Developement: Paradox of Advancement

Balance. That is the answer to the question that has been bothering all of us since the advancement of civilization. As we grow stronger and more efficient in our everyday life, the see-saw of nature and us is slowly thrown out of balance. We seem to forget, that it is our duty to maintain and preserve that delicate system of nature while thriving in our daily life. But sadly, simplicity and cost efficiency are the mantra of our development When nature strikes back we fail to notice that it is our selfishness that caused it all; instead we put the blame on mother nature and her destructive anger. Have we forgotten how our ancestors, the great civilisations of ancient time, were wiped out  because of their same arrogance?

It seems like our days are numbered. Every year the number of natural disaster has been increasing at an alarming rate. Although there were sayings that it is really not increasing but it is undeniable that the damage and scale of the disaster is worsening. Floods are getting more frequents, hurricanes and typhoons are getting more violent, winter getting longer and summer is getting hotter. All these point to the fact that our actions, our method of development has affected the nature but we are not going to accept this fact.

We are too arrogant to accept the fact that our way of development is affecting the nature. How could the nature be so fragile when it has been around for billion of years? The fact that it has sustained life from the dinosaur period to the ice age to the great human civilisation clearly shows that it can take a little bit of 'beating'. What a few lost forest going to do to the world anyway when we once lost part of the world to the ice? But when we posed these questions we have forgotten how many species were wiped out during that period and we as intelligent creature, are we ready to face our own extinction?

Development here refers to process of growth specifically of nation and country. It refers to the progress of a nation's economical and social advancement with the help of technology that improves the standard of living of its citizen. For development to be possible one important ingredient is needed: resources; and nature is where we get all these resources from. Development per se is not a bad thing in fact it is natural. But when development goes out of control that is where we have all these problems. 

The problem with our development method is that we develop too fast for own good. In just less than a 2 centuries we achieve more than what our ancestors did at a much bigger scale. Building can shoot up from ground level to 100 floors and even more in less than a decade and that is saying a lot. For balance to be there we need to have a window for nature to catch up with us and we are not giving it time at all. The resources that we take from nature cannot replenish fast enough to meet up with our consumption need and thus are depleting at an alarming rate.

Build higher. Build stronger. Build better. That is our motto without regards of its impact on the environment. Without a proper planning such method of development can backfired. It is of no wonder effects such as urban heat island and flooding are common occurrences in urban places. And when we feel the effect it is only then that we try to find solution to it. By then it might be too late.

It goes without saying that we are certainly on the road to solve this problem that we created. But this is only true on the developed countries. When we are at the top of the food chain, when we already reach that status of greatness it seems that we forget that we were once developing like any other country in the world. We used the same method of development, we pollute the environment, the destroyed the nature and we plundered its resources. It should be our duty not only to rectify our mistakes, the mistake of our fore fathers during our development era, but we should also find a better solution to bring every country in the world into the developed world in a much safer and environmentally sound way.

Our technological expertise should trickle down to the developing country to ensure that the nature is not polluted more than it already is and this is only possible when we stop being greedy and start thinking for the future of the world. We are not nature only inhabitant. We share the world with billion other species and is it right to shun them away when they are unable to speak for themselves?

Solar Energy: The next frontier in Energy Production

The onset of technological advancement and globalization demands more energy supplies than ever before. Before, animal fats; wood and coal were sufficient for everyday living but not anymore. The ever increasing use of coal as energy source and petroleum derived fuels such as petrol, diesel and kerosene and natural gas managed to satisfy our crave for energy for now but for how long?

These fossil fuels are an ever depleting source of energy. They are non-renewable or much accurately take a longer time to replenish. With our current energy consumption it is estimated that our fossil fuels i.e. oil, coal and natural gas, will deplete in about 40, 200 and 70 years respectively (S. Shafiee and E. Topal, 2009). This means that in less than half a decade we have to find an alternative source of energy to replace oil as our main source of energy.

Numerous amounts of resources have been placed into alternative source of energy research. With growing concern of depletion coupled with harmful by products from the burning of fossil fuels, a cleaner and renewable energy source is what everybody sought for. Although nuclear power appears to be the next best thing, safety concern overshadows its benefits especially after 2 nuclear disasters that occurred within a 3 decades: Fukushima Daiichi 2011 and Chernobyl 1986. With its looming uncertainty, solar energy is our next best option.

Solar energy refers to the radiant light and heat from the sun. This energy can be harness by directing the sunlight to a surface, heating up surfaces or converting the energy to another form of energy such as chemical or electrical. The history of harvesting this energy dated as far back as 7th century B.C. but modern solar energy development begins when Edmond Becquerel discovered photovoltaic effect in 1839 (US Department of Energy, 2002).

Solar energy is the most viable source for energy production. Clean and readily available it can produce up to 3000MW of electricity at its peak in Singapore alone (SERIS, 2011). With up to 4000 hours of sunlight per year in place such as Sahara Desert, it is certainly the next frontier to solve the world’s energy crisis. Other than the fact that it is clean and has low to no release of greenhouse gases, solar energy is one of most promising source of renewable energy as it is constantly available and has the potential to be harnessed commercially. With readily available technology and ever decreasing price of solar panels, the potential of solar energy is limitless. It can be use either by energy producers, industrial building, government institutions and even private residents.

Although it is still being developed and not as efficient as other source of renewable energy such as wind, it is more economical to be use as a major energy source as sunlight is constant and can be predicted unlike wind and waves. With constant sunlight especially in desert area such as Sahara, solar farms, large scale solar energy collector, can produce enough energy to supply to neighboring countries surrounding it. Furthermore with development of Natural Gas-Solar Hybrid plants, electricity can be generated throughout the year even when there is insufficient sunlight.

PV technology, one of the technology of harnessing this energy, also is space saving as it does not require as much space as other renewable energy. With the possibility to install PV cells on top of every building in urban areas, the amount of energy that can actually be generated can actually lessen the dependency of buildings on external power grids. This independency coupled with initiatives such as NEM it is not only good for the environment it can even save money as the capital payback is very high.

The high scalar factor of PV cells also makes it possible to supply energy to the remotest area of the world. Currently energy production is only possible for countries that have the means and technology to generate it. As it is mostly generated from fossil fuels the possibility of supplying energy to rural areas is low as the cost to build power grids and the incurred lost of energy makes it not feasible to do so. But solar energy provides the possibility for villages to set up their own solar farms and generate their own energy. This opens up the possibility for these villages to improve their own standard of living.

Initiative to encourage the installation of solar panels is already in place. In California Net Energy Metering system or NEM allow solar panel users to get back the amount of energy they produced and pay only the net amount of energy consumed. This allows customers to actually zero-out their bills and in cases where they produce more energy than they consumed in 12-month period, they are entitled to receive payment for this energy under special utility tariff. This initiative certainly increases the interest of households to actually create their own solar farm. It is no wonder that California is US largest producer of solar energy.

Harnessing solar technology, while initially expensive, can definitely be a a long-term investment as prices for the manufacturing of solar panels and mirrors are expected to go down with the advancement of technology. Companies such as Google invested themselves into this industry solar panel technology makes it possible to progress faster. Additionally, due to its almost pollution-free nature and the ease in which it can be set up, solar power should be the way of the future in order to further sustain our planet for future generations. Instead of focusing on mass power production through harnessing nuclear energy or fossil fuels, we should look at the prospects of every household, every building and every available space in the world; the possibility of installing highly efficient solar panels capable not only to satisfy individual needs, but enough to supply the surplus to every industry out there is highly attainable.

Eyjafjallajokull Eruption 2010

Eyjafjallajokull - AYE-ya FYAH-dla JOW-KUDL

Spewing magma, ground shaking earthquake, thick viscous lava and night inducing ash clouds; these are the common phenomena we associate with volcano eruption. With dramatization from reenaction of major volcano eruptions such as Mount Vesuvius, Mount Laki and Mount Karakatoa it is hard to imagine a volcanic eruption to be anything but. But volcanic eruption can be disruptive even without those cataclysmic effects.



Eyjafjallajokull Eruption 2010

After close to 200 years of dormancy, in the early morning of 14th April 2010, Eyjafjallajokull (pronounce as A – yar – fi – at – lah – yok – ult’) a glacial volcano in Iceland erupted creating chaos all over the world. The devastating effect of the eruption was not in the form of hot flowing magma or earthquake but the fact that the ash plume travelled all the way across the Atlantic Ocean disrupting over 13 European countries as 27 major European airports were closed. It was estimated that close to 60% of all flights in Europe were grounded as the no-fly zone ban was enacted as a safety precaution.



Ash plume emanating from Eyjafjallajokull craters

By 20th of April 2010, it was estimated over 95,000 flights were cancelled and many more re-routed affecting not only airports in Europe but the whole world. Some of the hardest hit countries include Singapore, Hong Kong and Beijing despite being geographically distant from Europe. Countries such as Kenya were badly affected as their export industry was hit badly due to the ban. Some major production company such as Japanese car giant,Nissan, suspended several production lines due to the shortage of parts from Ireland.



Teams of researchers investigating the eruption in-situ

It is hard to imagine that all these devastating effects come from just a “small eruption”. Classified as having a Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) of 4, which is large but not as powerful in comparison to Mount St. Halen (1980) which was rated 5 on the VEI and Mount Pinatubo (1991) which was rated as 6, 2010 Eyjafjallajokull eruption wrought damage not through its devastating effect directly but through the fact that it halted the economic flow of the world.

Volcano in its fury can wreak damage that can be felt throughout the world. Several civilization has been wiped out and some like Hawaii and Iceland still live in fear for a cataclysmic eruptions to come.

Tsunami: The aftermath

The most difficult part in life is not the fall, but picking yourself up after that fall.

Tsunami: The Aftermath tells the story of the devastating 2004 Sumatra Tsunami from British point of view in Khao Lak Resort, Phuket, Thailand. Based on true accounts, it shows the aftermath from 3 perspectives: the victims, the government (British Representative) and the press. The movie cuts through the core of the problem when a nation is crippled by a tragic natural disaster. It shows how the people and the government try their best to find some sort of norm in a chaotic situation.

A lot of emotions were expressed in the movie from the anguish and confusing of losing love ones to the moral dilemma of doing the right thing versus self interest. The last point was shown several times in the movie such as the time when Ian Carter was torn between saving a fellow tourist and looking for his missing daughter and the time when Than, the Thailand waiter, attempt of looting to find some provision for his villagers. In such chaotic situation, our moral and ethical values are really put to the test.

What is right and wrong in such situation may not be so in peaceful times. Not many of us are capable of putting other’s interest before our own but in times of crisis we are more willing to help one another. In times of crisis, those who experienced the same thing feel a kind of bond with each other and such bond are what we sought for; a kind of balm to the soul. But not everyone feels the same.

The government aloofness in times of tragedy can sometimes creates confusion as not many understand their pragmatic takes on a situation. Such take on a situation, without proper information relay, may seem ridiculous and insensitive but the fact is otherwise. The level of understanding between those who were affected by the event and those who are not is at a different plane. Others may not understand the anguish of not being able to reconcile with their love ones but for those who experienced such tragedy the inability to find closure tear them asunder emotionally. But in times of crisis will there be time for proper dissemination of information?

What the movie is trying to show is how in times of crisis bond can be created and also broken. When one is emotionally torn apart, trust from other human being is really crucial. But such trust is hard to get when we are doing all we can to make an informed decision over an emotional one.

The Cove

The Cove
Adrenaline pumping and covet action sequences are not the usual things you expect from a documentary. Filmed in the dead of the night with high resolution night vision and heat vision cameras, The Cove, a documentary about the killing of dolphins in Taiji, Japan is certainly not a film for the faint hearted.

The documentary follows a group of activist called Oceanic Preservation Society, OPS together with Ric O’Barry attempt to shed light and save the dolphin slaughtered annually in the coves in Taiji. It shows attempts of cover up the horror in the cove by the Japanese government and the ways they are trying to maneuver around the restriction places by the IWC (international Whaling Commission).

It is difficult not to feel a tad of sympathy for the dolphins slaughtered in the coves but the documentary brought me thinking: If slaughtering of dolphin is bad, so does slaughtering of life stocks in the world! What is the difference between the slaughters?

In the documentary it was stressed by Ric O’Berry the pioneer in the field of dolphin training that these creatures are intelligent being with consciousness that match on that of our own. He mentioned that the dolphins are free bound creature meant to be in the wild with plenty of space for them to roam. Being the one who started the worldwide craze of dolphin and whale love with his series, Flipper, Ric feels that it is his responsibility to put a stop to this. Such hypocrisy!

In my opinion, just because a creature shows sign of intelligence doesn’t make them any different than any other creature. If you look at it this way, it is wrong to kill no matter what the reason is then it is wrong to kill. One does not simply say that because we kill livestock, chicken and cow, for provision it is ‘alright’ to slaughter them because the Japanese does it for the same reason; for food. It is important to understand that human are creature of habit and culture is a staple in our life. What the Japanese are doing is continuing that culture; the culture that was once steep with dolphins as part of their diet. It takes longer time for them to understand the reason why they have to stop and that time is what not conveyed in the film.

It is also wrong to think that dolphin hunting or killing is inhumane because of what is shown in the documentary. Compared to the way the world treat its livestock, killing dolphin and whale paled in comparison. What barbaric is not spearing the spine of a dolphin but ‘growing’ thousands of cow and chicken in tight, space constrain farms and mechanically slaughter them in cost efficient way. That in my opinion is barbaric. And this point is not conveyed in the film at all.

The documentary is a great eye opener despite everything. The ways the activists are trying to spread the message across with alternative media and guerilla methods really show how passionate they are about the subject matter. Their willingness to sacrifice their time and more importantly freedom selflessly for the benefit of another creature is really commendable. But it clearly fails to put the whole situation into a correct perspective. Biasness towards the subject, one that will affect the lives of many is unacceptable. Emotion only should not be the reason for one to set on a course that will change how others live their life. The consequences are too great and the effect would be devastating.

South Park: Whale Whore

Satire is one of a way tackle a difficult topic and such was used by the writers of South Park in their episode, Whale Whore. Set to cast light on whaling issue and the anti-whaling activists in the States, the episode made fun of the extremist on both side of the argument. While it shows how bad the whaling situation is, it also ridicule the activist’s ‘will do anything just as long as it serve the cause’ attitude.

The episode opens with the Japanese shouting incoherently, impaling dolphins and whales all over US water parks. The barbaric nature of the killing brought the little girl in Denver Aquarium into tears as the dolphins float belly-up in bloody water and caught the nation’s attention showing their futile effort to “keep the Japanese away”.

The whole situation was made to be funny by the over exaggeration and absurd ways the Japanese goes to kill the cataceans. It is really hard not to laugh when the show goes on to show the slaughtering of Miami Dolphin on the pitch just for their namesake! But the unnecessary amount of violence and gore clearly shows how horrible the whole whaling industry is.

But instead of going down the road making fun of the whole industry, the shows goes on the other way depicting the ways the American does to put a stop on the whole situation. A parody on the show Whale Wars the episode shows Paul Watson and his crew of badasses aboard the Sea Shepherd ridiculous methods to stop the Japanese. Depicted as an “incompetent media whore” who thought that it is alright to lie as long it served his cause, Paul is ridiculed for his ineffective and conniving methods to push up the rating of his show. The show questioned his motive as an activist by showing how Cartman and Kenny willing to join the cause because the show is “popular” even though they did not care initially.

The ending if anything is an injustice to the whole story. Made as a satirical twist on the whole situation the writer turned the table to the American showing how closed minded they are by changing the culprit on Enola Gay, the plane responsible for Hiroshima bombing, to chicken and cow instead of the “doctored” dolphin and whale. But the abrupt ending does not really show the whole whaling industry as it is instead it shows the American take on it, how it is not normal to kill the whales. This really put the situation into question when whaling is still prevalent in some parts of US especially Alaska!

As a running theme in South Park episodes, the writers take on a difficult topic and question it honestly and attack it on every possible side while making it interesting and relevant to mainstream society. The whole situation regarding whaling industry boils down to two simple things: the whalers and the activist.

The shows echoes Kyle’s view on the whaler; how it is impossible to change how a whole nation thinks and that it is how it is in the world. Whaling industry has been going on for centuries and it is difficult to a stop on something that has grown into a part of culture. Although the show ends with how the Japanese end up killing the chicken and cow the underlying reason for the killing is still there; as an act of revenge on Hiroshima bombing albeit with different culprits.

The show also questions the acts of the activist, showing how they are willing to do anything to put across their message to the world even to go as far as lying about the whole situation. It really shows how the producer and writer of such shows pull on the heart of the viewer just to serve their own purpose and when Stan took charge of the situation it is thought as wrong as he does it in an unconventional way; going through without the approval of the show.

On top of that they show also shows how the American who fights to save the dolphin and whale as hypocrite for eating cows and chicken. The idea of norm by the characters of South Park clearly shows how closed minded the American are to the way the whole world function because basically the whole situation is about killing for food no matter what creature it is.

Ultimately, despite the attempts on black humor and satirical take on the whole event, the episode managed to spark conversation and create awareness to those unfamiliar with the cause. Although the killing persist and the “war” still goes on, in a little over twenty minutes, South Park managed to if not instill a new rigor to understand the situation better it creates and awareness about the whaling industry at large. The hope is that not for the killing to stop entirely but for the world be a little aware and from that awareness understanding and knowledge on how to compromise on the whole situation.

Geography

When one thinks about geography the first thing that comes to mind is the ‘Earth’. Coined by Eratosthenes in his book Geography which literally means to describe or write about the Earth, Geography is an interdisciplinary study that covers spatial analysis of natural and human phenomena, area studies, man and land relationship and the study of Earth science. But why do we want to learn about Geography?



We often hear about climate decline, global warming and melting of the ice caps in the mass media. People from all walk of life walk down the street holding banners and shouting strong words about green peace, mass market producing products which are environmental friendly and governments talk about green gas emission and carbon tax in political debates but what do all these even mean? Is it true the world is ending perhaps as the Mayan predicted?

Without the proper knowledge and application of geography all these phenomena might just be another propaganda words fed by the media as a new fad to manipulate the society. But while we are all entranced by the media the world is crumbling right beneath our feet and geography might just show us why.

The study of geography let us know how the world functions and its relationship with us. It studies the causes and effect of natural and man-made disaster as well as the relationship between our action and the effect on the Earth. Have you ever wonder how the Earth, one that was so pristine and magnificent turns into such an ugly and violent place to be in less than half a millennia?

Although that knowledge let us appreciate the Earth as a beautiful and sustainable world, it is also an ugly and destructive tool. It makes us understand more about how to manipulate and utilized the world to our gain. These actions were what led to the destruction and the decline of the environment.



Not all is bleak though, recent studies show that Mother Nature has its own way of healing herself and that is through natural disasters.
Naturally, natural disaster was never thought as a way the Earth healing itself but research shows disaster such as volcanic eruptions has its own benefits. The magma flowing out of the volcanoes makes the land around it much more fertile and they also can create new land or islands!

But Geography is not all about disaster and ways to prevent them. Geography is about the Earth, a beautiful and mysterious world that God has created for us. One that is filled to wonders just waiting to be discovered.