The Great Climate Party

A live concert in 7 continents in 24 hours on 7.7.07. Woohoo!!

Its all over network television and promoted by none other than Mr Global Warming himself Al Gore. What a guy, staying the course in his unpopular mission, weathering the criticisms from the powerful lobby against change, even surviving the critics about the electricity he uses at home.

Above pictures from spinner.com. And don’t ask me about the flying pig.

Anyway here’s a roundup of what I think the concert has achieved.

1. Message of a planet in crisis. Yup the stars would have undoubtedly delivered scripted messages in between their songs. To the throbbing crowd, I’m sure something would register in minds that aren’t too stoned or drunk to listen. If you had already accepted global warming as a problem when you came to the party, it can only strengthen your conviction. If you didn’t have a stand, I doubt if seeing a bunch of ppl prancing on stage would have made a difference

2. Call to action. I can’t tell if its there. I guess there’s a big difference between me telling you you’re sick and you actually wanting to do something about it. Some might take this as a final hour party so lets go with a bang. So whether action will follow is something we’ll have to see.

3. Worldwide publicity. Definitely, both Al Gore and the global warming agenda are winners as they ride on every major broadcaster’s airwaves plus MSN. In fact this is a brilliant branding coup for Gore. It builds tremendous mindshare and heartshare in a crowd of 20- and 30-somethings, the rebellious generation X that’s probably the toughest to penetrate. And its not just in America but worldwide. That’s a stored value that can yield him great dividends and not necessarily in the area of climate change alone.

White Christmas coming to a place near you

Fancy having a white Christmas here in the tropics?

There’s a couple of shows on Discovery and Nat Geo about how earth is going to enter a period of global freeze.

Ice ages are a natural cyclic phenomenon and apparently global warming is going to bring it to us a lot faster. How?

Huge amounts of fresh water from glacier melt dumped into the oceans will shut down or reverse their currents. Removed of the oceanic influences that has kept much of the Northern hemisphere warm, temperatures will plummet and we’ll begin to see deep freeze scenes like from The Day After Tomorrow spreading across the world. Ok maybe not that dramatic but you get the picture.

So chill out people, we’ll be getting snow and ice here man!! For real!!

Read more here and here.

Climate change

No I’m not referring to your girlfriend’s or boyfriend’s mood this morning.

As some of you know, I have another blog entitled On Global Warming that I’ve not updated for months.

Even though there’s a lot to say about this subject, I haven’t been moved to say much of late because to tell you the truth, I have serious doubts that anything will change. Time and again, the position of the world’s powers – those who can really make a difference – have proven to be hopelessly immovable. Headlines like “Rich nations accused of ‘green imperialism’” coming out of the recent WEC summit in Singapore plays like an old broken record. Same old same old.

So as we’re sinking on this ship, the multi-national crew wants to behave like a bunch of spoilt kindergarten kids and argue who’s at fault. Great.

Everyone has an opinion about climate change. Some doubt the validity of global warming studies. Fine. I understand earth is no stranger to natural warming cycles, that our planet’s weird orbit brings us to this point near the sun every 100,000 years when the big melt happens, that this is all destined to happen with or without the CO2 we’re belching.

I also see the logic of the argument that the man-induced artificial greenhouse effect is hastening the sinking of our collective ship.

But whatever argument you choose, will it change the fact that the ship is sinking? All nations had a hand in accelerating this. Everyone admits it.

So why isn’t it possible for everyone to work together on a rescue plan without acting lan si and taking pot shots at each other? Why is it that during every summit on climate change, we hear the same old story over and over again.

If its true that there’s really nothing we can do would a few blogs make a difference? In my dreams right? But here’s a thought. If we have to go out, why not go out in style. At least in the future when some alien digs up the remnants of our civilization, they’ll know we knew how to throw one hell of a party!

Bad weather

“You can run from the cold but you can never run from the heat”
- A good friend o’mine

Of late we’ve been hit with extremely bad weather, as in very hot days with cloudless blue skies.

It was sweltering hot in KL yesterday, so hot that you could literally cook an egg on the pavement.

My ideal environment is a cool 10 deg C but since I am in the tropics, I’ll settle for a day-long thunderstorm with lashing rain, 100kmh winds and visibility cut down to 10 feet. Oklah, I’ll settle for Genting-like temperatures and clouds hanging out in my room. Anything but this searing heat.

How different it is in the place I last lived (US) where people would worship the sun. They’d bring out their tanning lotions and bask every chance they get. Winter? No problem. They got tanning salons. They want heat, gamma rays, x-rays, whatever rays and can’t get enough of it. A sunny day in March will create a carnival-like atmosphere with bikini parties and shit. I hate it.

I think the people in the northern hemisphere should migrate to the desert and the tropics where they can enjoy 40-degree heat all year long plus all the flies and mosquitoes they can handle. By the next millenium, they will have an ever better deal when temperatures soar to maybe 50 degrees centigrade courtesy of global warming. Even at death they can arrange the ultimate in heat-worshipping – a fiery crematorium.

For me I prefer the north pole. I’ll even offer my services to Santa for free if he could take me on his sled. Anything but this bad weather.

Don’t buy Beachfront Property (Global Warming Pt 2)

Unless it’s perched high up on a granite cliff or you enjoy snorkeling in your living room.

It seems that an ommission in earlier reports on global warming painted a misleading picture of the crisis. To quote this Guardian article “Climate change: scientists warn it may be too late to save the ice caps”,

“The revelation comes as a new report points out that greenhouse gas emissions running into hundreds of millions of tonnes have not been disclosed by Britain’s biggest businesses, masking the full extent of the UK’s contribution to global warming.”

An earlier IPCC report (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is now seemingly erroneous as only 16 of Britain’s FTSE 100 companies met disclosure guidelines of CO2 emissions, meaning that about 200m jaw-dropping tonnes of damaging CO2 is estimated to be missing from earlier estimates, an amount more than “annual reported emissions of Pakistan and Greece combined.“

This discovery pretty much lobbed a grenade into the kitchen. Forecasts are now more onminous with the prospect that “there is “a significant probability that some large-scale events (eg deglaciation of major ice sheets) may no longer be avoided due to historical greenhouse gas emissions and the inertia of the climate system”.”

“Areas such as the Maldives would be swamped and low-lying countries such as the Netherlands and Bangladesh, as well as coastal cities including London, New York and Tokyo, would face critical flooding…Such melting would raise sea levels by four to six metres, the scientists say. “

Would island nations like Taiwan, Sri Lanka and Singapore lose precious land mass to the water and see their countries shrink dramatically? It would pose a national defense issue like no other, something no missile or warship could avert.

“New studies of Greenland and Antarctica have forced a UN expert panel to conclude there is a 50% chance that widespread ice sheet loss “may no longer be avoided” because of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere…. The previous official line, issued in 2001, was that the chance of such an event was “not well known, but probably very low”.”

That’s what happens when politics stands in the way of scientific objectivity and countires thumb their noses to the cries of panic in the name of economic sustainability. We do get what we deserve.

But there is an opportunity in every disaster.

“…average temperatures would probably increase by 4C this century if emissions continue to rise. Even under its most optimistic scenario, based on a declining world population and a rapid switch to clean technology, temperatures are still likely to rise by 1.8C.”

Maybe I should invest in companies that build cooling systems and tree nurseries?

“Very large sea level rises that would result from widespread deglaciation of Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets imply major changes in coastlines…”

I’ll avoid investing in beachfront property and in companies building beachfront resorts. But mountain resorts like Genting should be ok.

The IPCC report which assesses the likely impacts of global warming and will be published in April. I will be anxiously waiting.

Global warming: My perspective

Now that the silly season that is valentine has passed, I can safely move on to more down-to-earth things.

I was intrigued by a discussion on lowyat.net forum about the international debate on global warming. As with any worthwhile issue, there are 2 strongly opposing camps – countries that signed the Kyoto agreement and countries that didnt. One side says that humans are to blame for the warming while the other insists there is no proof to support that.

Okay, there is a 3rd school of thought – that the earth is being terraformed by aliens. Being a Trek fan myself this theory is my favourite but apparently it hasn’t gained much of a following.

But regardless of whether man, mother nature or aliens are to blame, I do share the view that we are sliding down an irreversible path to climactic doom. The awakening of developing nations to the dangers of uncontrolled pollution, particularly China, comes too little too late as my recent trip to Guangzhou tells me. The US’s lethargic response to its own CO2 emmissions is also very telling. Just how do you tell a red-blooded American that driving a gas-guzzling Hummer is a bad thing?

Quite frankly, even if everyone signed on Kyoto today, what difference would it make when the horse has bolted from the barn.

What does remain today are these facts.

- The arctic icecap is melting.
- Strange unseasonal weather patterns have beset the world.
- Storms and droughts are getting more intense.
- Deserts are expanding.
- Sea water levels are rising.
- Ocean temperatures are rising.

And that’s not all. Other non-climatic events are also jumping into the fray.

- Noticeable increase in earthquakes and tsunamis.
- An environment struggling to cope with rapid population growth.
- The emergence of new fatal diseases like H5N1.
- The onset of “mass insanity” – world conflicts beckoning ppl to kill each other in large numbers.

So not only are we killing each other with our own industrial garbage and ideological differences, nature is kindly giving us a hand by throwing at us new incurable diseases, moving earth’s crust around and cranking up the thermostat. With luck it might even throw in a couple of asteroid our way to make things merrier.

If I sound a little pessimistic, its due to the fact that out of 6.6 billion people on the planet, I estimate not even 1% has the capacity to understand much less do anything about global warming. Most don’t have any choice but to go back to their air polluting vehicles, their strip-farmed land or consume products that disproportionately strip the planet of its resources. To convince the other 99% to take heed and actually do something will take a thousand years too many. We’ve started on the wrong foot. We’ve built entire civilizations on self-destructing habits like slash and burn farming and unbridled consumerism. If destroying and rebuilding cultures on a global scale is as easy as what Al Gore thinks, we would have it by now but we don’t.

So am I being a little fatalistic in saying we’re headed for a climactic armageddon? I don’t think so. I believe only total rebirth and regeneration can save the planet. But to be reborn, the planet has to die first. All indications are that this is well under way.

Science is already predicting the arrival of a new ice age resulting from the melting of the polar ice cap. Great. Nature is defrosting the fridge before laying down some new ice, except this defrost cycle might last a million years. I’m not putting any hopes or money that man will survive it.

I’ve long shrugged off the world’s petty bickering because of all this. All the opinions and beliefs, the rights and wrongs, none of it will change how our story ends. The way I see it, the most humane thing we can do today is to make sure the next generation can make their own exit as comfortably as possible. In fact, try not to have kids. Why have them and then leave them on a desert island. Even if you believe the situation is not as dire, deep down you know that the world is not likely to change in this lifetime or in your children’s lifetime. What you can do is reduce future suffering by reducing the number of its recipients. The other thing is to consume less today so that there’s a little more to go around tomorrow.

But who am I kidding. Isn’t our greatest motto “its every man for himself?” Doesn’t the attention span of the average human go only as far as his next meal, his next paycheck or his next shag? Will anyone listen if there’s no bread on the table? On that score alone I’m convinced that as humans, we are pretty much screwed.