Thoughts on the Dialogue Session on Building a Sustainable Community
on AsiaIsGreen
Duc debugs!
Mystery bug on the The Biodiversity crew @ NUS blog
Pigeon “KLPR 2008 233682″ landed on M. V. Harrier
from Bird Ecology Study Group blog
NSS Kids’ Fun with Beverage Plants
on the Fun with Nature blog
NSS Kids' Fun with Asian Elephants @ Orchidville
on the Fun with Nature blog
That's the number of ideas the public has passed to the Govt since July; all suggestions will be considered, says Yaacob
Liaw Wy-Cin, Straits Times 29 Oct 08;
SINGAPOREANS have flooded the Government with more than 1,000 suggestions since July outlining how the country can be more environmentally friendly, officials revealed yesterday.
The ideas, part of a wide-ranging public consultation drive, ranged from stationing a recycling chute in every home to taking empty taxis off the roads.
Environment and Water Resources Minister Yaacob Ibrahim addressed some of those proposals last night at a public forum on developing a sustainable Singapore.
While many of the ideas are interesting, they have to be balanced against budgetary and other considerations, he said.
That includes a suggestion to install recycling chutes in flats, a move advocates say would discourage Singaporeans from simply tossing plastic, paper and glass into the trash.
But Dr Yaacob said if each household had its own chute, town council charges might have to go up.
Some 180 people turned up last night at the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) Centre in Maxwell Road to discuss ways to keep Singapore green.
They included teachers, students, taxi drivers, housewives, those who worked in pharmaceutical companies as well as members of environmental groups.
Cycling enthusiasts in the audience argued for more bike paths, something they said would encourage people to avoid carbon-emitting vehicles.
Other ideas included making recycling more convenient, educating the young about the benefits of recycling, and having the Government take the environmental lead by using more hybrid cars, for example.
Some suggested that the State penalise energy wastage, similar to what the water conservation tax does.
The tax on water usage is set at either 30 per cent or 45 per cent, with heavy users paying more.
But Dr Yaacob said a decision on that would have to first be carefully considered. 'Do we need something for energy?
'It will take us some time to decide; we will study all the options. Everything is still on the table,' he said of all the suggestions.
A second public forum, chaired by Minister for National Development Mah Bow Tan, will be held next Thursday.
A website was launched in July for the public to pen their suggestions and comments.
The more than 1,000 suggestions received so far will be considered as officials draw up a blueprint for sustainable development in Singapore for the next 10 to 15 years.
This road map is expected to be released early next year and will be based on discussions among various ministries, as well as from the public and private sectors.
The Inter-Ministerial Committee for Sustainable Development, chaired by both Dr Yaacob and Mr Mah, was set up in February to think up ways of promoting economic growth without straining natural resources.
Such sustainable development has been a hot topic in recent years among governments as environmentalism becomes an increasing concern as urban populations balloon.
Chuang Peck Ming, Business Times 29 Oct 08;
THEY are cities that exude power, sophistication, wealth and influence. Most of all, they continue to forge global links despite the intensely tough and complex economic environment.
They are the top global cities. And Singapore is one of them, along with the usual suspects: New York, London, Paris and Tokyo.
Singapore has been ranked seventh on a list of 60 cities compiled by Foreign Policy magazine, consultancy AT Kearney and The Chicago Council on Global Affairs based on five factors - business activity, human capital, information exchange, cultural experience and political engagement.
Singapore is cited for its financial links, along with Hong Kong, which was ranked fifth on The 2008 Global Cities Index.
With Hong Kong and Chicago, Singapore is recognised as a regional gateway - an efficient economic powerhouse 'with favourable incentives for businesses and easy access to natural resources' of its region.
It is a magnet for smart, well-trained people worldwide and it often reinvents itself to stay competitive.
Singapore ranked sixth for business activity, seventh for human capital, 15th for information exchange - how well news and information is dispersed about and to the rest of the world - 37th for cultural experience and 16th for political engagement.
While behind Hong Kong overall, Singapore ranked above Seoul, which came in ninth. These three and Tokyo, in fourth place, are the four Asian cities in the Top 10 Global Cities.
Three cities from the US are also in the Top 10 - New York (1), Los Angeles (6) and Chicago (8). Europe is represented by London (2) and Paris (3). Canada's Toronto is ranked 10th.
'The Big Apple beat other global powerhouses largely on the back of its financial markets, through the networks of its multinationals and by the strengths of its diverse creative class,' Foreign Policy says.
London is runner-up largely on account of the cultural dimension, where Paris and New York trail far behind.
Paris, known more for museums than modems, is ranked third - thanks to its world-leading position in information exchange. Tokyo is highly rated for its strong showing in business.
'As diverse as they are, the most successful global cities have several things in common,' Foreign Policy says. 'As New York proves, global cities are those that excel across multiple dimensions.'
Even Shanghai's staggering, decades-long double- digit economic growth alone can't make it global, says the magazine. The city must determine how to use that wealth to influence policy, attract the brightest young minds and accurately portray the rest of the world to its citizens.
'Global cities continuously adapt to changing circumstances,' Foreign Policy says. 'London may be the city hardest hit by the global credit crunch, but chances are that it will leverage its abundant global financial ties to bounce back. Singapore, San Francisco (15) and Mexico City (25) will no doubt be taking notes.'
Sean Yoong, Associated Press Yahoo News 28 Oct 08;
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Conservationists said Tuesday they were planning a big push to protect Borneo's orangutans, pygmy elephants and other endangered wildlife by purchasing land from palm oil producers to create a forest sanctuary.
The deal is meant to help stave off the demise of orangutans, whose numbers have dwindled amid illegal logging and the rapid spread of palm oil plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia, the only two countries where orangutans are found in the wild.
The Malaysian-based LEAP Conservancy group is in talks to buy 222 acres of tropical jungle land in Malaysia's Sabah state on Borneo island from palm oil operators, said Cynthia Ong, LEAP's executive director.
The territory is needed to link two sections of a wildlife reserve that is home to an estimated 600 orangutans, 150 Borneo pygmy elephants and a vast array of other animals including proboscis monkeys, hornbills and river otters.
The funds are being raised through public and private donations, Ong said. The British-based World Land Trust, which is working with LEAP on the initiative, said on its Web site that 343,000 pounds ($533,000) was needed to acquire the land.
This was the first time that nongovernment activists were trying to acquire land in Malaysian Borneo for environmental protection with the help of government officials, Ong said.
It was not immediately clear when the purchase might be finalized, but Ong said the land has not been cleared for plantations so far because of a lack of access roads.
"There is a desperate need for this purchase," Ong told The Associated Press. "We have no other avenue to avoid a potential conflict between humans and wildlife."
Environmental groups estimate the number of orangutans in Malaysia and Indonesia has fallen by half in the past 20 years to less than 60,000, largely due to human encroachment on forests. Researchers say more than 5,000 of the primates have been lost every year since 2004.
Borneo is also home to some 1,000 pygmy elephants, which are genetically distinct from other subspecies of Asian pachyderms because they have babyish faces, large ears and longer tails. They are also more rotund and less aggressive.
Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters 28 Oct 08;
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An international team of scientists wants to ban the catching of eight species of Atlantic Ocean sharks and put a strict limit on the catch of two others to try to prevent population crashes.
Sharks are particularly vulnerable to overfishing because they reproduce and grow slowly, but there are currently no international limits on shark catch, according to the non-profit Lenfest Ocean Program, which convened a meeting of shark experts to study the problem.
The group found in a study released on Monday that 10 species of Atlantic sharks are at serious risk of being overfished.
"Our results show very clearly that there is a critical need to take management action to prevent shark population depletion and maintain ecosystem function," said lead author Colin Simpfendorfer of Australia's James Cook University.
Many of the world's open ocean shark species are declining, in part because they get caught in long fishing lines meant to catch tuna and swordfish, the scientists said.
As the number of traditional target fish like tuna and swordfish declines, demand for shark meat and shark fins increases, said Charlotte Hudson of the Lenfest program.
Because sharks are global ocean predators that range from the east coast of the United States to the west coast of Europe, determining their numbers -- and figuring out whether or how much they are decreasing -- is a difficult task.
"SHARKS ARE SPECIAL"
Shark experts from Australia, Belgium, Croatia, South Africa and the United States used available data on shark populations along with risk analysis to estimate which species were most at risk, Hudson said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.
"There are lots of fish in the ocean, but sharks are special because their biology allows them not to have as many babies a year, so that they reproduce much more slowly," Hudson said. "Therefore, when you kill adults, you really reduce the population much faster, because you're reducing the ability of the population to sustain itself."
The group recommended banning the catch of bigeye thresher, longfin mako, oceanic whitetip, porbeagle, common thresher, silky, smooth hammerhead and crocodile sharks. They urged a strict limit on the catch of blue and shortfin mako sharks.
Their recommendations were aimed at the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, known as ICCAT, whose members -- including the European Union -- are meeting November 17-24 in Morocco.
ICCAT mostly manages tuna populations, but conservationists and scientists see this organization as the only body that could impose Atlantic-wide restrictions on the taking of sharks in tuna fishing gear.
(Editing by Sandra Maler)
Terhi Kinnunen Yahoo News 28 Oct 08;
HELSINKI (AFP) – The rare Saimaa ringed seal, which lives only in Finland and whose population is estimated at just 260, is increasingly threatened by fishermen's nets and the melting of its icy habitat due to climate change, experts say.
The seal lives only in Finland's biggest lake, Lake Saimaa, in the eastern part of the country. It is a subspecies of the ringed seal that became a fresh water mammal some 9,500 years ago when ice melted after the ice age and it became trapped in the lake.
It has suffered from man's actions, in the form of pollution in the 1960s and the 1970s, and more recently from warmer winters and fishing.
Calving seals use snow to build a protective lair on the ice for their pups, which are born at the end of February or in early March.
"During the last three winters the ice and snow have come late or the snow has melted early, so seals have not been able to build lairs and the pups have remained without the protection of a lair," Jari Luukkonen, conservation director at WWF Finland, told AFP.
This has resulted in many cubs dying soon after birth and the population has started to fall.
Nets from sports fishermen are another death trap for the young cubs as they learn to catch their own food.
Statistics by state agency Metsaehallitus show the seal population increased from 189 in 1990 to 280 in 2005, but it has gradually fallen to around 260 in the past few years, a declining trend that has conservationists concerned.
According to stock estimates, some 50 to 60 pups are born annually, but up to 30 percent of them die during the first year.
"Getting entangled in fishing nets is the biggest single cause of death brought on by man. If we get rid of that, the Saimaa seal could probably survive the climate change," Luukkonen said.
A temporary law on fishing restrictions in Lake Saimaa is due to be renewed in May 2009 and a working group set up by the ministry of agriculture and forestry is currently discussing how the legislation should be tweaked.
"When we were reviewing the law last time it became clear that nature conservationists considered the restrictions insufficient, while fishermen said they were too harsh," said Roni Selen, a senior officer at the ministry of agriculture and forestry.
But he added that there was pressure to tighten restrictions because it was likely the European Union would look more closely at Finland's measures to protect its endangered seal.
"If that happens, we might get more pressure and sanctions from Brussels."
Landowners bordering the lake also own part of the waters by law, and although there are large conservation areas in Lake Saimaa, not all private landowners want to change their fishing habits for the sake of the seal.
WWF has since 1979 raised awareness about Saimaa seal conservation and last spring the organisation, together with the government and fishing associations, urged people to avoid using fishing nets from mid-April to mid-June when the young pups are learning to swim, dive, catch fish and survive on their own.
Meanwhile, the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation has offered fishermen the possibility to swap nets for fish traps, which are safer for the seals.
But biologist Tero Sipilae said land and water owners were not willing to increase the seal protection areas in the lake.
"The regions where the seal pups are born should be fishing net free by law," insisted Sipilae, who works for Metsaehallitus, a state agency that administers state-owned land and water areas.
He said reducing the deaths of seal pups would boost the stocks as there would be more fertile seals.
"With the current half-way measures, the Saimaa seal will slowly become extinct," Sipilae noted.
However, it is not professional fishers who use nets, but local or summer residents who put their nets in the seals' waters.
"We prefer voluntary means instead of restrictions by law. Net fishing continues to decrease as those who use that method are getting old," Vesa Karttunen from the Federation of Finnish Fisheries Association said.
But professional fisherman Niko Ovaska from Savonlinna said efforts to protect the Saimaa seal had not impacted his profession. And he said he liked the seals, which he sees almost every time he goes trawling.
"Of course it is two-sided affair, if fishing is restricted. But we have to remember the seal will become extinct if we don't do something."
"We have to weigh which is more important, protecting the seal from extinction or people's leisure time fishing," Ovaska said.
Alister Doyle, Reuters 28 Oct 08;
OSLO (Reuters) - The first U.N.-approved auction of elephant ivory in almost a decade gave lower-than-expected prices in Namibia on Tuesday but wildlife experts disagreed over whether that would discourage poachers.
The Namibian government sold 7.2 tonnes of stockpiled ivory for $1.2 million, or an average price of $164 a kilo, to Chinese and Japanese bidders in the first of four auctions by southern African countries to be spread over two weeks.
Most experts had predicted far higher prices in the rare sale, the first since 1999 when the average price was $110 a kilo in an auction limited to Japanese buyers.
"The reason was probably that the Namibian ivory was not the best quality ... some of it is weathered and cracked," said Willem Wijnstekers, head of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) who is overseeing the sales.
Wijnstekers told Reuters by telephone that the prices might be a sign that Asian ivory carvers had moved into different businesses since a 1989 global ban on exports, or perhaps that financial turmoil was denting Asian demand even for exotic commodities.
And he said that lower prices might help curb poaching.
"The higher the price the higher the incentive" for poachers, he said. Low prices "make it much more risky."
But the International Fund for Animal Welfare -- which has estimated that black market ivory sells in Asia for $880 a kilo -- said the legal sales will stoke poaching by making it hard to identify legal or illegal goods.
"What's important for poachers is to know that there is a market," Michael Wamithi, elephant program director at IFAW, told Reuters.
And the Environmental Investigation Agency, which seeks to expose wildlife crimes, said in a statement that the sales "could open the floodgates to illegal poaching."
One expert said Namibia had been expecting $300 per kilo from the sale, from which proceeds go to elephant conservation. The ivory was sold from stocks and from killings of 'problem elephants', for instance that trample crops.
Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa will also hold auctions in the next two weeks, totaling almost 100 tonnes, in exemptions from a 1989 U.N. export ban. They argue that elephant numbers have risen in recent years due to conservation.
Elephants, the world's largest land mammals, are under pressure in many parts of Africa from poaching, loss of habitats to farms and towns, pollution and climate change. Numbers have fallen to 470,000-685,000 against millions decades ago.
Wijnstekers said it was hard to predict prices at the other auctions. "Some buyers may be holding back," he said. Still, he said he had hoped competition between Japanese and Chinese buyers would do more to bolster prices.
Last week the Internet auctioneer eBay Inc. said it would institute a global ban on the sale of ivory products after a conservation group found 4,000 illegal elephant ivory listings on its site.
(Editing by Richard Balmforth)
Ivory sale earns $1.1m from China, Japan
Brigitte Weidlich Yahoo News 28 Oct 08;
WINDHOEK (AFP) – Namibia sold more than seven tonnes of ivory for 1.1 million dollars on Tuesday, in the first legal auction of elephant tusks in nearly a decade -- exclusively for Chinese and Japanese buyers.
The sale kicked off two weeks of auctions across southern Africa that will put 108 tonnes of tusks on the block, in a one-off sale to the Asian powers.
Four African countries have been authorised by CITES, the international convention that regulates trade in endangered species, to hold the sales only to China and Japan.
The Asian giants are among the world's largest markets for ivory, which is used for families' traditional seals to stamp documents as well as handicrafts.
Namibia's deputy environment minister Leon Jooste said three buyers from Japan and three from China bought 7.2 tonnes for a total of 1.18 million dollars (940,370 euros) during the closed-door auction.
"We had nine tonnes on offer, but the remaining 1.8 tonnes will be utilised by local jewellers and carvers," he told reporters.
Willem Wijnstekers, secretary general of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), monitored the sale and called the event a success.
"The auction was very succesful and we are confident the buyers will adhere to all CITES stipulatons," designed to prevent illegal ivory trade and to discourage poaching, he said.
The auctions, which are closed to the public and to media, are selling off tusks from government stocks -- mainly from elephants who died of natural causes or from culling of herds to prevent overpopulation.
But some conservationists fear that the sudden arrival of so much legal ivory in China and Japan could provide a way for poachers to slip their ill-gotten wares past the eyes of regulators.
Michael Wamithi, head of the elephant programme at the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said both nations are among the top destinations for illegal ivory taken from poached elephants.
"Several multiple-tonne seizures have been made at Chinese ports in recent years. The lack of enforcement for the registration systems in both countries also provides a convenient loophole for illegal traders," he said.
The wildlife trade watchdog Traffic said it has confidence in the auctions, which after Namibia will move every three days through Botswana, Zimbabwe and finally South Africa.
"As far as we're concerned, it's a well-managed process," Traffic's national representative David Newton said in Johannesburg.
Despite concerns about China's enforcement efforts, Newton said Beijing had made real efforts to comply with international rules on ivory trade.
"They are taking this a lot more seriously," he said.
"We're always urging caution, and the ivory trade needs to be very strictly managed," he said. "For the one-off trade, we're confident that the monitoring mechanisms are in place."
CITES says it agreed to the sales only in African countries where elephant populations are judged to be healthy and growing. More than 312,000 elephants are living in the four nations.
Under CITES rules, profits from the sales must go towards elephant conservation projects, or towards programmes aimed at developing communities who live around elephant ranges.
The ivory can be exported only to China and Japan, which then must track it to prevent it from being resold overseas.
The international ivory trade was banned in 1989, but since 1997 CITES has authorised the four African countries to carry out occasional sales.
The last sale in 1999 earned five million dollars (four million euros). The four countries agreed not to hold a new sale for at least another nine years.
South Africa will hold the biggest sale, with 51 tonnes on the block, followed by Botswana with 44 tonnes and four tonnes in Zimbabwe.
Michael Perry, Reuters 28 Oct 08;
SYDNEY (Reuters) -Rising carbon dioxide levels in the world's oceans due to climate change, combined with rising sea temperatures, could accelerate coral bleaching, destroying some reefs before 2050, says a new Australian study.
The study says earlier research may have significantly understated the likely damage to the world's reefs caused by man-made change to the Earth's atmosphere.
"Previous predictions of coral bleaching have been far too conservative, because they didn't factor in the effect of acidification on the bleaching process and how the two interact," said Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg from the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and Queensland University.
The Australian scientists erected 30 large aquaria in the waters off Heron Island on the Great Barrier Reef to study the combined effects of ocean warming, acidification due to rising CO2, and sunlight on a large range of reef organisms.
Using CO2 and temperatures predicted for the middle and end of the century, the scientists found ocean acidification from CO2, which reduces coral calcification, had the potential to worsen the impact of bleaching and the death of reef-building organisms.
The study found that coralline algae, which glue the reef together and help coral larvae settle successfully, were highly sensitive to increased CO2.
"These may die on reefs such as those in the southern Great Barrier Reef before year 2050," study leader Ken Anthony said in a statement released on Tuesday.
Some coral species were able to cope with higher levels of ocean acidification by enhancing their rates of photosynthesis, but if CO2 levels became too high "the coral-algal system crashes and the corals die," said the study.
"The implications of this finding are massive as it means that our current bleaching models, which are based on temperature only, severely underestimate the amount of coral bleaching we will see in the future," said Anthony.
"These results highlight the urgency of reducing CO2 emissions globally. Without political will and commitment to abatement, entire reef systems such as the Great Barrier Reef will be severely threatened in coming decades."
(Editing by Roger Crabb.)
Mark Kinver, BBC News 28 Oct 08;
The thickness of Arctic sea ice "plummeted" last winter, thinning by as much as 49 centimetres (1.6ft) in some regions, satellite data has revealed.
A study by UK researchers showed that the ice thickness had been fairly constant for the previous five winters.
The team from University College London added that the results provided the first definitive proof that the overall volume of Arctic ice was decreasing.
The findings have been published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
"The ice thickness was fairly constant for the five winters before this, but it plummeted in the winter after the 2007 minimum," lead author Katharine Giles told BBC News.
Sea ice in the Arctic shrank to its smallest size on record in September 2007, when it extended across an area of just 4.13 million sq km (1.59 million sq miles), beating the previous record low of 5.32 million sq km, measured in 2005.
The team from the university's Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling - part of the UK's National Centre for Earth Observation - found that last winter the ice had thinned by an average of 26cm (0.9ft) below the 2002-2008 winter average.
Dr Giles added that the data also showed the western Arctic experienced the greatest impact, where the ice thinned by up to 49cm (1.6ft).
Melting point
The recent record losses of ice cover in the Arctic has led to suggestions that the region could have reached a "tipping point" but some uncertainty over the causes had remained, explained co-author Seymour Laxon.
"The extent can change because the ice can be redistributed, increasing the amount of open water," he told BBC News. "But this does not reduce the overall amount of ice."
"To determine whether the reduction in sea ice extent is the result of ice being piled up against the coast or whether it is the result of melting, you need to measure the thickness."
"I think this is the first time that we can definitively say that the bulk overall volume of ice has decreased," observed Dr Laxon.
"So this means melting; it doesn't mean that the ice has just been pushed up against the coastline."
Dr Giles explained that the measurements gathered by satellite provided a continuous data-set and had a number of advantages over other methods.
"Drilling, submarines or aircraft; all of these techniques can be limited by time and space," she said.
"You can only sample relatively small areas, and you cannot have a continuous time series - it's a very harsh environment, so field experiments in winter are logistically difficult."
"We have been using satellite data, which means we get coverage all across the Arctic Ocean (apart from the very centre) and we get it continuously, so we have great coverage both in terms of time and area."
The measurements were recorded via a radar altimeter onboard the European Space Agency's (Esa) Envisat satellite.
The altimeter fires pulses of electromagnetic waves down on to the ice, which reflects them back up to a receiver on the satellite.
The time taken for the waves to complete this journey is recorded, and it is a fairly straightforward calculation to work out the height of the ice above sea level.
As one tenth of the ice sits above the water, it is then possible to work out the overall volume and thickness of ice in that location.
Dr Laxon said the project's findings are being used to help climate modellers refine their projections of what is going to happen in the future.
"The time when Arctic sea ice is going to disappear is open to a lot of debate," he said.
"About five years ago, the average projection for the sea ice disappearing was about 2080.
"But the ice minimums, and this evidence of melting, suggests that we should favour the models that suggest the sea ice will disappear by 2030-2040, but there is still a lot of uncertainty."
The researchers hope to keep the data series, funded by the EU and the Natural Environmental Research Council (Nerc), running for as long as satellite-based measurements are available.
Big decline in depth of Arctic winter sea ice
Juliette Jowit, The Guardian 28 Oct 08;
The thickness of sea ice in the Arctic dramatically declined last winter for the first time since records began in the early 1990s. The research by British scientists shows a significant loss in the thickness of the northern ice cap after the record loss of ice in the summer of 2007, although the weather was not abnormally warm.
The findings, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, raise the possibility that the loss of the Arctic sea ice could accelerate, because as the ice recedes the water temperature rises. This summer the sea ice recorded its second-lowest extent after the record low of 2007, again despite relatively cool air temperatures.
However, Katharine Giles of the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at University College London, who led the study, said it was too soon to say whether the downward trend would continue and lead to summer sea ice disappearing even faster than forecast. "It's dangerous to extrapolate out because colder weather would mean the ice could recover again," said Giles. "This data will help climate modellers to validate their models and make them more accurate."
The study, part-funded by the Natural Environment Research Council and the European Union, found the thickness of sea ice in the Arctic was almost unchanged in the five winters from 2002-6, but then declined 10%, or 26cm, last winter. In parts of the western Arctic, where the greatest loss was recorded the previous summer, the loss was nearly double the average.
But Vicky Pope, the Met Office's leading adviser to the government on climate change, warned: "There's clearly a decline over the last 30 years and we can detect a human signal in that, but the change in the last couple of years could be due to natural fluctuations in the weather."
Other causes of sea ice changes could include ocean currents and wind piling up ice, making it important to measure both thickness and extent to calculate total volume, said Giles.
Arctic ice thickness drops by up to 19 per cent
Paul Eccleston, The Telegraph 28 Oct 08;
The thickness of ice in large parts of the Arctic dropped by as much as 19 per cent last winter, according to scientists.
The average thickness fell by almost half a metre in some areas compared to the previous five winters.
After a slow downward trend since 2002 the rate suddenly increased after summer 2007 when the amount of ice dropped to its lowest level since records began.
Following the record low, the amount of sea ice has recovered after cooler summer temperatures so the thinner ice cannot be blamed entirely on warmer Arctic conditions.
Researchers from the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at University College London - part of the National Centre for Earth Observation - used satellite technology to measure sea ice thickness over the Arctic from 2002 to 2008.
On average the winter sea ice in the Arctic is two and half metres thick. Its depth is calculated from the time it takes a radar pulse to travel from a satellite to the surface of the ice and back again.
The team was the first to measure ice thickness throughout the Arctic winter, from October to March, over more than half of the Arctic, using the European Space Agency's Envisat satellite.
Their research, reported in Geophysical Research Letters, showed that last winter the average thickness of sea ice over the whole Arctic fell by 26cm (10 per cent) compared with the average thickness of the previous five winters, but sea ice in the western Arctic lost around 49cm of thickness.
This region of the Arctic saw the North-West passage in the summer of 2007 become ice free and open to shipping for the first time in 30 years.
Dr Katharine Giles, who led the study said: "This summer's low ice extent doesn't seem to have been driven by warm weather, so the question is, was last winter's thinning behind it?
"The western Arctic in the summer of 2007 saw the biggest changes in the amount of ice and this is where we saw the biggest changes in the thickness of the ice so it is hard to imagine that they are not connected.
"We saw an average decrease of 10 per cent which is pretty dramatic."
She said the loss of ice would reduce the Arctic's capacity to deflect sunlight and would lead to a larger areas of water which would absorb heat and produce warmer temperatures - leading to more ice melting.
Dr Seymour Laxon, who also took part in the study, said: "Ice can simply melt and disappear or if the wind changes it can move and be piled up against the shore when you would expect it to become thicker but we saw no evidence of this and rather than getting thicker, the ice was thinner."
Before this latest study, Christian Haas of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany, had discovered thinner ice in a small region around the North Pole but this is the first time scientists have been able to show that the ice thinning was widespread and occurred in areas of both young and old ice.
Hantu Dive with new nudis, fishies and more
photos and stories on the hantu blog
7 Nov (Fri): Workhop for nature guides - Echinoderms
on the wild shores of singapore blog
Ethics for Underwater Photographers
on the Gill Divers Blog
Pulau Jong Reef Check
on HBing's memories
Kusu Island Reefwalk
on the Blue Water Volunteers blog
Babbler feeding Drongo Cuckoo fledgling
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog
Tania Tan, Strait Times 28 Oct 08;
ARMY regular Ong Chee Siang spends many sleepless nights mentoring young environmentalists, educating people about climate change and organising green events.
While burning the midnight oil can be exhausting, the 26-year-old said the effort is worth it.
'It's tiring, yes. But if I can help make a difference in some way, what's a little lost sleep?'
Mr Ong is part of a growing number of National Environment Agency (NEA) volunteers who are spreading message of conservation and sustainability to the masses.
Survey results released by the agency showed the number of volunteers jumped by a third in the last year to more than 11,400. Volunteer-driven activities are also on the upswing; over 5,770 were organised this year, up almost a third from last year.
'I'm very busy but it's a nice problem to have,' said Mr Ong. 'It shows that people are becoming more aware about the environment.'
The sustained public appeal has helped foster a growing awareness of the environment. Almost 85 per cent of 1,500 Singaporeans surveyed felt the need to be good to the planet, compared to just under half in 2004.
'It's heartening to see that green awareness is starting to take root,' said the NEA.
Volunteers do more than just wave the anti-
littering flag. They promote recycling, help residents improve energy efficiency, and educate Singaporeans about climate change.
Constituencies, in particular, are experiencing a flurry of activity as more grassroots organisations help households save power and shrink their electricity bills. For example, the Radin Mas constituency already has 1,500 households involved in its home energy audit programme, which sees some 100 volunteers go door-to-door to teach households how to conserve energy.
The year-long Clean and Green Singapore campaign has been key to boosting volunteer activity, said the NEA. Launched last year, it was expanded after many said green activities should be a sustained affair, instead of a week-long blitz.
This year's campaign - called Every Little Step Counts, Let's Make A Difference - will kick off on Friday with a three-day carnival at the Marina Barrage. The complex will be transformed into an eco-friendly town to show how everyday activities, like shopping, eating and working, can be greener.
NEA youth volunteer Teo Shuli, 18, believes the campaign will spawn greater awareness of the environment.
'It provides a larger platform for green issues to be brought to the masses,' said Shuli, who is unable to volunteer this year, as he will be sitting for his A-levels in November.
'But I'll definitely visit,' he said.
For more information, go to www.cgs.org.sg
Tariff revision no benefit to power generation companies
Letter from Jenny Teo
Director, Corporate Communications
Energy Market Authority
Today Online 28 Oct 08;
In “Is this the best deal?” (Oct 20) Mr Conrad Raj suggested that the increase in electricity tariffs had benefitted power generation companies (gencos) and Singapore Power (SP) at the expense of consumers. But he has confused the issues and painted a distorted picture.
SP’s electricity infrastructure subsidiaries in Singapore are regulated by the Energy Market Authority and earn a Return on Total Assets (Rota) of about 6 per cent. This is a reasonable return to finance the investments needed to expand and maintain our electricity grid infrastructure. In comparison, the Rota earned by other infrastructure companies overseas varies between 6 per cent and 15 per cent.
The regulatory framework is also designed to promote system efficiencies, so that the savings generated can be passed on to consumers. For example, SP has announced a reduction of 8 to 11 per cent in the charges for transporting electricity from Oct 1, 2008.
As for the gencos, they are subject to competitive pressures in an open market environment. Investors are free to build new plants and compete in the electricity market, as companies like Keppel Merlimau Cogen and Sembcorp Cogen have done in recent years.
The gencos have every incentive to innovate and provide electricity at competitive prices. The divestment of the gencos will attract new players into the industry and continue to keep a downward pressure on price. There is therefore no basis to link the divestment with the tariff revision.
Mr Raj’s suggestion that the gencos purchase their fuel at “the same time and (at) exactly the same price” is inaccurate. The gencos negotiate their own commercial contracts for natural gas with the gas suppliers. Every contract is different, but they follow the industry practice of indexing the price of gas to the price of fuel oil.
Changes in this fuel oil cost are reflected in the electricity tariff every quarter. As the tariff is set in advance using the forward fuel oil price, there is a three-month time lag between the oil price movement and the actual tariff revision. Alternatively, if we had used the spot oil price to compute the tariff, it would have been higher in 11 of the 16 quarters since 2004. Hence, under the present formula, households have generally paid less for their electricity.
For this quarter, the forward fuel oil price had risen sharply by 38 per cent. All of the increase in the tariff goes into paying for this higher cost of fuel. The tariff revision does not benefit either the gencos or SP.
We are a power service provider
Role is to transport energy from power generation companies to the end user
Letter from Ho Lai Fung
Director, Corporate Communications
Singapore Power Ltd
Today Online 28 Oct 08
We refer to the article by Mr Conrad Raj “Is this the best deal” (Oct 20) and would like to put things in perspective.
Following the liberalisation of the electricity market, Singapore Power (SP) is no longer in the business of generating electricity. Electricity generation is undertaken by five generation companies (gencos), namely Senoko Power, PowerSeraya, Tuas Power, SembCorp Cogen and Keppel Merlimau Cogen. SP does not own any of the gencos.
The role of the SP Group in Singapore is confined to:
• The transportation of electricity from gencos to end-users through the transmission and distribution network by SP PowerGrid;
• The provision of market support services to the electricity market, viz meter-reading, billing and payment collection, by SP Services. Regulated by the Energy Market Authority, SP Services purchases electricity from the gencos and then sells the electricity at cost (with no mark-up) to small businesses and households.
For providing these services, SP receives 5.17 cents (17 per cent) of the 30.45 cents per kilowatt hour tariff applicable to households today. This fee of 5.17 cents per kilowatt hour does not fluctuate with the changes in the price of fuel. Over the last six years, SP has reduced its share of the average tariff by 24 per cent. This reduction is made possible because SP has achieved operational and financial efficiencies, and shared the savings from these efficiency gains with all consumers.
The increase in the tariff this quarter is used to meet the higher cost of fuel needed to generate electricity. Neither SP nor any of its subsidiaries benefit from the tariff increase.
With regard to Mr Raj’s comment that SP Group made a “whopping” profit of $1.09 billion, we would like to clarify that this profit included the results of our international operations and the sale of investments. For SP’s regulated electricity business, the after-tax profit was $423 million, which represents a return of about 6 per cent on our total Singapore assets of about $9.7 billion. On the strength of this performance, SP will have to secure financing to invest another $5 billion in the Singapore electricity grid over the next 5 years.
Such investments are required not for the sake of “surpassing our peers” or winning international accolades, as Mr Raj suggests. Rather, these investments are needed to meet growing electricity demand and to replace ageing equipment. Ultimately, this will help to support our economy and to ensure that all Singaporeans can enjoy peace of mind with a reliable supply of electricity to their homes.
Pricier power? Life goes on
How low-incomefamilies are coping withelectricity price hikes
Neo Chai Chin, Today Online 28 Oct 08;
TOA Payoh resident Mdm Noorhayati used to top up her electricity account with $10 every five days, but now she does it every three to four days.
The dressmaker and her four children, aged 12 to 27, live in a two-room rental flat, and have been on the Pay-As-You-Use (Payu) electricity metering scheme for the last “two to three years” after falling into arrears with SP Services.
When electricity prices rose by 21 per cent on Oct 1, Mdm Noorhayati, 51, was caught off-guard. “I said, ‘How come (the top-ups get used up) so fast?’ and my son told me, ‘Mum, it’s because electricity prices have been raised’,” she said.
But the price hike has not led to worse times for Mdm Noorhayati and other Payu households so far, social workers and the Community Development Councils (CDCs) told Today.
This is mainly due to increased Government rebates and subsidies for the poor.
“We do not expect a surge in applications over this month or the next because of the tariff rise,” said a spokesperson from South West CDC. “Residents who apply for financial assistance usually face multiple issues such as loss of employment, loss of breadwinner, unstable income, arrears in HDB instalments and so on.”
Said senior social worker Frances Lee: “Theoretically speaking, yes, there should be an increase in Payu households. But my observation is that their problems don’t happen all of a sudden, and with the Government’s rebates, the end cost to them might not be as great as it’s said to be.”
Electricity tariffs have risen every quarter since April last year, from 18.88 cents per kilowatt hour to 30.45 cents per kilowatt hour now. But the number of Payu households has dropped slightly, from 13,627 in December last year to 13,401 in August, according to SP Services.
Payu is for households whose electricity supply has been cut and are unable to pay the minimum sum required for re-connection. It is also for those who default on their instalment plans. With a 50 per cent increase in the Government’s Utilities-Save rebates this year, households will receive between $120 and $330, depending on their flat types. For one- to three-room flat households, the rebates exceed their estimated bill increases.
The attractiveness of the Payu scheme is that it allows households to top up accounts in small amounts from as low as $10, 20 per cent of which goes towards settling their debts.
“We are better off with Payu, because now we won’t overuse. When my sons play too much computer games, I will ask them if they can afford what they are using,” said Mdm Noorhayati.
Dishwasher Mdm K F Leong, 63, often checks the credit left in her Payu account and cuts electricity usage by turning the lights off at 8pm when her two grandchildren go to sleep. But she sometimes has to borrow $100 to $200 from friends for top-ups, repaying them when she gets her salary.
“We do hear of clients who say friends and relatives are more willing to lend money for something concrete — to top up electricity accounts,” said Ms Lee, a senior social worker with Care Corner Family Service Centre (Toa Payoh).
Frequent Payu top-ups, however, are a problem for those with mobility problems. For such households, Care Corner either appeals to SP Services for standard meters or arranges for Giro payments, said Ms Lee.
Besides rebates from the Government, low-income households also get utilities vouchers from the North West and South West CDCs, while Central Singapore CDC holds budgeting and power-saving workshops.
Central Singapore CDC’s workshops, which include financial literacy programmes, have been held for 4,000 households earning less than $1,500 since April last year. Three in five households have seen a reduction in household expenditure, including on utilities, after attending the workshops, said its general manager Agnes Kwek.
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