Visually handicapped kids get a feel of nature

Lee Pei Qi, Straits Times 13 May 08

FOR 21 students - most of them at least partly blind - a visit to the mangrove wetlands in Pulau Ubin yesterday gave them a chance to touch the sea creatures they could not see.

Goh Wei Bin, 12 and partially blind from birth, felt what it was like to have a hermit crab crawl across his palm. And Sakinah Zainal, also 12 and partially blind, touched the rough skin of a starfish for the first time.

Both were thrilled.

Wei Bin, a self-confessed science enthusiast with limited vision, said he had never come this close to marine animals like starfish, sea cucumbers and sand dollars before.

He said: 'I like to touch and feel all these things because I cannot see clearly.'

The pair were in the group, aged between nine and 16 and hailing from the Singapore School for the Visually Handicapped, who visited the island with guides and volunteers.

The jaunt, sponsored by the Singapore Press Holdings Foundation and initiated by the National Parks Board, was part of a Special Projects to Understand Nature or Sun Club programme organised for children with special needs.

Sun Club has 60 such nature trips lined up this year for about 1,200 children.

Seven schools are now in the club, with four more due to join it this year.

Read more!

4 cats found dead - 3 with stab wounds

Straits Times 13 May 08;

ANOTHER four cats have been found dead in Pasir Ris, bringing the death toll to seven felines since May 2.

Of the four, three were found in Pasir Ris Town Park yesterday, within 50m of one another and with abdominal puncture wounds.

The fourth cat was found nearby, in an open field near Block 536. It had a fractured jaw.

It had no other observable wounds, and it is not known whether its death was related to that of the other three.

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), alerted to the deaths, said the wounds on the three in the park were stab wounds, not the result of dog bites.

On May 2, three cats were found in Pasir Ris Street 21, doused with what is believed to be thinner.

Two died and the third was eventually put down as a result of its injuries.

The SPCA is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of the person or persons involved in this spate of cat deaths.

The SPCA may be contacted on 6287-5355, Extension 9.

Read more!

Think green before printing e-mail - that's the message

Goh Chin Lian, Straits Times 13 May 08;

CIVIL servant Shayne Prashan signs off his e-mail these days with an image of a small pine tree and a green message: 'Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail.'

The 28-year-old associate for social programmes at the Ministry of Finance learnt about this eco-friendly signature in January this year, when the corporate communications department asked staff members to consider putting it in their e-mail sign-offs.

'It's a natural extension of what I do and it's to remind others to also take the step,' said Mr Prashan, who tries not to print documents but downloads them instead on his laptop, which he takes to his meetings.

The Ministry of Finance is not alone in advocating this green message. The National Parks Board's (NParks) 700-plus employees were encouraged early this year to use a similar tagline.

Theirs reads: 'Save our planet. Please don't print this e-mail and/or attachments unless you really need to. Thank you.'

Some companies have adopted variations of the same message, including transport group ComfortDelGro.

Since February, its e-mail messages come with the tagline: 'At ComfortDelGro, we are committed to the preservation of the environment. We encourage you to print this e-mail only if it is absolutely necessary.'

Said its spokesman Tammy Tan: 'It's part of our green movement.' It complements a range of green measures the group has adopted, from rolling out buses that meet Euro IV emission targets, to introducing paper recycling at all its offices.

Multinational companies here, such as marketing agency Ogilvy and real estate provider CB Richard Ellis, have also adopted similar taglines.

A spokesman for CB Richard Ellis said it took on the tagline last June after a directive from its Los Angeles headquarters.

Individual employees are also doing it on their own. Like public relations manager Bernadette Low, who learnt about the tagline from an Australia-based colleague last year.

She had become more eco-conscious after watching former United States vice-president Al Gore's climate-change movie, An Inconvenient Truth.

'I believe in it,' said Ms Low, 33, who does not print most of her e-mail. If she does, she uses both sides of the paper. 'There are a lot of things you don't need to print. But usually people don't think twice and just click the print button. So it's a good reminder.'

The eco-friendly taglines appear to have surfaced en masse abroad last year, and spread further, though detractors say most taglines are hardly noticeable and will be missed by most people.

But Singapore Environment Council executive director Howard Shaw thinks it is an important first step to promoting a green office, especially with the public sector - which accounts for one-fifth of commercial activity - also cottoning on.

So far, the only government agencies that have obtained the green office label are the National Environment Agency and Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources.

They practise measures like separating paper waste from other waste, and recycling printer and ink cartridges.

Mr Shaw thinks the new taglines in the Ministry of Finance and NParks are a positive start. And while the council does not have a similar tag as yet, he said: 'I'll consider it.'

Read more!

Underground 'city' to free up space

Ronnie Lim, Business Times 13 May 08;
Possibilities include power stations and logistics centres beneath the surface

(SINGAPORE) Singapore is looking at building underground power stations, water reclamation plants, wafer fabs and R&D labs, data centres, warehouses and port and airport logistics centres to free up surface land for other economic uses.

Industrial landlord Jurong Town Corporation has called a tender for a wide-ranging 'underground rock cavern (URC) usage feasibility study' to see how best caverns beneath the island can be used.

The consultant awarded the study will have to work with various government agencies on possible uses for the caverns.

For instance, it will have to work with the Energy Market Authority on power stations, the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore on airport logistics, or the Public Utilities Board on water reclamation plants.

The study will cover such 'space, technical and functional requirements, operation and maintenance requirements and identification of issues of concern', the tender document says.

The tender, called on Friday last week, closes on June 6. Due to the specialised nature of the project, only tenderers with proven URC expertise and experience are eligible.

The winning consultant will have to identify and study proven URC usage in other countries and determine the technical and operational feasibility of such usage here.

The consultant will also have to look at the environment, health and the likely public reaction on such matters as radiation and pollution, harmful airborne particles and damage to existing buildings or infrastructure, among other things.

A JTC spokeswoman said yesterday JTC will be the facilitator for the multi-agency study. 'The study will look at possible uses for URCs as well as costs,' she said. 'The latter include costs for excavation and facility construction for each specific use.'

JTC declined to say which areas of Singapore have potential for URCs. 'The latest feasibility study is looking just at usage, and not sites,' the spokeswoman noted.

Singapore has so far used underground caverns for munitions storage for the defence forces. It blasted caverns out of granite beneath the disused Mandai Quarry.

And it is currently constructing Phase 1 of the $700 million Jurong Rock Cavern (JRC) project beneath Jurong Island to store 1.485 million cu m of crude oil and oil products like naphtha, condensate and gas oil.

JRC will be used by petrochemical companies such as Jurong Aromatics Corporation, which is building a US$2 billion aromatics complex and is the first committed customer.

The first of five caverns being built under Phase 1 will start operating at end-2010. Phase 2 of the project will add another 1.3 million cu m of storage.

In March, when Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean commissioned the underground munitions facility at Mandai, he said it would free up 300 ha of land - half the size of Pasir Ris Town - and need 20 per cent less manpower to operate than a surface facility.

Likewise, JRC will free up 60 ha of surface space - bigger than Bishan Park - to accommodate the storage needs of the oil industry here.

Land on Jurong Island is being snapped up by new petrochemical investors. BT understands that no more land is available from JTC for above-ground oil storage terminals, after Hin Leong's Universal Terminal and Emirates National Oil Company's Horizon Terminal.

Industrial landlord Jurong Town Corporation has called a tender for a wide-ranging 'underground rock cavern usage feasibility study' to see how best caverns beneath the island can be used.

An underground reservoir?
Govt tender to study feasibility of more facilities in rock caverns
Ansley Ng, Today Online 14 May 08;

LAND-SCARCE Singapore is already storing some of its military munitions in this way. And work is underway on similar storage facilities for crude oil and oil products.

Now, the Government wants to look at building power stations, warehouses, incineration plants, airport logistics centres and reservoirs — all below ground.

Industrial landlord Jurong Town Corporation (JTC) last Friday called a tender for a "underground rock cavern usage feasibility study" to see how subterranean grottos could be used to maximise land use. Among other things, the winning consultant will have to study the costs and the use of underground caverns in other countries. It will also advise JTC on the possible environmental and health issues, such as pollution, radiation and damage to existing buildings and infrastructure.

Last July, Today broke the story of how government agencies including the JTC were exploring the feasibility of creating caverns for living.

Professor Zhao Jian, who led early feasibility studies on cavern development in Singapore, had said then that the potential for space underground was "almost limitless" and was "particularly useful for any facilities that are not desirable at surface level, for example, sewage treatment plants".

The study now up for tender will look merely at feasibility and not sites, a JTC spokeswoman told the Business Times.

However, potential sites could be areas with deposits of igneous rock, such as granite, in the central, northern and northeastern areas of the island.

A 1995 paper by Nanyang Technological University researchers including Prof Zhao, in the Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology, concluded that the Bukit Timah granite — which forms one-third of the surface area of Singapore — had good potential for underground cavern construction.

The tender closes June 6, and the consultant is expected to work with the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore and the Energy Market Authority, among others.

other cavern projects:

• In March, the Ministry of Defence opened caverns under the disused Mandai Quarry to store ammunition such as bullets, bombs and missiles. The warehouse caverns – each about the size of six basketball courts – were blasted out of solid granite underneath the quarry, freeing up surface land the size of Pasir Ris town.

• The JTC is constructing the $2-billion Jurong Rock Cavern beneath Jurong Island, for use by petrochemical companies. The first caverns under Phase 1 should begin operations in 2010.

• A plan in the late 1990s to construct a Science City, a mixed-use commercial project, under Science Park 2 was derailed by cost factors.

Read more!

Green buildings in Singapore: Going green to stay in the black

Business Times 13 May 08;

Builders who go green can also expect to see more cost savings in their bottom lines over time, reports JOEL CHUA

A NEW species of building is sprouting up in our concrete jungle. And in the near future, the proliferation of this species may render the term 'concrete jungle' an anachronism.

'Green buildings' are taking root across our cityscape and redefining our living and working environments. They may serve the same functions and generally occupy the same forms as conventional buildings, but they do so with more energy-efficiency and greater regard for the environment in terms of the materials and construction methods used.

While the impetus for this new building paradigm was ecological, it has since taken on an economic dimension as well. And it is the latter consideration that is fuelling the commercial viability of the trend. Industry experts say that companies which make their office buildings green will eventually add more black to their bottom line in energy cost savings.

And the government, with its new green thumb, is actively helping to prune the industry of unnecessary waste.

From April this year, the authorities have made it mandatory for all new buildings to be certified with the Green Mark, a scheme under the Building and Construction Authority that ensures structures are environmentally friendly.

Besides that, the authorities are giving cash incentives to builders who achieve certain standards set out under the scheme. To attain the certificate, new building plans are graded on five areas - energy efficiency, water efficiency, environmental protection, indoor environmental quality as well as green features and innovation.

According to the director of local energy-audit firm G-Energy Global, Vincent Low, getting certified should not be the main focus of building planners. In his experience, builders sometimes approach the Green Mark as though it were a test, trying to score easy points in less challenging areas (50 out of 100 is the pass mark).

But this, he says, is myopic and defeats the purpose. They need to appreciate the spirit of going green in the first place. While bureaucratic standards may require them to score a certain amount of points in an overall assessment, builders need to look at the big picture - saving their clients money in the long run through cutting energy consumption. And there are various ways to do this.

Construction materials and processes also determine how green a building is. During construction, how much material from existing structures is recycled for use in a new building is a factor in the Green Mark assessment.

As is how conscientious contractors are in preserving trees and greenery on site. Specialised materials and paints that do not harm the environment also add to the score.

Energy-saving functions

A green building is more energy-efficient than a grey one because of technologies and design elements that enable it to adapt to the behaviour and changing needs of its occupants without compromising functional quality and comfort. It does this by dynamically tracking human and environmental factors, then moderating the allocation of resources to parts of the building that require them. Less energy is wasted.

According to G-Energy Global's Mr Low, if properly designed and managed, a green building can save up to 30 per cent in energy. This is something that developers need to focus on when deciding how much to invest in typically more expensive green materials and technologies.

Such a level of energy-efficiency translates into significant operational cost savings in the long run. The government has, in fact, set up a $10 million fund to subsidise up to 50 per cent of the cost of companies that wish to audit the energy efficiency of their buildings.

But the 'long run' is an issue that must be reconciled with this move to green technologies.

With his years of experience, the past-president of the Singapore Institute of Building, Yan Kum Seng, has noticed that buildings here are generally torn down or renovated after just 10 years. He believes that installing green components makes sense only if buildings last for at least a couple of decades. If not, spending on more expensive technology designed to save money in the long term won't make any sense.

But according to Chan Kim Kai, the manager of Temasek Polytechnic's Intelligent Building Technology course, a building need not employ sophisticated technology for it to be green. Changi Airport Terminal Three (T3) is a good example. It employs technology and simple but effective design in order to save energy.

Sophisticated sensors are used in the ceiling louvres that react to sunlight and adjust their angle automatically to let in an optimal amount of natural light and a minimal amount of heat. This results in less energy spent on artificial lighting and, because it also keeps heat out, less is spent to cool the interior.

There doesn't seem to be anything particularly hi-tech about the air-conditioning vents in the departure hall, apart from the fact that they are placed as close to the ground as possible. The simple but thoughtful design element is their energy-saving efficiency - because they are close to human level, the ventilators do not have to be on full blast for occupants to feel their effect.

Another simple feature with significant benefits - which T3 shares with several other green buildings - is a 'green wall'. Surfaces that are covered with greenery tend to absorb less heat and thus help keep the internal temperature cool. And of course, they look great too.

But well-considered basic design touches will only take a building so far. It will still require technology to deepen a building's shade of green. Centralised controls that regulate lighting, air-conditioning, water-flow, waste management and security, ensure that every ounce of energy and resource is expanded to its fullest potential.

Colour of money

These features do not just make buildings green, but also 'intelligent'. Indeed, a building that responds intuitively to facilitate the human and organisational activities of its occupants, while saving money at the same time, warrants such a term.

And with regulations now calling for all buildings to encompass green components, the intelligent building industry is growing, as Singapore becomes an attractive market for companies that specialise in building materials and equipment.

One such example is Baur Asia, a Swiss company that markets European building materials and precision equipment. Having set up shop here a year ago, it is using Singapore as a regional hub. According to Eleonore Taillens, its business development manager, the prospects are attractive and the company has achieved good growth so far. She says that companies here are generally enthusiastic about adopting newer technologies and materials, even though they may initially cost more. They understand the cost-saving aspect of such investments.

One area of the industry caters to customers with special needs, typically physically-challenged people who need customised equipment to negotiate conventionally-structured spaces.

With government regulations that require buildings to be outfitted with specialised devices to facilitate accessibility by the physically handicapped, this is another niche industry that is expanding. IGV is an Italian company that designs and builds specialised elevators. These lifts, known as hydraulic vertical platforms, can be retrofitted with relative ease into existing buildings to make them compliant with those regulations.

According to Nicole Wong, the marketing manager of Lift-Mech Engineering, a Singapore company that markets and installs IGV products, this is particularly useful for heritage buildings that may have renovation limitations. Without a lift, such a building may not qualify as handicapped-accessible.

Compared with conventional lifts, which require a pit of up to 1.5m-deep to be dug, hydraulic vertical platforms needs only a depression of 150mm to be installed.

Ms Wong also reveals that for the first time, such a lift was recently approved by the Housing and Development Board to be installed in a maisonette for an occupant who has trouble climbing stairs. The lifts are also relatively energy-efficient, requiring the same amount of energy as a washing machine.

With innovations such as these and interest growing in the intelligent and green building industries, Singapore is quickly becoming a hub for such products.

The burgeoning local construction industry, which is expected to generate US$55 billion by 2011, is one sure sign of the opportunities that lie ahead for industry players.

Another sign is the BEX Asia Exhibition that takes place here later this month. It is expected to bring together not only the latest construction technologies and materials from around the world, but experts from various industries as well.

Green, as they say, really is the colour of money.

Read more!

Microwaves 'cook ballast aliens'

Mark Kinver, BBC News 12 May 08

US researchers say they have developed an effective way to kill unwanted plants and animals that hitch a ride in the ballast waters of cargo vessels.

Tests showed that a continuous microwave system was able to remove all marine life within the water tanks.

The UN lists "invasive species" dispersed by ballast water discharges as one of the four main threats to the world's marine ecosystems.

The findings will appear in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

Shipping moves more than 80% of the world's commodities and transfers up to five billion tonnes of ballast water internationally each year, data from the UN shows.

Vessels, especially large container ships, need ballast tanks to provide stability in the water and correct any shift in the ships’ mass.

When a ship's cargo is unloaded, it fills with ballast water; when it is later reloaded, often on the other side of the world, the water is discharged.

Co-author Dorin Boldor, from Louisiana State University’s Agricultural Center, said the team envisaged the microwave device being fitted to the exit valve of a ballast tank.



"The basic idea is that you take the ballast water and pump it through a microwave cavity."

He added that the system would follow the same principle as a household microwave oven.

"The power level is much higher and a different frequency, but it creates a very high intensity electric field in the centre of the cavity that oscillates rapidly.

"The water molecules are going to start spinning around very fast and they are going to create a lot of friction that generates heat," Dr Boldor explained.

"But it generates heat in the whole volume at the same time, unlike if you try to use another heating mechanism where you have to take the heat from somewhere else and conduct it through the liquid."

This means that the researchers have a high degree of confidence that the system is treating all of the water to remove the unwanted organisms.

"It is extremely fast and very efficient at transferring the energy from the microwaves into heat," he told BBC News.

Biological stowaways

For thousands of years, marine species have been dispersed throughout the oceans by natural means, such as currents and drifting on debris.

But natural barriers, such as temperature differences and land masses, have limited the range of some species' dispersal and allowed different marine ecosystems to evolve.

Since the emergence of the modern shipping fleet and growing trade between nations, these natural barriers have been broken down, allowing the introduction of alien species that upset the equilibrium of ecosystems.

The UN-led Global Ballast Water Management Programme (GloBallast) estimates that at least 7,000 species are able to be carried across the globe in ships' ballast tanks.

While many of these plants and creatures do not survive the journey, some find the new environment favourable enough to establish a reproductive population and go on to undermine native species.

For example, GloBallast says, European zebra mussels ( Dreissena polymorpha ) have infested more than 40% of the US's inland waterways.

Between 1989 and 2000, up to $1bn (£500m) is estimated to have been spent on controlling the spread of the alien invader.

The arrival of an invasive jellyfish-like organism, Mnemiopsis leidyi , led to a major ecological "regime change" in the Black Sea, which contributed to the collapse of commercial fisheries in the region.

At one stage, the species accounted for about 90% of the sea's entire biomass. Its appetite for native plankton stocks meant that other fish species were unable to compete and re-establish viable populations.

In February 2004, the international shipping community agreed to establish tougher measures to prevent discharges of ballast water releasing potentially invasive species.

The International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships' Ballast Water and Sediment requires all vessels over 400 tonnes to eventually fit systems to treat ballast water.

The team’s development is ideally suited to help commercial operators meet their obligation under this legislation, Dr Boldor explained.

"It will probably work very well for it to be installed on very large ships themselves, but when you are talking about smaller vessels it may be more cost effective to have some sort of barge system based in the ports.

"It can just pull up to the ship, take and treat the ballast water while the ships are waiting to berth at the dock."

Read more!

Fewer Caribou Born as Warming Causes Missed Meals

Brian Handwerk, National Geographic News 12 May 08

Greenland's caribou work up quite a hunger during their long migrations. But global warming now has the animals arriving late for dinner—and paying a heavy price.

Fewer caribou calves are being born in the western part of the Danish island, and those that are born have slimmer chances of surviving, a new study reports.

The declines are tied to availability of the willows, sedges, and flowering tundra herbs that caribou and their newborns feed on in spring.

As global warming causes these plants to bloom ahead of schedule, herds are arriving when the bounty is past its peak.

"For these animals, the cafeteria is closing earlier and earlier," said Eric Post, a Pennsylvania State University biologist who co-authored the new study with Mads Forchhammer of the University of Aarhus in Denmark.

Caribou haven't adjusted their arrival time, because they rely not on temperatures but on the steady lengthening of daylight hours to mark the onset of the calving season.

"The problem is twofold: Not only can't you rely on getting the best meal when you're most hungry, you also can't rely on being able to keep up with changes to the cafeteria's opening hours in the future," Post said.

The exact impacts of this developing "trophic mismatch" are still unclear.

"Alone, trophic mismatch might not be the most important factor," Post said, "but it might be the spark that ignites the forest fire when other factors converge."

Fluctuating Populations

Caribou, also known as reindeer, depend on tundra plants. During the Arctic's frigid winter months, they find sustenance mostly from lichen, which they dig from under the snow.

As spring approaches, longer days spur the females to migrate to areas where plants are more abundant so they can give birth.

But temperature climbs of 7 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius) in recent years have caused peak plant availability to occur earlier, impacting caribou birth and survival rates.

Caribou are the first terrestrial mammals to be documented with a trophic mismatch, the study authors say.

Other affected species, such as great tit birds in England, have been able to adjust, and Post and Forchhammer say it's possible caribou could also adapt to shifting plant cycles.

In fact, caribou have survived many climate fluctuations in the past.

Morten Meldgaard, director of the Natural History Museum of Denmark, compiled in the 1980s a comprehensive study of historical population data on Greenland's caribou.

"Over the past 250 years there have been a number of cycles in populations," he said.

By observing climate shifts during that same time period, Meldgaard was able to "pinpoint a relationship between climate change and caribou calving populations."

The data show that athough they didn't always fare well, caribou populations did survive more than two centuries of climate changes.

Juggling Factors

Caribou also survived an ancient period of dramatic warming—the Pleistocene-Holocene transition some 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.

But given today's rapid and unpredictable rate of climate change, Post believes the future of modern caribou is uncertain.

"If this were the only factor caribou had to contend with, they would undoubtedly adjust if the rate of environmental change were constant," he said.

The current rate of change could accelerate, decline, or—worst of all for caribou—fluctuate unpredictably.

"Add on top of this the fact that these caribou are also constrained by other factors like winter conditions, population density, human land use, hunting pressure, parasite loads, and competition with musk oxen," he said.

"Suddenly, there's another ball in the air that the juggler has to keep track of."

The study, to be published this summer in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, was partially funded by the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration.

(National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.)

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Kashmir census shows decline in rare deer population

Reuters 12 May 08;

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - The numbers of a rare species of red deer found only in Indian Kashmir have dropped by a third in the last four years, a preliminary census revealed on Monday, highlighting the threat of poaching in the region.

The red deer known commonly as the Hangul was once the biggest draw of Dachigam, a mountainous sanctuary on the outskirts of Kashmir's summer capital, Srinagar, where they grazed in thousands decades ago.

Experts said the numbers of the majestic looking deer with a brownish coat and antlers have fallen from 228 to 160 in just four years.

There were about 900 of them in the mountains in 1989, but rampant poaching, neglect by authorities and a 17-year-old separatist rebellion in the region have taken its toll.

"Hangul is critically endangered species. There has been a steady decline in Hangul population from 2004 to 2008," a preliminary census report said.

The census was carried out in March this year by Kashmir's wildlife department and Wildlife Institute of India.

Poachers continue to kill Hanguls for their antlers, which fetch them a good price in the international black market.

"Hangul hunting continued even during militancy, as the animals come down to plains in winters," said Shameem Ahmad, who lives near Dachigam sanctuary.

"It (Hangul) assumes a great significance as the only Asiatic survivor of the red deer," the census report added.

(Reporting By Sheikh Mushtaq; Editing by Bappa Majumdar)

Read more!

A rice cartel may not be a bad idea in the long run

G. Panicker, Business Times 13 May 08;

PREDICTABLY, talk of a rice producers' cartel has been howled down. The Thai proposal produced a huge backlash from importing countries such as the Philippines. But while the proposal was untimely amid global anguish about high prices, it should still serve as a wake-up call to importers.

Thailand's Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej had said that the five rice producers in South-east Asia had agreed to form a grouping to cooperate on fixing international prices. Being the largest exporter with about 10 million tonnes a year, his country is in a pivotal position to influence the working of such a cartel.

Vietnam, which exports five million tonnes, did not publicly back the idea. The other members of an 'Organisation of Rice Exporting Countries' (Orec) would be Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar. The cartel idea has been put in the freezer for now, but consultations will continue, its proponents say.

Asia accounts for the bulk of the world's rice trade. India and China grow half of the world's rice but are small exporters. South-east Asia, producing 60 million tonnes of milled rice annually, claims 14 per cent of world production and 40 per cent of exports.

Unlike other staples such as corn, biofuel production has been only an indirect factor in the rise of rice prices. The tripling of rice prices over the past year has essentially been driven by strong demand, supply worries, hoarding, speculative commodity trades as well as export bans by some producers.

The idea of a cartel may be anathema, particularly when prices are this high. The World Food Programme recently termed the general rise in food prices a 'silent tsunami' that could drive some 100 million people to the brink of starvation. For poor people in developing countries, expenditure on food accounts for a substantial part of income. These people need help.

Some relief from high prices will come with increased production. But a growing and increasingly affluent population will demand ever more staples, which will continue to add pressure on prices. Climate change and lack of water will exert further pressure.

While prices are a good motivator for Asian farmers to increase production, they also need other incentives and assistance. Mechanisation can also help increase production but a major drive to mechanise is unlikely to materialise when countries fear that this would displace millions of farm workers - which it would.

Cartels are considered passe these days. But the success of oil producers may have been too appealing for the rice producers not to attempt to emulate. Mr Samak, however, was quick to say the grouping would not work like the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec).

In fact, oil prices, having grown 11-fold in the past decade, have had a dramatic impact on input costs for the farmers. 'With the oil price rising so much, we import expensive oil but sell rice very cheaply and that's unfair to us and hurts our trade balance,' a Thai government official said as the reasoning for the aborted move.

Indeed, a rice cartel cannot work like Opec. Oil is a finite resource and producers have just their diminishing reserves underground. Rice production, by contrast, is renewed annually and is at the mercy of the weather. So it will be difficult to control production as the Opec's 13 members can do relatively easily by turning off their taps to enforce a collective output decision.

Still Opec, which supplies 40 per cent of the world's oil, has shown how prices can be driven up. Further, the oil cartel has begun to inspire gas producers such as Russia and Iran to contemplate a similar grouping to ensure better prices.

So, a rice cartel will have to overcome competing commercial interests and differing economic policies. It will also face stiff opposition abroad, particularly from the United States, and major importing countries. But the oil grouping also faced similar problems. Yet, it focused on its own economic interests and thus gained its pre-eminence in the energy trade.

Any grouping that ensures a fairer return to farmers should be welcomed in the long-term interests of the consumer. A rice cartel will force countries with arable land to respond to this current wake-up call and reduce import dependence and step up production in innovative ways. For instance, China is trying to expand the cultivation of aerobic rice, which like wheat grows in dry soil conditions and also to grow food abroad. Such initiatives, if multiplied across rice-growing nations, would be both pro-farmer and pro-consumer.

A rice cartel may thus turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

The writer is with BT's Foreign Desk

Read more!

Feel-good 'green' policies misguided

Nayan Chanda, Straits Times 13 May 08;

SKYROCKETING food prices have finally dampened the enthusiasm for biofuels. But in Europe a new fad is catching on to save the environment: labelling imported food so that consumers can choose local food, which requires less transportation and thus supposedly less consumption of fossil fuels. In reality, it might end up hurting the world's poor without making any dent in global warming.

Rising energy prices and concern over climate change once led to a stampede to turn food crops into biofuel. Now, neo-nationalism and environmentalism are pushing European businesses to adopt quick fixes like slapping labels indicating foreign origin.

British supermarket giant Tesco, which last year sought to pacify environmentalists by putting 'air- freighted' labels on imported fresh fruit and vegetables, has launched a new campaign of 'carbon labelling' grocery items that would supposedly reveal how much carbon was released in their production, and transport.

Although environmental scientists have difficulty agreeing on how to calculate the carbon cost of a product, Tesco has jumped on the green-market wagon. The onus is now on shoppers to save the world by checking the emission costs of products in the same way they might the caloric content listed on cereal boxes. Carbon labelling will become another tool in the hands of protectionists.

Tesco has been one of the earliest to warm to the environmental slogan about curbing the food mile - the distance food has to travel from the farm to the dinner table - by slapping aeroplane icon stickers on imported food. The label is supposed to warn consumers that eating foreign imports is tantamount to increasing global warming.

Such a simplistic analysis ignores the much higher carbon emissions resulting from growing the same vegetables in Europe's greenhouses, using chemical fertilisers or keeping them in cold storage for months. And the gain? The boycott of air-freighted African produce, for example, according to an estimate, would cut Britain's total emissions by less than 0.1 per cent. The net result of such a misguided choice would be to deny poor farmers in developing countries the benefits of globalisation while increasing rather than curbing global warming.

For over a century, since the arrival of refrigerated ships, Britain has imported fresh food, improving the island's diet while providing new opportunities to farmers abroad. Queen Victoria dined on the first consignment of frozen Australian lamb to arrive in London in 1880.

Thanks to liberalisation of trade and falling air-freight costs, the world's non-traditional food producers have found ways to access the world market. The availability of fresh fruit from the tropics during the northern hemisphere's winter offered a healthy and cheap alternative. Since 1996, the total export value of fresh fruit worldwide has more than doubled to US$11 billion (S$15 billion) in 2003. Rising health consciousness allowed farmers in sub-Saharan Africa to join the world supply chain. The burgeoning horticultural trade has opened new avenues to farmers in Asia and South America as well.

Traditional methods of farming with organic fertiliser and non-mechanised irrigation not only produced agricultural products that address the West's environmental concerns, but also provide jobs to people who would otherwise be left out of the globalised network. Although rising CO2 emission from increased global freight demands attention, an aeroplane sticker on a packet of beans is hardly a solution. Other factors such as cold storage, greenhouses and high-energy production cost also need to be worked into calculation of carbon footprint.

A policy that focuses exclusively or mainly on the transport content to calculate a product's carbon footprint helps neither the climate nor the producers or consumers. There has to be an agreed framework to calculate the lifetime carbon costs of a product - from the seed to the dining table - before poor farmers are denied their paltry gains by the very countries whose industrialisation is responsible for the build-up of greenhouse gases.

These feel-good policies will likely fail to reduce carbon emissions substantially while delivering a blow to those with the smallest of carbon footprints.

The author is director of publications at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalisation and editor of YaleGlobal Online.

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Global Warming Worries Wealthy, Polluting Nations Least

Andrea Thompson, LiveScience.com Yahoo News 12 May 08;

The wealthier a country is and the more greenhouse gases it spews into the atmosphere, the less worried its citizens are about the effects of global warming. Residents of the low-lying Netherlands, ironically, are the least worried of all.

The findings are the result of a study that started when Hanno Sandvik, a biology postdoctoral researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, came across on online survey conducted by ACNielsen that polled people in 46 countries asking about their attitudes toward global warming.

Sandvik had been "a little depressed" about what he perceived as the poor state of understanding of climate change and the lack of public concern over its effects in Norway, he said. When he saw the survey results, his suspicions were confirmed: Norway was in the top 10 of the least concerned countries.

More surprisingly, The Netherlands, which stands to be one of the first nations to feel the effects of climate change through sea level rise, topped the list. The flood-prone country with a lot of coastline was followed by Russia and the United States (in a tie), with Latvia, Estonia, Denmark, Belgium, New Zealand, and Finland rounding out the top 10.

Europe vs. U.S.

While the majority of the respondents from these countries said they were concerned about the effects of global warming, a substantial minority said they weren't. For example, while only about 2 percent of respondents from France said they weren't worried about climate change, around 20 percent of U.S. respondents said the same, Sandvik said.

"European countries as a whole are much more concerned than the United States," he said.

The data on attitudes toward global warming came from an online survey, which suggests that the data were not generated by a random sample. For instance, only respondents with Internet access could respond. Only random samples generate results that accurately represent a population's attributes.

Two recent national surveys conducted by Yale University have found, however, that nearly three-quarters of Americans are willing to pay more taxes to support local mitigation efforts. A more comprehensive Gallup poll of 150 countries will come out in the next few months, and some questions will address attitudes toward climate change in these nations.

GDP and greenhouse gases

Sandvik was curious as to what might be shaping these attitudes at the national level, especially in countries where there was ample information on global warming, so he looked to see if there was any correlation between either a country's gross domestic product or its per capita greenhouse gas emissions and the level of concern of its citizens.

When he ran the numbers, he found: Countries with higher GDPs and more greenhouse gas emissions tended to have a larger segment of their population that was less worried about global warming. The findings will be detailed in an upcoming issue of the journal Climatic Change.

While Sandvik is the first to note that he isn't a psychologist, he suspects that some psychological reasons could be behind the lack of concern. People in wealthy, highly polluting nations may feel guilty about their contribution to the problem and subconsciously decide to simply ignore the issue.

"The more responsible you feel for a problem," the more likely you are to ignore it, Sandvik told LiveScience.

There could also be an unwillingness on the part of the rich to sacrifice some of their wealth to solve the problem.

"If you take global warming to heart, you understand that you have to sacrifice something," Sandvik said. "And the richer you are, the less willing you are to sacrifice."

From a more biological perspective, Sandvik thinks that we simply aren't adapted to fear certain things. If a dog is growling menacingly at us, we know to be scared, but, "we can't cope with invisible or abstract danger," he said.

Sandvik did notice a shift in Norwegian concern over global warming after the very mild winter of 2007. When people saw that the lack of snow that winter affected their traditional skiing trips, it brought global warming home to them, he said.

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Power-hungry IT firms change focus

Clare Davidson, BBC News 15 May 08;

Vapour trails across the sky makes pollution from planes highly visible. Not so the pollution from the computer industry.

Yet the information and communications technology industry - or ICT - is responsible for the same amount of carbon dioxide emissions as those from planes.

Each year, both sectors emit 2% of total CO2 emissions, though there are signs that the ICT industry is changing.

"In fact, there has been a radical shift in the industry," insists Randy Allen, a vice-president at computer chip firm AMD.

Finite resources

Just as is the case with the aerospace industry, the computer industry has long been driven by one concern - performance. But the better the performance, the more energy it tended to need.

So data centres - the heart of computer networks worldwide - had a vast and ever-increasing appetite for power.

The fundamental problem, explains Jerome Riboulon, manager of Hewlett Packard's power and cooling solutions, is that this model works only as long as energy supplies are plentiful.

"Data centres have begun to reach the physical limit of the energy they can use."

Regardless of the questions about climate change, there simply is not enough available energy, he says matter-of-factly.

Business sense

Another glaring and related issue prompting change in the ICT sector is cost.

Energy efficiency "is a question of fiscal responsibility", says Mr Allen. "It just makes good business sense."

Michael Fahy, managing director of infrastructure services at Lehman Brothers, agrees resoundingly.

"Efficiency and sustainability dovetail to being the same thing," he says.

"Being sustainable is not altruistic. Given rising costs of energy, it just makes business sense."

Energy needs

Given the vast energy demands of data centres, they have been a key focus.

It is commonly estimated that for every pound spent to power machines in data centres, two or three times as much is spent on energy on cooling devices to prevent overheating.

HP, for example, is streamlining its operations by reducing its data centres to six worldwide. Three years ago, it had 85.

The firm spent four years developing a smart cooling technology that links computers and IT equipment, and adjusts how much air conditioning is needed in real time, using only what is necessary.

The technology is aimed at reducing data centre energy use by 25%.

Meanwhile, network supplier Cisco has developed a technology that lets organisations access a so-called wide-area network and move away from multiple networks in different locations, thereby reducing the total amount of IT hardware needed.

What such developments mean in practice varies.

For example, Barclays has adopted HP's cooling technology to reduce its own carbon emissions, while Inchcape Shipping Services has adopted Cisco's wide-area network. This allows an agent on a vessel in Singapore to exchange information with the UK data centre.

And if what a broad-based coalition announced in late 2007 is anything to go by, change is on the cards.

Google, Dell, the Environment Protection Agency and Lenovo launched the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, with new targets for energy-efficient computers and components.

The initiative aimed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 54 million tonnes, saving more than $5.5bn (£2.75bn) in energy costs. And that was before energy costs soared recently, so the savings could be even greater.

Supply chain

But if data centres gobble up huge amounts of energy, this is only a fraction of the amount the ICT sector is responsible for as a whole, warns Peter Madden, who heads Forum for the Future, a charity focused on sustainability issues.

"There is a huge trail of energy and raw materials used in the supply chain."

UN data suggests that the manufacture of one computer uses 75 times its weight in raw materials and water.

"And of course, there is the energy used over the lifetime of a computer," says Mr Madden.

Mr Madden is among those who say there needs to be a change in design so that hardware is easier to dismantle and re-use, in order to reduce the amount going to landfill, whether it is aluminium chips, plastic or copper cables.

Wider application

With Gartner predicting that the knowledge economy will account for half of Britain's gross domestic product by 2010, the need for change is clear.

In the average office, nearly 40% of emissions come from monitors.

But beyond the office, there is a growing view that the ICT sector could bring about a fundamental change in the way we work, not only to cut emissions but also to create more flexibility for workers.

Mr Madden cites HP's partnership in a DreamWorks animation project as an example of this.

HP's Halo video-conferencing technology was developed for DreamWorks while working with Aardman Animations on a Wallace and Gromit film.

The system was designed to be realistic enough to let creative people in different countries work together to make a Hollywood film without constantly getting on planes.

Such changes would not have been imaginable in the past, he says.

It seems they might be an imperative.

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