From FB status updates and tweets in Twitterverse, many seem to share similar sentiments about the rather punishing and unpredictable weather we've been having in Southeast Asia. It's either super hot or we keep getting unusually heavy rain that suddenly stops with the sun beating down to make things super humid.

I've been sleeping without the air-conditioning in KL for a year now and I've been doing so in SG until recently. Now without the air-con cooling the room till 2-3am, its almost impossible for me to get to sleep with the sheets usually getting damp making it even more difficult to sleep comfortably.

That all this is a result of global warming is rather obvious and I wonder if there's anything that we as a region can do to reverse things.

In TIME's article in 2007 about "Why Asia is ignoring global warming?", it shared that faced with getting out of poverty through the cutting of trees, adding of cars + factories and worrying about carbon emissions, the choice was obvious for developing countries and their people.

Global Warming: Early Signs shares this:
Rapid population growth and development in countries like China and India will put additional pressures on natural ecosystems and will lead to a rapid rise in the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere unless steps are taken to curtail emissions.

REUTERS has a recent article in April 2009 entitled "Global warming threatens economic chaos in SE Asia" warning that if nothing is done globally to fight climate change, Southeast Asia could suffer a decline in rice output potential of about 50 percent on average by 2100 against 1990 levels.

We are all suffering as is evident from the crazy weather many of us have been complaining about.

I believe any effort made is a step towards reversing global warming so here's my effort at raising awareness and encouraging people I can reach out to to do something too.

Many of us have participated in Earth Hour. Here are some more things we can do on a regular basis:

Since I'm a vegetarian I'll start with this as it was partly responsible for my decision to stop eating meat.
Choose food thoughtfully. Raising meat contributes more global warming emissions than raising crops. Cutting back on meat even once a week can make a difference.

Other tips:

1. Switch to green power

2. Seal and insulate duct system

3. Drive a fuel-efficient car

4. Replace an old hot water heater

5. Control heating temperatures

6. Choose an energy-efficient central air conditioner

7. Reduce driving speed and drive evenly

8. Control your hot water heater temperature

9. Tune up and maintain your car

10. Put your computer to sleep

11. Replace 5 regular bulbs with compact fluorescents

12. Carpool or telecommute to work

13. Control air conditioning temperatures

14. Choose an energy-efficient washing machine

15. Combine errands or ride your bike instead of driving

16. Pump up your tires

17. Choose an energy-efficient room air conditioner

18. Choose an energy-efficient refrigerator

Full article here: http://www.greenerchoices.org/globalwarmingsavecarbon.cfm

For more solutions:
PDF of 10 Things To Do: http://www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/pdf/10things.pdf
http://www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/
http://www.fightglobalwarming.com/page.cfm?tagID=135
http://www.globalwarmingsolutions.org/category/personal-action

When I was back in SG ... I got a ride in a friend's Toyota Prius. Its a hybrid car ... he got it 6 months ago and he just needs to fill it with petrol once a month. Once a month!!! That's amazing. When the engine runs on electric mode .... its so quiet!

http://www.toyota.com/prius-hybrid/

Anyway .... here's some articles that might be of interest.

10 Best Fuel-Efficient Cars
When it comes to squeezing every last inch of motion out of a drop of gasoline, no one does it like Honda. The Civic ties the MINI Cooper for the title of (deep breath) most economical non-hyrbid car with an automatic transmission on this list -- an amazing feat considering the Civic's acres of interior room and full complement of safety features.

http://cars.about.com/od/helpforcarbuyers/tp/top10_fuel.htm


How to drive green - How to drive green

If you don't want to change your current car, there are still ways you can drive greener.

http://www.whatcar.com/green-special-report.aspx?NA=225213&EL=3194630

took me 30 mins to get to a pump to fill up my car ... and i use BHP instead of Shell or Esso. The queues around petrol stations were horrible all over KL and the resulting jams that saw cars backed up for kilometers were not pretty.

the ugly malaysia reared his/her ugly head in queue jumping, taking his/her own sweet time at the pump and the impatient many who leaned on their horns.

we are a society that is completely dependent on fossil fuels. we really need to cut down on this usage and dependence and find alternative forms of energy that is better for our planet

i'm seriously wondering how i can cut down my fuel usage in a city that has terrible transportation infrastructure ... not like i can just bike to work and stay in the office all day

:-(

Excerpts from a report I read. More disturbing news about the toll of farming on the environment:

. . . Factory farming takes a big, hidden toll on human health and the environment, is undermining rural America's economic stability and fails to provide the humane treatment of livestock increasingly demanded by American consumers, concludes an independent, 2 1/2 -year analysis that calls for major changes in the way corporate agriculture produces meat, milk and eggs.

The report released yesterday, sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, finds that the "economies of scale" used to justify factory farming practices are largely an illusion, perpetuated by a failure to account for associated costs.

Among those costs are human illnesses caused by drug-resistant bacteria associated with the rampant use of antibiotics on feedlots and the degradation of land, water and air quality caused by animal waste too intensely concentrated to be neutralized by natural processes.

. . . Food prices are rising faster than they have for decades. Concerns about global climate change have brought new attention to the fact that modern agriculture is responsible for about 20 percent of the nation's greenhouse-gas production.

Read more here: http://www.envirolink.org/external.html?itemid=200805010804490.163085

*** Its heartening to see people making small efforts to do something.

My PR partner's office switches off all their lights during lunch when most of the office goes out. Some of my friends now make it a point to turn off all the lights when they leave their apartments to go out ... or when they go to sleep ... when previously they used to leave a nite light on.

Small actions all add up to make a difference.

Those of you who're interested to take part in the next KL Freeze, visit the links below for more details.

Why Freeze for World Earth Day?

The average person globally uses 2255 Watts of power, or a little less than 23 x100 Watt light bulbs. (www.wattzon.org)

Now that's a lot of power to be wasting. Imagine if we could Freeze the daily activities of as many people as we can for 5 minutes. That's a looooottt of power we're saving for the future generations.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=11840893166

http://randomalphabets.com/

Stumbled across this as I was researching more about nutrition and a vegetarian diet as my sister insists a person cannot go without meat.

I'm appalled that 90% of the soy crop, 80% of the corn crop, and a total of 70% of grain grown in the U.S. goes towards feeding animals raised for food.

She lives in the U.S. so i don't blame her for her misconceptions.

Source: Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarian

According to a 2006 United Nations initiative, the livestock industry is one of the largest contributors to environmental degradation worldwide, and modern practices of raising animals for food contributes on a "massive scale" to air and water pollution, land degradation, climate change, and loss of biodiversity. The initiative concluded that "the livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global."

In addition, animal agriculture has been pointed out as one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases — responsible for 18% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalents. By comparison, all transportation emits 13.5% of the CO2. Animal farming produces 65% of human-related nitrous oxide (which has 296 times the global warming potential of CO2) and 37% of all human-induced methane (which is 23 times as warming as CO2). It is also accused of generating 64% of the ammonia, which contributes to acid rain and acidification of ecosystems.

Animals fed on grain, and those that rely on grazing need far more water than grain crops. According to the USDA, growing the crops necessary to feed farmed animals requires nearly half of the United States' water supply and 80% of its agricultural land. Additionally, animals raised for food in the U.S. consume 90% of the soy crop, 80% of the corn crop, and a total of 70% of its grain.

When tracking food animal production from the feed trough to consumption, the inefficiencies of meat, milk and egg production range from 4:1 up to 54:1 energy input to protein output ratio.

LONDON, April 4 (Xinhua) -- Global temperatures will drop slightly this year as a result of the cooling effect of the La Nina current in the Pacific, a UN meteorologist has said.

It is likely that La Nina would continue into the summer, depressing temperatures globally by a fraction of a degree, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)'s Secretary General MichelJarraud said, according to a report by the BBC Friday.

However, Jarraud insisted that 2008 temperatures would still be well above the average for the century.

"When you look at climate change you should not look at any particular year. You should look at trends over a pretty long period and the trend of temperature globally is still very much indicative of warming.

"La Nina is part of what we call 'variability'. There has always been and there will always be cooler and warmer years, but what is important for climate change is that the trend is up; the climate on average is warming even if there is a temporary cooling because of La Nina," he was quoted as saying.

The WMO pointed out that the decade from 1998 to 2007 was the warmest on record. Since the beginning of the 20th Century, the global average surface temperature has risen by 0.74 degrees Celsius.

La Nina and El Nino are two great natural Pacific currents. El Nino warms the planet while La Nina cools it.

This year, the Pacific is in the grip of a powerful La Nina. It has contributed to torrential rains in Australia and to some of the coldest temperatures in memory in snow-bound parts of China.

Source: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-04/04/content_7920018.htm

To do something, visit http://www.liveneutral.org/

I've been going meatless now and then since Bryan went vegetarian after god-mom's passing in Dec and I have been toying with the idea of going completely vegetarian.

Today seems so to be the day .... I'm going vegetarian because of these 2 reasons:

Dad's Health
I was speaking to my mom today and she was telling me how dad has recently cut down on his starch intake to better manage his diabetes which I've been nagging him to do for a year. Since he's cut his starch, his blood sugar levels are more regulated now.

But mom worries about him eating less food as he doesn't really like eating vegetables.

So I told her to let dad know 2 members of our family are vegetarian so he should start eating more vegetables now so he'll get used to eating lots of vegetables when they both get to KL in July.

Global Warming
Global warming poses one of the most serious threats to the global environment ever faced in human history. A United Nations (U.N.) report in 2006, said that raising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combined. Carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide together cause the vast majority of global warming. Raising animals for food is one of the largest sources of carbon dioxide and the single largest source of both methane and nitrous oxide emissions.

There are too many signs that we're possibly quickly getting to the point of no return so this is my effort to do something.

Hope anyone reading this can think about reducing your carbon footprint in an effort to keep our planet from getting any warmer.

Reduce Your Carbon Footprint


To find out more and calculate your carbon footprint, visit: http://www.carbonfootprint.com/


Signs that things are really bad:
Massive Antarctic ice sheet collapses with global warming - 2 days ago


Choral Bleaching In Philippines


Things You Can Do:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Environmentandgreenerliving/Greenerlivingaquickguide/DG_064391
http://www.carbonfootprint.com/minimisecfp.html
http://www.earthshare.org/get_involved/earth_saving_tips.html
Fight Global Warming by Going Vegetarian: http://www.goveg.com/environment-globalWarming.asp

The increase in extremely hot summers predicted by climate change models will lead to a higher death toll that will not be offset by fewer deaths during warmer winters, say researchers.

"The increase in mortality when you have one extra cold snap is 1.59%, but the increase in mortality for an additional heatwave is 5.74%," explains Mercedes Medina-Ramón of Harvard University's School of Public Health in Massachusetts, US.

Medina-Ramón and colleagues looked at how temperature correlated to mortality in 50 US cities between 1989 and 2000. They found that heart attacks and cardiac arrest were the causes of death that were most likely to increase with more extreme temperatures.

The team says that the widespread use of central heating in US cities means that people across the country are equally prepared to cope with cold snaps. But workplaces and homes are not equally equipped with air conditioners.
Aircon no solution

As a result, they found that cities with less air conditioning and denser populations suffered a greater increase in the number of deaths on extremely hot summer days.

They caution that the knee-jerk reaction to go out and carpet the country with air-conditioning units would be ill-advised.

"Air conditioning itself constitutes a problem for climate change," says Medina-Ramón. "The more we increase air conditioning, the more we increase our energy consumption, and therefore our carbon dioxide emissions – which will just make the problem worse."

In the past few days, a heat wave in southeastern Europe has caused at least 38 deaths. Romania is worst hit, with at least 23 dead. Greece and Italy are also affected.

http://environment.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn12146&feedId=online-news_rss20

Recent CO2 rises exceed worst-case scenarios
The world's recent carbon dioxide emissions are growing more rapidly than even the worst-case climate scenario used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, say researchers.

The team, led by Michael Raupach of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, looked at the growth of CO2 emissions and found that emissions growth suddenly accelerated in 2000. During the 1990s, emissions grew by 1.1% per year on average, but the number shot up to 3.3% between 2000 and 2004, when the study ended.

When they compared the recent emissions trend to those the UN-backed IPCC drew up as its "worst case scenario", the team found the reality was at least as bad, if not worse.

Full story here:http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn11899-recent-cosub2sub-rises-exceed-worstcase-scenarios.html

Southern Ocean Already Losing Ability to Absorb CO2

One of the world's largest carbon sinks has stopped soaking up the carbon dioxide that humans are pumping into the atmosphere, according to a new study.

Global warming has caused the Southern Ocean to become windier, churning up the waters so that they are unable to absorb CO2 at the rate we produce it, the researchers say.

The implications are far-reaching, and once more imply that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's projections are conservative: temperatures are likely to rise higher than predicted.

. . .

Cold storage
"This is serious," says Le Quéré. "All climate models predict that this kind of feedback will continue and intensify during this century."

The Earth’s carbon sinks absorb about half of all human-produced carbon emissions. The Southern Ocean is one of the biggest sinks, absorbing 15% of CO2 emissions. The gas dissolves into the ocean's surface waters and is stored at cool depths where it is retained far longer than it would be at the warmer surface.


Full story here: http://environment.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn11876&feedId=online-news_rss20