Now the plankton too are dying

Remember my recent post on corals dying off the coast of West Malaysia? Global warming has also affected the plankton. We learnt in Geography that plant plankton are the foundation of the food chain. Even though they are tiny and sometimes not seen by the naked eye; their existence in the planet's oceans is important as they are a source of half the world's oxygen and helps reduce carbon dioxide levels. Reducing carbon dioxide in turn reduces the temperature of the Earth, making it cooler.

The latest journal, 'Nature' reported that Canadian scientists and a top government US scientist who have researched the population of plant plankton discovered that worldwide phytoplankton levels are down 40 percent since the 1950s. They blame it on global warming, which prevents the plant plankton to get vital nutrients, so the researchers say.

It is a vicious chain. When the seas are warm at the surface, it will not mix well with the colder waters below. It would then make it difficult for the plant plankton which are light and often live near the ocean surface to get nutrients in deeper, cooler water. It also matches other global warming trends, with the biggest effects at the poles and around the equator.


Half a million data points dating to 1899 show that plant plankton levels in nearly all of the world's oceans started to drop in the 1950s. The biggest changes are in the Arctic, Southern, equatorial Atlantic and equatorial Pacific oceans. Only the Indian Ocean is not showing a decline. The researchers said it's too early to say that plant plankton is on the verge of extinction.

When plant plankton reduces drastically, sea birds and marine mammals which feed on fish and other marine life will starve and die in huge numbers because the fish which feed on the plankton also dies, experts said. Ultimately, humans are also affected.

It is official:our sea levels are expected to rise

The Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Ministry Tan Sri Joseph Kurup quoted a national coastal vulnerability index study conducted by the Drainage and Irrigation Department (DID) in 2006, predicted that sea levels off the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia will rise by 10cm to 13cm in the next 100 years.

He added that sea levels on the west coast of Pulau Langkawi would rise by 10cm while at Tanjung Piai, Johor, it is expected to increase by 13cm. Tanjung Piai is the southernmost point of mainland Asia.

Checks revealed that 288.4km or 6% of the peninsula’s 4,809km-long coast is being eroded by sea water. The erosion of the seafront affects beach properties and sea related economic activities.It was reported that the Ministry is taking both short-term and long-term measures in response to the problem of coastal erosion.

Short-term measures include carrying out engineering works and construction of erosion control structures.

“So far, 140km of affected coastline have been rehabilitated. Among the areas rehabilitated are Kemaman beach (Terengganu), Kuala Sala Kecil and Kampung Kangkung, Yan (Kedah) and the Miri - Kuala Baram coastline in Sarawak,” added Kurup.

He said in the long-term, DID has implemented an integrated shoreline management plan to prevent shoreline erosion from worsening. No further details on the long term solution were provided.

Let us just hope that while the government rehabilitate the 288.4km of coastline affected, no new areas are  eroded; which is quite impossible. The DID would then be endlessly trying to patch up our shores.

The Corals Are Dying-Let Them Heal

The Corals are dying due to global warming. Today's news reported that several diving sites at marine parks in West Malaysia including the leading diving destinations in the world — Pulau Tioman in Pahang and Pulau Redang in Te­­rengganu – have been temporarily closed due to coral bleaching.


Divers and snorkellers are not allowed to the diving sites until the end of October, 2010 to protect the corals which have turned white due to global warming.

It was reported that about 500,000 tourists visit the marine parks every year, including foreigners.

Environmental groups have welcomed the move to close the dive sites temporarily, saying there is a need to allow the country’s corals to heal and recover. Preventing humans from visiting the corals would reduce the negative impact of human activities.

I just hope that the time frame given is enough for the corals. This decision however, would not go down well with the tourism industry as it would affect their projected financial performances. Tourists who have already confirmed their tourism packages to these sites would not be pleased either.


Update- read comments by Universiti Sains Malaysia marine biologist Prof Dr Zulfigar Yassin.

Dr Zulfigar said closing down the marine parks would certainly help the corals to recover. Since global warming is not a localised phenomena, the corals may take longer to revive. Reducing additional stress caused by sewage from chalets, oil and grease from motorboats and abuse by tourists also help.

When it doesn't pay to recycle

A recent news in the Features section of the Star, (I couldn't locate the link) on young recyclers in New Delhi, India sifting through rubbish to pick on 'e-waste' caught my attention. These destitute children should be at school instead of day in and day out rummaging through dismantled electronic equipment to prise out the integrated circuits, tiny transistors, capacitors from the discarded computers, printers and other electronic equipment. The children are unaware of the dangers they are exposing themselves.

It was reported by a United Nations survey that India would have 500% more e-waste fom old computers in 2020 than in 2007, and 18 times more hand phones.

The e-waste handlers risks detrimental effects on their respiratory, urinary and digestive systems besides reducing body immunity levels and getting exposed to carcinogens. Toxic metals and poisons enter the bloodstream during the laborious manual extraction process to recover gold, platinum, copper and lead using caustic soda and concentrated acids.

These children have no idea of the dangers they go through each day. There is no precautions taken such as using gloves, masks or ventilation fans. For these illiterate children who are desperate to work in search for a few rupees, it is either die of hunger now or die of metal poisoning later.

It was also reported that computers, television and mobile phones are most dangerous because they contain high levels of lead, mercury and cadmium. Among the 250 recyclers studied over 12 months, almost all suffered from asthma and bronchitis. Dangerous levels of lead, mercury and chromium-10 to 20 times higher than normal- were found in the subjects' blood and urine samples.

These poor children will be suffering from the effects of the time spent in the landfills before the Indian government enact laws to regulate the e-waste industry.

Our neighbour goes green

Singapore's Straits Times reports that its major developer, the Housing Development Board is embarking on a green project to install solar roof panels on 30 HDB blocks in 6 precincts across the City state. The project is expected to cost Sin2.3 million (RM5.3 million) or about RM177,000 per block. 

The roof panels will be used to power all common area services such as lighting, lifts and pumps. The precincts identified were: - Jurong, Aljunied, Telok Blangah, Bishan, Ang Mo Kio and Jalan Besar are expected to each save about $40,000 a year, according to the HDB.

The panels installed will serve about 3,000 flats and will cover a total area of 1.5 times the size of a football field. Each block will have about 150 of the panels, which measure s 1.8 metre by one metre and should last for 20 years or more.

It is heartening to note that Singapore is supporting efforts towards sustainable development. During my last visit to Singapore in June 2010, I had the impression that Singaporeans were a wasteful lot. The temperature at the hotel I stayed in was at if it was winter. I remembered the last time I shivered when performing my prayers was when it was winter in the UK during my student days.Besides the hotel, the airconditioning from the shopping malls could be felt while walking along the five foot ways.

Wild News

The Police, Customs and Perhilitan (Department of Wildlife and National Parks) Departments are having a wild time this past few days. Yesterday, the wild raid at a warehouse literally killed 2 birds with one stone. The police who were expecting to find stolen cars at a warehouse in Kuala Lumpur discovered more that they could chew. Together with the 42 stolen vehicles, valued at more than RM1million, they found :

A pair of the rare Bird of Paradise, also known as Cenderawasih in Malay, which supposedly has the power to bring good fortune to its owner. The pair is said to be worth RM1mil on the wildlife black market.

Other rare birds seized in the 3am raid were the blue-crowned Hanging Parrot, the black-coloured Palm Cockatoo and the white rump Shama. Altogether there were about 700 birds some of which had died.

Among the caged animals found at the warehouse were leopard cats, albino pygmy monkeys and numerous domestic cats, believed to be kept by their captors to cross-breed with wild cats to produce exotic offspring.

The Kuala Lumpur Wildlife Department deputy director Celescoriano Razond was reported to have said that  over 20 species of the animals and birds found at the warehouse were listed as protected wildlife.

Today's Star reported another rare find. Two luggage bags containing protected rare animals were confiscated by the Customs Department at KL International Airport.

This time it was the Director General of Perhilitan Datuk Abd Rasid Samsuddin who chose to report to the media that among the animals were 369 Radiated Tortoises, five Madagascar Tortoises, 47 Tomato Frogs and several chameleons. Imagine all these animals were packed in two hand luggages brought in by two women from Madagascar. (Reminds me of the animation movie "Madagascar").

The tortoises were bound with masking tape to prevent them from moving, while the chameleons were stuffed in socks to prevent detection. Imagine the pandemonium it would have caused had all the animals got loose in the plane!

In another case, Perhilitan officers seized products made from parts of endangered animals from a shop in Petaling Jaya. They recovered five tiger claws, two beaks of rhinocerous hornbills, two Sambar deer trophies, a handbag made from Asiatic cobra skin, a pair of shoes made from python skin, three feathers from Birds of Paradise, one Barking Deer trophy and 96 trophies made from elephant tusks.

I can understand the need for some people to be seen with exotic animal hides on their hands and skins but to believe that these rare animal parts provide sexual prowess is a bit hard to swallow. If one brings any living thing (animals and plants) one needs to abide by quarantine laws. Bringing them illegally is like opening the floodgates. What if these animals are carriers of dangerous diseases like ebola. We already have problems with bats, rats and domestic animals being carriers of dangerous viruses.

As they say, once the demand stops, the trafficking of these animals will also ceased. But more need to be done to get the demand to come to a halt.Full stop.

It is smart business sense to be green

The Star

By THEAN LEE CHENG and ELAINE ANG


starbiz@thestar.com.my

According to an expert on corporate responsibility (CR) and sustainable development, Paul Hohnen of Amsterdam, it is a general belief that breaching environmental laws does not affect a company’s stock market price. Well, not yet.


He gave palm oil prices as an example. The prices of palm oil are not affected by accusations of deforestation. It is the same with petroleum prices, which have shown no concern about global warming.

Concerns for the environment have now become a trend with governments willing to enact laws and regulations towards greening the environment. Therefore as a result more and more businesses are changing the way business is done. Unilever, a major user of palm oil, has been cutting ties with suppliers that are associated with illegal deforestation and is now committed to double the amount of certified sustainable palm oil it uses.

It was quoted that big retailers such as Tesco, Metro and Wal-Mart are also actively setting higher environmental and human rights standards for their suppliers. They’re doing it because they understand there is no future in being seen as unsustainable and because it makes good business sense now. They are creating a new business model where sustainability is being integrated into the product.

“Companies that aren’t green, or who can’t measure and report their impacts, risk losing out on global supply chain access,” says Hohnen.

“Going green is smart management,” says Hohnen.

By going green, a company achieves several things at the same time.

• First, it reduces the time wasted on brand management. In a world increasingly more sensitive about the impacts of climate change, air pollution and environmental damage, companies with poor performance can expect to spend more time defending themselves to regulators, investors and the media. Consider Exxon, which is still dealing with the consequences of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

• Second, smarter use of raw materials and energy, leads to producing less wastage which often lead to quick improvements to net profits. The motto “make more by using less” has been adopted successfully by big chemical companies like BASF, Bayer and Dow.

• Third is the market share. For many specialists, “green industry” is seen as the next IT revolution in terms of market growth and opportunities. Some assessments show that the global market for green products and services is more than 500 billion Euros a year and growing.

Many of the world’s biggest companies, like Siemens, Philips and GE, are busy positioning themselves for the “green industrial revolution”.

• Last but not least adopting green technology leads to innovation. Making things with less or making them in different ways stimulates companies with rethink through their business model. This stimulates technological competitiveness.

In turn, this appeals to young graduates, investors and regulators. In the energy sector, it’s been notable that most of the new energy innovations are coming from non-traditional players.

Manufacturers of solar panels and wind turbines have enjoyed some of the fastest growth rates in the sector, helped by subsidies and positive profile. Chinese companies have been quick to exploit the potential of innovation for growing new markets.

Doing Something Green

Instead of sending my delicate silks to the cleaners to be dry cleaned with poisonous petroleum based solvents, I thought I should try to hand wash them instead. I had bought a special gentle soap that contains a  colorguard that prevents the colour from running when wet. Well, the reason we send our clothes to the dry cleaners is because the colour runs when washed at home.. I tested my clothes first with a little soap, and voila, the water was clear.It works.So I proceeded to wash and rinse all my clothes I had reserved specially for the cleaners. After washing them, I just let them drip dry in the bathroom. Drip- drying would make ironing easier as there would be less creases.

As the hot whether continues I have no worries.My clothes would dry in no time even when hung in the bathroom.

How one Volcano can put the world to a standstill.

I never imagined that a volcanic eruption in Iceland would affect my family. Just as my son, Ikmal was enjoying his 3 week sojourn in Paris, England and Dublin; Eyjafjallajokull chooses to violently gush out its contents. Ikmal is now patiently (I hope) waiting for his flight back to Bangalore, India from London. He is stranded in Dublin as Ireland closes all its airspace. I am praying that he would not be too late for his new academic year which started this week.


My other son, Afif in Sheffield, seems oblivious of all the fuss. He spent the weekend playing football in the Leeds-Bradford games, organized by his fellow Malaysian university students in the UK. I am praying that both of them would not be affected by the finely pulverized lava thrown out by a volcano eruption as it is said to consist mostly of molten silica. This translates that the volcanic ash consists of fine glass particles. Maybe the ash has not fallen where they are.

They say that the eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull on Tuesday, April 13 2010, is not as great and powerful as major eruptions like Mount St. Helens in 1980, which released 1.5 million metric tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, or the catastrophe of Krakatoa in Indonesia in 1883, which killed more than 40,000 people and was felt for months later around the world. During Eyjafjallajokull, by contrast, there have been no deaths; only about 800 living in the vicinity were evacuated.

But Eyjafjallajokull's eruption created a major airline disaster initially in Europe. Somehow, the calamity’s effects spread like wildfire around the world; the world being a global village it now is. The standstill in Europe causes a travel backlog elsewhere from Tokyo to Toronto, as airlines cancelled flights to Europe as European governments close their air space. The reason was they were scared that the 7-mile-high plume of volcanic gases and silicate ash which has spread across much of Europe, would be sucked into an aircraft’s engine and transmission system and cause it to stall.

Shutting down the continent's airspace and grounding thousands of flights was expensive and inconvenient, as millions are stranded across the globe; but it was far preferable to having planes falling out of the sky. And while the economic toll of such disasters may be rising, huge death tolls are far less common.

As Eyjafjallajokull is still spewing ash clouds, it is not known how long the effect of the explosion will linger.

The transport disruption, particularly across the Atlantic, comes as the industry is said to have started to recover from the worldwide recession, with business and international travel slowly picking up.

European airlines were already suffering from the slow pace of economic recovery there. Even before the latest crisis, the International Air Transport Association had projected that the industry would lose $2.8 billion this year, down from last year’s loss of $9.4 billion.

Eyjafjallajokull was unknown before April 13th. From now on it would be stated in history as the volcanic eruption that caused the world transportation system to go haywire and may make some airlines bankrupt. Ironically, land transport operators have been having a field day trying to bring stranded travelers back on their itinerary track.

As I write this, I am happy to note that the airspace in Scotland, Northern Ireland and parts of northern England is due to reopen on Tuesday, 20th April.

Restrictions to airspace above the rest of England and Wales could be lifted later on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Germany, France and Belgium have also said they will begin to reopen airspace from Tuesday.

My son, Ikmal will get to resume his studies sooner than I thought. Thank God.


P.S:

Ikmal arrived safely in Bangalore from London on 25th April,2010. He is thankful to the volcano for letting him extend his vacation to one month!

The GreenHouse Effect

The Earth receives energy from the Sun in the form of electromagnetic radiation. Most of the radiation is in the visible spectrum which is of a shorter wavelength. The visible light with solar energy passes through the gases in the atmosphere without much effect. The longer wavelength infrared radiation on reaching Earth is reflected back to space and get trapped in the atmosphere.

The gases in the atmosphere absorb some of the infrared radiation and reflect some back to earth.

The contributing gases in the atmosphere that add to global warming are methane, nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide, water vapour and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) from aerosols. These gases are also called Greenhouse gases (GHG). Of these gases, the concentration of carbon dioxide is the most being more than 60%. The CFCs although making up only about 10% of the total greenhouse gases (GHG) has the most capacity to absorb the infrared rays.Methane makes 25%  of the (GHG) but absorbs 20-30% of the infrared rays.

These gases keep the Earth warm enough to support life by preventing the heat from the solar radiation. They absorb the radiation and re radiate back to Earth and prevent the trapped gases from escaping back to Space.

Under natural circumstances that is good as it provides necessary heat for living things to survive. However due to high concentrations of these gases from man’s activities (vehicular emissions, industrial effluents, agricultural activities and other human activities), more gases are trapped in the atmosphere.

The extra heat cause the Earth to heat up as it increases the Earth’s surface temperature. This is what is called Global Warming.

It is harmful to the environment as it changes the climatic patterns and threaten the very existence of life on Earth.