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Reports & Presentations

(revised)

Mar 27 - Climate Change – can it be solved ? 10%

Apr 10 - How can we solve the energy problems? 10%

Apr 17 , 24 - Group Presentations 20%

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The Greenest Country

Switzerland is the world’s
most environ- mentally
sound country, according to
Yale University’s Environmental
Performance Index.

The study found that although

wealthy countries tend to be
greener, good governance
counts, too.

Green policies, for instance, pushed relatively poor Colombia

ahead of France on the list of 149 countries.

The United States ( no surprise here ) scored poorly.

Source: Newsweek, Feb 4, 2008

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Thailand’s Natural Habitat

French naturalist and explorer Henri Mouhot wrote in his diary:
“The forest abound with vegetables and exquisite fruits. The
rivers, the lakes, the ponds teem with fish. A few bamboos
suffice to construct a house, while the periodic inundations
render the lands wonderfully fertile. Man has but to sow and to
plant.”

Mouhot concluded that the Siamese were a lucky race “spoiled

by the bountiful nature.”

The scenes Mouhot witnessed had not altered a great deal by

the turn of the last century.

There is evidence that as recently as 100 years ago, a herd of

wild elephants wandered the Bang Kapi area. Tigers roamed
Rayong and Chanthaburi while the great teak forests of the north
had lost little.
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A few more decades to 1938, the eve of World War II, there were
wild elephants, sambar, banteng and tigers roaming undisturbed
in Khorat Plateau forest.
Hundreds of birds chirped and sang in the
jungle.
Today, as Thailand approaches the 21st
century, much of this paradise has been
lost, the bounty Mouhot described has
fallen victim to population growth and
economic progress, new technologies and
old, destructive practices, legitimate human
needs and pure greens.

Bang Kapi, with its shopping malls and

traffic jams, could hardly support
elephants.
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The onetime tiger haunts of the southeast are being turned into
rubber plantations, golf courses and industrial estates.

The forests around Pak Chong,

as well many as in the north, have
been felled.

On the eve of World War II, there

were some 15 millions Thais and
about 70 percent of the country was
under forest cover.

But the destruc- tion accelerated

rapidly as polulation expanded
and land was cleared for
agriculture.

Farmland increased five times over the past four decades, and the
forests have shrunk correspondingly.
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Todays, official estimates of forested land range between

25 and 28 percent. But most environmental organizations
believe less than 20 percent of Thailand remains under a
viable green canopy.
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Destroying Nature

In our grandfathers’ time, there seemed to be unlimited water,

soil and grassland, and it was naturally assumed that such
bounty was free.

Nature was grand enough to absorb pollution, forests seemed to

have little use other than to provide us with wood for building
houses and burning.

Now we realize that forests absorb the carbon dioxide we

breathe out and replace it with oxygen. If there was not enough
plants to do this, the Earth’s atmosphere would become toxic.

We take it for granted, and we are close to exceeding the

capacity of nature to recycle all the carbon dioxide we produce.
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Seven percent of the people use 80% of the available

energy.

If everybody used as much energy as the 7%, all

resources will be totally depleted.

It was found that a typical American consumes energy,

water and other natural resources equivalent to the
consumption of 140 people in Afghanistan or Ethiopia.
The average British uses 11 acres, while the average
person in China uses 4 acres.

However, there are 5.3 acres of land, for every person in

the world. The American uses 24 acres in the year 2000.
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Water Resources
Each day we drink about 4 to 5 quarts of water in tea, juice, beer and
other beverages.

The food that we consume each day requires more than 2,000 quarts
of water. If there are water shortages, that means food shortages.

90% of all the water we use to produce food in the world come from
2 sources:
 rainwater
 natural underground water called aquifers

In many part of the world, aquifers are being run dry. The annual
depletion of aquifers worldwide amounts to at least 160 billion tons of
water per year.

Because it takes about a thousand tons of water to produce 1 ton of

grain, the water taken each year and not replaced could produce 160
million tons of grain-enough to feed about half a billion people .
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Wars for Water?

For years, experts have predicted that conflicts will

increase over water.

As populations grow and development spreads, battles

will erupt between water-rich and water-poor nations,
particularly in major river basins where the upstream
nations control the flow of water to those downstream.
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THE WINNERS IN A WARMING WORLD
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Global warming will make those battles worse by decreasing

rainfall and increasing evaporation in critical areas.

The Nile river shared by Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya and

Uganda. Egypt has repeated threatened military action if
Kenya, Uganda or Ethiopia diverted
the Nile.

Iraq mobilized its troops against Syria

in 1975 when amascus cut off the tap.

However, many areas of the world are

in for more, not less, precipitation in
the years ahead. The Zambezi River
in Mozambique has already flooded
its banks twice in the past decade.
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Canada, Scandinavia and Siberia also expect more rain.

Increase rainfall could diminish tensions between certain

states.

For the Makong, China controls the

river’s headwaters, and has worried
the downstream states of Cambodia,
Laos, Thailand, Burma and Vietnam
by planning eight giant dams on the
upper river, of which two are
completed and two are under
construction.

Once finished, these dams will

provide hydropower and irrigation for
Yunnan, one of China’s poorest
regions.
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But they will also alter the Mekong, is flow into the lower-basin
states, interrupting the feeding and breeding patterns of valuable
fish and depriving vital irrigation water to as many as 60 million
people.

Aaron Wolf of Oregon State University pointed out that Cambodia,

Laos, Thailand and Vietnam are taking smart measures to protect
themselves, by establishing the Mekong River Commission (MRC),
which set common goals for development of the river and studies
the potential impact of proposed waterworks, hoping to prevent
harming downstream habitats.

Environmentalists warn, that such measures will not overcome the

impact of climate change.

These large scale projects must incorporate small, localized

adaptation efforts such as rainfall harvesting (collecting rainwater
in rooftop reservoirs for household use).
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Experts take aim at “ paddy gas ” rising in

the Asian skies
A possible solution to reduce greenhouse gases lies in the
rice fields in Asia and Thailand.

Methane emissions from flooded rice paddies contribute

to global warming as coal-fired power plants, car exhausts
and other sources do with
CO2.

The report from the Intergo-

vernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) meeting in
Bangkok concluded that rice
production was the main
cause of rising methane
emissions.
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It’s the bacteria that thrive in flooded paddies that produce

methane, by decomposing manure used as fertilizer and
other organic matter in the oxygen-free environment. The
gas is emitted through the plants or directly into the
atmosphere.

The molecule of methane is 21 times more potent than

CO2, as a heat trapping gas.

Although CO2 is the bigger problem, representing 70% of

the warming potential in the atmosphere, rising methane
now account for 23%, reports the USEPA.
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Methane also emitted naturally from wetlands , and other

man-made sources, such as land fills and cattle farming
Thailand, the world’s largest rice exporter, shows both the
promise and limitations of trying to make the industry
greener.

Most large mills burn leftover rice husks for power – a more
climate friendly source than coal or oil – and are increasingly
selling excess power back to the state.

The government has told the farmers to periodically drain

their fields to reduce
methane emissions,
but most of them do
not want to pay the
cost of draining their
fields.
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Living with Climate Change

Global warming is now a reality.

IPCC (Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change) predicts

temperatures will rise 4 degree Celsius or more by the end
of the century.

Prompt action to limit CO2 emission is needed.

It is just clear that, whatever we do, temperatures will
continue to climb which will tilt the world’s economic and
political balance.

There will be winners and losers.

Fairly or not, the tilt is destined to favor the countries of the
rich North, to the detriment of the poorer South.
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Within a few decades, Greenland may again deserve its name.

Russia tundra may turn to fertile prairie.

Along the equator, heat and drought may devastaste agriculture.
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The rain forest of

the Amazon could
be savanna by
2100.

The vast Sahara will

grow ever larger.

But America and

other rich nations
will be left relatively unscathed, because they are removed
from equatorial regions that will be harder hit, and wealthy
enough to adapt.
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For developing countries, which lack resources to make the

adjustment, will be hardly hit.

In some regions, only a modest

rise in temperatures will cause
farm output to plummet.

The melting of the Himalayan

glaciers will lead first to more
flooding in the plains of India
and Bangladesh, then to water
shortages.

Experts fret about the monsoon,

potentially driving hundreds of
millions into starvation.
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Rising sea levels will

compound the problem.

Indonesia has warned that

2,000 of the 18,000 islands
could be submerged.

Demographers talk of
mass migrations as the
poorest flee drought and
poverty, yet in rich but
aging nations facing labor
shortages (Italy, Japan).
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แนวเขื่อนไม้ไผ่ดักคลื่นที่ชาวบ้านช่วยกันสร้างขึ้นมา ไม่ต้องใช้งบ กทม.

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Smart businesses are already moving to adapt to the

new world.

Monsanto, the US seed giant, hopes to offer a

drought-resistant strain of cotton by 2015.

General Electric is betting its future on energy-efficient

appliances.

Nuclear power is making a world-wide comeback, in

part because it emits no CO2.
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Recent study by Center for

THE BEST & WORST
The best and worst scorers on
the vulnerability index:
International Earth Science Information
Network (CIESIN) ranked nations by
how prepared they are to adapt to
climate change.

1. Norway 1. Sierra Leone It was found that the biggest carbon

2. Finland 2. Bangladesh emitters stand to gain the most, or lose
3. Sweden 3. Somalia the least, in a warming future.
4. Switzerland 4. Mozambique
5. Canada 5. Ethiopia
However, both the rich and poor are
Source: Columbia University going to have to invest billions to adapt-
for instance, they’ll have to redesign
Go online to get the full list of 100
seaside urban areas as sea levels rise –
countries at extra.Newsweek.com
but the costs obviously hit the least
wealthy hardest.
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The countries at the top of the list-the one least vulnerable

to climate change-are rich economies of the north.

The Baltic countries of Sweden, Finland and Norway hold

the top three spots
• Canada comes in the fifth place, and the United States at
the ninth
• China is 52nd and India 74th
• Japan is no. 6, already has a sophisticated warning
system that Issues alerts for storms and dangerous tides.
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The Netherlands (14) has spent centuries adapting to low-

lying terrain, and they are looking at how rising sea levels
will affect existing dikes and barriers.

Conversely, in Israel (25) the problem has always been too

little water and its problem is likely worsen.

The Israel cabinet is studying the issue, and plans to have

a comprehensive water security strategy within 4 years.
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Many of the most vulnerable nations are singled out in

IPCC reports for various risks.

Part of the Bangladesh can expect more-frequent flash

floods, meanwhile, a rise in water-surface temperatures will
make cholera epidemics more likely in East African nations,
like Mozambique and Somalia.

More-advanced nations might be able to drain standing

water and clear other disease vectors, or construct flash-
flood warnings, but the low-development levels of countries
like these mean fewer resources are available for battling
potential threats.