Forests are definitely worth more when alive than when dead

Hi,

“Forests are worth more dead than alive. Today we commit to change that equation,” said Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.





This week, the Indonesia President Yudhoyono pledged to stop giving permits for the destruction of virgin forests for a period of two years. 50 countries attended the conference in Oslo, Norway.

Environmentalists are very happy. Large areas of forests are cleared every year to provide wood for timer and paper industries and also to grow palm oil trees.

REDD Plus (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) is an organisation of a group of countries which agreed to provide funding to slow down deforestation in tree-rich countries like Indonesia. Forests are important in carbon dioxide removal from the air.

US $4 billion have been collected by the USA, Australia, France, Japan, Britain and Norway to save the rainforests. Google volunteered to provide satellite imaging to watch out if the two year agreements to stop cutting down rainforests is adhered to.



Cheers

Lets vote for earth

Hi fellow earthlings,

All of us have a responsibility to preserve the earth's climate. However, most of us are living our lives with scant regard for the issue of climate change. We have a responsibility to keep the earth's climate liveable for ourselves and for the future generations.

The future of the earth's climate depends on ourselves. Watch the videos produced by NUS students in 2009 and learn how empowered you are actually.





Cheers

Earth Hour 2010

Hi,

I would like to share these videos with you to get you get in the mood to celebrate Earth Hour 2010.




This video of a Sand Artist at work offers an effective and appealing way to convey the important message. We must vote to save the earth. The choice is yours. What you do today will affect the future.



Cheers

International Friendship Day 2010

Hi,

I would like to share these video with you to celebrate IFD.

This first one is on Healing the World by Michael Jackson. The lyrics would help you to follow the picture that MJ would like you to see in your mind's eye.




Michael Jackson is soulful in this Earth Song. We have to make a conscious effort not to get carried away with day to day issues and forget to feel for all creatures, plants and animals that share this precious Earth with us. And it is under imminent threat from man's short sightedness and greed.




A stimulating dance depiction of the impact of global warming and climate change on human health and the environment, using the traditional Bharatanatyam dance and music. As a dominant form of communication, dance has captivated the imagination of generations. World Health Organization South- East Asia Regional Office holds copyright of this video.



We are all friends and we will make sure that we will take care of the Earth. Friendship means we care for each other regardless of expectation of reciprocation.

Some solutions to reducing global warming

Solutions to reducing global warming

Did you know?

eating 1 hamburger = cutting down 6 sq m of forest
eating 4 hamburgers = cutting down the size of a classroom of forest
eating 6 hamburgers = cutting down forest the size of a school stage
eating 37 hamburgers = cutting down forest the size of a school hall?

Global contributors of Green house gas emissions	In Percentage
Deforestation	25%
Livestock farming	18% [51%]
Transport [760 million vehicles]	14%
Industry	43% [35%]

Solution 1: Stop deforestation and start reforestation

To date up to 50% of the world's rainforest is lost
If 30% more is deforested, the remaining forest cannot survive
Deforestation rate is 50 million acres per year
Worldwide deforestation rate is 16 football fields per minute
In the Amazon, deforestation rate is 7 football fields per minute.


"70% of previously forested land in the Amazon rainforest was changed into areas for cattle grazing and growing feed crops" UN report

Deforestation in Australia
Of the 100 million hectares of land area that is being deforested:
Animal farming 70 million hectares
growing crops 25 million hectares
occupied by people 2 million hectares

Solution 2: Reduce livestock farming to reduce green house gas emission

UN 2006 Livestock's Long Shadow Report: Livestock industry produces:
18% of Global Greenhouse gas emissions
37% of Global methane (which is 23 times CO₂ global warming power)
65% of Global N2O (which is 296 times CO₂ global warming power)

"Raising animals generate more greenhouse gases (18%) than all the 760 million cars and trucks in the world combined (14%)" UN FAO Report.

Producing 1 kg of beef generates 36.4 kg of CO₂
Producing 1kg of beans generates 0.6 kg of CO2
Meat industry requires lots of refrigeration and transport (energy inefficient process)
Switching to vegetarian diet reduces 1.5 tons of CO2 emissions per year










Tons of manure from livestock farms flow into underground water and into seas causing large areas of Dead Zones.

Conserve the world's food and water resources
Food fed to animals:
75 % of world's soy bean
50% of world's corn
36% of world's grains

In 2007, food fed to animals was 760 million tons
in 2007, world hunger figure was 900 million people
The grains fed to livestock would be able to feed 2 billion people!

Water requirements of livestock- UN FAO Report
Stockholm International Water Institute states that the agricultural sector (growing of crops and livestock) accounts for 70% of the world's water usage

To produce 1 kg of	Amount of Water Needed [litres]
Maize	900 lt
Rice	3000 lt
Chicken	3900 lt
Pork	4900 lt
Beef	15,500 lt

15,5000 litres of water is sufficient for a man to shower for 6 months!

Solution 3: Support Organic farming

"Practical organic agriculture if practised on the planet's 3.5 billion tillable acres, could seqester nearly 40% of current CO2 emissions.." US Rodal Institute


Solution 4: Green Energy

Solution 5: Practise the 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle)

More about solutions 4 and 5 on a later blog post.

Cheers

Are you as worried about global warming as the leaders of these countries?

Global warming is on our minds every time we feel hot and sweaty.

These global leaders feel responsible for the well being of their citizens, their economy, their safety, and fears of anarchy due to lack of water and food.

The fastest way to cool the planet is.......

Save the seeds for the future of food

Hi,

Watch this video to understand the urgency in preserving and protecting the future of food.

With climate change happening so fast, the natural evolution of crop plants to cope with this rapid rise in temperature will not happen. Mass extinction of crop and food plants will happen very quickly. Scientists are really in a panic to save as many wild species and existing varieties of crop plants.

The seeds of these plants can then be resources which can be used for research and natural or artificial selection. The new varieties of plants created by man can then cope well with the higher temperatures and so our food production can keep pace with population growth.


30 or 40 years ago mass starvation used to be common in India and China due to rapid increases in population numbers in these countries. Research by scientists led to new strains of rice and wheat plants. Food shortages have since been forgotten due to Green Revolution, as it is called.

Scientists are coming to our rescue again to avert another catastrophe. This time the cause is different, extinction of food crops due to rapid global warming.

Click on the link below:

One seed at a time, protecting the future of food




Cheers

Global Day of Acion against global warming

Hi,

Today I have two videos to share with you:


(1) Click on this link Kumi Naidoo's Speech at the COPenhagen Global Day of Action.

This YouTube video was recorded on 12 Dec 2009 in front of 100,000 youth in Copenhagen.

Greenpeace International ED, Kumi Naidoo, delivered a passionate speech at the launch of the Global Day of Action March in Copenhagen 12 Dec. 2009. "Yes we can, yes we must and yes we will deliver a fair efficient and legally binding treaty to protect the future of our children!"

(2) Click on this link Storms of my grandchildren.

It is Youtube video where David Letterman speaks to James Hansen who authored the book "Storms of my grandchildren". He speaks his mind on global warming and the complacence we see around, us especially in the youth of today.

Cheers,

350 -The Most Important Number in the World

Hi,

I was listening to Bill McKibben recently. He is the author of "End of Nature", a book he wrote in 1989. It seems he was was the first to warn of global warming, 20 years ago!

View the short video below, which is deliberately wordless so that it needs no translation. It has proved very effective in mobilising the communities around the world into taking responsibility for their actions. Now they can go out there and make the necessary impact. They can do something to change the course and momentum of the global warming. Activists like Mr McKibben are calling for changes in attitude, cultures, efficiencies in energy consumption in homes, production lines to becoming central parts of our lives.

He first raised an alarm about global warming in 1989 but, he says, he never dreamed the crisis would come as soon as it has. Even 18 months ago the scientific view was not as bad as it is today. Click on the link below to learn about the movement Mr McKibben and 6 of his friends founded.

An increase of 1⁰C so far has already caused the following:

1. new diseases in some countries. eg dengue fever in Bangladesh


2. changes in hydrological cycles arid land experiencing drying out faster and wetter areas, getting inundated with frequent heavy rainfalls and flooding


3. rivers drying out and bigger and more frequent forest and bush fires


4. tens of millions of pine forests killed off by pine bark beetles as they did not die in the cold winters as winters are so warm nowadays


5. 80% of sunlight energy falling on polar ice caps is reflected. But no more now. when sunlight is absorbed, it melts the permafrost (permanently frozen ice, ie ice that does not melt in summer). This releases millions of tons of methane which usually lies below the permafrost. Methane is many times more powerful green house gas than carbon dioxide.


6. For 10,000 years, since the civilisation of man, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has remained at around 275 ppm. In Jan 2008 it has been found to be 350 ppm. Anything above this concentration will not be tolerated. It means the planet is "sick". The symptoms are already seen in Arctic ice melting, rivers drying up etc.


7. Global warming and cooling are not new to the planet. However, this time it is caused by man and it is happening way too fast. This does not allow the organisms (plants and animal species) to adapt to these changes as it is happening too fast.

The tipping point is - or was - the number '350'. This is the level in the atmosphere of CO₂ in parts per million that will cause global warming to go beyond our control. And we are reaching this number... just... about... NOW! This is why McKibben calls 350 The Most Important Number in the World

Watch this space around October 24 this year, and look out for events focused on 350 that you can get involved in between now and then - or organise an activity of your own.

To listen to songs on the environment by Peter Garrett of Midnight Oil, click on the link below:

http://asal-sakti.blogspot.com/search/label/Peter%20Garrett



Cheers

Earth Hour 2009 celebrations

Hi,

Our school joined many groups and individuals around the world to mark Earth Hour 2009 on 28 April. Although it is now June, this post is not untimely as the point of Earth Hour was not to raise awareness of global warming only to have it forgotten as swiftly as the next hour. So, a reminder of what we did in our school...

Form teachers and Co-form teachers of each class were asked to spend time during their Form Teacher periods to speak about the event.

They were to show the two videos below to their students:
2.2 million people in Sydney ( about 3 minutes only)

Blue Man Group

Blue Man Group on global warming.

Our students were encouraged to join millions of people around the world and celebrate Earth Hour on Saturday 28 March by switching off all lights in their homes.

They were encouraged to find out that many government agencies (e.g. community centres), educational institutions (e.g. the polytechnics and universities), hotels (e.g. Royal Plaza hotel), businesses (e.g. Singtel, Golden Village), shopping malls (e.g. Junction 8, Bugis Junction), and many others were all coming up with interesting ways in which to carry on with their business as usual but with the lights switched off!

Some teachers also found time to view the video below with their classes.

Earth Hour news

Form teachers spent time to reflect on the following question:
“How do you think the Earth Hour Celebration may change your attitude towards conserving energy?”

Coloured paper in the shape of a large green leaf was given to each Form teacher to collate the responses from your class. These leaves were entered for a competition. Prizes will be awarded to the classes with the most original and innovative responses. The responses were displayed outside the Staff Room.

To listen to some songs on the environment by Peter Garrettt of Midnight Oil, click on the link below:

http://asal-sakti.blogspot.com/search/label/Peter%20Garrett


Cheers

United Nations forum and REDD

Hi,

For the next two weeks the United Nations Forum is meeting in Poznan, Poland, on how to battle climate change. Their main agenda being:

Protect the remaining tropical rainforests

How?

Stop or slow down the cutting of forests for timber and agriculture

Why?

Trees are known as "carbon dioxide sinks" as they soak up and store CO₂ in their tissues during photosynthesis. This carbon dioxide will be released back to the atmosphere when trees are burnt or when they rot, as when they are cut down and the leaves and branches touch the soil. The decomposers in the soil, soil bacteria and soil fungi, will cause decay to take place. The organic molecules (carbohydrates, proteins and fats or oils) will be broken down to release energy for the decomposers. The wastes will be CO₂, which goes back into the air.

What is the problem with CO₂ going into the air?

1. The normal concentration of CO₂ in the air has been 0.03% for millions of years. Since the advent of man's penchant for burning fossil fuels, the concentration has been increasing alarmingly.


2. Cutting down of tropical rainforest further exacerbates the increase in CO₂ concentration in the air. Deforestation contributes to 20% of CO₂ emissions from human activities.

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. This means that it is like a warm blanket on the earth, not allowing the heat on earth from escaping into the space. Heat come to the earth from the sun in the form of light energy/solar energy. Most of this light energy is used to warm up the air, the soil and the ocean. Only about 1% is absorbed by plants and phytoplankton(algae in the oceans and water bodies) during photosynthesis to convert light energy into chemical energy. Glucose is formed in this process. Glucose is then changed by the metabolic processes in the plant/algae into organic molecules that the plant need for its energy, growth and reproduction needs. (Remember that plants do not have mouths; they get their energy in the form of light energy. Animals have mouths. [vaay illa jeevan ;-)] Animals eat their energy in the form of chemical energy i.e. food molecules ( carbohydrate, proteins and fats).

Since burning of fossils fuels in large quantities releases CO₂, the plants cannot remove the excess quickly enough. This build up of CO₂ causes the warm blanket to become better and better at keeping the warmth in the atmosphere. This in turn causes climate change.

United Nation countries have agreed to cut greenhouse gases by 5% by 2012 during a meeting in 1990 in Kyoto, Japan. This agreement or treaty will expire in 2012.

The Poznan meeting this week will consider "pay-to-preserve forest scheme". This scheme is also known as REDD or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation.

What is REDD?

In this is scheme the richer countries would pay to maintain forests in tropical regions in poorer countries to prevent global warming.

Billions of dollars will be collected from donor countries and be given to developing countries/poor countries so that they will protect their rainforests.
The money will go towards:

1. preventing illegal logging


2. preventing forest fires


3. settling land disputes due to loss of livelihood of peoples who depend on the forest

A trial REDD programme will be starting with Indonesia. 70% of Indonesia's original forests have already been cut down. But it still has 91 million hectares. However, it is also the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter! Forest protection is important to prevent deforestation in this large S. E. Asian country.

We are familiar with the haze that we get in Singapore around June to August almost every year when the forests fires in Indonesia produces smoke, which the winds will blow towards Singapore.

The rich countries of the world have to help, with Australia coming forward to help in Indonesia:

1. an Australian company, Carbon Conservation teamed up with Aceh government.


2. Fauna and Flora International together with Australia's Macquarie Financial Services teamed up with three REDD projects in West Kalimantan and Papua governments.


3. New Forests, Australia teamed up with Papua government.


4. The government of Australia pledged $29m to protect, rehabilitate and drain peat swamps in Kalimantan. Peat swamps are wet throughout the year but during the dry seasons will catch fire spontaneously. The fire will start sweep through the forest quickly and are difficult to put out. (Peat is low grade coal and if found on the surface ie no need to mine for it, as in Kalimantan. This also means that they are easily combustible if dry. Since it is found on large areas of the ground, it will take months of arduous effect to put out these fires.)

The above projects if managed properly will not only preserve the forests, but also empower the locals to breathe clean air, maintain soil fertility and provide employment.

Quiz time: match the answers to the questions

1. Plants that photosynthesise are called... (remember, not _all_ plants do)


2. An example of 'heterotrophes' is...

Answers:

1. Mushrooms


2. Autotrophes

Click here to hear a song on Youtube by Midnight Oil on the issues of deforestation.......

Song lyrics: River Runs Red

So you cut all the tall trees down,
you poisoned the sky and the sea
You've taken what's good from the ground
But you've left precious little for me

You remember the flood and the fall,
we remember the light on the hill
There should be enough for us all,
but the dollar is driving us still

River runs red, black rain falls, dust in my hand
River runs red, black rain falls, on my bleeding land

So we came and we conquered and found
Riches of commons and kings
Who strangled and wrestled the ground
But they never put back anything

Now i'm trapped like a dog in a cage
Wherever the truth is pursued
It must be the curse of the age
What's taken is never renewed

(hirst/moginie)

Cheers

Be a flexitarian and do your bit for the environment

Hi,



'Baa-d' news for all you meat eaters! I have a cutting of the Weekend Today dated 24th Nov with me now. I would like to share what I have gleaned from the article entitled "Eating Green" (as well as some of my own thoughts on the issue). It was authored by Carol Leong.

In this article she states Al Gore met up with President-elect Barack Obama to "begin an emergency rescue of human civilisation". Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao reminded rich nations of their responsibility to ditch their "unsustainable way of life".

The world's finest brains are arguing that our unsustainable and excessive lifestyle is at the heart of climate change that is affecting the earth.

The head of the United Nations inter-governmental panel on climate change, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, suggests that we may try to give up meat on at least one day a week and slowly increase it to more days if possible.

Dr Rajendra points out that if we halved our meat consumption, it would do more to reduce carbon dioxide emission than if we halved our car usage.

Raising animals for food causes deforestation, soil erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and water pollution, loss of biodiversity, social injustice that destabilise communities and increase spread of diseases. (Singaporeans ate 90 kg of meat and fish per person in 2007 — only 700g less than the Americans.)

I would like to list 6 reasons for eating more vegetables and fruits and less flesh of animals:

1. One-fifth of greenhouse gas emission come from livestock farming. Cows fart and belch methane which is 23 times more poisonous than carbon dioxide. Animal dung, when it decays, produces nitrous oxide which is 296 time more effective as a green house gas than CO2.
   
   Herbivorous animals like cows and sheep have more than one stomach. These animals depend on bacteria to digest cellulose for them. They do not produce cellulase enzymes to digest cellulose that forms the cell wall of all plant cells. The various stomachs contain lots of bacteria which live in a symbiotic relationship with the mammal. The end product of cellulose digestion will be glucose. Glucose will be absorbed into the blood of the cows and used for energy.
   
   Do you notice that many totally herbivorous animals like cows, buffaloes, hippos, and rhinos have large bodies which are built like tanks? This is related to the fact that they have to eat large amounts of plant material and quickly send the cropped plant material to the first two of their four stomachs. (In the wild, herbivorous animals are prey animals, always on the look out for predators and hence the haste in eating their food.) Most of these animals will then "cough up" or regurgitate the food back into their mouths and re-chew ('chew the cud') before sending it into the third stomach. Then the food has to be mixed with the resident bacteria to form glucose, which is fermented by yet other bacteria. The small and large intestines that follow the stomachs are very long as well.
   
   

   SIDE NOTE: All the herbivores I mention above are called 'even-toed ungulates'. You probably are saying to yourself, "Hey! wait a minute, what about horses and rabbits? — they eat grass too." Yes, and they have only one stomach like ours but their caecum (part of the large intestine) forms a large pouch where bacteria further break down the food. Elephants also use a system like this. Horse belong to the odd-toed group including tapirs and rhinos but all three types — horse, elephant and rabbit — independently 'discovered' the same digestive system. It may sound yucky but rabbits go one step further and eat (re-ingest) some of their own droppings for extra digestion.

   Digestion takes time and the process produces lots of gases, farts(through the anus) and belches(through the mouth).


2. Every year, 32 million acres of rainforest is destroyed to provide land for livestock farming.


3. Growing food for the livestock requires land. Grass for the cows, goats and sheep; corn, soya bean, seeds and other plant materials to feed the chicken, duck, pigs, etc. This requires 14 times more water than growing rice, wheat and other grains and fruits and vegetables for human consumption.


4. Fish farming returns only one pound of farmed salmon for 3 pounds of fish food given to the salmon, a return of only 33%. The tiniest of fish are harvested from the ocean, dried and fed to the farmed salmon. This is destroying the ocean ecosystem. (These tiny organisms are part of the natural food chain in the ocean ecosystem.)


5. Animals should not be treated cruelly even if they are raised by man for his consumption. They are also fellow inhabitants of this earth and they deserve to be treated humanely. Most animals are kept in extremely crowded environments with horrendous living conditions and little ventilation. They are injected with hormones to fatten them quickly for the table, some are force-fed and some are even pumped to their eye-balls with antibiotics to prevent them from falling ill. If you are interested to read more on this, click this link on factory farming.


6. In the case of mad cow disease, the herbivorous cows were fed with high protein animal body parts (of other cows from the abattoirs) ground and processed into pellets. This resulted in them getting the "prions"or denatured protein molecules in the brain. Prions will affect the other neighbouring protein molecules in the brain and it spreads just like an infection except that the disease is not due to any pathogenic organism, but due to misbehaving protein molecules. The result is formation of holes or lesions in the brain tissue, described as "spongiform" or looking like sponge, ie with numerous tiny holes.

Swine flu, measles, SARS and avian/bird flu (and AIDS, which I will write about in another post) are all diseases that spread from animals to man. These are new diseases (meaning they are actually animal diseases but some how the mutated pathogen had jumped species and is affecting Man now). Mutations in the pathogens give rise to new variants, or individuals who possess genetic material which allow them to infect a different species from their usual host.

Man has evolved over millions of years to combat and destroy pathogens that infect the human body. His immune system is primed to recognise and kill them and protect him from dying. When he is faced with pathogens that his white blood cells do not recognise as pathogens, then it will result in people dying in large numbers. This has happened many times in the history of mankind. (In 1918, the bird flu swept the whole world and killed more than 50 million.)

What we can do to be a GREEN EATER?

We can reduce on the meat component of our meals to slow down climate change.

Why not become a "flexitarian" i.e. a flexible vegetarian or semi-vegetarian? Lets return to our great-grandmother's healthy diet of treating meat like a very precious commodity.

We seem to have forgotten the real price of eating meat for all our three meals.


If you want to listen to songs on the environment by Peter Garrett of Midnight oil, click on the link below:

http://asal-sakti.blogspot.com/search/label/Peter%20Garrett

Cheers

Global warming is already a tragedy for these people

Hi,

I was reading in the Straits Times of 11 November 2008 that the new President of Maldives, Mr Mohamed Nasheed, is looking around the world for a place for his people to migrate to as his country is fast going underwater.

Click here to read more about the Maldives

Many of you know that global warming is happening but we have yet to feel its full impact. The people of Maldives, a group of small islands in the Indian Ocean, are powerless against the march of the sea. The 300,000 odd islanders live on land with is just about 1.5m above sea level. This means that at high tide, the area of the country would shrink considerably.

Another country that many of you would remember me talk about that is facing the same fate is Tuvalu. This country also consists of many small islands, close to Fiji, in the Pacific Ocean. Most of the country is already underwater. Only some old folks are still living on the islands, as all the youth and young adults have abandoned their country. At high tide, most of the roads will be underwater. I saw a National Geographic documentary on this tragic occurrence. Most of the population have already migrated to Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. They are called environmental refugees. Even small rises in sea level would inundate large areas of their country. They have no more land to grow crops, the roads are underwater. the waves eat away at the coast line. (Their country exists in cyber-space as the domain .tv)

Delta of the Ganges River
(Source: Wikipedia)

This brings to my mind another documentary I saw late one evening on TV. It was on Bangladesh. As you would know, the great Ganges-Brahmaputra flows through this country. Most of the land consists of low lying delta in the form of mud-flats. The whole episode was about how water level keeps on rising in the villages. There was an interview with a teacher who pointed to some steps leading to her classrooms. She said that each year the water level has been rising by the height of one step. The school's field was already totally immersed. The students come to school by boat in the last 2 years! They used to walk or cycle to school before.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Since most of the arable land was already underwater, the villagers were living very violent lives in the village documented. The stronger ones were grabbing land from the weaker ones. One villager pointed towards a wide expanse of water in the distance and said that his house used to be there. He said that one day a new river just cascaded down from mountains and washed away all the houses in its way. Students, I am sure you would remember what we saw in the movie "The Inconvenient Truth", by Al Gore that we saw on 4th November. Mr Gore explained how melting of ice caps would cause flooding in the low lying areas. Well the ice on Himalayas is melting fast, forming so much liquid water that new tributaries and rivers were created overnight and Bangladesh happens to be where it has to flow through to reach the sea.

If you want to listen to songs on the environment by Peter Garrett of Midnight Oil, click on the link below:

http://asal-sakti.blogspot.com/search/label/Peter%20Garrett



Cheers,
Have a good day.