Scientists: Climate talks aim too low for target

Charles J. Hanley, Associated Press 12 Dec 09;

COPENHAGEN – The cuts in greenhouse gases offered at the 192-nation climate conference are "clearly not enough" to assure the world it will head off dangerous global warming, a key U.N.-affiliated scientist said Saturday.

Such projections, moreover, don't even account for the "potentially hugely important" threat of methane from the Arctic's thawing permafrost, other researchers said.

Midway through the two-week U.N. conference, richer nations are offering firm reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases ranging from 3-4 percent for the U.S. to 20 percent for the European Union, in terms of 2020 emission levels compared with 1990.

One authoritative independent analysis finds the aggregate cuts amount to 8-12 percent. But the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes (IPCC), the U.N.-sponsored science network, recommends that reductions average in the 25-40-percent range to keep global temperature increases below 2 degrees C (3.6 F) above preindustrial levels and head off the worst of global warming.

"I think it is clearly not enough," the IPCC's Thomas Stocker said of the numbers discussed here. "We are by far short of having security that the 2-degree target will be met."

The Swiss physicist heads the IPCC's Working Group I, the climate science group that, among other things, assesses the impact that emissions — from fossil-fuel burning, deforestation and other sources — have on concentrations of global-warming gases in the atmosphere and then on temperatures.

Stocker told reporters the IPCC-recommended target "may be too much to ask at this stage" — too politically daunting to achieve in the current annual conference. But he suggested climate talks should aim at longer-term commitments, over decades, not the short commitment periods envisioned in the annual conferences.

Even limiting the temperature rise to 2 degrees C would not forestall serious damage, the IPCC chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, told reporters. "We would get sea-level rise, through thermal expansion alone, of 0.4 to 1.4 meters" (1.3 feet to 4.5 feet), he said.

Climate science co-chair Stocker acknowledged that IPCC projections do not include the potential "tipping point" addition of trapped methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that would be released as permafrost thaws in the far north.

Plant and animal matter entombed in that frozen Arctic soil for millennia would decompose as it thaws, attacked by microbes, producing carbon dioxide and — if in water — methane, many times more powerful than CO2 in warming the atmosphere. Other methane would be released as the oceans warm deposits of methane hydrates, ice-like formations deep underground and under the seabed in which methane molecules are trapped in crystals of frozen water.

"It is potentially hugely important," Richard Betts of the Met Office Hadley Center, Britain's climate science center, said of the latent methane in another news briefing. "The size of the reserves are not fully known and are not captured fully in our models" — the supercomputer simulations used to project climate change.

Russian researchers in Siberia, in particular, have expressed alarm about methane's potential, warning of a possible surge in emissions in the north, where Earth is warming most, adding several degrees to global temperatures and causing unpredictable consequences for the climate. Others say massive seeps of methane might take centuries.

"We don't really know enough yet about methane feedback," Hadley Center climatologist Vicki Pope told reporters.

The British institution says intensive research on Arctic methane may allow it to be included in Hadley climate predictions within five years. Last year six U.S. national laboratories launched a joint investigation of rapid methane release, and last July the IPCC chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, asked his scientific network to focus on "abrupt, irreversible climate change" from thawing permafrost. The IPCC's next periodic assessment report is due in 2013.

We're "walking toward a cliff in the dark," Betts said of such unknowns in climate. "It's out there somewhere, you don't know where, and so it makes sense to stop."

UN faces 'major setback' if failure at climate talks: Pachauri
Yahoo News 12 Dec 09;

COPENHAGEN (AFP) – The head of the Nobel-winning UN panel of climate scientists warned on Saturday that failure at the Copenhagen talks on tackling global warming would deal a heavy blow to the nation-state system.

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told reporters in response to question that the talks were "an important test" of whether nations could join together to fight a common threat.

"There's no question about it," he said.

"I think if we are able to get a good agreement, this would clearly create an enormous amount of confidence in the ability of human society to be able to act on a multilateral basis.

"If we fail, I don't think everything is lost, but certainly it will be a major setback."

Pachauri was speaking after a press conference where he spelt out the main findings of the IPCC's 2007 Fourth Assessment Report, which spurred political action leading up to the Copenhagen conference.

The study found for the first time that evidence for man-made warning was "unequivocal."

The impacts were already visible, indicated especially by glacier shrinkage, disruption to snowfall and rainfall patterns and changes to the timing of seasons.

Responding to the so-called Climategate affair, in which the IPCC's neutrality was attacked after the leak of emails from among some of its scientists, Pachauri said the panel had a top-class peer review system for assessing data for fairness and objectivity.

"This is a very robust process and it has stood the test of time," he said.

More than 1,200 scientists were involved in the exhaustive process, which was also vetted and approved by the world's governments, he noted.

"These are clearly the most outstanding scientists and with the highest level of expertise," said Pachauri.

Efforts by climate sceptics to exploit the hacked emails had had "absolutely no impact" on the December 7-18 talks, Pachauri added.

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Progress in U.N. climate talks, tougher issues ahead

Alister Doyle, Reuters 12 Dec 09;

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - U.N. climate talks have made progress at the half-way mark but many of the toughest issues such as greenhouse gas emissions targets for 2020 are deadlocked, delegates said on Saturday.

"We have made considerable progress over the course of the first week," Connie Hedegaard, the Danish cabinet minister who presides over the December 7-18 meeting in Copenhagen, told delegates trying to work out a new pact to slow climate change.

Delegates said negotiators had advanced on texts such as defining how new green technologies such as wind and solar power can be supplied to developing nations and in promoting use of forests to soak up greenhouse gases.

"We see the contours of a technology mechanism emerging, " said Michael Zammit Cutajar, who chairs negotiations on new goals for all nations.

But delegates said there were deep splits on issues such as raising funds for poor nations and sharing out the burden of greenhouse gas emissions curbs before a closing summit of more than 110 world leaders on December 17-18.

The Pacific Island of Tuvalu, fearing that rising sea levels could wipe it off the map, stuck to its calls for consideration of a radical new treaty that would force far deeper cuts in greenhouse gases than those under consideration.

"The fate of my country rests in your hands," Ian Fry, leading the Tuvalu delegation, told the meeting.

"I make this as a strong and impassioned plea...I woke this morning and I was crying and that was not easy for a grown man to admit," he said, his voice choking with emotion.

TUVALU

Hedegaard said she wanted more consultations until next week on the Tuvalu proposal, which has been opposed even by some developing nations led by China and India. Fry said that Tuvalu's fears were widely shared by small island states.

The European Union offered 7.3 billion euros ($10.8 billion) of climate aid over the next three years on Friday.

The United Nations wants to raise $10 billion a year from 2010-12 in quick-start funds to help the poor cope with global warming and move away from fossil fuels. But few other nations have offered quick-start cash.

In the longer term, the United Nations estimates the fight against global warming is likely to cost $300 billion a year from 2020, largely to help developing nations adapt to impacts such as droughts, floods and heatwaves.

A panel of U.N. climate experts said in a 2007 scenario that rich nations would have to cut emissions by about 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to avoid the worst of global warming.

Offers by rich nations for cutting emissions, mostly from greenhouse gases, so far total about 14-18 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

Developing nations such as China, the number one emitter ahead of the United States, are expected to slow the rise of their emissions without absolute cuts. They say they need to burn more energy to help end poverty.

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Best of our wild blogs: 12 Dec 09

Brown Hawk Owl finds a home
from Bird Ecology Study Group

12-13 Dec (Sat-Sun): Geminids meteor shower gazing at Changi Beach Park from wild shores of singapore

Tall tentacle tales and superb snail stories
from wild shores of singapore

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Ships' sticky situation dissolved

Victoria Vaughan, Straits Times 12 Dec 09;

THEY may each only be a few centimetres in size, but barnacles cost the shipping industry billions of dollars in cleaning and can increase fuel consumption by up to 25 per cent.

However, science may have brought a solution to this sticky situation a step closer. Building on previous studies, Dr Gary Dickinson, now based at the Tropical Marine Science Institute (TMSI) at the National University of Singapore, has uncovered the secrets of barnacle glue.

Although the basic properties of the glue were understood, the way it became sticky had remained a mystery until now. In the past, when scientists tried to analyse the glue, they would dissolve it in chemicals, but there would always be some solid element left over, making it hard to get the full picture.

'We tried to obtain the glue before it became sticky to find out how it works. After reading up about the anatomy of a barnacle and finding where the glue would come from naturally, we discovered if we put pressure on the barnacle in the right way we could collect the liquid glue,' said Dr Dickinson, who was aided by his PhD adviser, Professor Dan Rittschoff, when he carried out the work at Duke University in the United States.

As the enzymes, which speed up the mechanism of the liquid glue hardening, work best at body temperature, the glue collection was done in a cold room of between 0 deg C and 4 deg C. Even then, the glue, clear or pinkish orange in colour, can harden in five to 10 minutes.

To understand how barnacle glue sticks and hardens, Dr Dickinson compared the process to blood clotting.

'In evolution, important mechanisms are conserved. So we looked at mechanisms in animals that are important to survival, and clotting so they don't bleed to death is one such mechanism,' he said. 'We thought it would be a similar process to the barnacle, which needs to stick to things in order to survive and feed on plankton.'

He studied the components of the glue under an atomic force microscope and found it had a fibrous quality similar to that of a blood clot or scab - proving his original theory. This, along with the results from a variety of other analysis techniques, confirmed the ideas of Dr Dickinson and his colleagues.

Based on this discovery, he then tried using a common chemical to see if the glue could be prevented from hardening, and discovered the glue did not set.

This is bad news for the barnacle but could be good news for the shipping industry if this discovery could be translated into a paint for the bottom of ships. But Dr Dickinson said such a paint was still a few years away.

Ships travel faster and consume less fuel when their hulls are smooth and free from fouling caused by barnacles, algae or molluscs.

Lime arsenic and mercury were used in the early days of sailing ships. In the 1960s, anti-fouling paints using metallic compounds, in particular the organotin compound tributyltin (TBT), were developed and by the 1970s, most seagoing vessels had TBT painted on their hulls.

However, environmental studies found TBT to be harmful to surrounding marine life. Use of TBT was banned last year by the International Maritime Organisation, the United Nations agency concerned with the safety of shipping and the prevention of marine pollution.

At the moment, most ships use copper-based paints to repel or kill barnacles, or more expensive silicone paints which barnacles cannot attach to. Dr Dickinson's discovery could lead to another option for ship owners.

His research was funded by the United States Office of Naval Research. He is continuing his work at TMSI, looking at the initiation phase of glue hardening and also comparing the different species of barnacles.

Different species of barnacles can grow to different sizes, ranging from 1cm in diameter to between 10 and 13cm for the megabalanus, which is found here in Singapore and other tropical and semi-tropical regions, such as off the coast of Chile.

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Natural way to get rid of mozzies

Zoo's project uses bednets and insect-eating creatures to reduce mosquito population
Leow Si Wan, Straits Times 12 Dec 09;

Kevin Lee (left) and Troy Tan were among four Hwa Chong Institution students roped in by pest-control company Origin Exterminators to help in the zoo project. They sometimes offered themselves as human bait to lure and kill mosquitoes to count how many there were. -- ST PHOTO: DESMOND FOO

THE Singapore Zoo has enlisted some environmentally friendly allies in its battle to reduce the number of mosquitoes on site.

Instead of traditional pest-control methods such as fogging and misting, the new troops are insectivores - such as frogs, spiders and fish - which eat the larvae and adult mosquitoes.

This, said assistant director of zoology Biswajit Guha, allows the zoo to manage the mosquito population while maintaining an ecological balance.

Starting in March and working with pest-control company Origin Exterminators - which was one of the sponsors - and four Hwa Chong Institution (HCI) students, the zoo began a pilot project using a combination of insectivores and bednets to reduce its mozzie count.

Bednets are sewn from pieces of mosquito net embedded with a non-soluble and non-volatile insecticide.

The results: An average 60 per cent drop in the number of mosquitoes across the five test sites from the time the insectivores and bednets were first used to last month, when the project wrapped up.

Said Mr Carl Baptista, head of research and development at Origin: 'When the zoo first approached me with the idea of using its natural environment to deal with mosquitoes, I was very sceptical about the effectiveness of insectivores.

'I roped in the Hwa Chong students to help execute the project and we couldn't even find research papers on this subject.'

The zoo, he added, switched to Bti misting - a way of killing mosquitoes using bacteria, which does not affect the environment - from fogging about eight years ago as conventional insecticides are harmful to flora and fauna.

The National Environment Agency also does not encourage the use of fogging as a primary means of controlling the mosquito population.

For the project, the native insectivores, which also included dragonfly nymphs, were released at sites within the zoo and the Night Safari. Ponds were also constructed so these insectivores could be sustained in a suitable habitat that is also favourable to mosquitoes.

These bug-loving creatures are 'a natural control agent for mosquito populations', said Mr Guha.

To monitor the number of mosquitoes on a weekly basis, the HCI students used ovitraps - contraptions that trap mosquito larvae - and 'human baiting'.

Said 16-year-old HCI student Troy Tan: 'We stood there and let the mosquitoes land on us before smacking them with our hands so that we could count the number.

'The highest record was about 40 mosquitoes in half an hour.'

Their itch-inducing sacrifice and weekly visits to the zoo were not without reward: The team of Secondary 4 students - Troy, Kevin Lee, Darren Choo and Tan Wei Xiang - will represent Singapore in a community problem-solving competition to be held in the United States next June.

Meanwhile, the zoo will look into enhancing the aquatic ecosystem of existing ponds and moats, and creating new ones to encourage more native insectivores to come on board.

Said Mr Guha: 'While it must be complemented with environmentally sustainable conventional mosquito management techniques, it should improve what we have been doing, and in a way which encourages biodiversity.'

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Melting danger: rising seas

Straits Times 12 Dec 09;

Land and sea ice makes up almost 15 per cent of Earth's surface, and scientists predict that up to a quarter of it could melt by 2050 if global warming is not reduced. The result? Rising sea levels and worldwide flooding.

TAY CHERN HUI looks at the evidence.

Click on image for larger view.

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The Secret Sentosa

Venessa Lee, Today Online 12 Dec 09;

It was an image straight out of Angkor Wat. The roots of the tree had sprawled over the building, threatening to swallow it whole. I'd seen pictures of those ancient temples, dwarfed by scary vegetation. But I wasn't in Cambodia, I was, incongruously, at Sentosa.

The structure I was looking at, with its wraparound tree roots, was a battery command post at Fort Serapong. Historians have always known about this fortification, which was built in the 1880s, along with the other colonial British defences on Sentosa: Fort Siloso, Fort Connaught and Mount Imbiah Battery. However, it was only a few years ago that Fort Serapong was excavated.

This, then, was the secret Sentosa, or at least a side of the resort island that is largely unknown to the public. With new attractions spouting up hither and thither, Sentosa had seemed to me to be in a permanent, somewhat obsessive state of renewal.

But history is deep in the bones of the island originally called Pulau Blakang Mati - enigmatically, "the island behind death" in Malay. The name "Sentosa" means "isle of tranquility".

"You're talking basically of military history until 1972," when Sentosa started to be developed for recreational use, said Mr Kwa Chong Guan, Adjunct Associate Professor at the Department of History, National University of Singapore (NUS).

Archaeologist Lim Chen Sian, who led the archaeological survey and excavation at Fort Serapong in April 2006, told of how his team had found "moveable artefacts" - all since removed - including "lots of ammunition, such as six-inch shells that weigh 60kg".

A sense could be gleaned of the lifestyle of British soldiers at the Fort Serapong complex, according to Mr Lim, 34. Milk and sardines had been part of their diet, he said. "We got a lot of sardine cans, lots of milk. They drank a lot of dairy products, more than beer, surprisingly."

With beer cans and bottles scarcer on the ground than milk bottles, apparent evidence of wholesome living also surfaced in the form of "bits from a Monopoly set you can date back to 1939, 1940", he said. His team had found pieces for the board game - the purse and the rocking horse - which had been replaced by the thimble and wheelbarrow by 1940.

Ms Wee Sheau Theng, 31, said she'd been asked to "sew pouches for the machetes (used) to clear the vegetation" in June 2006. What she hadn't reckoned on was meeting her future husband at the archaeological dig. The freelance teacher and researcher married Mr Yeo Kang Shua in May last year. The couple took their wedding photos at Fort Serapong and Mr Lim was their best man.

Due to ongoing archaeological and conservation work, Fort Serapong, in the eastern part of the resort island, is currently closed to the public. People have strayed into the fort before, perhaps oblivious of its value as being a part of Singapore history.

When Weekend Today visited, there was graffiti ("2001" and "Steven" were part of the scrawl) inside the casemates of the fort, which are storage and office facilities sometimes used to house guns. Beside some of the ruins, I even saw a skip with building materials dumped inside.

According to Associate Professor Brian Farrell, a military historian who specialises in the British empire and who is familiar with the project, Fort Serapong is not "unique" as "there were lots of coastal defence positions in and around this area".

Remnants of an eight-inch gun emplacement - a niche where weapons were positioned - can be found at Fort Serapong, Singapore's only such example, but such emplacements can be found "in different parts of the empire: Canada, the Caribbean and Australia", said Dr Farrell, from NUS' Department of History.

For Dr Farrell, the well-appointed and restored Fort Siloso is "one of the best military history sites that Singapore has to offer. It's the crown jewel in the Sentosa crown".

Today at Fort Siloso, another layer of history hovers, invisibly, at an unlikely building, the recreated Guardroom - a replica of an 1885 structure which visitors to the fort would have encountered. Representatives of Sentosa Leisure Group, which manages the resort island, identified the Guardroom, which has a battered-looking Union Jack hanging on a flagpole outside it, as being the residence of Singapore's longest-serving political detainee, Mr Chia Thye Poh, for three years.

Mr Chia was arrested under the Internal Security Act in 1966 for alleged involvement with the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM). He was moved to Sentosa under a restriction order in May 1989, and after his conditional release, denied that he was ever involved with the CPM. Mr Chia was unconditionally released in 1992.

Visitors to Sentosa occasionally asked where Mr Chia had lived while he was at the island according to representatives of Sentosa Leisure Group. "He did translation work for us," said Mr Alvin Chia of Sentosa Leisure Group.

The deputy director (attractions development) also mentioned other, secret parts of Sentosa. In the western region of the island, for instance, there are birds' nests "made by edible-nest swiftlets and black-nest swiftlets", he said, which were poached until the authorities barred access to the area via locked gates.

The historical aspects of Sentosa - as a prolific pirates' lair, for instance - point to the violence that once lurked at the island's now-sanitised beaches. Take its enigmatic old name, Blakang Mati, which has been variously theorised as having been given because of regular and fatal malaria outbreaks, or because of the murder of a local Malay.

"One suggestion," according to NUS' Mr Kwa, who specialises in Singapore history, "was that this was the old execution grounds for the Orang Laut, the sea nomads who were the warriors of the old sultans".

Shock and horror visited Sentosa in 1983, when seven people died as cable cars plunged into the sea in an accident well remembered by Singaporeans.

Earlier, in 1974, 14 human skeletons were discovered on Sentosa's beach. Police believed that Singapore-based trafficking syndicates had brought the illegal immigrants from nearby islands, collected their "fares" and murdered them.

Today, the historical aspects of Sentosa can be seen even beneath the glossy patinas of new hotels and restaurants.

Capella Singapore was once a British Officers' Mess and Amara Sanctuary Resort Sentosa once the Sergeant Quarters, for example. The serene lines of those colonial buildings are the framework for these hotels, and other buildings like them.

Secretive Sentosa is there to be found - you just have to know where to look.

The people in their neighbourhood
Venessa Lee, Today Online 12 Dec 09;

Mr Masturi Lehwan, 55, grew up in the kampung that was once located at the site of Sentosa's integrated resort, Resorts World. Now a golf course supervisor, he met his wife, Ms Asmah Aziz, while working on the island. The couple have been working at Sentosa for more than 30 years.

Mr Masturi, like others in the kampung, was made to move out in the early 1970s. His parents and their eight children moved to a three-room flat in Telok Blangah but he returned to work on the island in 1972. He said the golf course, where he has spent a large part of his working life, is his favourite part of Sentosa.

Ms Asmah, 51, started as a bus guide on Sentosa, and is now a receptionist there. Ms Asmah's favourite part of Sentosa is an area at Tanjong Beach where she used to go fishing with her father.

Ms Chua Bee Tin, 48, used to be "kampung mates" with Mr Masturi. She started working at Sentosa in 1978. She has worked mostly as a monorail operator in Sentosa but, since the monorail system closed, she now drives the Sentosa Express, the train that ferries visitors from the island to the VivoCity shopping mall and back. Ms Chua's favourite place in Sentosa relates to her youth: "I like Fort Siloso most, my childhood playground. We played in the tunnel there."

Asked about the fast pace of changes that have taken place at Sentosa since the 1970s, all three expressed pride and hopes that visitor numbers would rise.

Ms Asmah said: "I saw the changes from this island from nothing to something." Mr Masturi said: "In the name of progress, I think we lose out something like quietness." Venessa Lee

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Going green is crucial and not something hip

Straits Times Forum 12 Dec 09;

I REFER to Miss Lau Ying Shan's letter on Thursday, 'Are we doing enough?' I could not agree more with her points.

Unfortunately, an almost perfect environment like Singapore does not give residents an idea of the climate change problems that will hit the world in years to come.

We do not face water shortage, but have infinite drinkable water from the tap. We do not have power failures. We have a lot of parks and trees, and fresh air.

How can we make the selfish me-generation understand that going green is essential and not something hip that is done once in a while?

We will see the effects of climate change down the road in a few years. If not us, the next generation will.

I hardly see anyone in my neighbourhood sorting rubbish (plastic, paper, glass, metal) - everything goes down the chute.

Many motorists start their car 10 minutes before their passengers come down, to cool it sufficiently. Most drivers behave as if they are in a Formula One race, and their vehicles guzzle fuel.

While some companies are taking real measures to go green, others just do it as a marketing ploy. Painting the wall green is not enough.

Sven Hafner

Kick habits of waste
Straits Times Forum 12 Dec 09;

THE Government has made a strong commitment towards sustainable development and has initiated projects like Newater to recycle waste water and plans to build the world's largest solar energy plant in Tuas by next year.

These are all large-scale and ambitious plans that show the Government is serious about a sustainable future where generations to come will not have to suffer the consequences of our insatiable demand for growth at all cost. But are we, the people, doing enough?

The Government's action alone is not enough to ensure a sustainable future if we just sit back and do nothing. Reading the newspaper each morning about the latest development at the Copenhagen climate summit while sipping coffee from a disposable cup and dumping both the newspaper and coffee cup in the trash before proceeding with the daily routine will not help solve the problem of climate change but rather, make it worse.

Unlike most political issues which we just sit back and watch unfold, climate change involves each and every one of us as it is caused by the summation of everyone's action in the first place.

How many times did you choose to take your car instead of public transport just to save a few minutes' travelling time?

How many times did you go grocery shopping without a shopping bag and return with plastic bags you throw away?

These are the little things we overlook for the sake of convenience, but it is these little things that add up to a huge amount of waste each year.

We need to kick our old habits of excessive consumption and waste, not out of fear of a hefty fine but because we know it is harmful to the environment and ultimately to us in the future. It only takes a little change to make a difference.

Decline the plastic bag when you know you can do without it; don't take it just because it's free. Make a little effort to remember to take your grocery bag each time you go shopping. Make an effort to sort recyclables from your trash.

All these efforts are not insignificant if they become the habit of society.

Nicklaus Tse

For our children
Straits Times Forum 12 Dec 09;

'Technological advances and prowess should come with the social responsibility to preserve and protect the planet.'

MR ETHAN LEE: 'There is a Native American proverb, 'We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children'. The course of human history is a mere dot compared to the history of the planet. Yet we have managed to bring Planet Earth near destruction. Technological advances and prowess should come with the social responsibility to preserve and protect the planet, so we can pass on to our children and their children a planet that is liveable and sustainable for generations to come. I sincerely hope something tangible can be achieved at Copenhagen beyond the talk.'

Climate Change: Are we doing enough?
Straits Times Forum 10 Dec 09;

THE world is still hopeful that the Copenhagen summit will arrive at concrete measures to address climate change, even though expectations of a silver bullet have fizzled out somewhat. It is perhaps timely for Singapore - and Singaporeans - to reflect on this crucial issue.

Although the nation's emission figures are not significant due to our relatively small population size, our per capita greenhouse gas emissions are comparable to those of most industrialised countries.

Instead of recognising this fact, we continually justify ourselves by pointing to another measure - carbon intensity, which is greenhouse gas emissions per dollar GDP - which shows that Singapore's impact is decreasing. Yet carbon intensity remains a different measure from carbon emissions per capita: the latter values the environmental impact of a single individual, while the former values the economy in relation to the environment.

As a Singaporean, I am not sure if I can continue to hold my head high when I know my individual carbon footprint is mistakenly condoned by the international community just because my country says its national contribution to climate change is insignificant.

Moreover, is Singapore not an influential political actor, or is it simply not trying hard enough? In November 2007, during the third East Asia Summit, members of Asean, Japan, Australia, South Korea, India, China and New Zealand signed a Singapore Declaration on Climate Change, Energy and the Environment. Yet, this declaration, though well-intended, remains toothless.

At best, it serves as a reminder to individual countries to do their part to mitigate climate change; at worst, it is another document waved around as a prop to show something is being done, when in fact nothing substantial is being done on the ground. How Singapore follows up with the declaration is really up to its own discretion, but it is undeniable that it is a leader and role model on the Asean front.

While Singapore's economy is important - and I am a beneficiary of that - the economy is not all that matters. In terms of long-term sustainability, it is apt to remind ourselves that we are an island state, surrounded by seas whose levels are predicted to rise with increasing global temperatures.

In addition, we have the Marina Barrage, a massive infrastructural investment crucial to our water sustainability yet vulnerable to rising sea levels and stronger storm surges.

Lau Ying Shan (Miss)

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Integrated resorts set up green initiatives

Wong Siew Ying, Channel NewsAsia 11 Dec 09;

SINGAPORE : The two upcoming integrated resorts in Singapore, which open in the first quarter of next year, are not planning to gamble with the environment.

In fact, they have spent millions of dollars on green technologies and sustainable building concepts to conserve resources.

It has been a roller coaster ride for the environment, and climate change is a real threat. So companies, like Singapore's two integrated resorts, are striving for greener practices.

Resorts World Sentosa, for instance, transplanted 900 trees affected by construction work. It is now replanting them - along the streets of Hollywood and New York - within its Universal Studios theme park.

The resort also has Singapore's largest solar installation, that can generate over 500,000 kilowatts per hour of energy a year.

Noel Hawkes, vice president, Resort Operations, Resorts World Sentosa, said: "(With regards to) the solar power, we reckon we can save half a million Singapore dollars easily on electricity bills.

"We also have a very interesting ETFE roofing system over many of the al fresco dining areas of the resort, as well as in the Universal Studios where people are queuing, and this reduces the amount of sunlight by almost half.

"And we couple that with an eco-cooling system, which we have developed; it is not air conditioning, but it is cooling and it costs one-third of the cost of air conditioning."

The ETFE plastic roofing will shelter about 70 per cent of the pedestrian walkways at the resort.

Another cost saving of over S$160,000 a year will come from a lagoon, which will harvest rainwater to be used for irrigation.

Meanwhile, Marina Bay Sands resort is also doing its part - by recycling paint from previous projects, as well as recycling construction waste. When completed, guests staying in the 2,500 luxury rooms at the three hotel towers can also play a role.

Thomas Arasi, CEO, Marina Bay Sands, said: "We have spent S$25 million on an intelligent building management system, and what that would do is that it would automatically record the customer's needs and energy saving patterns.

"On the remote control in our guest room, there will be an eco button that you can hit and it will just take things up a notch and hopefully you will not feel it."

Marina Bay Sands said it has also invested a substantial amount of money on the construction and operation of a massive chilled water plant to be located just off its third hotel tower. This will be done on a cost sharing basis between the resort and public entities.

The plant is expected to be ready in late 2010. Marina Bay Sands said it will provide chilled water to cool the resort as well as new buildings in the surrounding districts.

Observers said the use of chilled water could help lower air conditioning costs by up to 20 per cent. - CNA/ms

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Gifts a big waste

Stop buying Christmas presents for people you do not really know well, says an economist
Straits Times 12 Dec 09;

London - Ever had a present from an over-enthusiastic colleague or a far-flung aunt or someone you really did not like but were socially obliged to pretend otherwise?

One economist is on a mission to stop this wasteful category of Christmas giving.

How often have we given them? Many times, no doubt. And yet, how often have we ever really wanted to receive them ourselves? Whose every waking moment is filled by a craving for a pair of half-sized martini glasses, holding unpleasantly perfumed gel candles?

Economist Joel Waldfogel takes this feeling of dissatisfaction further. He studied the giving of gifts for 15 years. The results do not make for happy reading.

'Other people do a poor job choosing for us, compared to when we choose for ourselves,' he says.

He has just released his book, Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents For The Holidays.

Christmas gifts are a big waste, he says. Over the years, his surveys asked people how much they would have paid for gifts had they not received them. The average the recipient would have paid is nearly 20 per cent less than what was actually paid.

This is the kind of thing that economists do not like. The ideal in economics is that surplus value is created. 'The seller gets a price that exceeds his costs and the buyer gets an item he values above the price,' he explains.

In the Christmas present market, the second part of the equation often fails. And with people spending US$145 billion (S$201 billion) a year worldwide on festive items, that could be more than US$25 billion of waste, he says.

He emphasises that he is not advocating the end of Christmas presents as a concept. 'We do pretty well in buying things for people we know well. And children would be devastated if they didn't get presents.' But when it comes to buying for people who live far away or who we do not know well, he thinks we might give gift vouchers a try instead.

Of course, this does throw up a problem or two.

Anyone who has seen the episode of Seinfeld where Jerry commits a major faux pas, by giving Elaine cash for her birthday, would be wary about doing the same. And gift vouchers seem close to that.

Mr Waldfogel disagrees. 'Gift vouchers are unlike cash in that they avoid the awkwardness.'

But gift vouchers also often lie dormant in dark recesses of the recipient's cupboards, never to emerge. He wants retailers to accept a measure that allows vouchers to expire and trigger a donation of the value to charity. And, he suggests, a present of a donation to charity, should be acceptable.

Professor Gary Davies of Manchester Business School is not a fan of abandoning gifts for people we do not know that well. 'It isn't the economics that is driving the issue. It's the social side, the symbolism of the gift.'

And the kind of gift scenario where the protagonists do not know each other well can be a social minefield, with the giving of cash or vouchers being seen as plain odd.

'It would be seen as a bribe,' says Mr Davies. 'There are lots of business gifts. I will give my secretary a bottle of champagne. Am I supposed to give her money? I think she might be taken aback. It would be seen as inappropriate.'

And of course, that is at the root of gift giving - it is a social transaction, not an exchange of useful items.

'What we like is the fact that our nearest and dearest have thought about it,' he says. 'One of the main social aspects of gifting is building a relationship.'

And there would also be economic consequences if people suddenly stopped buying presents. Typically half of retailers' profits come from the fourth quarter, he adds.

But in opposition to the economic benefit, there is also the sheer waste of unwanted presents. 'One can imagine a market for green gifts, buying people experiences that don't involve tangible products,' he says.

BBC News

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Johor Ramsar sites need urgent attention and improvement

Nelson Benjamin, The Star 12 Dec 09;

JOHOR BARU: The state government needs to urgently improve the management and condition of its Ramsar sites.

The biggest of the sites spans 7,636ha in Sungai Pulai Johor, while the other two are in Pulau Kukup measuring 647ha and Tanjung Piai (526ha). Ramsar sites are wetlands of international importance designated under the Ramsar Convention.

A visit to Tanjung Piai found rubbish littering the mangrove swamp and trapped among the trees. Besides discarded planks and plastic bags, there was even an old tyre seen here.

The 2008 Auditor-General’s Report had highlighted the unsatisfactory management of the three sites under Johor National Park Corporation (PTNJ) as it did not have proper objectives or scope to carry out activities every year.

The corporation has been tasked with rehabilitating and protecting the Ramsar sites in Johor. The A-G Report found that PTNJ did not have the financial capability to develop and maintain the sites.

The organisation depended primarily on the state government for allocations as its requests to other agencies such as Tourism Ministry and Natural Resources and Environment Ministry for additional funds were rejected.

According to the A-G Report, PTNJ had a deficit balance since 2004, which ballooned to RM3.3mil in 2007.

The Johor state executive council (Exco) had directed PTNJ to use a RM500,000 allocation to hire a foreign consultant to draw up a comprehensive plan for the management of Ramsar sites from 2006 to 2016.

However, the corporation only used RM13,447 of the money from Natural Resources and Environment Ministry to come up with its own development plan in collaboration with a local university and the remaining sum was channelled to other purposes, the report detailed.

It added that PTNJ also did not have an enforcement unit to tackle intrusions and encroachments into the Ramsar sites.

The report noted that cleanliness at the wetlands was poor, stressing that the lack of awareness among tourists, local fishermen and PTNJ workers about environment conservation could lead to pollution and jeopardise the ecosystem.

On a positive note, the Auditor-General found the research activities at the Ramsar sites satisfactory, as 30 projects had been carried out here between 2006 and 2008 which discovered new flora and fauna.

The report recommended seven steps to be taken to improve the situation. They involve outlining clear objectives for conservation, education and research, maintaining cleanliness, issuing compounds to those who encroach into the wetlands and creating sources of income.

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Bali's Mangroves are Best in Asia: Official

The Jakarta Globe 11 Dec 09;

Denpasar. The island of Bali is not only Indonesia’s best international tourism destination but is also home to Asia’s best mangrove forests, a local forestry official said on Friday.

“As the best in Asia, the lush mangrove forests have become the destination for comparative studies by experts from various countries,” said Anak Agung Ngurah Buana, who heads the Bali Forestry Office.

He said Bali was home to 1,346 hectares of mangrove forest, all managed under the Ngurah Rai Forest Park, and that visiting experts had come from countries such as Japan, Germany, the Philippines, Italy and the United States to study the forest as a model for similar developments.

Buana said that the Suwung mangrove forest in South Bali had been a model in mangrove management as a result of an agreement between the Ministry of Forestry and the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

He said the project, which started in 1993, was considered to have been fairly successful in cultivating and preserving a number of mangrove variants, some producing substances that may be developed into medicines.

Footpaths connect one part of the forest to another, making it a favorite tourist destination for local and international visitors.

Local communities often fish for recreation in the forest, which stretches along the coast from Benoa Harbor to the Ngurah Rai International Airport in Tuban.

The forest is managed by 42 workers, half of them technical staff from the Mangrove Management Agency and two experts from Japan.

Buana said that the forest saw a continuous planting of new seedlings and a constant maintenance program in the hope that it would act as “lungs” for the city of Denpasar.



Antara

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