A Dream for a Better World

Global warming is not a new problem for human beings any more and all governments pay more and more attention to the problem. If many countries can take pressures to reduce and prevent terrible pollution and then they can suffer less from global warming, so what about Maldives, the beautiful and tourist country? As we all know, Maldives is a country with the lowest coastline in the world and her highest coastline is just about 2.3m. Some people even predict that the country will sink into the sea and it will disappear from the world if the coastline continue rising for decades. Although it sounds like an alarming talk, the condition in Maldives is not optimistic.

Maldives, located in Indian Ocean and south part of Asia, is consisted of 1192 coral islands and people mainly live on the 200 islands of all. Mainland of the country is about 298km2 but with sea area about 100,000km2. Unique geography helps Maldives to be a wonderful tourist site in the world. However, in the past 15 years, erosion and raising of the shoreline means more and more islands will disappear in future. Corals growing becomes slower and slower. Increasing temperature of sea water caused coral bleaching. All these factors impede the protection to island from reef. As a result, waves and storm can corrode the shoreline by a faster speed. That is a vicious circle. Such terrible changes have impacted local people too much. Waves destroyed houses and roads even coconut tress can not escape the misfortune. Groundwater in some islands is seriously polluted and it is not suitable for drinking. One third income of government revenue from tourism is also reduced because parts of islands are abandoned by pollution…

Maldives government also takes some pressures to protect the country. Ironically, their efforts seem to lead the condition worse. Mr. President Mau moon Gayoom in 90s ever set up artificial fences to prevent wave erosion. However, the fences hampered some currents and many coral died because they need enough impact from current. As a result, the natural protective screen disappears gradually. Mr. President Mohamed Nasheed has also brought forward some suggestions, for example, he suggests recover natural fences. But is that enough at present? Or it is too late? And the government also built artificial island to solve the problem although they do not plan to build more because it costs too much. An artificial island called Hulhumale has been built in northwest part of the capital in Maldives and it was open in 2004.

The United States also supplies some support mainly financial support to help Maldives slow down the fading but that can not solve the fundamental problem. Maldives is a fantastic holiday resort for people all over the world and her destiny are decided by the people all over the world. Maybe some polices ought to be made to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide and people should also improve environmental awareness then we can enjoy ourselves in Maldives, the paradise at any time. Maybe the talk that Maldives will disappear is an exaggeration but who knows the future?

Coral reefs aren’t being protected against climate change despite the protective zones set up to do just that, say researchers.  The No-Take Areas (NTAs) set up in the 1960s and 70s were devised when climate change wasn’t the big deal it is now. These zones have had no effect on the health of the coral and are in the wrong place.  The NTAs are often small, and are surrounded by exploited areas.  The researchers looked at different fish populations in areas that were protected, and areas that weren’t. The results showed that irrespective of body size and trophic categorization, NTAs provided no clear benefits for any of the fish groups in terms of their change in response to coral decline.  The coral reefs are currently suffering from diseases due to warmer oceans because of global warming.  The future for coral reefs looks bleak.

When people think of climate change, they think of carbon dioxide. But while CO₂ represents 77 percent of all man-made greenhouse gas emissions, its relative contribution may be declining. According to two studies published late last year, atmospheric levels of other, more potent gases that also affect climate are on the rise.  One such gas is nitrogen trifluoride (NF₃), which is used to make retail items like microchips and flat-screen TVs.  Atmospheric NF₃ seems to be growing by 11 percent each year across the globe. NF₃ lingers in the air for 550 years, on average, and is 17,000 times better at trapping heat than CO₂ on a molecule-per-molecule basis.  A more immediate problem for climate change is methane, which is released by landfills and melting perma­frost and through farming practices. Levels of this gas are increasing today after eight years of stasis.  Methane remains in the atmosphere one-tenth as long as CO₂—about a decade—but traps 20 times as much heat.

Hydrogen, tested in buses from Amsterdam to Vancouver is a clean power that promises to break dependence on oil and gas — at least in Iceland.  With almost unlimited geothermal energy sizzling beneath its surface, Iceland has an official goal of making the country oil-free by shifting cars, buses, trucks and ships over to hydrogen by about 2050.  About 70 percent of Iceland’s energy needs are already met by geothermal or hydro-electric power. Only the transport sector is still hooked on polluting oil and gas.  Hydrogen bus projects have also been launched in cities including Barcelona, Chicago, Hamburg, London, Madrid, Stockholm, Beijing and Perth, Australia. The efficiency of the hydrogen fuel cells will decide if the ventures take off into the wider car market.

Representatives from more than 140 countries committed to reduce global mercury pollution, which will help protect the world’s citizens from the dangerous neurotoxin. This agreement was propelled by the United States’ reversal in policy, which also influenced policy reversals of other countries, including China and India. The announcement is a historic step forward in the fight against mercury pollution, according to scientists and policy experts at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).   The committed countries will reduce risks to human health and the environment from mercury by coordinating global cuts in the use and release of mercury into our air, water and land.

Atmospheric levels of the carbon dioxide are hitting new highs, with no sign yet that the world economic downturn is curbing industrial emissions, a leading scientist said recently.  Levels of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas from human activities, rose to 392 parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere in Svalbard in December, a rise of 2-3 ppm from the same time a year earlier.  Carbon dioxide concentrations are likely to have risen further in 2009. They usually peak just before the start of spring in the northern hemisphere, where most of the world’s industry, cities and vegetation are concentrated.

Japan has ruled out cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2020 from 1990 — the most ambitious possible action according to a reference target set by a U.N. panel of climate scientists.  Agreeing a 2020 target to curb greenhouse gases is one of the most contentious aspects for rich countries of U.N. climate talks meant to end with a new treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol in December this year.  Japan is expected to announce its 2020 goal by June. The country argues that because it is so energy efficient already, it will be more expensive to meet the same emissions-cutting target of other rich countries.

The Environmental Protection Agency will reopen the possibility of regulating carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants, tossing aside a December Bush administration memorandum that declared that the agency would not limit the emissions.  The decision could mark the first step toward placing limits on greenhouse gases emitted by coal plants, an issue that has been hotly contested by the coal industry and environmentalists since April 2007, when the Supreme Court ruled that carbon dioxide should be considered a pollutant under the Clean Air Act.

In 2006, rising seas, caused by global warming, have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the Earth.  The obliteration of Lohachara Island, in India’s part of the Sundarbans, once home to 10,000 people, is unprecedented. Two-thirds of nearby populated island Ghoramara has also been permanently inundated. Refugees from the vanished Lohachara island and the disappearing Ghoramara island have fled to Sagar, but this island has already lost 7,500 acres of land to the sea. In all, a dozen islands, home to 70,000 people, are in danger of being submerged by the rising seas. 

Within five years, solar power will be cheap enough to compete with carbon-generated electricity.  In a decade, the cost may have fallen so dramatically that solar cells could undercut oil, gas, coal and nuclear power by up to half.  The secret? A piece of dark polymer foil, as thin a sheet of paper. It is so light it can be stuck to the sides of buildings. It can be mass-produced in cheap rolls like packaging – in any color. The “tipping point” will arrive when the capital cost of solar power falls below $1 (51p) per watt, roughly the cost of carbon power.

Global demand for meat has multiplied in recent years, encouraged by growing affluence and the proliferation of huge, confined animal feeding operations.  These large meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute the water supply, generate significant greenhouse gases, and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rainforests.  The world’s total meat supply was 71 million tons in 1961. In 2007, it was estimated to be 284 million tons. Per capita consumption has more than doubled over that period.  Livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation. Though some 800 million people on the planet now suffer from hunger or malnutrition, the majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds cattle, pigs and chickens.

Our previous presidents unfortunately were not too environmentally conscience.  I understand that being environmentally conscience can cost money.  Filters for smoke stacks, better car engines, and less pollution from the energy making companies that use coal all take money.  It may hurt, but if it is done unilaterally then no company will have an advantage over another, so if company A has to increase the costs of its products to make its company green friendly so does company B.   But even forgetting about the cost part, there is the part that this really is necessary.  If we keep going the way we are going we could end up being more like the planet Venus than we want to be!

Although Venus is the 2nd closest planet to the Sun, it is MUCH hotter than Mercury.  Why is that?  It is because of the greenhouse gases in its atmosphere.  The sunlight comes in then is trapped unlike Mercury and Earth where the heat can escape the atmosphere.  If our polution gets much worse then the heat will just keep adding up.  This of course would be very bad if our polar ice caps melted as it would cause a huge rise in the oceans causing many islands to be lost and of course a lot of the land exposed to the ocean would be under water.

So, while it may seem expensive, I think it is better than us living on a planet of ONLY water with no land!  While it may seem extreme, the bad thing about the greenhouse effect is that it can build quickly.  We need to act now.  I do hope our new president can turn things around for us.

A five-year grizzly bear study by the US Geological Survey shows that an isolated population of grizzly bears in northwest Montana is doing much better than previously believed; after completing a DNA analysis of grizzly bear hair samples and then running a statistical analysis, the USGS came up with a figure of 765 bears, compared to previous estimates of 200-300.  The study will surely be cited as evidence that all is well by those who are arguing that it’s time to remove the bear from the threatened species list, a program that has long been criticized by many Republicans as overly burdensome.