Gaia Life Challenge winner walks away with S$10,000 cash

Channel NewsAsia 22 Jun 08;

SINGAPORE: The winner of the Gaia Life Challenge, Marcus Tay, walked away with S$10,000 in cash.

For 24 hours, the environmental engineer and two other contestants lived in rooms at Bugis Junction. But what was not explicitly made known to them was that their energy consumption would be calculated.

However, they received hints from the organisers.

Second runner-up Michelle Scully caught on to the hints and minimised her energy usage to the bare minimum.

Florence Lian, judge of the Gaia Life Challenge, said: "She switched off her refrigerator. I think she only used the fan and she did not use the air-conditioning at all. Unfortunately, based on the challenges that formed 70 per cent of the scores, she just didn't manage to catch up on the total scores."

The contestants faced nine other challenges which tested their knowledge on the environment.

The winner, Marcus Tay said he also knew that their energy consumption will be calculated. Still, he switched on the air-conditioner but kept the temperature at 25 degrees celsius.

His fridge, which stored only water, was kept at an optimal temperature.

He said: "If I were to present a side that I don't switch on the air-con here, but when I go home and do it, then people are not going to believe in the environmental movement. I just want people to understand that none of us can be Gandhi but if you can, it's even better. But for normal human beings out there, let's just do our part and don't waste."

All three contestants got to take home all the electrical appliances and furniture which had kept them company for the past 24 hours. - CNA/vm

Cool kid does his bit for Gaia
Lin Yanqin, Today Online 23 Jun 08;

FOR 24 hours, they lived in rooms made of clear Perspex and tackled challenges to prove that they were, indeed, the most eco-friendly person in Singapore — and win $10,000.

But between slugging it out over charades and knowledge quizzes that tested their environmental knowledge, the three finalists — shortlisted from more than 100 applicants — of MediaCorp’s Gaia Life Challenge found time to interact.

“We are here to have a good time and bring some attention to our cause,” said finalist Michelle Scully, 34.

All three contestants lived by what they preached by switching off the air-conditioning and fans in their rooms, located by the fountains in Bugis Junction.

“I only switched the fan on when it was really warm, just like I do at home. I want to show people how I lead my life,” said Mr Marcus Tay, 26.

Although Ms Scully made the most effort to cut down on using electricity — she switched off the refrigerator in her room — it was Mr Tay who eventually emerged the winner yesterday.

A recent graduate in environmental engineering, Mr Tay hopes to use some of the money to contribute to a fund to get the acclaimed documentary An Inconvenient Truth screened on free-to-air television.

The :other runner-up Chin Chainn Huey, 21, an undergraduate, spent her birthday on Saturday taking part in the challenge.

MediaCorp :senior vice-president for marketing and creative services (news, radio and print) Florence Lian, one of the judges, said: “The challenge is about raising awareness of the environment and reaching out to the man on the street.”

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Best of our wild blogs: 22 Jun 08

Habitat destruction?
a comment on the flying fish friends blog

Exploring Labrador with Prof Leo Tan
with interesting encounters on the wildfilms blog

Shrimp and goby
video clip of this partnership on Labrador, on the sgbeachbum blog

November and the Toddycats
corrected version of the ST article on the toddycats blog

Semakau walk
Nemo, seahorse and more on the wonderful creations blog and urban forest blog and manta blog and tidechaser blog and discovery blog

Nerites of Changi and Labrador
about these marble-like snails on the wildfilms blog

eagle @ labrador nature reserve
a clip on the sgbeachbum blog

Bug-eyed view
More weird closeups and details on the budak blog

The Royal Assyrian
on the butterflies of singapore blog

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Going green makes cents in Singapore

Adrian Lim, Straits Times 22 Jun 08;

I used to be your typical Western energy glutton. I'd drive my car four blocks to pick up bread.

If the temperature in my flat went above 23 deg C, I'd switch on the air-conditioner.

I avoided public transport like the plague, and nursed my decade-old Honda through a string of oil and exhaust problems.

But things here in Singapore are different. My primary mode of transport is a 12-speed mountain bike, the first I've owned in about 15 years.

My flat's lone air-con doesn't rumble to life until the mercury hits 28 deg C. And I've developed a tolerance to being sandwiched into an MRT train.

I wish I could say the changes were prompted by a new-found concern for the environment, a realisation that my profligate power consumption was in its own small way killing the planet.

But really, the reversal was driven by the bottom line. With stratospheric car taxes, unsubsidised petrol and relatively pricey electricity, being an energy hog in Singapore is really expensive.

These sky-high costs seem to be more of a testament to orderliness and pragmatism than conservation, but the end result is the same: Gobbling up natural resources here comes with a serious hit to the pocketbook.

It's not the same in North America where, despite rising oil prices, luxuries like cars remain within the grasp of most.

While the vehicle ownership system here smacks of elitism, Singapore is one of the few rich countries that have managed to keep their citizens away from cars and on public transport.

Only about one in 10 people here owns a vehicle; in the United States, the number is closer to eight in 10.

The country's bus and train grid is light years ahead of those in most North American cities I've been to. Trips are cheap, trains are run with military precision and the Government is quick to fine operators whose foul-ups make people late.

And despite the icy gales blowing through some shopping malls, there seems to be a relatively restrained approach to air-conditioning. (Well, at least around my HDB block in Toa Payoh where many balconies are air-con free.)

The last seven months in Singapore have taught me that going green really isn't all that painful.

While the mid-afternoon heat can be punishing, my 15-minute bike trip to work is actually kind of enjoyable. And given some time to adapt, a Canadian body can become accustomed to living in 28deg C heat - as long as there is a powerful fan nearby.

I've also come to see that the innovative social experiment that is Singapore could offer some lessons to other nations.

It's true, the country's tiny size and political system give birth to things that would be near-impossible in the sprawling, car-loving democracies of the West.

Imagine the uproar in America if people were faced with the prospect of dropping the equivalent price of a college education on a Honda Civic.

However, the US and Canada could learn a lot from Singapore's pay-through-the-nose system. While unpopular, higher car taxes and electricity prices would make people think twice about the resources they devour.

Pumping money into rusting subway systems and beleaguered bus networks would also convince more people to leave their cars at home.

These are ideas that have been around for decades, but haven't gained much traction. But with climate change rearing its ugly head, it's probably time to embrace them abroad.

Andrew Raven is a Canadian-born copy editor with The Straits Times. He has been in Singapore for seven months.

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Three people spending 24 hrs in small stuffy boxes to spread green message in Singapore

Hoe Yeen Nie, Channel NewsAsia 21 Jun 08;

SINGAPORE: Try living in a hot, stuffy see-through box for 24 hours. Three Singaporeans are doing just that to spread the green message.

They are participants of MediaCorp's 'Gaia Life Challenge', a competition to find Singapore's most eco-friendly individual.

The box is a small Perspex house measuring 2.4 metres on all sides, and it can get really hot in there. There is an air-condition unit and an electric fan inside for the contestants to use if they want to.

Contestants get 15-minute breaks every two hours, and some use them to cool off a bit.

"Splash my face with some water and then hang around in the coolness of the (Bugis Junction shopping) mall," said contestant Michelle Scully, a retail executive.

It is a challenge to beat the heat, especially when one is trying to reduce one's carbon footprint.

"I will avoid switching on the air-con, because it eats up a lot of electricity. I'll use the fan, because it's really warm here, 35 degrees Celsius," said contestant Chin Chainn Hui, a student from the National University of Singapore.

For the third contestant, he is going for moderation.

"I'm still going to watch the TV...but if I'm going to be outside for quite a while, I'm going to switch off not only the TV, but at the source as well. I'm not going to stop myself from using the air-con when it gets too hot, but at least stay at 25 degrees Celsius," said Marcus Tay, an environmental engineer.

The contestants have drawn curious stares from shoppers at Bugis Junction, and MediaCorp hopes the efforts of the contestants will inspire the public to go green.

"A lot of us would have a very vague notion that.....switching on the air-con would be less Gaia, less friendly, less green, than using the fan. But there's nothing more visual and more impactful than actually living in a glass house like that," said Shaun Seow, MediaCorp's Deputy CEO (News, Radio, Print).

Contestants will also compete in games - from sorting out recyclables from their trash to collecting water from the nearby fountain.

At the end of it all, one of them will leave with the grand prize of 10,000 Singapore dollars. - CNA/ir

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Fight a pandemic? Only way is to plan early

Once a pandemic strikes, it will take 22 weeks from the time the virus is identified to get the first vaccine
Salma Khalik, Straits Times 22 Jun 08;

Kuala Lumpur - Don't count on a flu vaccine being ready in time for the next pandemic. It will not be, said several infectious diseases experts.

Speaking at the four-day International Congress on Infectious Diseases that ends today, they urged countries to plan for alternatives, or be caught totally off-guard when hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of people, fall ill within weeks because of a dangerous new virus.

While their solutions might differ, the specialists are united in predicting that a pandemic will come, and that its effects will be devastating - even when precautions are in place. More so if countries leave their planning till the pandemic is knocking on their doors.

Dr Jonathan Van Tam of Britain's University of Nottingham said a typical pandemic would last 17 weeks and peak in eight. But it takes 22 weeks from the time the virus is identified to get the first vaccine.

Then more time is needed for it to be distributed. By then, most of the people who are at risk would already have fallen ill, or even died.

Like other speakers, Dr Van Tam suggested that countries stock up on vaccines for the H5N1 avian flu virus, to be used at the first signs of a pandemic.

He said yesterday that there is 'strong scientific rationale' pointing to H5N1 as the source of the next pandemic.

Since 2003, bird flu has infected 385 people in 16 countries. With 243 deaths, the killing power of this virus is high, with fewer than four in 10 surviving it.

Last Friday, Sir Roy Anderson of London's Imperial College argued that quarantine, which worked well to contain Sars in 2003, will not work in a flu pandemic.

The incubation period for the flu virus is much shorter, he said. By the time a patient shows symptoms, he would already have infected others.

Dr Julie Gerberding, director of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), also scoffed at the idea of closing off borders to protect people.

Calling it a 'ridiculous' act that would be 'completely unsuccessful', she added that it would do more damage by stopping the movement of medicines to people in need.

She warned a packed hall at KL's Convention Centre against complacency, which she feels has set in after the Sars scare five years ago.

'Until it happens in your backyard, it's easy to pretend that that was then,' she said.

People have put the fear of a pandemic on the back burner, and surveillance and planning are no longer a priority for many, she said, cautioning that a pandemic would be catastrophic.

Asked about the three weeks it took for Indonesia to report its latest cases of bird flu in humans, she said: 'We can't afford to have this (new) virus move in human populations undetected and unreported.'

The safety of the world depends on the weakest link, she said. So to keep the world safe, this link has to be strengthened.

This is why the CDC has deployed its experts in all countries which have had human cases of bird flu, to provide technical and other assistance.

Dr N. Shindo, who heads the World Health Organisation's global influenza programme, said WHO has stockpiled about five million doses of flu medicine to be used in countries where a pandemic might start, to try to push back its spread to the rest of the world.

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What's the Deadliest Natural Phenomenon in the U.S.?

LiveScience.com, Yahoo News 21 Jun 08;

Hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes might seem like the most dangerous natural hazards you could ever face, but floods and droughts actually kill more Americans over time.

Better predictions for hurricanes and other tropical cyclones, as well as tornadoes, have reduced the death tolls from such events in recent decades. But flooding deaths are on the rise.

On average, U.S. flooding kills more than 100 people a year - more than any other single weather hazard, including tornadoes and hurricanes, according to the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). Most flood deaths are from flash floods, however, and about half of those are because people try to cross swollen streams or flooded roads. Victims often underestimate the power of water when driving into flooded areas, UCAR scientists note, adding that it takes only 18 inches of water to float a typical vehicle.

Flooding deaths have risen in recent decades, and the U.S. Congress's Office of Technology Assessment says that "despite recent efforts, vulnerability to flood damages is likely to continue to grow" because populations in flood-prone regions continue to grow.

Heat waves rarely make lists of the deadliest natural disasters, but in modern times their death tolls have surpassed other phenomena in the United States.

In both 1980 and 1988, for example, severe drought and heat ravaged the central and eastern parts of the country. Estimated deaths due to heat stress approaching 10,000 in each case and the economic toll each time reached tens of billions of dollars.

Over half of all deaths from natural disasters worldwide are due to drought and famine, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Droughts can decrease the availability of potable water and can ruin crops, making food scarce.

Droughts and floods could take a higher toll in the future as global warming increases the prevalence of these events in certain areas, scientists say.

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Hunted, rammed, poisoned, whales may die from heartbreak too

Marlowe Hood, Yahoo News 22 Jun 08;

More than two decades after the start of a leaky moratorium on whale hunting, the most majestic of sea mammals have made little headway in recovering their once robust populations, say experts.

Just how much progress will be sharply debated this week when pro-whaling and pro-conservation countries square off in Santiago, Chile at the annual meet of the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

Despite the moratorium on commercial hunting of big whales, voted in 1986, Japan, Norway and Iceland continue to cull more than 2,000 each year, mainly minke, along with smaller numbers of humpback, fin and sei.

Anti-whaling nations and conservation groups reject calls for sustainable quotas, and say the ban should be kept in place -- and enforced.

Some species, all parties agree, are hovering on the edge of extinction.

The North Pacific and North Atlantic right whales -- two separate species -- along with the gray whale, have each been reduced to a few hundred survivors.

"Their situation is very critical. It could go either way," said Regina Asmutis-Silvia, senior biologist at the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, noting that stocks have not increased despite 70 years of protection.

But even species counted in the thousands and expanding each year by three, four or even eight percent are not out of danger, and would need decades of uninterrupted growth to regain their original numbers, scientists say.

Blue whales, which reach up to 25 meters (80 feet) in length and can weigh as much as a passenger jet, have recovered from a low of 400 specimens in the 1970s to some 2,200 today, says Jean-Benoit Charrassin, a marine biologist at the Natural History Museum in Paris and a delegate for France at the IWC.

"But that is only about one percent of their original stock," he said.

At least a quarter million blue whales swam in Antarctic waters until the start of the 19th century, when technology -- exploding harpoons, on-board processing -- nearly relegated them to museum displays.

The Antarctic humpback is doing better, with a population of about 50,000 -- 30 percent of its original size -- and annual growth rates of seven or eight percent.

But scientists and conservation groups remain implacably opposed to commercial hunts even for whale species that appear to be thriving.

There are "too many uncertainties about the statistics," said Charrassin.

A recent study, based on 2007 aerial surveys and led by Gisli Vikingsson of the Marine Research Institute in Iceland, reported a "significant decrease" since 2001 in the population of minke whales. Japan and Norway killed more than 1,600 minke in 2007.

Nor is commercial hunting the only threat.

"It is a mistake to factor out the single issue of hunting," said Asmutis-Silvia. "You need to look at the cumulative impact of vessel strikes, entanglements in fishing nets, pollution, destruction of habitat and acoustic disturbances."

Climate change is also looming as a danger. Acidification of the oceans, driven by global warming, could sharply reduce the number of krill, shrimp-like creatures that are the mainstay of the whale diet.

An adult blue whale can eat up to 40 million krill in a day.

And even if the tiny crustaceans resist acidification, whales are now competing with fish farms that scoop up krill by the tonne for feed.

For Yves Paccalet, a French naturalist and philosopher who helped push through the 1986 moratorium, the intelligent and highly-social creatures may be so exhausted from their centuries-long combat with humankind that they have simply have given up the fight.

"The psychological consequences of our aggression have compromised their will to live," said Paccalet, who worked extensively with French marine explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau.

"To reproduce, whales need a large number of individuals to ensure that they meet, and then to frolic and excite each other. Otherwise, a species may give in to a kind of sexual melancholy and simply stops breeding," he told AFP.

The giant blue whales are so few, he added, that they rarely cross paths.

"The balance remains very fragile: if we leave whales alone, it is not impossible that they will prosper. If we don't, the decline could be rapid," he said.

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Russian leader says environment problems a security threat

Yahoo News 21 Jun 08;

Russia's environmental problems are a threat to national security and could make parts of the country uninhabitable within 30 years, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Saturday.

On a televised visit to Saint Petersburg, the Russian leader said that after post-Soviet hardship in the 1990s it was time to turn to environmental questions.

"Our country is in a threatened state. If we don't deal with this, then in 10, 20, 30 years we could be in a situation where part of the country's territory is unfit for habitation," Medvedev told students at the law faculty where he once studied.

"Ecology is a question of national security," he said.

Medvedev did not specify the environmental problems he had in mind but noted the vast fresh water reserves Russia has in its frozen north and in its prized Lake Baikal.

Since taking office last month he has placed a new emphasis on the environment, ordering measures to reduce by 40 percent the amount of energy Russia uses per unit of gross domestic product by 2020.

Scientists say the environmental problems faced by Russia range from nuclear weapons waste to the melting of Siberian permafrost due to global warming.

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EU CO2 emissions drop 7.7 percent from 1990 levels: EAA

Yahoo News 22 Jun 08;

Greenhouse gas emissions from the European Union dropped 7.7 percent from 1990 to 2006, even as the use of carbon dioxide-intensive coal increased, the European Environment Agency said Friday.

If the EU maintains this pace, it would very nearly fulfill its Kyoto commitment to reduce greenhouse gases by eight percent compared to 1990 levels before 2012, the Copenhagen-based Agency said in an annual report.

The year 1990 is a benchmark for the Kyoto Protocol, a legally binding treaty that obliges industrialised countries which have signed and ratified it to trim their output of six carbon gases.

The emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), produced mainly by the burning of fossil fuels, remained stable across the EU's 27 nations in 2006 compared to the year before.

But heavier use of coal for power and heat production resulted in an increase of 15.4 million tonnes of CO2 from this sector in 2006.

Poland alone accounted for an increment of 7.6 million tonnes of coal-generated emissions.

Denmark and Finland turned in the biggest relative increase in greenhouse gas emissions, 10.9 and 16.3 percent respectively, also due to an increase in the burning of coal to generate power.

EU-15 nations cut emissions by 0.8 percent -- some 35 million tonnes -- in 2006, accounting for 81 percent of the EU total.

The net reduction in 2006 of greenhouse gases for the EU-27 was due mainly to lower emission of nitrous oxide produced by chemical plants, the report concluded.

Above and beyond its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, the EU has unilaterally set a goal of reducing the gases that drive global warming 20 percent by 2020, measured against the 1990 benchmark.

Under the Kyoto rules, the EU must report the emissions for each greenhouse gas from every member state on an annual basis.

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