener place. Says, our gift can be some donations to environemntal NGOs or adopting an animal/ a tree, by donating in the name of our gift recipient who will receive a certificate showing what he or she helped save. Such greenbacks not only bring joy to friends, relatives, but also to our mother nature. Adopting an animal or a tree is a usual practices in western countries (such as Australia you can adopt a shark or the U.S.). But this type of donation is till not common in most Asia countries including Hong Kong.

Other things we can do is to decorate with energy-saving Christmas lights to replace old lights. We can also send an e-card instead of a paper christmas card. If giving holiday cards is necessary, giving a card which is made from recycled paper, and using reusable or recyclable wrapping paper. Choosing gifts that help reduce environmental impacts, durable and not over-packaged (e.g. plants, reusable napkins or reusable shopping bags, educational items). Choose toys that can wind up or use rechargeable batteries.

If everyone can use the Christmas to reconsider about our everyday habits and actions to be more environmentally friendly. I am confident that we can make a huge difference in our future!

More Info: How to have a Green Christmas (Time.com)

Guide to Green Holiday Gift Giving (Environmental News Network)

Decorate with Energy-Saving Christmas Lights (Environmental Denfense)

Cutting down on Christmas waste (WasteOnline.org)

Taz

Another thing i learnt in Tasmania is I recognised "Taz" in the Looney Tunes is originated from Tasmanian Devil. Or I should say "Taz" itself is a Tasmania Devil.

Tasmanian Devil is the world's largest surviving carnivorous marsupial, which has a thick-set, squat build, with a relatively large, broad head and short, thick tail. Its spine-chilling screeches and reputed bad-temper led the early European settlers to call it The Devil.

However, "Taz" is under seriously threat of distinction as a devastating disease is sweeping through their population, killing more than 90% of adults in high density areas and 40-50% in medium-low density areas. What make their life even worse is they are also threaten by the fox predation as the population of fox in Tasmania increases in the last couples years. This leads to a state-wide Fox watching (or killing) campaign call "Fox Free Tasmania". A 24 hour Fox Hotline also set up to encourage people to report immediately about all sightings or suspected evidence of foxes.

More Information: Tasmanian Devil, Sarcophilus harrisii

Tasmanian Devilry

Photo Source: Ozhiker.com -Evan Hunter's Photo Gallery

Although Tasmania is famous for its natural environment and it is home to some of the world's tallest and oldest trees, its old growth forests are being logged at an unsustainable rate and a lot of them are being destroyed and replaced by mono-plantations. Some australia's threathen species (such as giant gum trees and Wedge-tailed Eagle) are also being threatened by these unsustainable logging practices and deforestation.
During my time in Tasmania, I passed through few old growth forests. It is really hard to see from outside about the logging and land clearance areas as the timber industrys are using some tricky "strategies" to avoid public attentions of their partices. A local Tasmanian told me that loggers will only remove the trees in the middle of the forests and they will leave about 5m-10m tree-fronts,which faces to the roads or highways. So, when tourists drive through they can still see a lot of trees and believe that deforestaions problem is sort of overstatement by environmentalists.


However, when i looked down from the plane, I could see there were a lots "big holes" in the middle of the forests, which are resulted from substantial land clearance and logging practices. It is believed that eighty percent of Tasmania's old-growth forests have already fallen victim to logging or development. Only 13% of all the island's Wet Eucalypt Forests are left.

Campaigning to raise public awareness of preventing the logging in Tasmania's old growth forest is always one of the major issue among the environmental NGOs in Australia. Recently, overseas paper companies such as Mitsubishi Paper Mills decided not to accept old-growth woodchips from Tasmania. This was a positive step forward for Tasmania’s environment and encouraging outcomes for the campaigners. However, since the timber industry is a major part of the stagnant Tasmanian economy, generating sales worth more that $1 billion and employing thousands, both the state and federal governments have stepped into the breach in order to protect the state economy. Some logging company even tried to sue protestors into silence.

The battle between NGOs, government and the timber industry is still a long way to go.

More Information: Environmental Destruction in Tasmania

Tasmania Forest Campaigns- The Wilderness Society

TASMANIA FACTS

* Tasmania lies about 155 miles off the south coast of mainland Australia. It is about the same size as Ireland, and its population - 472,000 - is around the same as that of Liverpool.
* Only five per cent of Australia - the driest inhabited continent on Earth - is forested. Much of this is in Tasmania, Australia's southernmost state. Native forest covers around half of the island.
* Endemic, rare and endangered wildlife includes the Tasmanian devil, Forester Kangaroo, Fairy Penguin, Quoll and eleven bird species found nowhere else on Earth. The legendary Tasmanian Tiger, officially declared extinct in 1936, may still survive in remote parts of the ancient forests.
* Tourism in Tasmania - much of it centred on the state's wilderness - provided an
estimated 22,000 jobs in 2004; at least twice as many as the logging industry.

TASMANIAN FORESTRY FACTS

* An average of 20,000 hectares of native forest are clearfelled and burned in Tasmania every year.
* 80,000 hectares of native forest have been converted to non-native plantations in the last seven years.
* Tasmania exports more woodchips than every other state in Australia combined; it is the only state that clears and woodchips native rainforest.
* An estimated 90% of wood taken from native forests on public land become woodchips, for export mainly to Japan. No more than 4% become sawn timber.
* In 2003, 14,600 hectares of native forest was clearfelled and burned. Only 6180 hectares - just over 40% - were replanted with native trees. The rest became fast-growing plantations or were converted to 'non-forest use'.
* The rate of logging in Tasmania has quadrupled over the last decade. Logging companies' profits, too, have steadily increased. Logging jobs, meanwhile, have declined. Five thousand jobs have been lost in the last 25 years, as the industry has mechanised and 'downsized.'

- Source: Paulkingsnorth.net

Solar Powered Mobile Phone

Another cool toy (not PS3) is arriving Japan!
Just read from the news that solar powered portable phones begin to test by the Tokyosiders. But it sounds to me that the solar cell phone is still a untested prototype. Also,there is no indication if this gadget will go on sale . We may still need to wait for a long time for viable, self-contained power in our mobile phones.

News Link: Solar powered super phone!

CO2 is good?

Another interesting video which is filmed to lobby against naming carbon dioxide as pollutant. Noted that the video clip is produced by the Competitive Enterprise Institute in the US which is partly funded by Exxon.

View: Global Warming and "Energy"

Two Movie Clips about Global Warming

Two movie clips to share:




(1) Futurama: Global Warming

This one is from my favorite animation Futurama. It uses a funny way to explain global warming. Al Gore also replays this clip in his movie An Inconvenience Truth.

(2) A message from Al Gore

It is an conversation between Al Gore and Blender about Gore's movie. Blender is the main character of Futurama.

False Sense of Eco-Satisfaction

Source: John Fewings Cartoon

There are heaps of “environmentally friendly” or “eco-friendly” products/services in the market. However, using these kinds of products/services doesn’t mean that we are doing something good to our environment. One most common example is the use of biodegradable plastic bags.

Recently, I had an interesting discussion with a man in a liquor store about plastic bag alternative. The liquor man is quite conscious about environmental issues and he is already using different alternative to reduce his business’s plastic bag consumption. He chooses to use bio-degradable plastic bags as alternative as he thought other alternative such as paper or cardboard need to chop a lot of trees and it is not good to our environment, while bio-degradable is made from starch and other degradable material which won’t harm our environmental like normal plastic bags. He wants the Australian government to substitute billions of shopping bags with biodegradable bags to solve the environmental problems created by plastic bags.

To certain extent, he is correct. But there are still lots of issues related to biodegradable bags. First of all, many of them are not 100% degradable. Than, what kind of chemicals they release when they break down in water, sun and in landfill is still uncertain, and the leftover pieces could be just as harmful as normal plastic bags. There is also an issue of the short term harmful effect to wildlife: until biodegradable products actually break down they still pose the same danger as non-biodegradable plastic bags. What more important is using biodegradable shopping bags may promote littering as people think the bags will break down in the environment no matter how they are disposed of.

Having such false sense of eco-satisfaction is very dangerous as people are not able to recognize what is being wrong and fail to figure out further improvement. The other similar example is the use of green energy. Shifting to renewable energy is good to our environment but if our energy consumption behaviors do not change, our environment won’t be benefited too much by the shift. The root cause of most of environmental problems is all about our consumptive life style.

“Doing good to environment” and “doing less harm to our environment” are fundamentally different. People should not mix these two things together or our environmental progress will remain no change or even stepping backward. Indeed, we should do both things together. We also need to be more conscious about how “green” of those "environmentally friendly" products/services are as well as being more critical about how “green” of our consumption pattern of using these kinds of products/services.

Seasons are Changing

Source: Political Cartoon by David Horsey

Just heard from the news today: the latest data gathered from Europe has provided "conclusive proof" that the seasons are changing, with spring arriving earlier each year, according to scientists. Based on a study of almost 600 plant and animal species, scientists are “extremely confident” that they show a very clear picture towards an early spring right across the board, i.e. it is arriving earlier than it did 30 years ago, on average a week earlier. Scientists are sure that global warming is the cause.

The study shows that "spring events" - such as plants flowering - are starting about 10 days earlier in the UK than 30 years ago. Spain is one of the countries who experienced the greatest increases in temperatures and saw the earliest spring seasons. The change in the timing of this key season has potentially huge implications. Some species may well benefit, but the danger is that there will be disruption to the food chain. Birds, for example, can adjust to warmer temperatures by flying to more northern areas in any given year, but the vegetation upon which they rely may take decades or longer to adjust. The long-term consequences of these changes are uncertain. Scientists also warn that this process of change isn't over.

Well, an earlier spring or a longer summer may sound like a great idea, but it will transform the landscape and the patterns of the wildlife living in it , and , what worries us is that plants and animals may not be able to adapt as well as we do.

News Link: Spring is leaping forward each year - experts

Decorations lead to death

Image Source: ibermutuamur.es

Air pollution is a prominent problem in China and it has been drawing a lot of public/government attention for years, especially after Beijing won the bid for 2008 Olympic. However, another category of air pollution, the indoor air pollution, has always been omitted and now it is time to pay more attention due to the increasing cancer incident and medical expense related to this type of environmental problem. Recently, the China's first case of a child killed by toxic fumes given off by indoor decoration materials has come before the court and a compensation of 170,000 Yuan (AUD$27,900 ) was awarded to the plaintiff. The incident is about a four-year-old girl was diagnosed with acute leukemia and died in August 2005 after staying in her newly decorated apartment for 10 months.

In most developing countries, when they talk about indoor air pollution, it is always about the kitchen smoke generated from burning stalks, wood and low-quality coal. However, with rapid urbanization and development, indoor air pollution from buliding materials becomes a new member of the pollution catergory. China, for instance, the incidents of leukemia among children in the country’s metropolises is worsening within the past decades and there is a rising trend of the children of migrant workers catching blood diseases. In Beijing and Shanghai, the incidence of leukemia in children is 4.6 per 100,000, while the highest is about 7 in 100,000 in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province. It is believed tha more than half of the blood cancer patients are victims of indoor air pollution from home and school refurbishment and decoration.

Indeed, air pollutants emit from architectural materials and building interiors has long been an issue in many developed countries. Over the past decade, increasingly stringent VOCs (voltaic organic compounds, the major indoor air pollutant) regulations have led to the development of water-based solvent and other alternatives for solvent-based paint. However, in most developing countries including China, they are still stick to solvent-based paint and other low quality building materials, that lots of such material are already abandoned or banned by developed countries.

I believed the reason behind is not only because of the lower environmental awareness/knowledge in developing countries but also the existence of wealth gaps. For most cleaner and better technology, it is very hard for the industry and the market in developing world to absorb without foreign aids. But in current global economic and politic systems, newer and cleaner technologies are always developed by private corporations and such technologies will only be transferred through the market instead of free transfer as humanity aids. It sounds to be again that injustice is one of the inherent characteristic of our society.

News link : Decorations lead to death

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