Climate Change

Let us talk about climate change!

You read on the carbon cycle and the water cycle in school... and wonder what has it got to do with you...?

Let me tell you what has it got to do with you... It has everything to do with the environment and the earth that you live in.

Climate change is something real and not just theory in a textbook you read when you were in secondary school!

What's happening?

Sea level is increasing worldwide with an increase of 12-22cm in this century. If things continue without any effort from our part, sea levels are estimated to increase by 48-79 cm or 0.48-0.79 m.

What does that mean? (Speak English, Dev)

Well, for one, you won't be seeing this guy anymore...!

Yeah... you got it right! Polar bears are already endangered. If things don't change, you won't be seeing this chap anymore. That means, no more National Geographic shots of polar bears, no more soft toys and a lot of explaining to do to the next generation! Let's just save us the hassle ok!

Who cares about Polar bears?

Well, you have a point (not a very correct one though...) so let me bring it back home. According to a WWF (this has nothing to do with wrestling... go figure) report released on September 2007, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei will face consequences due to climate change. To list a few:

1. Extreme weather events associated with El- Niño to be more
   frequent and intense


2. Increase in hot days and warm nights and decrease in cold days and
   nights (True right? Don't need to be a rocket scientist to feel this)


3. Projected sea-level rise is very likely to result in significant losses of coastal ecosystems and a million or so people along the coasts will likely be at risk from flooding (high confidence)


4. Coral bleaching


5. Further declines in mangroves forests and their biodiversity (Please... I'd love to enjoy the mangroves in Malaysia for many more years to come!)


6. Heat wave (Imagine people fainting everywhere... not a very pretty sight)




7. Increasing intensity and spread of forest fires (I hate the masks we use when there's haze... Can we not go down this path?)
   


Singapore

KL

8. The annual cost of protecting Singapore’s coast is estimated to be between US$0.3 and $5.7 million by 2050 and between US$0.9 and $16.8 million by 2100. It is going to cost us more year after year to upkeep our coasts.

What can you do?

I admit that the task looks a little daunting but we can start somewhere. A journey always begin with a small step! You can do something by joining Earth Hour this Sat, 28 Mar, 8.30pm by turning off your lights for an hour. A small step? Yes, it is... but at least we're heading somewhere in the journey to save our planet!

Light bulbs and Earth

Jan 27, 1880 was a historical day when Edison's incandescent light bulb was patented. His efforts in 1879 paid off with the first commercially practical light bulb.

Things were never the same after that! Well, things progressed so fast that by now, 49 years after his invention, the world’s population consumes 15 terawatts of power[source: The Economist]. Just how much power is 15 terawatts? Let's make life easier and think of it in terms of watts.

All of us are familiar with Edison's light bulb and these light bulbs consume about 100 watts.

1 Terawatt = 10 billion x 100 watt light bulbs

= 1,000,000,000,000 watts

That is a lot of energy consumed! Malaysia is ranked #31 in the world with 95,980,000,000 kWh while the smaller city-state of Singapore comes in #57 with 35,920,000,000 kWh.

Now, it's pointless to blame Edison for this. Give the man a break. He's dead and if it weren't for him, we would have been worse off. What can we do then?

On 28 Mar 2009, we can get involved in Earth Hour 2009! At 8.30pm, just turn off your lights for an hour to show society and the rest of the world that we can do something about climate change and our environment!

We got to come to a place that we start taking responsibility for this earth that we're living in, Join the Earth Hour 2009 project together with me and turn off the lights fort an hour!

We can change the world we're living in! Join me!

Dev is back... back for good!

Anybody there...? (*The Opinionated Thinker sheepishly makes his entrance). I know that by now you would probably feel like throwing rotten tomatoes at me... I understand how you feel! So I've decided to provide you, my readers with virtual rotten tomatoes that you can throw at me. (*Squish... there goes one).

So here goes... I'M SORRY for going M.I.A. on so many of you for so long! I've repented, changed my ways and now, I'm back, stronger than ever!

What changed my heart? Well, if it was not for a dear reader and friend (who refused to be named...) who chided me on my absence from blogging, I'd still be in the dark.

I have been very busy since CNY. I have a lot of things to write; just never really got to it! Now here's the dilemma... where do I start? Let's do South Africa first... Part 1.

This is the view outside the hotel we were staying at. Great view of the Nelson Mandela Square.

Being the Malaysian that I was (the generation that didn't need to go through NS and hold a gun, this was a great experience! My enthusiasm caused the owner to take a few shots of me with the gun. It's legal to carry arms in South Africa.

Seth and Jimmy, my Singaporean colleagues offered their NS guns to me... hahaha!

Nelson Mandela... love this guy! The funny thing was I was actually in the midst of reading his book, 'Long Walk to Freedom' when I was called to South Africa. It was like seeing the book come alive as I walked the streets of JoBurg.

Bananas are actually called Piesangs there... hahaha. For those of you who are wondering what's the joke... Banana in Malay is actually 'Pisang'.


My favourite restaurant in JoBurg. Why?

The steak is the bomb!

You get to choose how much beef you want to consume, I went for 480g.

Seth in action. He's the real deal when it comes to photography and media!

I went there for lunch again... hahaha!

Why am I not surprised that we managed to get this shot on camera. This guy ate 1/2 kg of beef, man!

Anyways, I'm distracted! Can I just interupt myself and say that "Liverpool rox my sox"!

After trashing Real Madrid 4-0, they came back and humiliated Man Utd 4-1 in front of their own crowd at Old Trafford!

Gerrard delivering at the spot!


Torres was amazing.. scoring the opener and assisting Gerrard in the 2nd leaving Evra without any option but to hack Gerrard down in the box!

There... I've let it off my chest! It's going to be a great night's sleep!