You are currently browsing the tag archive for the 'environment' tag.
Erle Frayne Argonza
So many of our scientific models of ecological reality need gross revisions. I am aware for instance that the model for the ‘water cycle’ is badly flawed, yet the scientific community has not done much to revise it.
Here is another facet of reality—climate change—where the existing models are found to be flawed. From East Asian scientists, notably Beijing, come the observation that the existing models ‘ignore brown carbon’. It need not belabored that the models must be revised.
The news about the observations regarding the model is contained below. What is gladdening is that scientists were able to uncover the flaw, which will ensure revision of the model and the practical technologies coming out from the labs later.
[28 August 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to SciDev database news.]
Current climate models ‘ignoring brown carbon’
Sun Xiaohua and Jia Hepeng
15 August 2008 | EN | 中文
Smog over Bangkok, Thailand
Flickr/gullevek
[BEIJING] Scientists have found that air pollution from East Asia contains an abundance of ‘brown carbon’ particles and say that atmospheric models need updating to incorporate their effect.
Current climate models take into account two types of aerosol carbon — organic carbon and black carbon — that arise from the burning of fossil fuels or biomass.
Black carbon strongly warms the atmosphere by absorbing light, while organic carbon absorbs light at a negligible level and has no warming effect.
It has already been claimed black carbon plays a much larger role in global warming than estimates made by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (see Black carbon climate danger ‘underestimated’).
But this approximation is too simple, according to Peter Crozier, an associate professor at Arizona State University (ASU) in the United States, whose team published their research in Science last week (8 August).
According to the authors, the method that is currently used to measure the warming effect of different types of particle doesn’t take into account the wide variations that can occur between types of carbon from different sources.
They instead used a technique based on a specialised type of electron microscope to directly determine the optical properties of individual carbon particles, and found that samples taken from above the Yellow Sea, east of China, have an abundance of brown carbon particles.
“Brown carbon has light absorbing properties that lie between strongly absorbing black carbon and materials that only scatter light and do not absorb,” co-author James Anderson, a research scientist at ASU’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, told SciDev.Net.
He adds that brown carbon both cools the Earth’s surface and warms the atmosphere, resulting in a complex role in global warming, hence the necessity to incorporate it into climate models.
Hu Guoquan, a senior scientist at the Beijing-based National Climate Centre, welcomes the study, saying it highlights the uncertainties of IPCC models.
“But more studies on the chemical structure and size of brown carbon particles must be done,” he told SciDev.Net.
In addition, Hu says, as many carbon aerosols pollutants are emitted by China or India — which have massive combustion of fossil fuels and biomass — judging their accurate warming or cooling effect must be done cautiously and avoid claims without sufficient scientific evidence, as this will contribute to determining the nations’ responsibilities in global warming.
Erle Frayne Argonza
On a case to case basis, each country has taken certain forms of action regarding climate change. India had recently formulated its action plan for climate change, a plan that served well as input to its cooperative efforts with South Asian countries.
The report is shown below.
Happy reading!
[12 August 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to SciDev database news.]
India launches climate change action plan
T. V. Padma
4 July 2008 | EN
India’s solar mission aims to make its solar energy industry as competitive as its fossil fuel industry
Flickr/z1zzy
[NEW DELHI] India released its national action plan on climate change this week (30 June) with a focus on harnessing renewable energy rather than stringent emissions targets.
India’s prime minister Manmohan Singh released the plan ahead of his attendance at next week’s (7–9 July) G8 summit in Japan where climate change is expected to be discussed.
The action plan spells out eight priority missions that will promote India’s development objectives, with the “co-benefit” of tackling climate change.
The eight missions are: solar energy, enhanced energy efficiency, sustainable habitats, water conservation, sustaining the Himalayan ecosystem, developing a ‘green’ India, sustainable agriculture and building a strategic knowledge platform on climate change.
“Over a period of time, we must pioneer a graduated shift from economic activity based on fossil fuels to one based on non-fossil fuels, and from reliance on non-renewable and depleting sources of energy to renewable sources of energy,” Singh said.
The missions will be managed by the appropriate ministries, and specific programmes within the missions will be finalised by December.
Of these, solar energy will receive a big thrust. India receives the equivalent of about 5,000 trillion kilowatt hours of energy from the sun each year — 5.5 kilowatt hours per square metre each year — with most areas experiencing clear, sunny weather for 250 to 300 days.
The solar mission aims to tap this natural resource and make the country’s solar energy industry as competitive as the fossil fuel industry by setting up a new research centre, entering into research collaborations and encouraging technology transfer.
The plan does not spell out greenhouse gas emission targets, but states that per capita emissions in India will not exceed levels in industrialised countries. India is the world’s fourth largest emitter of greenhouse gases in absolute terms, but lies behind the US and Europe in terms of annual per capita emissions it (1.2 tonnes compared to 20 and 9.4 tonnes respectively).
The international environmental organisation Greenpeace, said in a statement that the plan is a “welcome first step” but has some weak areas that need to be addressed.
“The plan lacks clear policy prescriptions and targets for improving energy efficiency and reducing transportation emissions,” Srinivas Krishnaswamy, policy advisor for Greenpeace, India, told SciDev.Net.
“They should have placed more emphasis on mandatory emission standards,” he added.
Erle Frayne Argonza
Good morning from Manila!
Climate change is among the world’s hottest environmental and developmental issues. Climate change alone has so many facets to it, and some issues are so contentious they border hoax.
Below is a news item from South Asia, concerning concerted efforts by stakeholders to address climate change.
Happy reading!
[13 August 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to SciDev database news.]
South Asian nations join forces to tackle climate change
Source: IRIN
9 July 2008 | EN | 中文
The countries have pledged to improve monitoring and exchange of information on impacts such as rising sea levels
Flickr/Sumaiya Ahmed
South Asian nations have adopted a three-year environmental action plan to reduce the impact of climate change in the region.
Environmental ministers from the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) — Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka — adopted the declaration in Dhaka, Bangladesh, last week (3 July) following a three-day summit.
The action plan covers 2009–2011, with countries pledging to improve monitoring and exchange of information on disaster preparedness and extreme events, meteorological data, information on climate change impacts such as increased sea levels, glacial melting and biodiversity, and capacity for clean development mechanism projects.
The ministers called for more technology to fight climate change and better technology and knowledge transfer between SAARC member states.
They also called for a South Asia fund on climate change, with further discussions scheduled for the next SAARC summit in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in July.
Erle Frayne Argonza
Good afternoon from Manila!
Controlling or regulating biopiracy is among the toughest tasks regarding intellectual property. Currently, there is an ongoing research by a corporate group to map the genome of Indigenous Peoples or IPs in the Philippines, the results of which will redound to improving the survival chances of the human species in general. The research is so surreptitious, however, that nobody knows who are the data gatherers and how is data collected.
That behavior is tantamount to biopiracy. Incidentally, the United Nations released a roadmap recently, which has direct implications on improving regulatory aspects of biopiracy. The news is contained below.
Enjoy your read.
[27 July 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to SciDev database news.]
UN roadmap paves way for curbing biopiracy
Hepeng Jia
13 June 2008 | EN | 中文
Yading Nature Reserve, China
USDA/pirateparrot
[BEIJING] Countries have agreed a roadmap for negotiating an agreement for the sharing of genetic resources, following a UN biodiversity conference.
The two-week conference in Bonn, Germany, ended last month (30 May) with renewed promises from countries to substantially reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010.
The conference set out a roadmap for negotiations on access and benefit sharing (ABS) of genetic resources to help curb biopiracy. Delegates discussed and tentatively agreed a variety of options on elements for the future agreement that could be legally binding, non-binding or a combination of the two.
Participants hope to reach a global agreement on ABS at the next UN biodiversity conference in Nagoya, Japan, in 2010.
Xue Dayuan, director of the China Institute of Environment and Resources Protection for Minority Areas and a member of China’s delegation to the conference, says the roadmap anchors the diverse debates over the issues and narrows down action to a set of suitable options that could be further explored.
But environmental groups have expressed scepticism, saying developed nations have failed to offer enough financial aid to developing countries for biodiversity protection.
Xue says previous efforts for biodiversity protection focused too much on funding from the developed world, and that countries should develop their economy first in order to fund their own, more sustainable, protection measures.
“China, together with other fast-developing countries like India, could offer an exemplar in realising economic growth with relatively less destruction of biodiversity.”
According to the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection, China had established 2,531 natural reserves by the end of 2007, covering more than 15 per cent of its land.
China’s vice environment minister Wu Xiaoqing pledged a “strong commitment” at the conference to participating in global biodiversity protection.
Delegates at the conference also agreed action plans to expand nature reserves and launch the ‘Life Web Initiative,’ a network that aims to enhance partnerships to support the preserves. For example, an online database will help global funders match nature reserves to finance.
Germany pledged €500 million (US$775 million) over the next four years to aid global forest protection, particularly those in developing countries, and another €500 million each year after that.
Norway also announced plans to spend €600 million (US$936 million) on global forest conservation annually over the next three years.
Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago
[Writ 05 May 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]
Perhaps the readers may recall that a couple of years back, Sec. Angelo Reyes of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) initiated massive tree planting and the constitution of ecology volunteers’ groups for the purpose. The trees were visibly planted along the pan-Philippine highway and strategic areas, for greater impact generation.
That project was very appreciable, but it was not the original thing. In the years 1979-81, the new Ministry of Human Settlements or MHS constituted village brigades comprising of volunteers, one such brigade being the ‘ecology balance brigade’. With ‘ecology balance’ identified among the ’11 Basic Needs of Man’, it was but proper to organize brigades and enact ecology balance via massive tree planting, biodiversity where appropriate, recycling or ‘waste utilization’ projects, and new laws declaring as mandatory in all new residential villages the allotment of 30% of land for parks & open spaces alone.
I joined the MHS in early 1981, then fresh from college, as a community services assistant at the Regional Liaison Office – Regioin II. I recall well that one of the first tasks I had to do was to monitor the brigades and town-level organizers (Human Settlements’ Officers). The ‘ecology brigades’, to my amazement, were at par in organizational development with the others (water, power, education, S&T, mobility…), its members actively engaged in localized projects.
But the most focal impactful project of that time was the massive tree planting, with the giant Ipil-Ipil serving as lead crop. The small native ipil was also massively disseminated, more so that it served as good input for livestock feeds. The miraculous thing about the giant ipil-ipil was that it grew so fast, its branches extending outward at rapid rates, and so it took no time at all to harvest them.
Unlike the Reyes-initiated project that concentrated cultivation in main arterial roads, the Maharlika tree planting (as the MHS dubbed the project then) cultivated in both the arterial and peripheral roads. And, in pioneer ipil tree farms inland, many of which took off and benefitted the small planters with great fulfillment.
It was during my monitoring sortees to the different towns of Cagayan Valley that I conducted the extra task of morale-boosting the ecology brigades and briefing the HSOs accordingly about the massive tree planting program. By the start of the 2nd quarter of 1981, we staff devoted succeeding days for immersing ourselves in the tree planting efforts, documentation and consultations with tree planters, and networking with state agencies that supported the project. We did the same thing again in 1982, and another session in 1983 (my last year in the MHS/Region II).
Seeing the success of the 1981 wave of ipil cultivation, the newly constituted livelihood program quickly caught the ecology fever and designed ‘tree farming’ and ‘dendrothermal’ projects, utilitizing ipil trees. They were circumscribed within the ‘agroforestry’ and the ‘waste utilization’ project modules (there were 7 such modules then). Seeing my acumen for project development, the new management pulled out pronto from community services and was directed to be among the pioneer staff for livelihood, which I so gladly accepted. I had many wonderful moments brainstorming and conceptualizing enterprise projects, from micro- to SME levels, including this wave of ‘tree farming’ and ‘dendrothermal’.
The seedling banks for ipil trees, both giant and small, were simply too many that they dotted the entire archipelago, including Manila. Likewise was the market for ipil so huge and well established, including the feed mills. It need not belabored that the giant trees contributed in no small measure to the oxygenation of the surrounds, and protective canopies for travelers and pasture breeds.
We volunteer and small planters than considered ourselves true ecologists. And, thanks heavens, there were no ‘environmentalist’ groups then, whose ceaseless sloganeering is so annoying they could have slowed down the projects altogether. I really have the great wish that these ‘environmentalists’ will immerse their hands in production and re-green the mountains, so they can join the true ecologists and exercise Oneness in spirit and action. It may not be too late for them to do just that.
erleargonza
Recent Comments