Swirling slowly in the oceans of planet Earth are HUGE Patches of PLASTIC. Larger than many countries, all because plastic is not biodegradable.
Ew. Let’s stop using plastic for now, until someone somewhere comes up with a biodegradable sort, one that won’t be doing so much damage.
By Bruce Hextall and Michael Perry
source: http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/World/Story/A1Story20090701-152050.html
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – An El Nino weather pattern this year appears almost certain, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said on Wednesday in a revised forecast, raising the prospect of drought in Australia and a even weaker monsoon in India.
The odds for El Nino, an abnormal warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean that creates havoc in weather patterns across the Asia-Pacific region, had risen significantly since two weeks ago, when the bureau said there was a more than 50 percent chance.
“El Nino is a little bit like recession, you are in it before you can say you have one. If it continues as it is now, the historians will say the El Nino started in May,” said David Jones, head of the bureau’s climate analysis, told Reuters.
He said they could declare a full El Nino within weeks.
That’s probably bad news for farmers in Australia who have sown near record acreage, and in India, which is already bracing for below-average monsoon rains, the lifeblood of the country’s agriculture.
It would also have implications for commodity markets, potentially lifting wheat prices that have slumped over the past month on expectations of a bumper global harvest, and adding further fuel to soaring sugar prices that are already bracing for a second disappointing crop year from top consumer India.
Most of Australia’s 2009/10 wheat crop has been planted following plentiful rain, leading to forecasts of a harvest of as much as 23 million tonnes, the best since 2005/06 when 25.2 million tonnes were harvested.
“The growers I speak to say if we were to get some rains in spring we could get above average yields. But if the El Nino forecast materialized, we are again at risk of having a sub-standard crop,” said Richard Koch, managing director of farm advisory firm Profarmer.
Australia’s grain production is still recovering from the worst drought in more than 100 years that cut the annual wheat harvest to as little as 10.6 million tonnes in 2006/07.
India’s weather office last week cut its forecast for the June-September monsoon rains by 3 percentage points to 93 percent of normal, after four years of above average rainfall. From June 1 to June 24 rains were 54 percent below normal.
A severe El Nino spawns searing drought in countries in southeast Asia, harming rubber production, while causing heavy flooding in Peru, Ecuador and Chile, among others.
LITTLE CHANCE OF AVOIDING EL NINO
The bureau’s latest report found that the eastern Pacific Ocean was continuing to warm, with sea temperatures one degree Celsius above normal, and trade winds were continuing to weaken.
The Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), calculated from monthly and seasonal fluctuations in air pressure between Tahiti and Darwin, remained at around negative 2, while the monthly value for May was negative 5.
A sustained negative SOI often indicates El Nino.
“A more complete picture of the situation in the Pacific will be available next week when the final June indices are calculated,” said the report on http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/
The next report is due on July 8.
The Climate Prediction Center in the United States said in June that conditions were favorable for a switch to El Nino conditions during June to August. –REUTERS
What kind of horror is this?
Watch the brutal capture of “the Taiji Twelve”, twelve dolphins culled from the annual Japanese dolphin slaughter who are being sold to the Dominican Republic for “swim with dolphins” programs. Amidst the bloody slaughter of 200 dolphins, these twelve were selected and kept alive as they watched their families, their calves and their pods beaten, stabbed and drowned to death.
Spend 20mins watching this clip.. another 10mins to think about it.. and a lifetime to act upon it..
There many ways you can help.. 1. distribute the story.. – http://eco.gilldivers.com/where-do-stuff-comes-from-and-where-they-gone-to/70/
2. Donate to support their effort.. Click here
3. Reduce, Reuse and RECYCLE… we really need to act on it, people.. 80% of the forest are gone, 70% of fishes are gone too..
4. Educate your friends, your family…..
Going Green is nothing new to us and has become an very common lingo for promotion,
So how many of us is really going green?
New concepts come up everyday, this is one that I’ve came across and i find that this is actually very related top our daily working life, being sustainable is the key if not going back to the dark ages would work too,
haha.. lots of us want to be green being human, luxuries are what we tend to go for,
In our working environment, we often do lots of adverting and there’s no choice abt it,
As Advertising works 
No point denying it as it does work, But how to do it without impacting Mother nature, that would be the key, and this gentleman in Bali has done it in an very nice way,
Check it out,
for me, I’ll be trying to grow some bamboo in the next few months if any results, I’ll be giving bamboo plants away , I’ll keep everyone posted
Cheers for now,
Choon
Its funny how in this environmentally conscious era, we in Singapore remain largely ignorant about saving the environment. Oh yes, there have been various government campaigns on recycling, using cfc free products, keeping our environment clean (I can still sing the cheesy jingle from the keeping the river clean ad! Yes.. the one with the frog backpaddling in the filthy Singapore River..) etc, but the general population has chosen to ignore the evidence put forth in our faces. What with movies on saving the sharks, end of the world and Discovery Channel, haven’t we had enough brains and time to realize that we are slowly killing ourselves?
It is evident in the insane weather that we have been experiencing in the past years that global warming has indeed begun to show very real effects on the common people. Many of us might not be able to process the melting of the snow caps and giant icebergs in the North Pole as having any impact on us, but now you can feel it in the intense heat when you’re out for a walk, in the numerous hurricanes that have devastated the thousands around the world and many more disasters to come.
You know, being typical Singaporeans, we are always depending on the government to come up with campaign and solutions to our problem, what we should really learn is an example from the Japanese who has a reputation of being passive aggressive, adopted this very effective method of getting their residents to go green. In this particular prefecture, there was an initiative set out that all residents trash has to be separated for recycling efforts, if one household does not comply, the entire block’s trash does not get picked up for a week. If it continues, the entire condo’s trash does not get picked up, then the entire street’s. It relies on peer pressure and the Asian mentality of not “losing face”. It has proven to be very effective!
Now, I’m no Captain Planet and I’m not one of the tree huggers who goes all hippy chick about greenpeace, but I like to think that I do my little bit for the sake of not having to burn in hell on earth in the near future (You do know that one day its all gonna burst into flames and roast us like well seasoned Nandos chicken right?…) Well firstly, in my household, we separate our trash into Glass, paper and plastics, at my café, I collect all the aluminum drink cans and give them to the cleaners who makes money from them by selling them to the recycling plant (see! Someone is benefitting already!!) I recycle my old clothes by giving them away to friends, who then in turn pass them on to relatives or their helpers and on and on.
While its all fine and dandy that we’re doing our part but what I really think we need is a collaborated effort to make recycling more convenient, because right now for example, where would we be able to take our trash after its all separated? Its not convenient to be lugging around a big bag of beer bottles to the recycling plant up in Sembawang or down to the 3 big colourful trash bins along Orchard Road… Not glam at all…….. Its fine for those living in condos, but in most estates, its really not easy to find the recycling bins.
So dear Singaporeans, lets do what we do best, complain to the govt to pressure them to put up more recycling bins, do your part by sorting your trash, turning off the bladdy aircon and lights when you’re not in the room and the next time you think of using that extra piece of toilet paper, think again… use water.. wisely….
Injured whale shark dies on Malaysia Shore : Associated Press : 3 Jan 2009
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: A rare 23-foot-long (7-meter-long) whale shark got entangled in a fishing net off Malaysia’s northwest coast and was towed to shore but died due to injuries, local media reported Saturday.
Fisherman Key Chai Yang told the New Straits Times newspaper that it took two hours to tow the two-ton shark, known as a Rhincodon Typus, to land after it got entangled in his fishing net early Friday.
He said the shark was still alive when it reached shore in northern Penang state in Malaysia’s northwest, but it died shortly after from the multiple cuts it suffered from the propeller blades under his boat.
“I have never seen such a gigantic shark in my 30 years as a fisherman,” Key was quoted as saying.
A huge crowd turned up to see the carcass of the shark, which was later sent to the state fisheries department, the report said.
Fishery officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
The Rhincodon Typus, the largest fish in the world, can be found in warm tropical seas. The leviathan, which has distinctive white spots over its dark gray body, can grow as long as of 65 feet (20 meters) and live up to 70 years.
Photo from the New Straits Times
The talk about sustainability is nothing new. We hear about sustainable living and changing the way we live and our mindsets to take the environment into consideration going about our daily routine, but honestly speaking, it’s not easy. There are many times, you would be tempted into taking the simpler way out and just slip back to your old ways to take that plastic bag you don’t really need or leave the lights on, leave the power switch on the entire night even when it’s not use – appliances on standby can consume up to 60% energy – so how sustainable are our actions towards sustainability ? What is it that keeps you going ? To continue to champion and believe in the green cause ?
Fresh from a diving trip in Sipadan in East Malaysia, it was a timely reminder of the things worth fighting for. The legislation enacted to conserve the marine environment at Sipadan was well worth it when you enter the water and be able to immediately see the vast difference in the vibrant marine and coral life compared to other dive sites. The massive schools of barracudas, vast groups of jacks and bump-head parrot fishes was something i believe one would never see if not for the conservation efforts.
In the face of all the scientific data and information that we have in relation in the global warming and going green, it’s rather amusing that we are not changing the way we lead out lives. Not big changes , those take time, but making little changes like switching off the lights when you’re done or not using that plastic bag from the supermarket . So perhaps, the reason why people are not getting message across is how the message is being communicated.
The advertising campaign above took place in the canals of Amsterdam. What better way to attract attention about the rising sea-levels ?
My question is then , how do you think is the best way to reach out to Singaporeans ? The last thing Singaporeans want to do is to be lectured and when the government steps in , it only means more money (see your electricity bills) . What ideas do you have ?
This is really interesting, SOLAR TOWER, using the heating power from the sun to heat up a flat land of air and then channel the hot air into a chimney. In this chimney, there is a huge turbine, and this turbine will turn a generator to produce electricity.
You might think that this will only work in the day but you are wrong, the heat from the ground will reheat the air and channel it back to the chimney.
Its a pilot project by a german company, build in Spain. It is not an officially working plant and the system doesn’t produce a lot of power (maybe enough to power a hundred homes) but the interesting thing is, the chimney is very cheap (comparing to a powerplant) to build, the whole project cost about a million dollar.
