Spend Money To Aid Economy On Climate - UN Official

Gerard Wynn, PlanetArk 21 Feb 08;

MONACO - Governments should use public money aimed at deflecting the threat of recession to spur savings by backing energy efficiency too, the head of the United Nations Environment Programme, Achim Steiner, said.

UNEP is hosting 154-nation climate change talks this week in Monaco aimed at show-casing the need for government investment in the fight against climate change.

It is the biggest climate meeting since nearly 200 countries agreed in December in Bali, Indonesia, to launch talks on a new pact to fight global warming to succeed or extend the Kyoto Protocol after 2012.

"How can some of the economic stimulus now being considered be used for win-wins?" Achim said to reporters on Wednesday.

"Could some of the funds be spent on phasing in renewable energy?"

US President George W. Bush last week signed into law a $168 billion economic stimulus package including billions of dollars in tax rebates and incentives for businesses to buy new equipment. The aim is to prop up market confidence after failing mortgage repayments fed a cycle of credit pullbacks by lenders.

Renewable energy and efficiency technologies are seen as central to the future of the world's economy, to fight climate change caused by burning fossil fuels and safeguard future energy supplies while saving money at a time of spiralling oil prices.


USING MARKETS AND FINANCE

UNEP publised on Wednesday its UNEP Year Book 2008, in which the chief focus was a feature on "Using markets and finance to fight climate change".

Business is already working to fight climate change, the report said, citing institutional investors which demand that companies they invest in adhere to environmental standards.

US investors pledged at a UN summit last week to invest $10 billion in emissions-cutting technologies and to put pressure on companies to disclose their risks associated with climate change.

Clean energy investment exceeded $100 billion last year, as businesses seek government subsidies to install solar power, for example, or to earn carbon offests by investing in emissions cuts in developing countries through burgeoning carbon markets.

Governments needed to do more to motivate that effort, the UNEP report said.

"What has been missing so far is the political will and policy coordination that is needed to unleash the full creative capacity of the private sector," it said.

UNEP has bemoaned the fact that governments spend $200 billion annually subsidising fossil fuels and just $33 billion on backing low-carbon technologies.

Government interest is rising in spurring green jobs and technologies but some countries and companies fear losses, too.

"Some of the biggest losers, the energy-intensive industries, also have the greatest political clout," the UN's top climate official, Yvo de Boer, told reporters in Monaco.

(Reporting by Gerard Wynn, Editing by Anthony Barker)

Read more!

Alarm over new oil-from-coal plans

David Adam, guardian.co.uk 20 Feb 08;

A Chinese energy company is poised to open a chemical plant to make liquid fuels for cars and aircraft from coal, a move that has alarmed environmental campaigners who say it will increase carbon emissions and worsen global warming.

The plant, in Inner Mongolia, will use technology developed by Germany during the second world war to convert coal directly into synthetic diesel, dubbed "Nazi fuel". China says the process will help break its booming economy's reliance on foreign oil, and that it will build more such plants.

The US and India are also investing heavily in the technology, which is being heavily promoted by coal companies across the world as a cost-effective solution to soaring oil prices and concerns about energy security.

The Chinese facility, operated by Shenhua Corporation, will be the first of its type in the world. Shenhua would not say when it expects the plant to open, but industry experts said it would be within weeks. Last month, company officials said construction work was 99.5% complete.

Three similar plants were built in South Africa to beat the apartheid-era oil sanctions, and still produce almost a third of South Africa's energy needs.

Gordon Couch, of the International Energy Agency's clean coal centre in London, said the plant's opening was "imminent". and that it marked a surge of interest across the world. An IEA report on the technology, due to be published this spring, will highlight similar projects planned or under way in Japan, the US, Australia, China, New Zealand, India, Botswana, Indonesia, the Phillippines and South Africa. The US Air Force is very interested, and recently flew a B-52 bomber on fuel made from coal.

Couch said: "There is now considerable interest in these types of fuels, mainly in countries like China and the US that have large reserves of coal and are worried about relying on imported oil." He said the high price of oil could persuade more companies to turn to the coal conversion technology, which has traditionally been too expensive to compete with conventional petroleum-based fuel.

Analysts say the fuel could be economic if oil prices stay consistently above US$25-40 a barrel. Oil currently costs double that, and briefly touched $100 a barrel last month.

A study last year by the Chinese Academy of Sciences said: "Production of liquid fuels from coal is practically the most feasible route to cope with the dilemma in oil supply."

It concluded: "Establishing large-scale CTL [coal-to-liquids] plants on the pitheads of several main coalfields is feasible and competitive when oil price is well over US$25 per barrel."

At least two more commercial scale coal-to-liquids plants are under construction in China, although the Chinese government has expressed concern about the possible environmental impact of uncontrolled expansion, and has taken steps to limit the number of smaller facilities.

Companies that promote the coal-to-liquids technique claim it is clean, because contaminants such as sulphur are removed from coal during the process. Some also herald it as a way to fight global warming, despite the industry's own figures, which show that converting and burning the liquid coal together releases almost twice the carbon pollution as using conventional diesel.

Nick Rau, a climate campaigner for Friends of the Earth, said the move was "in totally the wrong direction". He added: "We have great concerns about the rush to develop new sources of energy-intensive energies such as synthetic fuels from coal. We know they are technically feasible and it looks like they are going to happen, unless more people emphasise the sustainable options available."

Luke Warren of the World Coal Institute, admitted the process was "carbon dioxide intensive", but said the greenhouse gas could be captured and stored underground.

But the UN's intergovernmental panel on climate change says that large-scale carbon capture and storage remains unproven, and will not be available for decades.

Of the 30 or so large-scale coal-to-liquids plants being worked on around the world, only one in Australia plans to conduct a carbon capture trial.

Even capturing the carbon may not solve the problem. An analysis by the US Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory last year said that liquid fuels from coal, even with carbon capture and storage employed, would still produce at least 20% more carbon dioxide than petrol and diesel made from oil. The energy-intensive conversion plants also require massive amounts of cooling water to stop them overheating.

The World Coal Institute is among the organisers of a major industry conference in Paris this April to promote the coal-to-liquid technology. US coal giant Peabody, the largest coal company in the world, is listed as the event's main sponsor.

Coal is not the only unconventional source now being exploited for oil substitutes. Other companies across the Middle East and North Africa are making diesel in a similar way from natural gas. Airbus recently carried out a test flight of its giant A380 aircraft that used gas-derived liquid fuel. And Shell has just started an advertising campaign in the UK that promotes its gas-to-liquids technology as a "clean fuel" which provides "significantly lower emissions of local pollutants". Shell says a study commissioned by the company shows its new fuel produces no more greenhouse gas emissions than using conventional diesel.

But scientists at the University of California, Berkeley have found the gas-to-liquids process is typically some 7-16% worse for global warming than using oil. Adam Brandt and Alexander Farrell of the university's energy and resources group said a widespread transition to both gas-to-liquids and coal-to-liquids technology was looking "increasingly likely" but warned such "unconventional petroleum production could be a significant source of additional carbon dioxide unless mitigation steps are taken".

Farrell told the Guardian: "If companies are marketing these fuels as environmentally friendly then they are misleading people. At best, they could be as good as [existing] fossil fuels, but is that what we want in a world where we have to cut greenhouse gas emissions?"

Read more!

U.S. Cities step up tree plantings

John Curran, Associated Press Yahoo News 21 Feb 08;

Increasingly, trees are the new must-have for American cities. Some prodded by environmental awareness, some by regulatory edict, they're stepping up tree plantings in hopes of improving air quality, reducing energy consumption and easing storm water flows.

And a four-man team of scientists at the University of Vermont is helping urban planners and foresters gauge the existing "tree canopy" — or cover — in their cities and set realistic goals for increasing it.

Their expertise has been tapped by public and private groups in New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., and several Maryland towns eager to green their cities with the help of private property owners.

"Everybody's trying to do their best to improve tree canopies and work with developers and urban planners to make sure they remove as little tree canopy as possible in their projects," said Mark Buscaino, executive director of Casey Trees, a not-for-profit in Washington, D.C., that works to green the nation's capital.

"The benefits are many. First, there's the environmental. Trees cool things. They remove particulates in the air. They're linked to mitigating storm water flows, which is an enormous problem in all urban areas because there's so much impervious surface."

Generally speaking, tree canopy refers to the part of a city that's shaded by trees. Quantifying size was once an elusive task.

But the UVM scientists, working with a research scientist from the U.S. Forest Service, have used computer programs and their own expertise to combine satellite images with aerial photos and tax maps to ascertain tree canopy size and break it down by parcel, determining which trees are on public land and which are on private land.

"If you don't even know what you have, you can't make any decisions," said Jarlath O'Neil-Dunne, a geospatial analyst with the team. "It wasn't that people didn't want to plant trees or didn't want a tree canopy program. But they needed the hard data to make decisions. That's where we came in."

The group consulted on a study of Baltimore's ecosystem in 2002, and word of their methods spread.

Their expertise dovetailed with a growing awareness among elected officials that trees could be more than decorations for urban areas.

In addition to giving off oxygen, they cool the air, limit sun exposure and act as sponges for precipitation, catching rainwater and releasing it gradually instead of having it flow directly into storm sewers.

Charlie Lord, executive director for the Urban Ecology Institute in Boston, has worked with the scientists.

"They help you gather the data, analyze it and help you answer the basic questions — `Where do we have trees?' `Where don't we have trees?' — and the more sophisticated ones, like `Where would we plant to improve our carbon footprint?' or `Where are the best places to plant to improve our water quality?'" Lord said.

The group's work helped the city of New York establish the goals for a 1-million-tree initiative that kicked off last fall, aiming to plant that many trees over a 23-year period.

"It really kicked off everything, from a policy perspective, a natural resource management perspective, a planning perspective. It helped us set our sights on 1 million trees," said Fiona Watt, chief of forestry and horticulture for the New York Department of Parks and Recreation.

"People used to overlook trees in cities," said Watt. "They're now viewed as increasingly important because of the work of scientists who've helped us quantify those benefits. The environmental benefits and property value benefits are quantifiable, but the social ones are harder. They make us feel good, they improve our moods, they make neighborhoods more beautiful.

"Tree canopies can make neighborhoods more cohesive and bring people together, bonding them over this common resource," she said.

The fruit of the team's work may not be visible yet, but it will be eventually. In the world of forestry, there's an old proverb: "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next-best time is today."

Read more!

Is Spy Satellite's Toxic Fuel Risk Real?

Richard A. Lovett, National Geographic News 20 Feb 08;

The U.S. Navy is gearing up to use modified anti-missile rockets to shoot down an ailing spy satellite late tonight or tomorrow, depending on weather conditions at the North Pacific launch site.

As the countdown approaches, observers are still split on whether the primary motivation for the move is to protect public safety or to test weapons technology under the watchful eyes of foreign powers such as China.

The satellite, known as USA 193, went unresponsive to commands shortly after its launch on December 14, 2006, and is in an uncontrolled decaying orbit, the U.S. Department of Defense announced on February 14.

Left on its own, the school bus-size orbiter would crash on Earth sometime later this month or early next month, the department said in a press release.

According to government computer models, about 56 percent of the 5,000-pound (2,268-kilogram) satellite would survive reentry and hit the Earth.

At a February 14 press conference, officials added that President George W. Bush had authorized the shoot-down to prevent the satellite from releasing a toxic gas from its fuel tank.

Many analysts and bloggers, however, have speculated that the danger from the gas is minor.

"OK, so hydrazine looks pretty toxic. But what would the chance have been of it smashing through your roof?" asks the science and technology blog Exploring our World.

The Navy's real goal, skeptics say, is to counter a similar exercise in China last year and prove that U.S. rockets designed to intercept nuclear missiles can be retrofitted to hit satellites.

Burning Lungs, Seizures

In January 2007 China intentionally shot down one of its own aging weather satellites using a modified ballistic missile.

The U.S. government criticized the unannounced move at the time, and many experts have expressed concerns about the field of debris left in low-Earth orbit.

But the latest "satellite kill," U.S. officials argue, is not a weapons test and is necessary to prevent the release of the largely unspent rocket fuel on board the craft.

The big question is just how toxic the satellite's fuel might be.

According to the defense department's press release, the fuel tank contains about 1,000 pounds (453 kilograms) of hydrazine, a hazardous chemical related to ammonia.

Hydrazine's effect on people depends on the dose, duration, and manner of exposure, according to a 1997 fact sheet released by the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

(National Geographic News's phone calls to the agency were not returned by press time.)

Various forms of the chemical are used safely in medicines, farm chemicals, and plastic foams and are naturally present in foods such as mushrooms.

Pure hydrazine is unstable in air and quickly decomposes, generally within minutes to hours.

But high doses of the gas can damage skin, burn lung tissue, and affect the nervous system, leading to seizures.

And at least three agencies—the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment—have declared hydrazine to be a carcinogen.

Still, toxicologists generally view cancer as a result of long-term exposures, not one-shot accidents.

Cloud of Toxic Gas

So, critics have been saying, how big is the risk?

Unless the missile destroys the fuel tank, it is quite likely that the tank and its cargo wouldn't burn up in the atmosphere, defense officials said.

"We had a similar one on [the space shuttle] Columbia that survived reentry" after the shuttle broke apart in February 2003, Marine General James E. Cartwright, vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a statement.

The tank would probably rupture when it hit the ground, spreading toxic gas over an area Cartwright estimated to be roughly the size of two football fields.

"If you … inhale a lot of it, it could be deadly," Cartwright said.

It's likely that the tank holds enough hydrazine to be dangerous, said Kenneth Ramos, a professor at the University of Louisville School of Medicine and former president of the Society of Toxicology.

In fact, Ramos implied, the defense department's estimate for how far the gas would spread might be conservative.

"If they do not destroy it and the intact tank ruptures, it is likely that the volume would be sufficient to cause harm," he said by email.

"After all, a thousand pounds of hydrazine is a large enough amount to spread over a considerable distance," he said.

"[W]eather conditions would likely be a major determinant of dispersion potential," he added.

The threat also would depend on where the tank hits.

The equivalent of two football fields is a large impact zone in a big city. But in a remote desert or in the ocean, few people would be affected.

Currently the Navy cruiser U.S.S. Lake Erie waits in the Pacific Ocean west of Hawaii with two SM-3 heat-seeking missiles to target the satellite and hopefully bring down the debris over unpopulated waters.

Space junk hits Earth often, not people

Seth Borenstein, Associated Press Yahoo News 21 Feb 08;

Giant chunks of manmade space junk — like the dead satellite that the U.S. government is trying to shoot down — regularly fall to Earth. Yet no one has ever been reported hurt by them.

Chunks of debris weighing two tons or more from satellites and rocket parts fall uncontrolled every three weeks or so, according to an analysis by a Harvard University astronomer who tracks satellites and space debris.

And that's just based on the last three years. Go back a decade or so when countries didn't try to control these falling objects. Back then, two-ton chunks fell to Earth much more frequently said Jonathan McDowell, who runs Jonathan's Space Report, which tracks the world's space launches and satellites.

It's likely that 50 to 200 "large" pieces of manmade space debris return to Earth every year, according to the Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies. Bill Ailor, the center's director, like those at NASA's Johnson Space Center, said he was asked by the government not to comment specifically on the current satellite re-entry issue.

In the past 40 years, about 12 million pounds of manmade space junk has survived re-entering Earth's atmosphere, according to the orbital debris center.

Yet experts in the field know of only one report of a person being hit by space debris. Lottie Williams of Tulsa, Okla., was struck on the shoulder in 1997 by a small piece of debris from a discarded piece of a Delta rocket. She was unhurt.

The reason space junk doesn't regularly hit people is simple: About 70 percent of the Earth's surface is water.

And on average there are about 130 people per square mile of land on Earth, but people don't take up a lot of space. Far more than 99.9 percent of the land on Earth is not occupied by a person at a given time, according to rough calculations by researcher Alex de Sherbinin of Columbia University.

There is no one place on Earth that is more prone to space junk than others. Where satellites fall depend on their particular orbit.

So the orbital debris center that studies the issue puts the odds of anyone being hurt by any piece of re-entering space junk at one in a trillion, saying you are far more likely to get hit by lightning.

Using Columbia University's population density maps, McDowell calculated that at the highest possible risk, there's a 1-in-10,000 chance that the dead satellite could hit a person. However, it's probably closer to one in a million, McDowell said.

That doesn't take into account toxic fumes from the ton of frozen and dangerous hydrazine rocket fuel, which is the reason Pentagon officials said they needed to shoot down the dead satellite. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put out a notice to local public health officials warning of the toxicity of the fuel.

McDowell is skeptical, however, given the odds.

"My gut reaction is that this is just completely bogus," McDowell said of the decision to shoot down the satellite based on a public health threat. He doesn't completely discount the danger of the rocket fuel, however.

This is the type of risk that shouldn't be reduced to mere numbers, said David Ropeik, a Boston risk communications expert who has consulted with the Bush White House and Department of Homeland Security.

"It's the nature of the risk, not the number," said Ropeik, co-author of the book "Risk." "A good question can be asked whether it is the public's worry that is driving this or whether the government is concerned about the harm that it can cause, even though the chances of that are low."

On the Net:
Jonathan's Space Report: http://www.planet4589.org/space/jsr/jsr.html
Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies:
http://www.aero.org/capabilities/cords/index.html

Read more!

Solar Power to Rule in 20 Years, Futurists Say

Robin Lloyd, LiveScience Yahoo News 19 Feb 08;

BOSTON - He predicted the fall of the Soviet Union. He predicted the explosive spread of the Internet and wireless access.

Now futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil is part of distinguished panel of engineers that says solar power will scale up to produce all the energy needs of Earth's people in 20 years.

There is 10,000 times more sunlight than we need to meet 100 percent of our energy needs, he says, and the technology needed for collecting and storing it is about to emerge as the field of solar energy is going to advance exponentially in accordance with Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns. That law yields a doubling of price performance in information technologies every year.

Kurzweil, author of "The Singularity Is Near" and "The Age of Intelligent Machines," worked on the solar energy solution with Google Co-Founder Larry Page as part of a panel of experts convened by the National Association of Engineers to address the 14 "grand challenges of the 21st century," including making solar energy more economical. The panel's findings were announced here last week at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Solar to compete in five years

Solar and wind power currently supply about 1 percent of the world's energy needs, Kurzweil said, but advances in technology are about to expand with the introduction of nano-engineered materials for solar panels, making them far more efficient, lighter and easier to install. Google has invested substantially in companies pioneering these approaches.

Regardless of any one technology, members of the panel are "confident that we are not that far away from a tipping point where energy from solar will be [economically] competitive with fossil fuels," Kurzweil said, adding that it could happen within five years.

The reason why solar energy technologies will advance exponentially, Kurzweil said, is because it is an "information technology" (one for which we can measure the information content), and thereby subject to the Law of Accelerating Returns.

"We also see an exponential progression in the use of solar energy," he said. "It is doubling now every two years. Doubling every two years means multiplying by 1,000 in 20 years. At that rate we'll meet 100 percent of our energy needs in 20 years."

Other technologies that will help are solar concentrators made of parabolic mirrors that focus very large areas of sunlight onto a small collector or a small efficient steam turbine. The energy can be stored using nano-engineered fuel cells, Kurzweil said.

"You could, for example, create hydrogen or hydrogen-based fuels from the energy produced by solar panels and then use that to create fuel for fuel cells, he said. There are already nano-engineered fuel cells, microscopic in size, that can be scaled up to store huge quantities of energy, he said.

Other grand challenges

The NAE panel thinks that meeting the energy challenge and the other grand challenges of the 21st century is "simply imperative to our survival on the planet," said panel member Charles Vest, former president of MIT and current NAE president. Other challenges that the panel addressed include providing access to clean water , engineering better medicines, reverse engineering the brain, securing cyberspace and enhancing virtual reality.

The inspiration for the report was a previous NAE that reflected on the engineering achievements of the 20th century, such as the automobile, aircraft, jet aircraft, rockets, missiles, satellites, radio, radar, television, nuclear power, nuclear weapons, the computer, internet, genetic engineering and antibiotics.

These inventions gave us the green revolution that improved food production as global population grew, the distribution of safe water and electricity, improved health and generated an improved standard of living for many in the world.

However, now the world faces some dark consequences of these advances, said Stanford University's William Perry, a member of the Grand Challenges panel and a former Secretary of Defense in President Clinton's administration, including the depletion of prevailing energy resources, a looming global environmental disaster in global warming, the emergence of drug-resistant bugs and the threat of a security disaster if nuclear and biological weapons fall into the wrong hands.

With this in mind, the NAE brought together the panel (other members included Segway inventor Dean Kamen, biomedical engineer Robert Langer, former National Institutes of Health Director Bernadine Healy and genomics pioneer Craig Venter) to report on the needs of society and how technology can meet them.

More solutions to 21st century challenges

Other tech solutions suggested by the NAE panel to the new century's big challenges include:
Better detection and monitoring of nuclear weapons components to prevent them from getting in the hands of terrorists. Improving rapid responses to possible bioweapons attacks. Advances in genetic engineering to address the problem of drug-resistant viruses and bacteria, and to create personalized medicine. Desalinization and water filtering to address the shortage of potable drinking water. Tutoring computers to help meet education needs. Artificial intelligence that better simulates the brain to help create faster computers and also to aid in the treatment of neurological disorders

Perry was optimistic about the ability of society to arrive at these solutions, saying the achievements of the 21st century "will I believe be just as spectacular as achievements of 20th century."

Panel member Calestous Juma of Harvard University, an authority on using science and technology to promote sustainable development, said the policy implications of the 21st century challenges plan reveal a "more enlightened understanding of role of science and technology in general."

"This idea [of solving large-scale problems using technological innovation] is being developed in the context of a globalized world," he said. "Even though the proposals have been developed in the United States, the challenges themselves that humanity faces are global in character."

The NAE invites feedback on the document.

Read more!

Best of our wild blogs: 20 Feb 08

Review of Once Upon a Tree - Tides and Coastlines, Episode 1
A fabulous review and so quickly posted too, on the ashira blog

Labrador shore: installation of silt barricades
announced on the MPA website, highlighted on the wildfilms blog

Sea Turtle Specials
on the wildasia website learn more about hawksbills in the peninsula, sea turtle conservation in Malaysia and more about saving our sea turtles.

Our sea turtles
a round-up of sea turtle threats and efforts to protect them on the singapore celebrates our reefs blog

Who's afraid of sea monsters?
about the sea horse on the wildasia website.

Who's spine is this?
Share your guesses on the leafmonkey blog

Ubin abloom
a montage of fascinating flora on the budak blog

Melastoma and flowerpecker
on the bird ecology blog

Elegant jumper
Pretty spidey on the budak blog

Read more!

24 world cities in 'Earth Hour' black-out: organisers

Yahoo News 19 Feb 08;

[wildnews note: Singapore is NOT on the list...yet?]

Twenty-four cities around the world will fall into shadow next month as homes and businesses turn off the lights to raise awareness about global warming, organisers said Tuesday.

The "Earth Hour" initiative started in Australia's biggest city Sydney last year when an estimated 2.2 million people flicked the switch -- leaving the Sydney Opera House bathed in moonlight and the Harbour Bridge blacked out.

Organiser Andy Ridley said Sydney's 60-minutes of darkness generated huge interest around the world and 23 other cities from the Asia Pacific, North America, Europe and the Middle East had now signed up to be part of the 2008 event.

The eight latest cities to join "Earth Hour" are Atlanta, San Francisco and Phoenix in the US; Thailand's capital Bangkok; Ottawa, Vancouver and Montreal in Canada and Dublin in Ireland.

They join Australian cities Sydney, Perth, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane, Adelaide; Denmark's Copenhagen, Aarhus, Aalborg and Odense; the Philippine capital Manila, Fiji's biggest city Suva, Christchurch in New Zealand; Chicago; Tel Aviv and Toronto.

Ridley said he expected the "Earth Hour" concept, which is managed by the conservation group WWF, to extend beyond the borders of these countries on the scheduled start time of 8:00 pm local time on Saturday March 29.

"I think it already has become much bigger," he told AFP.

"The idea was that anyone could do it, whether they were in a small village in France or a city like Sydney."

Ridley said the Sydney event, in which residents were asked to switch off lights and appliances for one hour, had raised awareness about the problem of global warming while reducing greenhouse gas emissions by conserving energy.

"I know that on the night we thought we might be able to cut energy use in the city by five percent but it ended up being 10.1 percent," he said.

He said he hoped Earth Hour provided a "very big visual message" to politicians that climate change must be addressed quickly.

"The problem is massive but we do make a difference when we all take action," he said.

Links

Eco-Singapore takes on Earth Hour 2008: A Singapore Grassroot Movement
support Eco-Singapore to make Earth Hour happen in Singapore

Earth Hour website you can sign up to participate as an individual too!

Earth Hour: City plays key role in Earth Hour crusade
Peter Gorrie, The Toronto Star 19 Jan 08;

Cities to turn out the lights for climate change: WWF
Yahoo News 13 Dec 07;

Read more!

Jurong Lake area: Big changes planned

Lim Wei Chean & Natalie Soh, Straits Times 20 Feb 08;

URA in talks with stakeholders about plans for tourism, retail and entertainment centre

A WAVE of changes has been planned for Jurong Lake.

Government officials and industry captains have met and discussed the area's potential as a commercial, retail and entertainment centre.

Preliminary discussions centred on developing office space, a commercial centre with retail shops, four to five hotels and a resort or theme park for Singaporeans and tourists alike - all clustered around the Chinese and Japanese gardens on the shores of Jurong Lake.

The site will also take in the 12ha area occupied by the now-defunct Tang Dynasty City theme park. Built at a cost of $100 million in 1991, it was forced to shut down in 1999 when it failed to pull in enough visitors.

When news broke last year that Tang Dynasty City was to be demolished, landlord Jurong Town Council and the Singapore Tourism Board said then that they were 'evaluating the area for redevelopment' into an attraction.

Multiple sources confirmed - on condition of anonymity - that a feedback session with more than 100 stakeholders was held last month on developing the area. At the session, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) shared its proposed plans and sought reactions to it.

One source said: 'The plan is to try and do something similar to what was done in Tampines - to have a commercial centre, but also to add leisure elements.'

Another source said Jurong Lake was at the heart of the proposed development, and the viability of a water theme park was discussed.

The Singapore Science Centre, in Jurong Town Hall Road since 1977, will also be moving, but it is unclear when this will happen or where it will move to.

Also unclear is the fate of Snow City. The Straits Times understands that Singapore's first permanent indoor snow centre has a three-year lease and recently started turning in profits.

URA declined comment, but industry players who have heard about it are excited. A lakeside site, served by the East-West MRT line and near industrial parks and residential areas, is suitable for a mixed development, some said.

Read more!

Chinatown cleaner, but it's lost its charm

Letter from Jayandran Sandra Alison, Today Online 20 Feb 08;

Chinatown's a good example of why 'smelly' Jalan Kayu doesn't need a makeover

I READ the letter, "Jalan Kayu needs a makeover" (Feb 18), with much alarm and trepidation. I feel that to clean up this quaint, quirky and, yes, dirty and somewhat smelly corner of Singapore would be to rob it of its very essence.

Like Mr George Pasqual wrote, Jalan Kayu has always been a bit of a backwater, a small "ulu" village full of character.

Because of the Tampines Expressway, the demolishment of several old shophouses, the old Jalan Kayu Primary school, et cetera, and the subsequent construction of the nearby Sengkang/Fernvale estate, it can never go back to what it used to be.

Can I suggest that the authorities refrain from being too heavyhanded with "cleaning up" efforts in that part of Singapore?

Although traffic congestion does occur, especially on weekends (because of its "famous" roti prata), I feel that to widen the road would be to change Jalan Kayu too drastically. Somehow, through all the chaos, the residents are happy, the visitors are happy and life goes on in this far corner of our country.

Let's not go the way of other makeover disasters, such as Chinatown, which has been scrubbed clean of all its charm and quaintness. Just because something isn't clean and perfect does not make it any less desirable. The charm of Jalan Kayu lies in its haphazard and chaotic nature.

Would the Urban Redevelopment Authority or Heritage Board care to comment on plans for those shophouses Mr Pasqual described as "seemingly deserted two-storey houses with some unshuttered windows"? They are in a unique style that I have not seen in other parts of Singapore.

Jalan Kayu needs a makeover
Letter from George Pasqual, Today Online 18 Feb 08;

IT USED to be a quaint country "precinct" with many sundry shops, eateries and service enterprises, during the 1950s and 1960s, catering mainly to British personnel who were stationed at the air force base in Seletar.

Now, Jalan Kayu is a hodgepodge of eateries (some clean and others not so), sundry shops and an assortment of commercial enterprises, with haphazardly-parked vehicles, rubbish bins and heaps of rubbish. There is also a block of seemingly deserted two-storey houses with some unshuttered windows.

The traffic is constant and noisy, as it negotiates the congested two-lane road. Cars are parked at right angles to the road and pedestrians are often forced to walk on the road itself to negotiate around obstacles such as pots and dustbins that have been placed on the sidewalk by some shop owners. Others have erected canopies, which prevent pedestrians from walking freely.

With such chaotic conditions, accidents are just waiting to happen.

A facelift or makeover should be imminent to initiate a greener, cleaner and more orderly Jalan Kayu to match other Clean and Green precincts that give us so much pleasure and pride to be living in Singapore.

Read more!

Snazzy water taxis to liven up the Singapore River

Hong Xinyi & Tessa Wong, Straits Times 20 Feb 08;

$7m fleet of 20 electric boats is part of major revamp of S'pore River and surrounding areas to boost businesses there

A SLEEK fleet of electric water taxis will start plying the Singapore River from April.

Operated by tour company Singapore Ducktours, the 20 vessels, costing $7 million in all, will be part of the changes that will transform the riverfront into a dining, nightlife and tourism destination.

The new boats will replace those operated by tourism and leisure company Singapore Explorer, which began its service in 1995 and ended it on Dec 31 last year.

Another company, Singapore River Cruises & Leisure, will continue running its bumboat service on the river.

Players in the nightlife industry were all for a spruced-up river taxi service.

Mr Bernard Lim, executive vice-president of LifeBrandz, which runs the Ministry Of Sound and Lunar at Clarke Quay, said: 'The river links all the hubs of the nightlife scene and we should make full use of that.'

He added that newer, snazzier boats would encourage more people to hop onto river taxis to get from quay to quay, which 'would be a brilliant start'.

News of the changes to the river taxi service come ahead of an announcement by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) of a major revamp of the river and its neighbourhoods.

It has been speculated that renovations will begin at Boat Quay, Empress Place and Clarke Quay in April, ahead of September's Formula One race. Improvements to Robertson Quay and the Zouk vicinity will follow.

The Straits Times understands that meetings about the revamp, involving STB, business owners and venue operators have been taking place over the past year.

Mr Colin Goh, 40, general manager of performing arts venue The Arts House said the consultations were rigorous and stirred up enthusiasm among industry players.

'These upcoming changes will potentially change the entire complexion of the Singapore River,' he said.

The revamp will entail 'infrastructure enhancements' and 'the staging of signature events', STB and the Urban Redevelopment Authority said in a statement last year. The year before, the URA announced plans to light up the promenades along the river and the water itself.

The revamp is expected to go some way towards drawing 10.8 million visitors here and getting them to spend $15.5 billion this year.

The riverside neighbourhoods have attracted tourists and Singaporeans since businesses were allowed into the area in the late 1980s, but a magic formula for sustained success has proved elusive. The area has been renovated many times with mixed results.

Boat Quay, for instance, has lost considerable lustre in recent years; Clarke Quay's current success has come only after several less-than-successful makeovers over the years.

Most business owners The Straits Times spoke to said it is time something is done; some are also willing to spend money to renovate their interiors.

Mr Andy Ashok Vaswani, the director of Bollywood nightclub Khazana at Boat Quay, noted that STB has been promoting Clarke Quay in the last five or six years at Boat Quay's expense.

He said: 'It'll be a good thing if they put the changes in place. Boat Quay used to be in the tourist belt. But when you say 'tourist belt', you have to be promoting something for the tourists in the first place.'

Mr Mohan Mulani, chief executive of Harry's Holdings, which runs a chain of pubs, agreed.

'These changes are long overdue. The river is the gem of Singapore, but it has become a little worn out. Re-invigorating these areas is a great idea.

'Historically, the river has been where all the action happens.'

Read more!

How about a green prix in Singapore?

An electric car race at F1 leg here would help showcase Republic's eco-awareness
Dr Jem Bendell, Today Online 20 Feb 08;

THE race date has been set, the downtown street circuit has been mapped out, hotel rooms are being snapped up and tickets have gone on sale.

It's evident there is a buzz — some would suggest a frenzy — surrounding the first Formula 1 (F1) street race in Asia.

The F1 race, to be held here in September, will showcase the city to a global television audience of several million and boldly signpost Singapore as a cosmopolitan global city.

The question is what kind of global city.

At the sidelines of the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced that a new inter-ministry committee on sustainable development would be set up. Its aim: To map out a comprehensive strategy to keep Singapore's economy growing in an environmentally sound way.

Now, here's a radical idea. The Singapore F1 race might be a perfect opportunity to showcase green cars.

Sounds crazy?

Perhaps Singapore could host a pre-Grand Prix race, an opening act of sorts: A race between electric sports cars from around the world.

Just last month in Detroit, the US Environmental Protection Agency and US Department of Energy struck a partnership with car-makers to promote the first top-level "green" motor racing championship. Next month, some of the world's biggest car makers, including General Motors, Honda, Audi, Mazda and Porsche, will race cars running on environmentally preferable fuels, like ethanol, at the American Le Mans Series held in Sebring, Florida.

An even greener race would see cars powered by electricity taking to the track.

It is promising that this year, electric toy cars are not only one of the "in" toys for boys — actual "life-sized" electric cars have also become the "must have" for celebrities.

Zero to 60mph in four seconds? Well that's the Tesla Roadster, currently being driven around Hollywood by the likes of George Clooney, Wyclef Jean and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Some say electric sports cars have become striking symbols of "style with a conscience". As concerns over climate change mount, perhaps gas-guzzling machines will not look so flash after all.

A World Widelife Fund report entitled Deeper Luxury noted that the tastes of high-end consumers in many parts of the world have been evolving, as they embrace a greater consciousness over social and environmental issues. And this, it seems, also applies to the cars they drive.

Until the Detroit announcement, only college students in the United States have raced electric cars. The rally from the Motor City signals that it is time to think big.

How about having Lewis Hamilton zip around the Padang in the Tesla? If the British driver takes your breath away, at least it will be a breath of clean air.

An electric Grand Prix might even inspire Singapore's drivers to buy electric, or at least hybrids like the Lexus offerings or Toyota's Prius. Given that such electric cars can go over 200km between charges, there is little chance of a flat battery while in Singapore.

With further rebates on registration fees and taxes for electric cars, the car boom might eventually complement, rather than threaten, Singapore's eco-modern aspirations.

Perhaps this is something the new inter-ministerial team on sustainable development can consider.

An international electric car street race here would illustrate just how far the country has come — and frankly, what could be more uniquely Singapore?

The writer is the founder of Ecosing.com, a portal for Singapore's sustainability professionals.

Read more!

Rodents are favoured pets in Year of the Rat in Singapore

Sales of chinchillas, hamsters, guinea pigs are up by a third, say pet shops
Tay Yi Wen, Straits Times 20 Feb 08;

RATS, traditionally seen as filthy pests, rarely finish at the top of 'favourite pet' lists.

But the Year of the Rat is turning the spotlight on them and making cash registers ring at pet shops because people believe that having rodent-like pets - hamsters, guinea pigs and chinchillas - will bring them good luck.

Sales jumped by as much as a third in the run-up to the Chinese New Year, say pet centres, including Singapore's largest pet-store chain, the Pet Lovers Centre.

The centre's 17 branches have sold close to 3,500 rodents - mostly hamsters and guinea pigs - since the start of the year, up from the usual monthly average of 1,600, said its marketing manager William Lai.

Hamsters, which look most like rats, are the most popular, he added. The more expensive breeds can cost up to $55 each, while fancier guinea pig breeds can cost up to $200.

Both types of rodents are selling well at Pets Instinct in Jalan Bukit Ho Swee, said owner Alexdrina Chew.

And because this is the Year of the Earth Rat, brown-coated ones such as the Yellow Pudding hamster and the Syrian long-haired hamster, costing $18 and $30 respectively, seem to be the preferred breeds.

Customers are also buying these animals in pairs, in line with the Chinese belief that good things come in twos, or, as they say, shuang xi ling men, which means a double blessing arriving at the door.

Ms Ang Li Fan, 24, who runs Pet Republic in Telok Kurau, said at least half of her customers are buying two animals at one go.

But double blessings could quickly turn into double the trouble, pet shop owners warn.

Rodents are prolific breeders - some reports say female hamsters go into heat every four days.

This means a hamster duo that gets down to business soon could have litters of up to eight in half a month.

Guinea pigs have litters of up to four at a time.

Getting rid of the offspring is also a task in itself. Most pet centres will not buy them back or even take them on for free.

Buying in pairs presents other problems. Hamsters, for example, tend to fight when kept together and could hurt or even kill each other.

However, these potential pitfalls are not deterring people who want to improve their fortune by taking on pets whose year it is on the Chinese zodiac.

Auditor Lucy Cheng, 45, spent about $100 last month on a golden-brown Syrian hamster and an Abyssinian guinea pig and their paraphernalia as a gift for her 14-year-old son Marcus, to mark the Year of the Rat.

Two years ago, the family celebrated the Year of the Dog with a new Cavalier King Charles Spaniel costing over $1,600.

Princess, as it came to be called, promptly delivered on luck: Madam Cheng got promoted soon after.

Madam Cheng is already seeing dividends from her new investment. Instead of hanging out with his friends after school, Marcus now comes straight home to care for his pets.

Mother and son also have something new to talk about.

'It's not the 4-D kind of luck. But it has brought my son closer to me, and given him a sense of responsibility. So I guess the new pets must be working,'' she said.

Related article

Pet shops see rise in sales of hamsters ahead of Year of the Rat
Channel NewsAsia 7 Feb 08;

Read more!