Is climate change talk fest on again?

Name:        CHAN, Sin Fong

Subject:     Is climate change talk fest on again?

Visit Time: 6/12/2010 2:17 PM

Remark:

Global warming is real from day one. Each year 4 one quintillion Joules (4 x 10 to the power of 18 Joules) of Solar energy reaches the Earth, but only 300 trillion Joules (3 x 10 to the power of 14 Joules) are consumed by the world's population. There is plenty of energy left to warm the Earth.

Oil - The Slippery Problem

Name:         CHAN, Sin Fong

Subject:      Oil - The Slippery Problem

Visit Time:  20/06/2008 1:52 AM

Remark
It is beyond comprehension that someone wakes up one morning and decides that the oil is running out, and tells the world that the oil price has to go up. With so many experts and gurus in the US, they don’t seem to have any idea about the oil stockpile in their country. It is just ridiculous that after a few days of good run, they can come out with assessment like the demand of oil will be great due to forthcoming cold winter.

The Y2K bug scared the hell out of everyone (not me, though) the world might come to an end, aeroplanes would fall from the sky, the hospital equipment would cease to function, and all the mumbo jumbo. Al Gore travelled round the world warning the world about global warming and won a Nobel Prize for it. The world starts to press the panic button, worrying that once the polar ice were to melt, the land mass will be submerged like Atlantis – the lost continent. Did anyone ask Al Gore whether the world would still survive without the ice in the Polar Regions? Could the rising sea level be beneficial to replenish many drying and dried lakes/rivers, or turn the increasing areas of deserts into oases?

Kevin Rudd, on 16/6/2008, said that “right now we had the greatest global oil shock in 30 years. We know for a fact that prices are up 400 per cent since the Iraq war, 100 per cent in the last 12 months alone.” Does this imply that the oil consumption has increased fourfold since the Iraq War, or was it that the Iraq War, which started for some God only knows reason, created such a big shortage of oil supply? Has the world progressed twice as fast since last year?

If world leaders don’t have the guts to stop this spiralling increase of oil prizes, but to wait for the supply and demand theory come to realisation, the world will grind to a halt and cause irreparable and irreversible damage. The cruel and opportunistic oil suppliers and the middlemen who make megabucks out the misery of mankind are the greatest global terrorists creating untold hardship, starvation, social unrest to millions, if not billions, of people worldwide.

There is a simple solution to this complex problem – workers of these suppliers and companies unite and strike, bringing these heartless people onto their knees and beg for mercy!

Carbon dioxide storage

Name:        CHAN, Sin Fong

Subject:     Carbon Dioxide Storage

Visit Time: 10/04/2008 1:37 AM

Remark:

Has any impact study been done on the carbon dioxide storage underground? While this sounds like a great idea in slowing down global warming, I am concerned that this will lead to environmental, ecological and geological disasters. How is the storage reservoir constructed, and with what material? When carbon dioxide is dissolved in water, it forms carbonic acid. The destructive effect of carbonic acid, generally known by the public as acid rain, is evident in many sculptures, monuments and buildings. In higher concentration, carbonic acid can change the pH of the soil, which may probably destroy organisms living in the soil. If carbon dioxide is to be stored in compressed form, the pressure may cause instability in the soil structure, and may even create man-made volcanic eruption one day.

Global warming - a scare campaign?

Name:        CHAN, Sin Fong

Subject:     Global warming - a scare campaign?

Visit Time: 4/11/2006 11:52 AM

Remark:

The doomsday prophets are on the go again. After billions if not trillions of dollars had been wasted worldwide on fixing the Y2K problems, the latest scare campaign on global warming is scandalous.

Unscrupulous campaigners convince many Australians that by stopping the opening of new coalmine will help in curbing the greenhouse effect. Unfortunately, these campaigners may be from competing nations, which also export coal. Coal is not only used for power generation; it is also used for the production of steel. Coal mining creates many direct and indirect employment, and brings in export dollars.

While some rural towns in southeastern and southern parts of Australia are experiencing severe droughts, other places in Australia and abroad receive good rainfall and even flood.

Throughout the past many centuries, the exposed area of the sea has not diminished; and if the earth is warming up, the evaporation rate should be higher, and therefore, rain should fall more frequently. The hypothesis about global warming causing severe droughts seems contradictory.

The crystal ball gazers reckon that the global warming will cause the melting of polar ice and drought. The sea level will rise to as much as 25 metres. If that is the case, why should we worry about the drought? Arid land will be flooded and irrigated by the rising water. The Simpson Desert, the Sahara Dessert and the Gobi Dessert, just to name a few, will probably become fertile farmland which could support a couple more billion people.

Before the sea level increases to such height, much of the water will have channelled into the existing river system, or new rivers formed. Part of the water will also fill the artesian wells, which for the past decades, have been drained close to empty for farm use and domestic consumption.

Carbon capturing, carbon trading, recycling, and reducing greenhouse gas emission do not solve global warming. It's about time scientists should think spherically to find a solution in cooling the earth - that's right, GLOBAL COOLING!

Water solution

Name:        CHAN, Sin Fong

Subject:     Water Solution

Visit Time: 28/09/2006 3:48 AM

Remark:

So what, we do live on the driest continent on earth! If we have a problem, then we have to fix it.

When Maxine McKew interviewed Malcolm Turnbull on 26/9/2006 about water initiative, Maxine McKew's question about "there's too little being done on the supply" seemed too difficult for Malcolm Turnbull to comprehend.

If the population of Australia grows from 18 million to 20 million, a mere 10%, then the water supply must grow by 10% as well in order to satisfy normal consumption and irrigation. This has not happened, and with conservative thinking approach, will never happen. Damming more rivers, or building more reservoirs are like taking cookies from a jar of limited capacity and limited number of "cookies".

Many countries are blessed with large and long river systems, and just so happen the rain falls on well-positioned catchment areas. There is a saying, "if Mohamed does not go to the mountain, then brings the mountain to Mohamed" (no offence to all the Mohamed's, and this is not a racist remark). If the rain does not fall on the so-called catchment areas in Australia due to whatever the reasons - global warming, El Nino, etc., then we should consider creating man-made mountains and catchments where rain is abundant.

Building mountains is not a fantasy - if we can build freeways, we can build rivers. The soil from any excavated land and including that from open-cut mines can be piled up to form the mountains. What are the costs? The costs are probably peanuts when we compare that with loss of crops and export income due to draught and bush fires, and in time to come, loss of human lives. With the man-made river system, we can even solve the flood problem experienced in many parts of Australia.

The new river system will be linked to the existing natural rivers. Obviously, there is also a lot of spin-off from a mountain-and-river system - a new environment for aquatic creatures and wildlife, new food chains, increase in tourism and real estate development, just to name a few.

I'm not a futurist. I only consider myself as a spherical thinker.