Earth Hour: A Confession

No, this is not a soppy apology by an environmentalist for not obeying this symbolic event. Quite on the contrary, I cycled to Chiefley Meadows on campus yesterday -- a 15 min journey through poorly-lit paths -- to join in the countdown at ANU.

But that's not the point. The confession is on the fact that I realised I have been rather harsh on the organisers and supporters of Earth Hour. Previously, despite being an environmentalist, I have hardly been a huge supporter of Earth Hour, seeing it as a useless symbolic gesture that achieved little practical results. In my eyes, I saw it as a feel-good initiative for people to pretend that they had done their part for the environment.

In fact, I have once written elsewhere that,

I just think that this Earth Hour will not change people’s habit. First, with regards to the point of increase awareness, I do seriously think that the time for awareness is over.

...

The challenge for environmentalists now is to get people to be more environmentally friendly in their actions, either by persuasion or by coercion (e.g. through laws).

And my point was that Earth Hour does not achieve that, because it is at best an hour of fun and games for most people, and after that they will resume their normal energy consumption. And therefore, whenever someone calls Earth Hour an environmental action, I feel insulted because it kinda trivialises the changes I've made on my lifestyle.

But on further reflection, I realise that my reaction is unjustified. Specifically, if I feel insulted, it is because I held an elitist view of the label "environmentalist" as well as the environmental movement. I treated it as some exclusive club where entry is earned by making significant changes to its members' lives.

True, most people will not change their lives because of Earth Hour, but it may serve as a rallying call for people to join in. It may remind them to turn off the lights when they leave the room. It may persuade them to choose a more environmentally friendly alternative (e.g. CFL instead of incandescent bulbs). It may even convince a few to live a lifestyle that is gentler to the Earth.

However slight each of their contributions are, they will add up and make a difference.

And that, I now think, is a good reason to support Earth Hour. I should drop my severely stuck-up view of environmentalism and support action that helps the environment. After all, environmentalism is more than climate change -- which is under siege by scientifically-unfounded skepticism; there are many pressing environmental issues such as light pollution and vanishing biodiversity that Earth Hour will have an effect as well.

And thus, the title of this post, Earth Hour: A Confession.

Unacceptable to have Dolphins in Captivity at IR

Resorts World Sentosa originally planned to import whale sharks for their oceanarium as part of their Integrated Resort attraction, but have backed off due to pressure from various organisation and members of the public. Whale sharks are not meant to be in captivity, and definitely not in an enclosure the size which the IR can afford.

However, in its place RWS is importing bottlenose dolphins, which is just as bad, even though dolphins tend to strike an impression that they can get happy in captivity. This impression is not quite correct. Unfortunately, with the Dolphin Lagoon already in operation at the Underwater World, it will be all but impossible to make RWS reverse this decision.

I'm reminded of this unhappy incident after reading this article that suggests dolphins ought to be treated like a person. That was a suggestion by a professor of ethics at Loyola Marymount University who have studied and published about this issue.

From the article,

The researchers argue that their work shows it is morally unacceptable to keep such intelligent animals in amusement parks or to kill them for food or by accident when fishing. Some 300,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises die in this way each year.

Indeed, if dolphins have such intelligence, how is it different, if we continue this practice of putting dolphins in captivity, from putting people in cages and ogle at them? Remember the story of Ota Benga and the existence of human zoos?

But like I said, the chances of preventing the dolphins from coming to the IR is pretty slim, especially with public acceptance of dolphin shows. Still, I suppose we can do our part by first being aware of the issue, and second, spreading the word. Personally, I doubt I will visit the IR.

Crying Over Nothing

Climategate, the recent row over the hacked emails of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, was an early Christmas gift to climate change sceptics. Immediately upon the release of the emails, sceptics pounced upon the details and cried foul over bias and conspiracy to suppress data that denies climate change.

Now, for someone outside the sphere of scientific research, he or she might think that it is a very merry cooperation and everyone providing a polite slice of their knowledge and research in an orderly fashion. Yet this is quite far from the truth, as I myself have witnessed.

Research is often messy. Too many a times researchers use published data and methods in their own studies without waiting for verification from other sources. Of course, publications being peer-reviewed, most of the time they are alright, but occasionally they may be overthrown by other researchers who pointed out flaws in reasoning or experimental methods. This is part and parcel of research, and it's pretty much accepted so long as the mistake is unintentional. Once in a while, there will be major upheavals -- such as the fabrication of cloning data by Hwang Woo-Suk -- which may upset many studies that are based on the original publication.

Furthermore, researchers may have bias. They may speak out strongly against certain approaches which does not quite conform with their ideas. Personally, I've encountered this problem before. Some may be hostile, some may be polite; but a healthy research environment is able to tolerate conflicting viewpoints under the same roof. And an ideal researcher should be one that may disagree with a direction of research, but still allow it to go ahead.

Such is the nature of research. And thus those personal emails naturally would contain information and communications that do not appear clean to a regular reader. It would take someone in the research environment to really sieve out real misdemeanour from personal disagreements. In fact, other than the initial outcry over words that suggested at fabrication, there is no concrete evidence of such actions. And the fact that sceptics cannot find anything definite after so long perhaps suggested that there is really none.

If you still need an expert report on the situation, the top scientific journal Nature has found no conspiracy in the leaked emails. In fact, with regards to the suppression of the publication, the editorial reports:

In one of the more controversial exchanges, UEA scientists sharply criticized the quality of two papers that question the uniqueness of recent global warming (S. McIntyre and R. McKitrick Energy Environ. 14, 751–771; 2003 and W. Soon and S. Baliunas Clim. Res. 23, 89–110; 2003) and vowed to keep at least the first paper out of the upcoming Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Whatever the e-mail authors may have said to one another in (supposed) privacy, however, what matters is how they acted. And the fact is that, in the end, neither they nor the IPCC suppressed anything: when the assessment report was published in 2007 it referenced and discussed both papers.

And I think the most illuminating statement is "whatever the e-mail authors may have said to one another in (supposed) privacy, however, what matters is how they acted." It squares very well with what I've said above: that the research process is messy, and researchers have personal preferences; but ultimately, when they presented their data to the public, everything is cleaned up in a fair manner.

350? Too Audacious a Target?

Today is the International Day of Climate Action, an event organised by 350.org. It aims, as I understand it, to raise awareness for climate change and the fact that we have exceeded the safe limit of amount of carbon in the air: 350 parts per million (ppm). The organisers advocate people globally to participate in an action that displays the number 350 prominently, and the Singapore arm of the movement intend to take an aerial photograph of supporters forming a massive 350 in Hong Lim Park.

However, I see a potential confusion here. Firstly, from what I know, this ppm thingy is a measure of how much carbon is in the air. It is a number that takes into account numerous factors, including stuff like carbon removal by forests. If you perform an ideal experiment and measure the composition of the atmosphere, this number is what you'll get for carbon dioxide.

Then there's another thing: carbon emissions, which is one part of this composition picture. Carbon emissions is the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by human activities. While this number is, of course, linked to the atmospheric composition, it is not directly connected. A drop in emissions today will not ensure a drop in carbon dioxide composition in the atmosphere tomorrow.

Think of it this way: imagine a bucket with a source and a sink. While water flows in from the source, it is drained by the sink, and these two forms a balance. In an oversimplistic view, this is the pre-industrial age atmospheric carbon picture (oversimplistic because there are ice ages and all sorts of other factors that cause carbon composition to fluctuate) - with the source being the (natural) emissions, the sink being carbon removal capabilities like forests, and the amount of water being the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In comes the industrial age, and the source is increased tremendously and the sink decreases. The water level thus rose and is still rising. So even if we turn off our "extra" source and put in more sinks, it's gonna be some time before the water level reverses and returns to the original level. In fact, there is a projection which predict that this reversal will not come before a thousand years have elapsed.

In short, carbon composition will lag behind changes in emissions. Already, the composition of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 390 ppm, way higher than the target, and in all realistic hopes, 350 ppm is too fanciful a number to dream for. Looking at the top chart below, obtained from an article by Michael Raupach et al. in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,

we can see that we have to cut our emissions drastically to even achieve 450 ppm (dashed green line) in the next century. Even 650 ppm looks way far off (dashed blue line). The various A and B lines are projections based on different scenarios (of which, if you want to know, can be found in the article). Even if we switch to clean technology completely - as described by A1T (solid green line) - we cannot even reach 450 ppm in a hundred years' time (though we will be captured by the error bars of 650 ppm). But the most realistic projection is A1B (orange line), which is based on a balance of fossil fuel and clean technology.

Now, much as I advocate environmentalism, I feel uncomfortable about brandishing 350 as the number. In all honesty, no climate scientists are able to tell you in certain terms what the magical number ought to be. In fact, 350 ppm is the lowest safety limit I've heard of; other predictions range up to 650 ppm, but I think that number is really skirting the cliff's edge. Nonetheless, that is already a difficult target to reach, as evidenced by the chart above. So there is no reason for inaction. Especially if you care.

The Right to be Right

This is a blog post for Blog Action Day 2009 on the topic of climate change.

Environmental action often entails a change in lifestyle, most of which involves some inconveniences. For example, sorting out recyclables from trash and bringing them to the nearest recycling bin necessitates hassle. Buying compact fluorescent lamp which are more energy saving will result in a higher initial cost. Spending a night without air-conditioning will lessen the comfort of your sleep.

These undertakings of an individual alone have hardly an impact on the environment at all. The consequent reduction in carbon footprint is a drop in the entire ocean of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Alright, sure, there is the typical argument that the collective effort can have a marked change - as exemplified by events such as Earth Hour - but this argument does not induce much motivation in many people. This is an unfortunate truth - that a cumulative reward at the cost of compromise in personal lifestyle, particularly when the reward demands others to do the same, is not embraced by most people - and the past calls for environmental efforts have demonstrated that. Moreover, it is a vicious cycle: if most people does not want to take action, then there will be no collective benefit, and thus there is no practical incentive for the individual to be green, thereby sinking the situation into a deeper inertial hole. Some say it is up to governments to take action, but let us not forget that the government is subjected to people's desires, so there is only limited wiggling space for them to impose environmental restrictions on the people.

Such a dilemma reminds me of a course I took during my last semester at NUS. It was a geography module called Environmental Sustainability (module code: GE3239), and the lecturer once mentioned that Singapore unsheathes the argument that the effects in restricting our emissions is so negligible on the global scale that it matters very little how much we try to quell our carbon output. This is an iconic pragmatic argument, and it is not wrong in that perspective. After all, that bit Singapore contributes is truly minimal and it is the grand total of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere that counts. The climate does not go looking at the per capita emission.

Then is there any reason for the individual, which, in such a position, differs not so much from Singapore in the example above, to go green? There certainly is: environmental action grants the person a moral right to, at the very least, make a environmental statement. In the end, climate change is going to affect us all in some ways or other, and it would be hypocritical for one to be concerned if he does not observe and reduce his carbon footprint. Regardless of how small one's contribution is to the environmental cause on the large picture, in doing so he allows himself to say that he is concerned, that something has to be done, that it is unfair for the US to have such disproportionately high carbon output. One's effort will not make any practical difference if others do not do their part, but it gives him the right to be right.

Making an effort for the environment does not entail an upheaval in lifestyle. Steps can be small, little at a time, a bit here and there, and all in all one can shed his carbon footprint by a significant share. Below is a suggested list of a few actions that you can do - all of which I personally do - to slash your carbon emissions. These actions are not the typical feel-good slacktivisms such as Earth Hour or clicking one button on Facebook.

• Go vegetarian or semi-vegetarian. Meat turns out to be a major carbon source, and cutting it not only benefits the environment, but also your health. Join the ranks of Albert Einstein, Sir Paul McCartney, Christian Bale and Carl Lewis.
• Bring an environmental bags or regular plastic bags when shopping. In addition, I always tuck a small, folded plastic bag into a compartment in my sling pouch or backpack, in case I wanted to buy something on the spot.
• Turn off the computer monitor, put the computer to standby or hibernate/shut down, as opposed to letting it idle off when you need to leave it for a period. How long a period it should be is up to you; for me, it is roughly one minute, five minutes and fifteen minutes respectively.
• Try without the air-conditioner. It is a major electricity hog, and most people do not need it. And there are some nights, especially rainy ones, in which a fan is more than sufficient. You do not have to swear it off - Singapore's heat can be notorious - but how about raising the threshold of your heat tolerance?

These actions address more than mere climate change, which is the topic of this year's Blog Action Day. Certainly, climate change is one glaring symptom of this environmental disease, but other environmental issues (which may share the same root cause as climate change) ought not be neglected. Examples: depleting resources, vanishing biodiversity, destruction to coastal habitats, overfishing; and the actions listed above do address these issues and more. So do take heart and take action.

The Oily Business in Global Warming

Yesterday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has published their fourth assessment report, concluding that global warming is indeed occurring, and is likely to be the result of human activities. That's what environmentalists have been arguing for years, but now with some scientific heavyweight behind them.

But does that mean global warming will be the focus of governments around the world? It's not gonna be easy, judging by where the money lies...

Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study

Ian Sample, science correspondent
Friday February 2, 2007
The Guardian

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.

Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The UN report was written by international experts and is widely regarded as the most comprehensive review yet of climate change science. It will underpin international negotiations on new emissions targets to succeed the Kyoto agreement, the first phase of which expires in 2012. World governments were given a draft last year and invited to comment.

The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees.

The letters, sent to scientists in Britain, the US and elsewhere, attack the UN's panel as "resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work" and ask for essays that "thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs".

(Click here for the full article.)

From an academic viewpoint, this is blatantly wrong (though this is probably the norm in politics and business). It's not wrong because it opposes an academic body. It's not wrong because "global warming is a fact and their activities are harming the environment", which is what they are trying to dispute in the first place. It's not wrong because they only care about their profits.

What is wrong with it is the fact that they "select" the results. That's not how things should be done. Academic research is not carried out like that. Yes, one can start with the hypothesis or proposition that global warming is natural (i.e. not caused by human, or at least oil companies), but if it turns out to be otherwise, one has to just accept it. If one doesn't, it can be considered academic fraud. Imagine the pressure on the scientist to do so if he/she knew that $10000 is appended to the equation.

But then, what I've described above is the ideal scientific method, a code in which all scientist should adhere to. In real life, however...



That's the sad fact in life. And I believe it won't be long before we see some papers on what ExxonMobil wants. Well, at least Shell acknowledges global warming...