Seawater greenhouses to bring life to the desert

The planned project would use solar power to evaporate salt water, generating cool air and pure water thereby allowing food to be grown

Alok Jha, guardian.co.uks 2 Sep 08;

Vast greenhouses that use seawater to grow crops could be combined with solar power plants to provide food, fresh water and clean energy in deserts, under an ambitious proposal from a team of architects and engineers.

The Sahara Forest project would marry huge greenhouses with concentrated solar power (CSP), which uses mirrors to focus the sun's rays and generate heat and electricity. The installations would turn deserts into lush patches of vegetation, according to its designers, and without the need to dig wells for fresh water, which has depleted acquifers in many parts of the world.
The team includes one of the lead architects behind Cornwall's Eden project and demonstration plants are already running in Tenerife, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

Plants cannot grow in deserts because of the extreme temperatures and lack of nutrients and water. Charlie Paton, one of the Sahara Forest team and the inventor of the seawater greenhouse concept, said his technology was a proven way to transform arid environments.

"Plants need light for growth but they don't like heat beyond a certain point," said Paton. Above a particular temperature, the amount of water lost through the holes in its leaves, called stomata, gets so large that a plant will shut down photosynthesis and cannot grow.

The greenhouses work by using the solar farm to power seawater evaporators and then pump the damp, cool air through the greenhouse. This reduces the temperature by about 15C compared to that outside. At the other end of the greenhouse from the evaporators, the water vapour is condensed. Some of this fresh water is used to water the crops, while the rest can be used for the essential task of cleaning the solar mirrors.

"So we've got conditions in the greenhouse of high humidity and lower temperature," said Paton. "The crops sitting in this slightly steamy, humid condition can grow fantastically well."

The designers said that virtually any vegetables could be grown in the greenhouses, depending on the conditions at which it is maintained. The demonstration plants already produce lettuces, peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes. The nutrients to grow the plants could come from local seaweed or even be extracted from the seawater itself.

Michael Pawlyn of Exploration Architecture, who worked on the Eden Project for seven years and is now part of the Sahara Forest team, said the seawater greenhouse and CSP provided substantial synergies for each other. "Both technologies work extremely well in hot, dry desert locations – CSP produces a lot of waste heat and we'd be able to use that to evaporate more seawater from the greenhouse," he said. "And CSP needs a supply of clean, demineralised water in order for the [electricity generating] turbines to function and to keep the mirrors at peak output. It just so happens the seawater greenhouse produces large quantities of this."

Paton said that the greenhouse produces more than five times the fresh water needed to water the plants inside so, in addition to producing water to clean the CSP mirrors, some of it can be released into the local environment. This can create a local microclimate just outside the greenhouses for hardier plants such as jatropha, an energy crop that can be turned into biofuel. The ability to create similar microclimates has already been proven in the demonstration greenhouses Paton has built.

The cost of the Sahara Forest project could be relatively low since both CSP and seawater greenhouses are proven technologies – the designers estimate that building 20 hectares of greenhouses combined with a 10MW CSP scheme would cost around €80m (£65m). Paton said groups in countries across the Middle East, including UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait, have expressed interest in the possibility of funding demonstration projects.

He added that using seawater greenhouses could reverse the environmental damage done by the greenhouses already built in places such as Almeria in southern Spain. More than 40,000 hectares of greenhouses have been built in this desert region during the past 20 years to grow salad vegetables. "They take water out of the ground something like five times faster than it comes in, so the water table drops and becomes more saline. The whole of Spain is being sucked dry. If one were to convert them all to the seawater greenhouse concept, it would turn an unsustainable solution into a more sustainable one."

"In places like Oman, they've effectively sterilised large areas of land by using groundwater that's become increasingly saline," said Pawlyn. "The beauty of the Sahara Forest scheme is that you can reverse that process and turn barren land into biologically-productive land."

Neil Crumpton, an energy specialist at Friends of the Earth, said the potential of desert technologies was huge. "Concentrated solar power mirror arrays covering just one per cent of the Earth's deserts could supply a fifth of all current global energy consumption. And one million tonnes of sea water could be evaporated every day from just 20,000 hectares of greenhouses."

He added: "Governments around the world should invest serious money in these solar energy and water technologies and not be distracted by lobbyists promoting dangerous nuclear power or nuclear-powered desalination schemes."

Harnessing the desert sun's rays is already at the heart of an ambitious European scheme to build a €45bn (£35.7bn) supergrid that could allow countries across the continent to share renewable electricity from solar power in north Africa, wind energy in the UK and Denmark, and geothermal energy from Iceland and Italy. The north Africa solar plan has already gained political support in Europe from Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy. Though expensive, it is in line with International Energy Agency estimates that the world needs to invest more than $45tn (£22.5tn) in new energy systems over the next 30 years.

Read more!

Solar panels 'take 100 years to pay back installation costs'

Martin Hickman, The Independent 3 Sep 08;

Solar panels are one of the least cost-effective ways of combating climate change and will take 100 years to pay back their installation costs, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) warned yesterday.

In a new guide on energy efficiency, Rics said that roof panels for heating water and generating power are unlikely to save enough from bills to make them financially viable in a householder's lifetime. In the case of solar panels to heat water for baths and showers, the institution estimates the payback time from money saved from electricity and gas bills will take more than 100 years – and up to 166 years in the worst case.

Photovoltaic (PV) panels for power – and domestic, mast-mounted wind turbines – will take between 50 and 100 years to pay back.

Given that the devices have a maximum lifetime of 30 years, they are never likely to recoup the £3,000 to £20,000 cost of their installation, according to Rics' building cost information service. Instead, it suggested people wanting to cut fuel bills should insulate lofts and cavity walls, install efficient light bulbs and seal windows.

Joe Martin, author of Rics' Greener Homes Prices Guide, said there was an argument for installing solar panels but it was not an economic one. "We wanted to bring some reality to this because there are a lot of missionaries out there. The whole push for household renewable power is that you can do these things and make back money but that's not true on existing property," he said.

The solar power industry accused Rics of failing to take account of the rising cost of energy and other financial benefits of renewable power in its figures. Jeremy Leggett, of Solar Century, said: "They are grossly irresponsible."

Rics assessed the cost, annual savings, disruption and payback time of various energy-saving methods and gave each an overall rating of one to five stars.

Solar panels for heating and power and wind turbines generating between 3kW and 5kW merited two stars. Smaller 1.5kW turbines of the type installed on roofs paid back in 25 years, received a three-star rating.

By contrast, cavity wall insulation had a five-star rating: spending £440 would save £145 a year in fuel bills, paying back in three years, while an investment of £325 in extra loft insulation would save £60 annually, paying back in five years.

The figures were compiled before energy companies put up bills by up to 30 per cent last month and ignore state subsidies.

Last year, the Department for Trade and Industry slashed grants for the installation of household renewable power by 83 per cent, infuriating the fledgling micro-generation industry which complained the move rendered solar panels unaffordable to all but the wealthy.

Jeremy Leggett, executive chairman of Solar Century, complained that Rics' figures failed to assume any rise in energy prices, when a conservative estimate of 10 per cent a year would transform the calculations.

In addition, Rics had failed to take account of a number of other benefits – renewable obligations certificates worth £160 a year to householders from next year; reductions in energy consumption of up to 40 per cent for schemes with a meter; the rising payments from energy companies for spare electricity put back into the national grid; and the increased value of an energy-efficient home.

He estimated the current payback of power-generating PV panels was 13 years.

Rics countered by saying it had not taken account of maintenance costs and that it deliberately chose not to include "ifs" in its figures. "I doubt however you do the sums, they [solar panels] make sense," a spokesman said.

Read more!

Best of our wild blogs: 2 Sep 08

TeamSeagrass Orientation 27 Sep (Sat)
Once-in-a-year get-together for seagrassers new and old. Join now, more details on the teamseagrass blog

Whale shark at Sentosa: comments
some recent comments compiled on the wild shores of singapore blog

Big Stars and other highlights of the low tide
a roundup of the recent shore encounters on the singapore celebrates our reefs blog

Bird of a different feather
on the annotated budak blog

Brown Wood Owl taking a grasshopper
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Cobra in Pandan mangroves
video clip on Siva's facebook

Labrador food centre no more
on the wild shores of singapore blog

Read more!

Fighting to keep Indonesia's islands above water

Defitri Akbar: Fighting to keep islands above water
Rizal Harahap, The Jakarta Post 2 Sep 08;

In 1993, Defitri Akbar traveled all over Bengkalis Island, one of 26 islands in Bengkalis regency, Riau, to conduct research for his oceanography studies degree at the Fisheries Faculty of Riau University.

However it was difficult for Defitri to find the right location to do this research -- on the correlation between fallen mangrove leaves and content of organic material in the sediment -- because the coastal environment had become critically endangered.

"A long time ago, mussels, cockles and crabs were found easily among these dense mangrove forests. But all these have now disappeared because local residents cut the mangroves down to make charcoal," Defitri told The Jakarta Post.

"As a result, many community coconut plantations collapsed into the sea because there was nothing to stop the waves," he said.

After finishing his studies, Defitri returned to his native village, Bengkalis, and began to think about what could be done to conserve the mangrove forests.

There was one question that kept bothering him: Why wasn't the government paying attention to the land?

He got an answer after working as a field facilitator on a number of government projects related to the processing of fishery resources and the development of coastal communities.

"Apparently, almost all mangrove conservation projects failed because the tender system was in total disarray. The result of these projects was not everyone understood mangroves, and planting was conducted during the wrong seasons," Defitri said.

"When planting mangroves in coastal areas, attention must be paid to the wind and weather -- there's only a small window of opportunity when planting, otherwise they do not reach their full potential," he added.

Defitri reached the conclusion that successful conservation of mangroves would be impossible without the cooperation of coastal communities.

The involvement of local communities in mangrove conservation projects had traditionally been of limited importance; the communities were given a job but not encouraged to maintain the trees they planted.

Defitri worked toward raising awareness of coastal communities as independent operators.

However, to begin with these communities took little notice of his efforts, as they were not convinced that planting mangroves would create an income.

"They thought that planting mangroves was a stupid job -- something to be done when there were no other jobs available. But if they cut down mangroves, they could make money," he said.

Defitri then invited some of his colleagues to establish a non-government organization called Bahtera Melayu, which drew up two basic targets: Guided participation of coastal communities in a program to save mangrove ecosystems, and the development of alternative incomes to decrease pressure on natural resources and surrounding environments.

Defitri and his colleagues focussed on the conservation of mangrove areas in Jangkang village and Pambang Bay in the Bantan subdistrict. A coalition of nine businesses that were involved with about 15 to 20 coastal communities was successfully formed in both villages to manage a mangrove area of around 230 hectares.

The hard work that took place under Defitri's lead succeeded in saving an area of critically threatened land where trees had been felled -- covering some 60 hectares -- by planting 240,000 mangrove trees.

Forty hectares has since grown a thick cover of mangroves -- now four to five years old, while another 20 hectares has started to recover and is supporting mangroves that are about two-and-a-half years old.

The two groups have also succeeded in protecting a self-sown area of 100 hectares of mangrove forest that had been abandoned by the village.

"It didn't take long to train the group and now they can grow mangrove seedlings independently," Defitri said.

The community has also developed a honey production industry and receives additional income from renting rooms when local and overseas researchers visit.

People who once felled the mangroves have also been trained to make furniture and have developed snack-foods and coconut-oil home industries.

"Changing behaviors and thought patterns of the community was far more difficult than just planting mangroves," Defitri said.

Defitri hopes communities in other regions could imitate the success of his mangrove conservation program and realize conserving nature can also generate an income.

A mapping survey of coastal areas conducted in 2005 showed mangrove forests covered 35,511 hectares in the Bengkalis region, but now mangrove forests only cover around 25,000 hectares.

"If they are not saved soon, the Bengkalis mangrove forests will be extinct within ten years," Defitri said.

"Bengkalis Regency is made up of muddy deltas. If the mangrove forests are destroyed, the islands' natural defense system will not be strong enough and Bengkalis will just become a memory," he said.

Defitri has long been critical of concrete dyke wave-restraint projects and embankment construction because he believes they are not effective and do not last long.

"The destruction of nature must be stopped, and we have to adopt the natural way of conservation -- not through construction projects, engineering or technology.

Together with his colleagues, Defitri has also been active in a green generation education program involving junior and senior high school students.

An award was recently presented to Defitri and his colleagues by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono for their achievements in empowering local communities to conserve the environment.

"My obsession is to save the environment, not to gain awards or popularity," Defitri said.

"Preserving mangroves means preserving life. Mangroves can make communities prosperous and at the same time ensure the Bengkalis islands continue to exist."

Read more!

Indonesian Park works hard to safeguard turtle population

ID Nugroho, The Jakarta Post 2 Sep 08;

"A turtle is laying eggs! A turtle is laying eggs," a national park officer shouted, breaking the silence of the night.

Visitors staying at the guard post of the Meru Betiri National Park in Banyuwangi, East Java, rushed to Sukamande beach, about a kilometer away. Some of them carried torches, while others relied on the moonlight to guide the way.

"Please, don't get too close to the turtle, this will disturb the egg-laying process," said Slamet, one of the national park officers.

When a turtle is about to lay eggs, he explained, she becomes very sensitive. A little light can make her stressed and give up.

The turtle that laid eggs that night was quite big, about one meter long with 60-centimeter fins on its sides. The head, measuring the size of an adult's two fists, continually moved to the left and right, as if scanning its surroundings.

After laying the eggs, the turtle moved to the left and made another hole to fool predators and then moved slowly towards the sea to disappear into the rolling waves.

Sukamande beach remains a site where sea turtles lay their eggs. Four species of turtle -- the green turtle (Chelonia mydas), olive ridley turtle (Lephidochelys olivacea), hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys Imbricata) and leatherback turtle (Dhermochelys coriacea) -- lay their eggs along the three-kilometer-long coast, which covers about 250 hectares.

But only green turtles and olive ridley turtles regularly lay their eggs in the area.

The presence of turtles on Sukamande beach is important not only for the national park, but also for the people of East Java.

"Their presence is proof that the beach is still natural and should be conserved," Heri Subagiyadi, head of the national park, told The Jakarta Post recently.

He said the park's management team was working hard to conserve the beach. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Sukamade beach is the biggest's nesting place for turtles in Java.

Every month, around 20 turtles land on the beach to lay their eggs, with one turtle laying between 100 and 150 eggs on average.

The turtle seen that night on the beach laid 118 eggs.

At least 2,500 eggs can be seen on the beach every month -- but only one in 1,000 eggs will mature to become an adult turtle.

Heri said predators like dogs, eagles, snakes and even leopards are the biggest threat to the turtle population.

"But people are the cruelest predators. It is people who often take the eggs to sell them," Heri said.

Turtle eggs fetch a good price -- about Rp.1,500 to 2,000 (16 US cents to 22 cents) each; a higher price than chicken eggs.

In many places, he added, people also hunt adult turtles. This especially happens in Bali, as turtles are a part of local religious ceremonies.

"But that is only an excuse. Our investigation shows that turtles are hunted all the time, not only prior to religious ceremonies. Some sell turtle fat to be used in cosmetics," Heri said.

The Meru Betiri National Park management, therefore, has deemed it necessary to monitor turtles and their egg-hatching activities.

The process is quite simple: The eggs planted by the turtle mothers are brought to the park post area where they are reburied. In their new location, the turtle eggs are registered and within a week the eggs begin to hatch.

The baby turtles are then released into their natural habitat; the sea.

Until July, the park had released 13,510 baby turtles. In a year, an average of 20,000 eggs hatched under the park's monitoring system are released.

Yet, despite tight monitoring of the eggs, many are still stolen. The park's management has estimated that 30 percent of the eggs are stolen every year.

"In 2008 alone, we have reported four theft cases to the police, but until today there has not been any follow up," Heri said.

Heri said he and his team were determined to make Sukamande beach a turtle conservation area through a turtle conservation management unit, which will concentrate on research, habitat development and turtle egg-hatching activities, as well as public empowerment.

"I have presented this matter before the Directorate of Environmental Service and Ecotourism. I don't know what the results are yet," he said.

The park's management is hoping to receive funding to finance the purchase of a turtle-tagging tool. Carrying a price tag of Rp 24 million, the tool will allow tags to be attached to the turtles, which will then be tracked through signals sent via satellite.

The national park currently spends Rp 15 million per month to pay its six employees -- three forest guards, one forest ecosystem controller and two non-structural officers -- and cover the cost of fuel for a a power generator and a motorcycle. The six employees are tasked with monitoring the 11-hectare park, which consists of a beach and a forest.

"Under such conditions, we do our best," said Heri.

Read more!

Scientists fear impact of Asian pollutants on U.S.

Les Blumenthal, McClatchy Newspapers Yahoo News 31 Aug 08;

WASHINGTON — From 500 miles in space, satellites track brown clouds of dust, soot and other toxic pollutants from China and elsewhere in Asia as they stream across the Pacific and take dead aim at the western U.S.

A fleet of tiny, specially equipped unmanned aerial vehicles, launched from an island in the East China Sea 700 or so miles downwind of Beijing , are flying through the projected paths of the pollution taking chemical samples and recording temperatures, humidity levels and sunlight intensity in the clouds of smog.

On the summit of 9,000-foot Mt. Bachelor in central Oregon and near sea level at Cheeka Peak on Washington state's Olympic Peninsula , monitors track the pollution as it arrives in America.

By some estimates more than 10 billion pounds of airborne pollutants from Asia — ranging from soot to mercury to carbon dioxide to ozone — reach the U.S. annually. The problem is only expected to worsen: Some Chinese officials have warned that pollution in their country could quadruple in the next 15 years.

While some scientists are less certain, others say the Asian pollution could destabilize weather patterns across the North Pacific, mask the effects of global warming, reduce rainfall in the American West and compromise efforts to meet air-pollution standards.

" East Asia pollution aerosols could impose far reaching environmental impacts at continental, hemispheric and global scales because of long-range transport," according to a report earlier this year in the Journal of Geophysical Research . The report said that a "warm conveyor belt" lifts the pollutants into the upper troposphere — the lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere — over Asia , where winds can bring it to the U.S. in a week or less.

The National Academies of Science, at the request of the Environmental Protection Agency , NASA , the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and in consultation with the State Department , has assembled a panel to examine the problem and its impact. Its report is due next summer.

"Everyone realizes this is an issue of growing importance," said Laurie Geller of the National Academies of Science. "This is very challenging science with lots of complexities and a lot of uncertainties."

Though the problem of Asian air pollution has been known for years, no one has a handle on how much is blown in and what it includes. Scientists say Washington state and Oregon might be feeling the brunt of the effects.

"This pollution is distributed on average equally from northern California to British Columbia ," said Dan Jaffe , a professor of environmental science at the University of Washington's Bothell campus. "Anyone who has gone out to measure it has found something."

Particulates such as dust and soot, along with heavy metals, pesticides, PCBs, mercury, ozone, carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide have all been found. Jaffe said the pollutants can't be tracked to a single source such as a particular coal-burning plant, but their "chemical fingerprints" can point to a specific country.

Viruses, bacteria and fungi also can be transported on dust particles, though, so far, they've been found only on the dust and sand blowing off African deserts, not Asian ones.

Mercury, one of the most hazardous pollutants from the hundreds of coal-burning electricity generating plants in China and elsewhere in Asia , is of particular concern. One study estimated a fifth of the mercury entering Oregon's Willamette River comes from overseas, with China as the mostly likely source.

Jaffe, a member of the National Academies of Science panel studying the issue, is wary of such reports. But he still estimates that as much as 30 percent of the mercury deposited in the U.S. from airborne sources comes from Asia , with the highest concentrations in Alaska and other western states.

"Ten years ago, there was a lot of skepticism," Jaffe said. "People assumed the atmosphere scrubbed itself and didn't believe these pollutants could travel thousands of miles."

The pollution from Asia will only make it increasingly difficult for the U.S. to meet stricter and stricter air quality standards, said Lyatt Jaegle, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle .

"It is only expected to get worse," Jaegle said of the Asian air pollution reaching the U.S. She added that scientists have discovered the problem isn't unique to the Pacific Rim . "Air pollution is not a local or regional problem, it is a global problem."

Days after a major dust storm in the Gobi Desert in Asia , visibility in the Grand Canyon was obscured. Dust from deserts in North Africa has reached Florida . U.S. air pollution can reach across the Atlantic to Europe , even as pollution from Europe can circle the globe and reach the U.S.

Air can circulate around the world in three weeks or less. The National Academies of Science is not limiting itself to pollution from Asia and will study the phenomenon worldwide.

"It's one atmosphere," said Mark Schoeberl , project scientist for NASA Aura satellite program.

Schoeberl said his and other satellites have "transformed" what scientists know about the Earth and can provide a near real-time snapshot of the track of airborne pollution. When the price of gasoline spikes, Jaffe said satellites can detect an increase in sulfur dioxide levels at Saudi Arabian refineries . They've also helped confirm global dimming as sunlight reaching the planet's surface is decreasing because the airborne pollution reflects it back to space. In some places, like Israel , sunlight has decreased 10 percent, Jaffe said.

The pollution also can mask the effect of global warming by reflecting the sunlight, said Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a climate researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California who's heading the team of scientists flying the unmanned aerial vehicles off Korea this summer.

The UAVs started flying as China shut down factories and banned automobiles from Beijing during the Summer Olympics and are still flying as pollution levels increase.

"It's a once in a lifetime opportunity," Ramanathan said.

The reduction in sunlight could be increasing rainfall or it might be decreasing rainfall because of less evaporation off the ocean, Ramanathan said. In addition, the soot falling on mountains in the western U.S. could increase snowmelt, he said.

"There are a lot of questions and few answers," Ramanathan said. "We shouldn't be pointing fingers. Everyone else is some one else's backyard. This is a global problem."

Read more!

City Square Mall in Little India: eco-friendly features

A green meeting place
Anchor tenant NTUC FairPrice rolls outeco-friendly practices
Loh Chee Kong, Today Online 2 Sep 08;

CITY Development Limited’s (CDL) new eco-friendly City Square Mall in Little India has won accolades from government agencies, architects and ordinary Singaporeans alike. But it also means that its anchor tenants, which were unveiled yesterday, have a tough act to follow.

With the rest hard at work to come up with green practices before the $250-million mall’s opening at the end of next year, one of them, NTUC FairPrice, has already thrown down the gauntlet.

Apart from pledging dedicated checkout lanes for shoppers with reusable bags — a first in Singapore — it will have a section solely for organic products. The 26,000-sq-ft FairPrice outlet will also installmotion-sensor lighting in its office and storeroom, which means they only light up when someone is inside. It will also have energy-efficient LED lights in its chillers and freezers.

Said FairPrice’s managing director Seah Kian Peng: “All the tenants will want to make sure that we blend in with the theme, that we can also do our part to reinforce the growing awareness of going green.”

According to CDL, 70 per cent of its shop space have been taken up, with basic rentals ranging between $8 to $15 per square foot a month. The completed mall, located at the junction of Kitchener Road and Serangoon Road, will boast more than 250 shops, with 25 per cent made up of food and beverage outlets.

Other than FairPrice, City Square Mall will feature eight other anchor tenants, including Metro, Best Denki, Popular and Kopitiam. While these are household names with Singaporean shoppers, they will each offer a new retail experience by going green.

Their landlord will be “encouraging and facilitating” such measures, said Mr Chia Ngiang Hong, CDL’s group general manager.

City Square Mall’s eco-friendly features — including urinals that do not use water and sensors that monitor carbon monoxide levels in the air — saw CDL becoming the first private developer to clinch the Building and Construction Authority’s Green Mark Platinum award last year.

It also won the Cityscape Asia Real Estate Award for Best Developer this year.

Directly connected to the Farrer Park MRT station, the 11-storey shopping centre would feature an adjacent 47,000-sq-ft park.

Targeted at the heartland population, Mr Chia said the mall would capture the crowds from residential estates along the North East Line, where “there seems to be shortage of good shopping areas”, according to a survey by property research firm DTZ.

CDL expects to attract 1.3 million people to the mall each month. While consumer sentiments appear to be weakening due to the economic slowdown, Mr Chia pointed out that the “buying sentiments of the heartland population will always be there”.

Ms Corinne Yap, CDL’s deputy general manager of marketing and leasing, believes the mall can also cash in on the fact that Little India ranks as one of Singapore’s top three tourist destinations.

“We hope that tourists will use our mall as a meeting place ... walk around Little India and come back for lunch later on,” said Ms Yap.

Read more!

KL, Singapore iron out differences on Pedra Branca vicinity fishing

Both nations can do traditional fishing half a nautical mile off rocky outcrop
Chuang Peck Ming, Business Times 2 Sep 08;

MALAYSIA and Singapore have agreed that traditional fishing by both countries will continue beyond 0.5 nautical mile off Pedra Branca, Middle Rocks and South Ledge.

The agreement came after Malaysia protested at Singapore wanting to claim an exclusive economic zone around Pedra Branca - a rocky outcrop east of Singapore, which the International Court of Justice awarded to Singapore in May.

A joint statement issued yesterday by Singapore and Malaysia said the second Malaysia-Singapore Joint Technical Committee (MSJTC) Meeting on the Implementation of the ICJ Judgment, which made the traditional fishing agreement on Aug 20, agreed also to set up a Sub-Committee on Maritime & Airspace Management and Fisheries. The sub-committee also met on Aug 20.

On Aug 18, Malaysia said it had given Singapore an 'official warning' over territorial claims surrounding South Ledge.

The move came a month after Singapore said its maritime territory around Pedra Branca extended for up to 12 nautical miles and claimed an exclusive zone around the island. That meant Malaysia would have limited access to the waters around Middle Rocks, which fall within the zone.

While the ICJ confirmed Singapore's ownership of Pedra Branca and handed nearby Middle Rocks to Malaysia, it ruled that South Ledge belongs to whoever owns the territorial waters it sits in.

Yesterday's joint statement said both sides at the Aug 20 meeting 'reiterated their commitment to honour and abide by the ICJ's judgment and fully implement its decision by continuing the discussions pursuant to the previous MSJTC Meeting' on June 3.

According to the joint statement, the Aug 20 meeting reviewed the work of the Sub-Committee on Joint Survey Works and agreed the sub-committee should continue talks to finalise technical preparations relating to a joint hydrographic survey.

It was also agreed that the Sub-Committee on Maritime & Airspace Management and Fisheries continue to discuss other issues relating to maritime and airspace management.

Both sides are 'very pleased with the progress' made by MSJTC and agreed that it meet again in the middle of this month.

Traditional fishing can go on
Today Online 2 Sep 08;

SINGAPORE and Malaysia have begun talks on maritime and airspace management, following a second meeting on Pedra Branca, Middle Rocks and South Ledge.

They said that they had formed a Sub-Committee on Maritime and Airspace Management and Fisheries, which met in Putrajaya, Malaysia, on Aug 20.

In a press statement yesterday, the Malaysia-Singapore Joint Technical Committee (JTC) added that traditional fishing activities by both countries will continue in waters beyond 0.5 nautical miles off the three maritime features in the Singapore Strait, some 40km east of the Republic’s main island.

Both countries also agreed that the Sub-Committee on Maritime & Airspace Management and Fisheries should continue to hold discussions with regard to other issues relating to maritime and airspace management.

On May 23, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague awarded the island of Pedra Branca to Singapore, Middle Rocks to Malaysia, and ruled that South Ledge belonged to the country in whose territory it was located.

Yesterday, the two sides reiterated their commitment to honour and abide by the ICJ’s judgment and fully implement its decision by continuing their discussions pursuant to a previous JTC meeting held in Singapore on June 3.

The JTC reviewed the work of its Sub-Committee on Joint Survey Works and agreed that the sub-committee should continue to hold discussions to finalise technical preparations relating to the hydrographic survey. Their next meeting will be held in Singapore in about two weeks.

Pedra Branca: New joint panel formed
Goh Chin Lian, Straits Times 2 Sep 08;

SINGAPORE and Malaysia have set up a new sub-committee to deal with maritime, airspace and fishing matters around Pedra Branca, Middle Rocks and South Ledge.

Both sides will also finalise over the next few weeks technical preparations for a joint survey of the area.

That will pave the way for eventual discussions on how to delimit the territorial seas there.

Both sides yesterday provided an update on issues relating to the enforcement of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) judgment on sovereignty over the three maritime features.

The update followed the second meeting of the Joint Technical Committee on Aug 20 at Malaysia's seat of government in Putrajaya.

In May, the ICJ awarded Pedra Branca to Singapore and Middle Rocks to Malaysia. It also ruled that South Ledge belonged to whoever owns the territorial waters it sits in.

The three features in the Singapore Strait are located some 40km east of the Republic's main island.

At the latest meeting, both sides agreed that the new sub-committee on maritime and airspace management and fisheries should continue to hold discussions in the following weeks.

They also gave the go-ahead for fishermen to continue with their traditional fishing activities in waters beyond 0.5 nautical miles off the three maritime features.

The joint press statement issued yesterday, by Malaysia's Foreign Minister Rais Yatim and Singapore's Foreign Minister George Yeo, reiterated both countries' commitment to 'honour and abide by the ICJ's judgment and fully implement its decision'.

The Joint Technical Committee, co-chaired by Malaysia's Foreign Ministry secretary-general Rastam Mohd Isa and Singapore's Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs Peter Ho, is due to meet again in the middle of this month in Singapore.

Read more!

Shell comes under fire for role in Sakhalin audit

Nick Mathiason, The Observer 31 Aug 08;

Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell faces damaging claims over its influence on a supposedly independent environmental audit to determine whether the world's biggest oil and gas project would receive vital bank funding.

Dozens of emails released by the government under the Freedom of Information Act show how Shell officials in London attempted to downplay and edit international environmental criticism of the $22bn Sakhalin II energy scheme off the east coast of Russia, which has subsequently been all but fully financed.

The exchange reveals anxiety from an unidentified party, thought to be a UK government agency, at how Shell was 'stage managing' the review conducted by AEA Technology, the one-time Atomic Energy Authority, now an environmental consultancy.

The report, published last November, was used by banks to assess whether funding Sakhalin II was consistent with environmental and social protocols.

Sakhalin II will produce 1.6m tonnes of carbon dioxide - three times the UK's annual carbon footprint. It also threatens the long-term future of the endangered western gray whale as well as rare fish and other wildlife. Shell owns a 27.5 per cent stake in the Sakhalin Energy project, with Russia's Gazprom holding just over 50 per cent.

Email exchanges spanning three months and 40 pages show how officials at Shell sought to downplay the significance of a critical Russian environmental audit by persuading AEA to disperse its findings through the report, rather than leaving them in one potentially damning appendix. Questions from a leading environmental group over whether permits were sought before drilling work began were similarly downplayed, as were experts' concerns over the impacts of continuous noise on the critically endangered whale.

That Shell, headed by Jeroen van der Veer, seemingly was allowed by the authority to amend the finished report has called into question the independence of the process, claim environmental campaigners.

Doug Norlen, policy director of US-based Pacific Environment, said: 'The AEA report lists [Sakhalin Energy] as its client, even though it is meant to be independent. That's bad enough, but Shell stage-managed the whole process. They set the agenda, scheduled meetings and even participated in the editing of sections. I believe this to be a stark and vivid example of manipulation. In addition to skewing the review it destroys the pretence that banks have used ethical considerations before deciding whether to fund the project.'

A spokesman for Shell said: 'The opportunity for Sakhalin Energy and its shareholders to provide comments on a draft report of this kind is routine and designed to ensure accuracy. The findings contained in AEA Technology's report are entirely theirs.'

An AEA spokesman maintained the report was independent and while Shell and various banks made suggestions it was under no pressure to accept them. 'AEA maintained ownership of the report. In some cases it accepted suggestions and in others it rejected them. AEA stands by its final report in providing an accurate, balanced and independent view of the overall project.'

Among banks which have lent Sakhalin II money is Credit Suisse, which advised Gazprom and Shell on the project. It declined to comment.

However, the row has deeper significance. Shell is the oil major with the biggest interests in the Arctic. Earlier this year, it controversially spent more than $2bn acquiring drilling leases in Alaska's Chukchi Sea. It is also spending billions exploiting tar sands in Canada, a hugely energy-intensive process. Campaigners say Shell will use audits similar to that of Sakhalin to argue it is taking adequate steps to protect the environment.

The 90 billion barrels of oil expected to exist in the Arctic are more than all the known reserves of Nigeria, Kazakhstan and Mexico combined.

In recent years Shell has sought to soften its image after seeing its reputation trashed following the murder of Nigerian tribal leader Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was protesting at seeing his homeland damaged by Shell's oil extraction.

The firm moved into renewables and placed great store by corporate social responsibility messages. But in the last year, it has seemingly changed tack, ditching renewable energy projects and aggressively bidding for licences in the Arctic, gambling that the world's thirst for oil will outweigh other concerns.

Read more!

It's a wrap: Giving up plastic for a month

Christine Jeavans, BBC News 1 Sep 08;

A month ago I announced I was giving up plastic for the whole of August.

Little did I know that what seemed like a simple, if somewhat extreme, idea would lead me into such intricate areas as whether apples sold loose are more wasteful than those in bags, the environmental pros and cons of a wooden toothbrush and whether bicarbonate of soda is an effective deodorant (it is - at least on the one day I tried it).

My aim was to try to live for a month without buying anything new made from plastic or wrapped in plastic. I was able to keep and use the plastic I already owned but if anything ran out I would have to buy a plastic-free replacement.

Plastics are hugely useful and versatile and the goal of the experiment was not to demonise the material itself.
But disposing of an ever-growing amount of plastic does pose a problem as the UK's recycling infrastructure is not yet geared up to deal with our mixed plastics waste.

This is due to improve in the next couple of years but even so, it looks like we will be landfilling the majority of our plastic waste for a significant time to come.

To find out how much my household - my husband, toddler son and I - usually contribute to this plastic mountain, I kept an audit of a normal month's plastic waste.

It totalled 603 items of which 120 were disposable nappies and most of the rest were food and drink packaging.

So my challenge was to find out whether it was possible to live a normal life without adding to my own plastic waste pile at all.

The short answer was no. I did not manage to eliminate plastic waste in August, however, I did cut it by 80% to 116 items.

Battles, widgets, balloons

The difference would have been even greater if I had got to grips better with washable nappies. I did use them most of the time but we still ended up falling back on disposables - albeit "eco-disposables" made from corn-starch plastic - when I hadn't got the washing and drying organised well enough.



So 63 of those 116 items were nappies, leaving just 53 other pieces of plastic ranging from a couple of milk bottles to some beer widgets to a stick for a balloon.

Some of the problems I or others foresaw did not materialise: we did not have huge amounts of food waste - in fact we probably wasted less than usual.

However, I suspect that this is because food shopping became such a tricky task that I was very keen to ensure that every last scrap of cheese or leaf of cabbage was used up before having to buy some more.

That said, I did not have to spend hours on the hunt for plastic-free food. Yes, I tended to visit the butcher and local market stalls rather than the supermarket but asking a stallholder for a pound of spuds, four apples, a few onions etc actually took less time than playing trolley slalom in the aisles.

My family and I did have to forgo plenty of our usual fare, though. No yoghurt, no biscuits (I know, I could have made some but I didn't get around to it, ok?), no celery, no crisps, no strawberries or raspberries.

Cheese was out unless wrapped in wax or paper, as were takeaway meals.

I did relent on the apple juice when out and about as that is top of my son's list of priorities (along with trains and lemurs).

I also drew the line at homemade toothpaste - having tried some I had concocted - and we got a tube of our usual brand.

Back to black (bags)

So, with August over and all restrictions lifted, will I go back to my old plastic-using ways?

Yes and no. I will be glad to get bin bags back - although enough people commenting on the blog which accompanied this project recommended a bokashi bin for dealing with waste to encourage me to give that a try.

And a more normal food shopping pattern will be welcome. As the packaging industry is at pains to point out, plastic is often used to wrap food because it is the optimum choice for protecting the product and transporting with low cost and carbon emissions.

However, living for a month without plastic has changed the way that I think about disposable items, no matter what material they are made from.

After all, even a biodegradable paper cup requires resources to produce and will take energy to recycle. Or if it ends up in landfill it risks breaking down in poor conditions which may produce the potent greenhouse gas, methane.

I have got into the habit of taking a reusable water bottle with me wherever I go and I now keep a mug at work - both were easy changes to make and I'm sure I'll keep them up.

The idea of taking my own reusable containers to shops such as the butchers or even the local takeaway curry house - as suggested by some "zero waste" enthusiasts on the blog - feels a little odd but it is logical and maybe something we will all be doing in future years, just like the way that reusable bags have taken off.

Real bread

We found we prefer bread from the bakers rather than the pre-sliced loaf so we'll be staying with that on grounds of taste if nothing else.

And the milk delivery can stay as it's very convenient, although it's good to be able to top up from the shop round the corner.

The wooden toothbrush, however, was not a winner for me and will be redeployed as a mini-scrubbing brush.

The big pile of plastic I collected in the previous month will be recycled as far as I am able to. This is something which should become easier in the next few years as Britain's first mixed plastics recycling plants start up.

And with a rising oil price and dwindling resources, there is even talk of mining landfill sites for the old plastic to turn into fuel - the first conference about this will be held in London this autumn (see Internet links on right).

Could plastic waste be eventually upgraded from the cheap stuff we throw away to our most valuable asset?

Maybe I should hang on to those all those bottles, bags and tubs a while longer.

Read more!

How can we save the planet in 99 months? Over to you

How are we going to save the world in 99 months? The founders of the one hundred months campaign are looking for good ideas
The Guardian 1 Sep 08;

On August 1, the Guardian ran our article arguing that the world had entered a countdown to a new more perilous phase of global warming. One hundred months from that date the risk of triggering runaway climate change goes, in effect, from amber to red.

Now, 31 days later, we have 99 months to turn the tide. The time for excuses and evasions is over. We are entering, as Winston Churchill said in 1936, "a period of consequences". To help focus minds and catalyse action, we also launched a website: www.onehundredmonths.org.

The response to both the article and site was immense. Two Nobel Prize winners, many churches and countless other groups rushed to endorse the initiative. Over 135,000 people from 130 countries signed up on the website to take actions, or were asked to do so by friends.

So what happens now? Each month we will be promoting an action that will pave the way for the swiftest transition possible. But we won't come up with them all on our own.

So, we want your suggestions: simple ones, bold ones, crazy but good ones - things that we can push for at all these levels - add them in the comments below. We'll keep a record of all your ideas. We'll highlight the best ones and the very best ones will be campaigned for by the OneHundredMonths initiative.

How bold can we be in what we hope to achieve? Across the ocean, Al Gore has just challenged the whole of the United States to unplug its oil and coal dialysis machine. He wants the nation to become powered entirely by renewable energy within 10 years. Recent findings from the Tyndall Centre suggest that for the UK to play its part in an effective global deal, from 2012 we'll need to cut our emissions by up to 9% year after year for decades to come. So think big.

But as a start, month 99 begins on our own doorsteps, putting our own homes in order. We can't tell people to stop smoking, if cigarettes are hanging from our mouths. We'll begin by taking our money away from the problem - the providers of dirty and dangerous fossil fuel energy, and putting it into the pockets of those providing the solution - clean and safe renewable energy.

Lastly, in the messages we have had from people, there has been one big, unexpected, positive consequence. You worry that a challenge on this scale leaves people paralysed with worry and helplessness. But, in place of that, has been the realisation that now everything we do has meaning and matters.

We need to make every month count. Over to you.

· Andrew Simms, Peter Myers and Dr Victoria Johnson are co-founders of OneHundredMonths.org

Read more!

Extreme and risky action the only way to tackle global warming, say scientists

David Adam, The Guardian 1 Sep 08;

Scientists have suggested creating areas of oceanic algae to absorb carbon dioxide. Photograph: Associated Press

Political inaction on global warming has become so dire that nations must now consider extreme technical solutions - such as blocking out the sun - to address catastrophic temperature rises, scientists from around the world warn today.

The experts say a reluctance "at virtually all levels" to address soaring greenhouse gas emissions means carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are on track to pass 650 parts-per-million (ppm), which could bring an average global temperature rise of 4C. They call for more research on geo-engineering options to cool the Earth, such as dumping massive quantities of iron into oceans to boost plankton growth, and seeding artificial clouds over oceans to reflect sunlight back into space.

Writing the introduction to a special collection of scientific papers on the subject, published today by the Royal Society, Brian Launder of the University of Manchester and Michael Thompson of the University of Cambridge say: "While such geoscale interventions may be risky, the time may well come when they are accepted as less risky than doing nothing."

They add: "There is increasingly the sense that governments are failing to come to grips with the urgency of setting in place measures that will assuredly lead to our planet reaching a safe equilibrium."

Professor Launder, a mechanical engineer, told the Guardian: "The carbon numbers just don't add up and we need to be looking at other options, namely geo-engineering, to give us time to let the world come to its senses." He said it was important to research and develop the technologies so that they could be deployed if necessary. "At the moment it's almost like talking about how we could stop world war two with an atomic bomb, but we haven't done the research to develop nuclear fission."

Such geo-engineering options have been talked about for years as a possible last-ditch attempt to control global temperatures, if efforts to constrain emissions fail. Critics argue they are a dangerous distraction from attempts to limit carbon pollution, and that they could have disastrous side-effects. They would also do nothing to prevent ecological damage caused by the growing acidification of the oceans, caused when carbon dioxide dissolves in seawater. Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change dismissed geo-engineering as "largely speculative and unproven and with the risk of unknown side-effects".

Dr Alice Bows of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester said: "I'm not a huge fan of messing with the atmosphere in an geo-engineering sense because there could be unpredictable consequences. But there are also a lot of unpredictable consequences of temperature increase. It does appear that we're failing to act [on emissions]. And if we are failing to act, then we have to consider some of the other options."

In a strongly worded paper with colleague Kevin Anderson in today's special edition of the society's Philosophical Transactions journal, Bows says politicians have significantly underestimated the scale of the climate challenge. They say this year's G8 pledge to cut global emissions 50% by 2050, in an effort to limit global warming to 2C, has no scientific basis and could lead to "dangerously misguided" policies.

The scientists say global carbon emissions are rising so fast that they would need to peak by 2015 and then decrease by up to 6.5% each year for atmospheric CO2 levels to stabilise at 450ppm, which might limit temperature rise to 2C. Even a goal of 650ppm - way above most government projections - would need world emissions to peak in 2020 and then reduce 3% each year.

Globally, a 4C temperature rise would have a catastrophic impact. According to the government's Stern review on the economics of climate change in 2006, between 7 million and 300 million more people would be affected by coastal flooding each year, there would be a 30-50% reduction in water availability in southern Africa and the Mediterranean, agricultural yields would decline 15-35% in Africa and 20-50% of animal and plant species would face extinction.

Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, said: "It's not clear which of these geo-engineering technologies might work, still less what environmental and social impacts they might have, or whether it could ever be prudent or politically acceptable to adopt any of them. But it is worth devoting effort to clarifying both the feasibility and any potential downsides of the various options. None of these technologies will provide a 'get out of jail free card' and they must not divert attention away from efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases."

Mike Childs of Friends of the Earth said: "We can't afford to wait for magical geo-engineering solutions to get us out of the hole we have dug ourselves into. The solutions that exist now, such as a large-scale energy efficiency programme and investment in wind, wave and solar power, can do the job if we deploy them at the scale and urgency that is needed."

Rapid climate change needs a global solution, says scientist
Sarah Knapton, The Telegraph 31 Aug 08;

Global warming is happening faster than expected and planet-wide engineering projects may be needed to buy humans more time, a leading scientist has warned.

James Lovelock of Oxford University says schemes to reflect sunlight from the atmosphere or increase the uptake of the greenhouse gas CO2 by the oceans should be considered to hold back disastrous climate change.

But the scientist also warned that such projects may do more harm than good and argues the best option could be to let nature take its course.

Writing for the Royal Society, Prof Lovelock warned even with geo-engineering, any course was "likely to lead to death on a scale that makes all wars, famines and disasters small".

Yet Prof Lovelock also said carrying on with "business as usual" would probably kill most of us this century. Methods proposed for artificially altering climate range from using trillions of space craft as a sunshade to "seeding" the oceans with iron particles to stimulate algae which absorb CO2.

Prof Lovelock last year proposed a system of tubes in the ocean to bring cooler, nutrient rich water to the surface to encourage algal blooms and carbon dioxide uptake.

He even suggested the algae could also provide biofuels and food. But he said that geo-engineering schemes could create new problems which would require a new fix – trapping the Earth into a cycle problem and solution from which there was no escape.

Another idea mooted is to send sea spray into the air to make existing clouds whiter in order to enable them to reflect more sunlight, in a bid to offset the heat trapped by increasing levels of greenhouse gases.

Read more!