The Most Important Report Of Our Century Is Out–Living Planet Report 2016

To download this report click here.

The Living Planet Report 2016 is a monumental effort that brings to fore all the research and data from 1970 to date to paint a picture of the current state of our natural world and how we got to it. The conclusion is unsurprising that every single natural ecosystem which contributes to providing us with essentials of life–fresh water, oxygen and our milder climate–on our planet is in peril. Deserts however are growing! The report's main barometer for this is the decline of wildlife where backed by heavy data its estimated that we have lost 58% of our wildlife from what was known of it in 1970.

The report which is jointly published by World Wildlife Fund for Nature and Zoological Society of London is 125 pages long and is available free online. I am going to read the report and unpack it chapter by chapter. Their prediction is that by 2020 66% or two thirds of our wild life will be decimated from levels recorded in 1970. The warning of the report is that if we don't act aggressively enough to stop this decline we don't just lose iconic animals of the wild but also cause ecosystems that we depend on heavily for clean fresh water, healthy air and mild climate to degrade irreparably.

Its a report by scientist of portends to hard times ahead if we keep ignoring exploitive human impact on our planet. The good news is that we have all the tech and know-how we need to reverse this situation and that the situation can still be turned around. The bad news is the lack of political will and funding to make the difference.

Solar Power Can Already Power the World

Learn comprehensively in less than five minutes how PV solar panels work. If not for the political lobby of big oil much of our cities would be running on solar power and by now electrical vehicles will be ubiquitous. What makes PV solar power especially attractive is that it is very low maintenance since it doesn't use moving parts to generate electricity not to mention its green credentials. With a lot of independent research making headway into making PVs ever more efficient in energy output the next big question to consider is how PVs can compete with big oil in terms of cost.

Fortunately the cost of PV panels have reduced immensely since the mid 1970's when it cost a whooping $96 per watt compared to where it is now at $0.36 per watt! And it could go lower still to $0.08 per watt. This analysis comes from this video The Truth About Solar by Coldfusion. This 11 minute video will get you updated on the latest on PV solar tech development. According to the video the world will be generating 27% of its energy needs by 2050 but I think this is a very conservative estimation. PVs are already giving fossil fuel energy a run for their money, even in the current low price of fossil fuels in countries that commit to making PVs and other direct solar based energy generation the mainstay of their energy production out of environmental concerns. 

The fact is solar energy is getting so cost efficient that traditional utility companies and energy investors are starting to shun it because it is difficult to rake in as much profits from it as they would from traditional power sources. This is according to a Bloomberg analysis in early 2015. While the argument that solar energy cannot be produced at night is still valid battery storage of excess energy generated during the day can easily solve this problem and battery storage systems too are getting cheaper and more efficient. 

Fortunately it doesn't cost hundreds of millions of dollars to fund research into making solar tech ever more accessible to end consumers as compared to searching for new sources of fossil fuels, extracting and purifying it. And that work has been moving along without much fanfare since the 70's. If we are to move the green revolution more dynamically we cannot depend on politics (governments) and economies (utility companies) alone to provide us with solar energy. Those of us who have the future of our planet at heart can power ahead with DIY solar installations.

Rains pummel France and Germany with floods as the effects of long gone El Nino 2016 continues

NASA Earth Observatory Image

The jet stream across the Atlantic was disturbed, causing spring precipitation that normally marches across Europe to queue up over France, Germany and Austria to release most of its moisture in those countries instead of all of Europe. Thus record spring floods in Paris closes the Louvre and creates historic scenes near the Eiffel tower as the Seine river broke its banks. El Nino 2016 is to blame for the disruption of the jet stream. In South China too scenes of heavy flooding caused by heavier than usual rainfall caused damage and grief. In Ethiopia the drought situation worsens as a health and hygiene crisis looms for 5.8 million people. 

Blistering heat wave bakes India while Sri Lanka soaks in floods

What's this NASA image? It shows the early break up of ice on the Beaufort sea due to this years early warming of the Northern Hemisphere. Courtesy NASA

World, Northern Hemisphere that is, prepare for a scorching summer. El Nino 2016 is going to shoulder the brunt of the blame but if I remember correctly the last decade has had many searing days. The signs this year are encouraging for sunscreen producers. We've been feeling the heat in Malaysia for the last couple of months and as the Sun traces northward India is now feeling the burn. 51ºC, a record high. The hope is that the Indian monsoon doesn't disappoint India as it had done the last couple of years and bring relief to the country come June.

Meanwhile in Sri Lanka a tropical depression is drenching the country with record rainfall that is causing hardships and mudslides that have claimed lives. Early this month we saw a city burning in Canada now El Nino 2016 is claiming a country with water. As the heat progresses Northward we can expect it to accelerate the Arctic and glacial ice melts. Still with El Nino 2016 shouldering the blame keeps us hoping that all these extreme weather incidences are just part of El Nino's once in seven to ten year cycle. Next year everything will taper back to the normalcy we are used to. This may not be the case if El Nino's counter balance La Nina, the cooling of the Pacific is thwarted by our hotter planet.

Since last year I have been keeping a record of some of the extreme weather events attributed to El Nino 2015-2016 even before the severity of this El Nino was confirmed. Here is the link to the blog post with the record–An Eye on El Nino 2015-2016. It is obvious that we are going to be experiencing extreme weather well into the end of the year.

We are sinking sand and releasing carbon from its sink accelerating sea level rise.

Our planet is amazing. Life on earth is super unique and just as unique are the ecosystems and chemical cycles that nurtures it. The water cycle creates clouds, rain, snow and our local weather. The carbon and nitrogen cycles form the mainstay of the food chain. For most of human civilisation we were in tune with these natural cycles until the industrial age began about 200 years ago. Since then our appetite for natural resources has been growing tremendously to the point that we are competing with nature but we are starting to realise the futility of this exploitation and we are also learning of other natural cycles that we are over exploiting with detrimental consequences. 

I had never ever thought that sand could ever be an exhaustible commodity but it is. You can learn about it from this documentary posted on Youtube–Sand Wars. Sand is the base of modern construction. From roads to high-rises, glass to microchips and even solar panels the demand for sand is only growing as the resource diminishes faster than it can be produced. Nowadays all of our sand for construction comes from the sea and rivers since land based sand pit mines have been exhausted. Unfortunately our voracious appetite for concrete is causing problems for beaches. When sand is taken out from the sea and rivers beaches shrink. Coastlines creep inland is already threatening many beach front cities and villages all over the world with ocean inundation. Add in climate change's effects on sea level rise and the timeline for ocean front cities becoming threatened by sea inundation accelerates.

Sandy beaches like mangrove forests are barriers that keep the sea at bay. Losing beaches means more than losing fun recreational space because without these barriers waves from the sea can erode the land quite fast. Without ugly fortifications beach front cities like Miami can be eaten by the sea within a few years.

This is a well done and informative documentary. You will reconsider buying that dream beach house then again you might consider putting sand in your watch list for investment but what is more important is we need some good news on the environment. Sand trapped in concrete is lost to ecosystems while releasing ancient carbon trapped in Earth is transforming ecosystems we depend on badly for our sustenance. We need to leave nature alone.

When it comes to construction alternatives to sand is hard to find. Old concrete can be recycled but it is expensive. Our answer to sand should be to stop wasteful construction and there is a lot of these where entire cities and high-rises have been built all over the world but remain empty because they are just too expensive. These buildings have been built solely for investors to flip for profit but there is just not that many rich people to buy them all. Again greed is getting the better of us.

Climate Change's canary in the coal mine–Fort McMurray Fire

I was looking at the pictures coming out of wild fire ravaged Fort McMurray on CNN. The overshadowing pain of the destruction was clear despite the eerie beauty of some of the photos. Burnt out cars and trucks means people had little time to escape and the loss for the people whose homes were burnt to the foundation must be difficult to bear. When I was in Hawaii I lived through hurricane Iniki, at first I was glad that I and my colleagues were all safe. There was even a celebratory feeling after the hurricane passed through and it wasn't until the next day that we started to feel the emotional pain of the loss from the destruction of property and disruption of life.

Huge smoke plume rises from the Fort McMurray wild fire. The carbon dioxide from the burning is not going to help. Photo courtesy NASA.

I feel for the people at Fort McMurray however wild fires are just part and parcel of living in the northern latitudes as floods and mudslides are to equatorial Malaysia until I realised isn't it still spring? Fort McMurray is not very far away from the Arctic circle, how hot can it be in the middle of spring and shouldn't the land be damp from the thawing snow? The time is just wrong, if it was summer, understandable but we just crossed into spring on the 21st of March. I wondered if this strange time for this wild fire had any connection with this years El Nino so I googled it and sure enough the connection has been made but its not just El Nino.

The northern latitude burning during the spring thaw? Changing times. Picture courtesy NASA

Read this article on BBC about the fire, if you are thinking Climate Change is a century away take heed, spring is already turning to summer in Fort McMurray. El Nino simply made Fort McMurray's 'pre-summer' worse to the point of the devastating wild fires. The main culprit is climate change.

Here is some shocking information I got from the article. Keep in mind that Fort McMurray is at 56.7 ºN and the Arctic Circle is at 66 ºN.

Fort McMurray normal high temperature for the beginning of May: 14 ºC.
The high temperature recorded beginning of May 2016: 32.6 ºC

Pre-Climate Change (or most of human history) Fort McMurray fire season start: 1st week of May.

2015 fire season start: 15th March. Thats six days before the start of spring–fire season now starts in winter!

2016 fire season start: 1st March, mainly attributed to 2016 El Nino.

The global climate temperature average has so far risen 0.89 ºC.

Canary in the coal mine: A metaphor about early warning signs drawn from the practice of taking a caged canary into coal mines. The bird would die if there was carbon monoxide or methane in the mine indicating an evacuation for the miners before the gas leak got lethal to the miners.

Ethiopia is back in the world spotlight because of El Nino triggered drought

Though the physical effects of El Nino, the warming of the tropical Pacific ocean has waned its effect on global climate continues. Many regions in South East Asia and India are facing drought while China is getting massive amounts of rain to put the Yangtze river basin on flood alert and the Three Gorges Dam to spout out giant plumes of water. But the most dangerous climate calamity that is brewing as a result of El Nino 2016 is drought in Ethiopia. Ethiopia is thirsting for water as it is hit by a dry spell it has not seen the likes of in 50 years.

Growing up through the 80's I read of Ethiopia as a sad, poor country where people were dying in the hundreds a day because of civil strife and drought that gave the news grotesque pictures of people literally reduced to skin and bones from lack of food and water. Even as millions of dollars in charity poured into the country to help the people the situation didn't improve much because the government and rebels were poaching the resources. It took UN military action to finally help the situation. The terrible situation in Ethiopia then was also the inspiration to mobilise global citizens together by rock stars and pop stars who used their popularity for charity through the Band Aid and USA for Africa programmes. At that time we were aghast and in disbelieve that such extreme starvation of an entire nation was happening in our modern world.

We can come together to reverse climate change.
The lyrics of of We Are The World can be used as is:
We are the world; we are the children; we are the ones to make a brighter day so lets start giving;
there's a choice we are making, we're saving our own lives, its true we make a better day just you and me.

As the decades rolled on Ethiopia overcame its calamity and progressed passed its civil strife. Hopefully we will not need to see those dreadful images coming out of Ethiopia again and the country will get the support it needs to fend off the drought before the situation get worse.

Its Earth Day today and I am making a pledge to my daughter

This is Nandhini my daughter. She is four and a half months old today, a baby blissfully oblivious to her surroundings with the most simple needs for now. To me she represents a generation who will be living full-on with the consequences of the lifestyle of my generation and the ones before mine who ushered the new world order after World War 2. The concern is that in a couple of decades when my daughter and the kids growing up now are in the prime of their youth they are going to be unfairly saddled with a tougher life.

The comes early to Malaysia because of burning tinder dry peat in forest caused by El Nino 2016

If you haven't caught up on the latest in global climate, last year was the hottest year ever in the planet since record keeping started but last year's record is going to be short lived. This year is already on the way to be hotter than last year. Multiply this trend by 20 years and the scenario that plays out in my mind–dangerous is the word that comes to mind. How much more of our planet will become desert? Will the tropics become so unbearably hot that our paradisiacal beaches will lose their charm? What about island nations like Maldives or Kiribati, even Hawaii, can we even dream of visiting these places anymore? What about Europe and the US, is spring going to become the new summer and summer going to become annual scorchers?

Then there is climate change economics which in most places means increase in the cost of living. Right now for us in the tropics keeping cool is a matter of comfort, the heat is a nuisance but when push comes to shove we can still do with a fan on full blast and a wet cloth draped on its grill. But if climate trends persist I think twenty years from now keeping cool in the tropics is going to be a health imperative. So energy costs is going to rise and if we are still powering ourselves mainly with fossil fuels then we will continue to feed a worsening loop in climate change. What about sea level rise? Twenty years from now I predict its biggest impact is going to be on the cost of staple foods like rice. Most of the world's biggest and most productive rice fields are on centuries old fertile river deltas–they are by the coast. The Mekong and Chao Praya deltas are already being affected by salt inundation caused by incremental sea level creep. That means these fields will have to move to less fertile places inland where it will cost more to produce the same amount of rice. Real estate is also going to be a challenge, finding a place to settle down that will be safe from the effects of sea level rise won't be easy.

If we are to buck the current trend of climate change there are only a couple of things we need to do. One is to simply stop using fossil fuels except in the most energy intensive industries. I think the only industry that can never do away entirely with fossil fuels is flying. Apart from that electricity production, ground transport, factories can all switch to renewable energy. Even if we need to do it incrementally the world can institute a complete ban on 100% gasoline and diesel engines for ground transport and switch to hybrid engines in five years. Then give a lag time of 10 years to completely give up internal combustion engines altogether for electric motors. In 15 years instead of 50 years we can reduce green house gas production by big percentages. The second thing we have to do is to leave nature alone and help it rejuvenate itself. We can help by planting trees, recycling our waste, switching to bio-plastics and regulating fisheries.

The pledge I am making to Nandhini is to make recycling and tree planting our passion. I will be looking forward to making tree planting our hobby and teaching her to enjoy nature the way I do and this is not only for Nandhini but her generation.

Ulu Bendul Rainforest, Malaysia in celebration of Earth Day

Equatorial rain forests, Earth's lungs. A mass of a multitude of giant trees that harbour so much life yet its so quite. Early in the 20th century our civilisations looked at the wild as places to tame with development. The human agenda then was to cull as much of the wild as possible, exploit as much of its seemingly inexhaustible wealth. Beat it down with cities, factories and agriculture; get rid of beasts that are dangerous to humans. We humans rule this planet and we were intent in being the masters of nature. 

Is nature humbling us now? We are products of nature. We can't go very far from it nor can we mess with its processes without dealing with troublesome consequences. We are realising that even if we don't live in forests anymore we need them more than ever. They are the silent manufacturers of the fresh air so vital to our survival. They provide us the atmospheric balance that make us take for granted that we are actually living in a comfortable blue-green bubble of life that is floating in the desolate and harsh environment of outer space. They are repositories of yet so much undiscovered variety that throws open the smorgasbord of potential inventions that can make our future exciting.

It is also the place we go for wonder and inspiration when we are tired of each other. Let's celebrate the wonder of Earth this Earth Day. Lets learn to leave nature alone. We need her more than she needs us.

Earth image courtesy of NASA: nasa.gov

Photos are from Ulu Bendul Permanent Reserve Forest, Kuala Pilah, Malaysia. A watershed that supplies water for hundreds of thousands of people downstream. Taken April 16, 2016. Original photos are 20MP @ 180 res. If you like a copy of the original seen in this post just send me an email (except of course the Earth pix).

Bamboo is the new timber–towards sustainable construction

What’s worse than our addiction to fossil fuels? Timber. Timber is an amazing product of nature. Making homes and furniture out of wood is a skill and art that is deeply embedded in human cultures. Carpenters and wood craftsmen usually have a profound even spiritual connection to their skill and they can come up with awe inspiring products that connects with nature. But ever since we went industrial with chopping trees we’ve been cutting them down like no tomorrow for decades. Even now with virgin forest cover all over the world at less than 50% we are still cutting them down to fulfil our insatiable appetite for gorgeous hardwood timber.

There is such at thing as ag-timber, timber plantations but they usually grow softwood trees mainly for pulp to make paper and fibreboards. Hardwoods which are the most prized timber are difficult to profit from in plantations. It usually takes more than a decade before the trees can be harvested and even then the diameter of the timber is small. Very few investors are eager to risk such long term returns, which is why a single tree from a virgin forest that is more than 1.5 meters in diameter can fetch close to a million bucks. It just takes minutes to fell the trees and with heavy equipment debarking the trees and trucking them to factories its money in the bank that is as difficult to resist as our appetite for pretty nature in our homes and offices.

We have reached a point where we have to stop all harvesting of virgin forest hardwoods from the temperate and tropical forests. For one thing we need these trees which are also the lungs of our planet to produce oxygen and sink carbon dioxide. The cheapest and most efficient way to reverse our present global climate change crisis is to simply leave nature alone. Allow nature to prosper and we can breathe easy. A global ban on virgin forest timber can help protect forests and help forests grow in range.

However this doesn’t mean we cannot use wood for practical and aesthetic construction. There is a well tested viable replacement for timber–its bamboo. Bamboo is the fastest growing plant in the world. Growing a blistering meter a day the bamboo industry that is estimated at $60 billion a year is starting to gain more traction. There are species of bamboo in South America and Asia that have tensile strength stronger than steel. Laminate floors, plywood, paneling, curtains, paper–bamboo is the way to move forward in the wood industry. The return of investment from bamboo plantations should look very attractive to investors.

Construction bamboo, which are species of bamboo strong enough to use for construction purposes–from scaffolding to support pillar and paneling can be found in Asia and South America. China is the biggest producer of construction bamboo but the South American construction bamboo is the strongest. The interest in growing bamboo commercially is increasing with the awareness of the need to protect remaining virgin forests and in anticipation of greater demand for bamboo construction products Africa is being eyed as a major bamboo producer.

If I had to build a building I would definitely use bamboo all the way. There is a company in Chiang Mai, Thailand that specialises in sustainable construction using only compacted earth and bamboo. Click here to check out Chiang Mai Life Construction. If you are closer to South America google brought up this website: Guadua Bamboo Construction and Architecture.

NASA launches portal that lets us all monitor sea level rise. Thank You NASA.

sealevel.nasa.gov

This is exactly what we need to help us plan for our kids future. With this portal we can get up to date scientific data and analysis on global sea level rise and how we might apply it locally to our areas. Until now all we can use to glean the effect of climate change on our most important decisions are foreboding documentaries and scientist warning of imminent dangers, though their time scale is measured in decades if not centuries. All of this is great for raising alarm and awareness but not of much use when it comes to planning where the best location would be to buy housing or land that might be of value in a changing natural world.

The Gulf Stream, Northwestern Atlantic as seen from a satellite. Image-courtesy of NASA

Enter NASA's Web Portal on Rising Seas @ sealevel.nasa.gov . Launched in early April this portal is aimed at providing information on the most current data from satellites and other oceanographic instruments on sea levels. This portal is going to be very valuable to all of us because all the data is public and can be used liberally. Here is a quote from the site on part of its mission:

-- An interactive data analysis tool, launching in mid-2016, that will allow direct access to NASA datasets on sea level. Users will be able to manipulate these datasets to automatically generate charts, graphs and maps of sea surface height, temperature and other factors. The analysis tool will also allow users to make forecasts of future conditions, as well as “hindcasts” -- retroactive calculations of past trends and conditions.

This is the reasons why I praise the US of A among my friends in Malaysia who are usually cynical of the US government. Obviously it has cost billions of dollars to the US taxpayers to put up the infrastructure to provide us with this kind of information. This is the generousness of the US that I take into consideration when I draw my conclusions on US foreign excursions. So thank you very much NASA and USA.

Celebrating Earth Day, April 22

We live in an amazing world that inspires wonder.

Where variety is its splendour.

We are but new arrivals

part of its grandeur

living off of its lushness.

Yet how often is it that we stop

to admire the simple beauty

of verdant valleys

and luscious life

that take us away from the madness of a civilisation

that could care less

about the magnificent mother

whose benevolence is beyond compare?

Not often enough!

It is time we take stock of the vestiges of nature around us and ponder on the significance of its survival to ours.

Photos are from Gasing Hill Educational forest in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. A vestige of nature that was hard fought by the residents of the city to preserve. Taken March 27, 2016. Original photos are 20MP @ 180 res. If you like a copy of the original seen in this post just send me an email.

Climate, weather and clean power news as we head for Earth Day, April 22

NASA has confirmed that the Arctic sea ice this year has hit yet another record low cover. Every year the sea ice in the Arctic grows and dwindles following the seasons. At the height of winter NASA’s satellites measure the maximum reach of the ice cover and it seems it has been reducing steadily for the past 13 years. This year is nothing new just that the ice growth recession was somewhat more intense than previous years. 

Meanwhile the El Nino induced heat wave is creating a major drought in the world’s most important rice exporter. Farmers in in Thailand are suffering from the lack of water to the extent that the Thai government has asked that the much anticipated Thai New Year festival, Songkran be muted to water sprinkling instead of water splashing. Tourist usually flock Thailand for this fun festival where people splash each other with water but in a show of solidarity with the difficulty farmers are facing Songkran related festivities this year has been advised to me conservative with water. In Borneo Malaysia's Sabah state raging peat fires exasperated by dry weather has caused the closure of many schools in affected districts as the bullish heat continues to swelter the region.  

In the US renowned philosopher and scientists Noam Chomsky chimed in on the US presidential race when speaking about the possibility of a Trump presidency. His biggest fear is that the current effort by the Obama administration to heighten awareness on climate change and push for the advancement of renewable energy in US power production will be rolled back. He rates the dangers of the ignoring climate change or just flat out denying it as the most dangerous position to take for the future of any country let alone the planet. He believes that climate conditions are changing at rates hundreds or even a thousand times faster than expected. Its time we all think very seriously about what its going to be like for our children in two decades and decide how best to prepare them for changing nature of all things. 

On the progress front scientists from the Chinese University Hong Kong (CUHK) have made an important breakthrough in the production of hydrogen fuel. It has always been a holy grail for futuristic energy science to be able to harness power from hydrogen gas produced from splitting water molecules. Up to now the process has been too complicated and costly. Some scientist have gone the way of studying plant photosynthesis to figure how plants do it so effectively but duplicating that process in a lab is also complicated and costly. However in a muted breakthrough CUHK scientists in Hong Kong who have discovered a cost effective method of splitting water molecules by adding red phosphorous to water and exposing it to the sun–lo and behold hydrogen is produced and at room temperature at that. The amount of H2 gas produced is still too small for industrial scale use but further research is underway to optimise the process. Red phosphorus is abundantly available (and cheap) and it is a stable compound. I imagine within the next decade scientists are going to find an effective process of splitting water molecules to its constituent parts, hydrogen and oxygen to re-combust and form water and lots of energy that can be turned to electricity. It will be another victory in the push to sustain human civilisation on green energy. 

Two really small solar panels can power an entire home! The unstoppable future of solar power.

I've always wondered how many PV solar panels it would take to power an entire home. I usually see about 20 large panels on homes that claim to generate all their power needs, but all that can change with technology that is already in use in space since the early days of satellites. In space satellites are powered by PV panels that use gallium arsenide but on our roof tops silicone PV cells are used which are less efficient. The satellites are able to convert 40% of the sun's energy for its use while the silicone PV can convert 20% of the sun's energy to electricity at best. However gallium arsenide PVs are so expensive that its still out of reach in the burgeoning solar economy. But with changing times and the drive for clean energy becoming more entrenched in the world's politics and economy gallium arsenide cells will be scalable and affordable for centralised green power plants as the economy of scale powers into solar power.  Watch this documentary on super solar cells and the amazing research they are doing in Australia.

The video below done by VPRO channel in the Netherlands published in 2012. Its about Germany's success in powering with solar. We can all do it too if we can make our governments care enough for our future. It proves the cons of going green wrong. One of the biggest challenge against green power is that too much space is needed to produce the energy a country needs. But when it comes down to real math estimates it takes about 300,000 square kilometres in the Sahara to power man's entire electrical needs. That's about the size of France, which is relatively small considering that panels can be mounted on roof tops of all the buildings in the world. Also the technology is advancing with time on the output efficiency and size factor as seen in the previous video. 

Elon Musk's Solar City is rattling fossil fuel power producers

Warren Buffet is a billionaire philanthropist. He is one of the few billionaires, like Elon Musk and Bill Gates who exemplify the concept–that with great wealth or power comes great responsibility. When rich people are humbled by their own wealth and see the need to use the resources to be of help to the community that rich person becomes a boon to their society. Warren Buffet is such a person. Unfortunately he doesn't give a hoot about climate change. His coal fired power company that supplies Nevada has moved to edge out Solar City's innovative and popular solar panel lease that has made installing home roof top PV panels a synch. People were happy and were saving a bundle because green power was reducing their power bills by a whooping 80-90%.

GO GREEN! Right.....with the exception of the power plant which in the beginning was cooperative with the power sharing plan. Warren Buffet who owns the power plant started throwing his weight around in Nevada to charge tariffs on solar producers for using their grid. The state agreed with him and the new rates make it impossible for home solar producers to hold on to their savings. Overnight from making money they started losing money with solar panels.

In this instance it seems for now the coal power monopoly has won but it underscores some victories for green power. First of all that green power is viable to set up financially and if the political environment is friendly consumers gain far more than using fossil fuel power. In other words going green has been conclusively proven to be cheaper than fossil fuels. Secondly this news heralds what I call the Green Power Revolution. The Green Power Revolution puts the ability to produce electricity in the hands of the consumer. This spells trouble for power producers who are unable to compete with green power, thus the revolution. This scenario in Nevada is a representation of the revolution initiating. It is the beginning of the end of fossil fuel power plants in places where solar power is viable. In time it will spread to the rest of the world–hopefully it won't take so much time.

Greenland is opening up to a new future

More land is getting exposed in Greenland as a hundred millennia years old ice cover is lost to higher than average temperatures. According to this video at the current rate of melt it would take a thousand years before Greenland loses all of its ice. 1000 years is a long time to plan for and one might think–phew! (wipe brow) no big deal, but remember that there are already nations with thousands of people who are in trouble from a rising sea. Climate change deniers should put their money where it counts and invest in coastal cities not very high from sea level. There are many such cities all over the world or just go ahead and invest in a beach front property, but do that only after visiting the Maldives or Kiribati or Tuvalu.

Our planet is getting hotter incrementally year by year, anecdotal experience alone can confirm that. Human activity can be linked to this because there is no other natural phenomenon that can as yet be identified to cause such rapid increase in global pre-industrial temperature average. At this point the threat of climate change to humanity should be measured in decades not centuries. For most of us climate change is still a bearable nuisance but every decade of the 21st century is going to present new and disturbing even dangerous scenarios. Its is better to be vary of climate change than to ignorantly dismiss it as a hoax to escape taking personal responsibility on the state of Mother Earth. At this point waste and excess is dangerous. Anyway even if there are still many climate change deniers out there remember that it is still for all our betterment to live in a less polluted planet

Heatwave advisory in effect in Malaysia, El Nino is blamed but no mention of climate change

The Malaysian government has created a new committee in the Education Ministry to monitor temperature conditions in the country. If the maximum temperature during the day exceeds 37ºC for 3 days straight they have the authority to shut schools and cancel outdoor activity. The heatwave has been hitting headlines for the last few weeks and on March 18 the seriousness of the weather came to fore with the untimely death of a police cadet from dehydration. The cause of death was attributed to heatstroke from an El Nino induced heatwave–an obvious conclusion and comparison is being drawn to the heatwave caused by El Nino 1998. The apparent thinking is that this is a normal cyclic weather phenomenon with no mention of climate change as a culprit too.

What has also perked my intrigue on government reporting is that the peak temperatures officially published by the Met. department across Peninsular Malaysia range between 36ºC to 38ºC though I have consistently recorded air temperatures above 40ºC in Klang, Selangor and Manjung, Perak–the highest hitting 42ºC with ground temperature soaring above 50ºC. The peak recorded temperature in Malaysia during El Nino '98 was 40.1ºC. According to the meteorological department that temperature has yet to be recorded anywhere in Malaysia but I own investigations prove otherwise. I blame this intensification weather to climate change. Thus we have three geological and weather phenomenons conspiring to create this year's scorcher namely the spring equinox, El Nino and climate change.

This heatwave should taper after two weeks and news headlines will follow other headwinds. This danger will pass and life will continue as usual albeit we will continue to complain about the blistering non-heatwave heat. We will have missed another important alarm bell that nature is blaring at us as we go along stubbornly preserving our no-limits lifestyle, secure in the ignorance that nature is somebody else's problem.

El Nino 2016 and Climate Change baking Malaysia

Let me be clear, I and my fellow Malaysians are used to warm even hot weather, but this is going to be another year of bumper sales for air conditioners. The last time it was this hot was in 2009, an El Nino year. The difference this time is that it feels more like a tipping point of what we can bear. In 2009 we didn't complain half as much. The scorcher this year is making us keep our air conditioners turned on at home almost throughout the day. This has caused Malaysia's Ministry of Energy to come out with an advisory to keep intense home energy consumption to non-peak hours. I remember in the 70's when the government TV used to air ads on tips to be energy conservative.

The biggest energy guzzlers those days was the iron. So they would advise people to iron all their washed clothes from the day at one go at night . The big no-no was to turn the iron on for only one or two pieces of clothing during the day. Those days only very rich people had air-conditioning and electric hot water heaters. In the 70's Malaysia just didn't have the electrical generation capacity it has today, so conservation was due to that. To think that we are back to the same old advise but this time its not just ironing but air-conditioning. Turn off air conditioning in homes in the day because the generators are running over capacity at more than 17,000 Megawatts/day. We didn't have this problem in 2009, then again this is the strongest El Nino on record so it shouldn't be surprising.

Usually El Nino also spells drought in South East Asia. During the 1998 El Nino Peninsular Malaysia was hit by the worst drought it had seen in decades. This time around though the drought concentrated in the southern part of Peninsular Malaysia, the state of Johor. It may still be too early to wave the concern of a drought away especially since record high temperatures can dry up the land quite fast and logging activities in watershed areas that feed most of Malaysia's cities continue unabated.

Delay is also the game El Nino 2016 is playing in parched California, USA. Hit by a mega drought Californians who were eagerly waiting for El Nino rains in February had to wait till March to see much desired precipitation. It looks like they are going to get what they wished for, a little late thats all.

El Nino's direct influence on the weather is on a waning course and by April's end it should be done. This heating trend of the eastern equatorial Pacific is generally followed by a welcomed cooling trend called the La Nina. Scientists will be hawk-eyed when it comes to measure the extent of the cooling to see if global warming will have any impact on this phenomenon as it most definitely had on El Nino 2015-2016. 

Kiribati's population is 100,000–They need new homes already

Here is a video in 2010 where the humble President of Kiribati talks about their helplessness in dealing with rising seas.

In 2015 a family tried to be the world's first officially recognised climate change refugees. Ioane Teitiota his wife and three children tried to apply for asylum from the Government of New Zealand in 2011 arguing that their island nation was unsafe especially for the future of his children due to rising sea levels. "Going back to Kiribati there is no life, no hope. We are sending back the children to a place that is not safe for them," said his pastor supporting Mr. Teitiota with his climate change argument for asylum.

Unfortunately the New Zealand courts denied the application Mr. Teitiota and his family and ordered their deportation. Earlier in 2015 the New Zealand Supreme Court acknowledged that Kiribati is facing climate change problems but New Zealand's law, for that matter the laws of other countries, do not recognise climate change as a legitimate reason for the application of refugee status.

There are 100,000 people in Kiribati. They want to stay put in their island paradise and their main source of hope is their belief in Christianity. According to them God promised Noah that the world will never flood over again after the great floods. Nevertheless as their President points out they still have to be prepare with alternative plans but as Mr. Teitiota can testify moving out as climate change refugees will be an uphill battle. There are no cheap or easy solutions to settling tens of thousands of people across the world. One of the proposal from President Anote Tong in his most recent address is to build floating platforms like petroleum rigs for his people. That would cost a whooping 2 billion dollars.

Playing with fire is dangerous, ignoring it is even worse.

If I see a building on fire and I cared I would call the fire department otherwise I would simply walk on past it. If I did the latter I won't tell anyone that I saw the burning building because I might have to tell them that I did nothing about it which would be embarrassing.

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I am writing about environmental degradation and climate change because I am passionate about nature conservation. I get sad when I see trucks hauling huge old growth primary forest trees. I also care about my daughter’s well being to the point that I feel responsible for what the world might be like when she hits 25 the height of her youth though she is only 3 months old today. That picture that is forming in my mind is uncomfortably bleak so I feel compelled to do something about it because I choose to care.

I am doing my part in trying to preserve the environment by recycling, using cars conservatively and being as energy and water efficient as I can. From 2005 to 2010 I used only a bicycle and public transport to go places. In 2010 I had to use a petrol car because I couldn’t afford an electric hybrid car. At least the car I used was fuel efficient and I used it to haul 5 people here and there. Even today the car I use for my family is a 1.5 litre engine and I am opting for a much smaller second car because I want to reduce my carbon foot print. But I am just one person who cares. Most everyone I know ignore climate change, they just complain about the hot weather and flood induced traffic jams. I don't think that they don’t care rather they assume that the most serious effects of climate change is too far into the future to be bothered with now. They still buy expensive homes not far from the coast and love their powerful cars. When I talk about climate change eyes roll and I assume they would rather I just walk past the burning building and not tell anyone about it. I can’t.

This is why I am writing these articles on environmental degradation and climate change because it is the best I can do for now. The awareness of just how serious the problem of climate change is has not sunk in to the mass population except for those who choose to care. So spreading awareness on the dangers of climate change is still necessary. More of us who care need to continue to shout at the top of our lungs so more people will finally stop and start to demand our governments to push for green energy, electric cars and sustainable environmental practices. Not only do all these technologies already exist and are quite advanced they will also make our livelihood easier.

Many people are still of the opinion that climate change can be ignored. When overly optimistic reports claim that we just have to anticipate a 1 meter sea level rise by the year 2100 and when world leaders prematurely celebrate that we can still continue to pollute the world until we reach a 2ºC rise in average global temperature they are blatantly ignoring the pleas of low lying island nations like Kiribati, Tuvalu and Maldives. These are countries that are already grappling with the sea overrunning their lives. Its happening now and the sea is rising everyday already. The global climate is warning us every year with record breaking extreme weather and we must act now. If we don’t or act too late at least I can tell my daughter that I was part of the group who cared.

Please click on this link-go to earthday.org