"An Inconvenient Truth" has told us how serious global warming can turn out to be, and this concept has been further reinforced by attending the presentations on global warming by Professor Andrew Palmer, Benjamin K. Sovacoo and Rajasekhar Bala.
Professor Andrew Palmer is from Centre for offshore research & Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering, NUS). He touched on topic on Carbon dioxide capture & storage: technology & politics.
Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring balanced in the air we breathe. It used to occupy a small amount of air. However, as the world keeps progressing and countries keep developing, more and more carbon dioxide has been released in the air. Gradually it traps heat in the atmosphere and heats up the temperature around us. As the temperature increases, global warming is likely to happen. The climate change will cause flood and drought which lead animals and mankind to extinction.
The actions people should take in order to prevent such things from happening are: fuel efficiency & conservation; fuel switch to gas; solar displaces coal and carbon dioxide capture & storage. Among all those actions, carbon dioxide capture & storage is the most interesting one. It is done by diffusing the gas into the ocean or storing them in large sausage-shaped membranes. It seems very hard to achieve but at least people are putting their best effort to solve the problems.
The second presenter, Associate Professor Benjamin K.Sovecool talked about using STS to address energy (and technological) problems. He showed us the revolutions of various technological inventions and how those things have affected our life. He listed out technical challenges; economic challenges, political challenges and social/culture challenges faced by people and proved to us that STS methods are very useful in evaluating latest technologies.
For the final part of the presentation, Mr. Rajasekhar Bala gave us an excellent speech on climate change: assessment & mitigation. He basically showed to us the effect and consequences of greenhouse gases with detailed data and models.
According to Mr. Bala, greenhouse effect will lead to global warming and the evidence to support that is the 2007 IPCC report and fast-rising average global surface temperature. Some potential consequences were also pointed out such as droughts, floods and tipping point.
All of those consequences can be avoided if necessary actions are taken such as we can rely on more renewable energy resources and government should tax greenhouse gases emission and subsidize energy efficiency and renewable energy use.
Global warming is a global issue. So everyone has to play a part in fighting it to protect our beautiful earth from all kinds of disasters.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Global Warming
Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. Increasing global temperature will probably cause sea level to rise which change the amount and pattern of precipitation, likely including an expanse of the subtropical desert regions. The effect of global warming will lead to species extinctions if we do not do anything about it.
There is a movie named "An Inconvenient Truth" which talks about Mr. Gore's personal history and lifelong commitment to reversing the effects of global climate change. He presents a wide array of facts and information in a thoughtful way to urge everyone to act boldly and quickly to fight global climate crisis. Although Mr. Gore did not tell people what and how to do in order to react to global climate change, all the facts that he provided are more than enough for audience to draw their own conclusions.
As a matter of fact, with effect from 1 January 2009, more areas in Singapore are prohibited from smoking due to the “Smoking Ban Extension” campaign introduced by National Environment Agency. Those areas include any amusement centres, any foodshop, any air-conditioned hall or function room, any lift and any cinema. There are still other places where smoking is disallowed. This is a good way of preventing global warming. By doing that, Singapore has shown to other counties its firm determination to fight climate change and protect our earth. According to a statistic from United Nations in 2008, Singapore's climate-change index has improved from 49th to 38th out of 57 economies in a climate change performance index. The improvement is probably due to the new climate change strategy unveiled last February which includes a $170 million injection to facilitate research clean energy sources such as solar power and campaigns in the media to promote energy efficiency and reduce power usage.
However, Singapore alone cannot save earth from global warming; every country in the world should play a part in fighting climate change.
Recent study shows that China has facing global warming disasters more and more often. Its largest freshwater lake, Poyang Lake has shrunk to 50 square kilometers from its peak. The fluctuation in the lake's area from the summer flood season to the winter dry period has long been commonplace. The official was told that the winter drought is likely to continue for the next 10 years. So the Chinese government should start thinking how to resolve the problem so that the China will not have exploited all its available water supplies to the limit.
Fighting global warming is not one man's job, every one of us have to play our part to save ourselves as well as our next generation.
There is a movie named "An Inconvenient Truth" which talks about Mr. Gore's personal history and lifelong commitment to reversing the effects of global climate change. He presents a wide array of facts and information in a thoughtful way to urge everyone to act boldly and quickly to fight global climate crisis. Although Mr. Gore did not tell people what and how to do in order to react to global climate change, all the facts that he provided are more than enough for audience to draw their own conclusions.
As a matter of fact, with effect from 1 January 2009, more areas in Singapore are prohibited from smoking due to the “Smoking Ban Extension” campaign introduced by National Environment Agency. Those areas include any amusement centres, any foodshop, any air-conditioned hall or function room, any lift and any cinema. There are still other places where smoking is disallowed. This is a good way of preventing global warming. By doing that, Singapore has shown to other counties its firm determination to fight climate change and protect our earth. According to a statistic from United Nations in 2008, Singapore's climate-change index has improved from 49th to 38th out of 57 economies in a climate change performance index. The improvement is probably due to the new climate change strategy unveiled last February which includes a $170 million injection to facilitate research clean energy sources such as solar power and campaigns in the media to promote energy efficiency and reduce power usage.
However, Singapore alone cannot save earth from global warming; every country in the world should play a part in fighting climate change.
Recent study shows that China has facing global warming disasters more and more often. Its largest freshwater lake, Poyang Lake has shrunk to 50 square kilometers from its peak. The fluctuation in the lake's area from the summer flood season to the winter dry period has long been commonplace. The official was told that the winter drought is likely to continue for the next 10 years. So the Chinese government should start thinking how to resolve the problem so that the China will not have exploited all its available water supplies to the limit.
Fighting global warming is not one man's job, every one of us have to play our part to save ourselves as well as our next generation.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
The Modern Engineers
In many people's opinions, engineers are those who build skyscrapers, make electronic goods and manufacture chemicals. However, they are only partially right about engineers. Nowadays, engineers are more than what people think they are. Due to the fact that the conventional scope of engineering has changed tremendously along the time, tons of new engineers have emerged from many other disciplines such as medicine, biology, arts and even politics. As more and more sectors are related to engineering, engineering education has also transformed to become more flexible and diversified to suit the high-demanding needs for engineers.
Since engineering is considered as a branch of mathematics and science. Majority of modern engineers have undergone curriculums that train their minds to analyze complex sets of information systematically and apply logical thinking in problem solving and designing solutions. Whatever they do, they tend to follow a string of procedures or protocols. At first, Engineers will create an appropriate mathematical model of a problem which allows them to analyze it and come out with potential solutions. Most of the time there will be multiple reasonable solutions exist, so engineers will evaluate the different design choices and choose the best that meets their requirements. After that, engineers will attempt to predict how well their designs can perform before turn their designs into full-scale production. Professional engineers take seriously responsibility to ensure the end-products will perform as expected and will not cause any unintended harms to the public at large. However, a technically successful product is not good enough for engineers as it must be further improved to meet future requirements. The crucial part of the task for engineers is to identify, understand and interpret the constraints on a design or solution. By understanding the constraints of the current products, engineers will keep on learning and modifying their products to make them better.
Under such a systematic structure of learning and working environment, engineers have been trained to become more systematic in doing things and are bound to be involved in more challenges ahead.
Since engineering is considered as a branch of mathematics and science. Majority of modern engineers have undergone curriculums that train their minds to analyze complex sets of information systematically and apply logical thinking in problem solving and designing solutions. Whatever they do, they tend to follow a string of procedures or protocols. At first, Engineers will create an appropriate mathematical model of a problem which allows them to analyze it and come out with potential solutions. Most of the time there will be multiple reasonable solutions exist, so engineers will evaluate the different design choices and choose the best that meets their requirements. After that, engineers will attempt to predict how well their designs can perform before turn their designs into full-scale production. Professional engineers take seriously responsibility to ensure the end-products will perform as expected and will not cause any unintended harms to the public at large. However, a technically successful product is not good enough for engineers as it must be further improved to meet future requirements. The crucial part of the task for engineers is to identify, understand and interpret the constraints on a design or solution. By understanding the constraints of the current products, engineers will keep on learning and modifying their products to make them better.
Under such a systematic structure of learning and working environment, engineers have been trained to become more systematic in doing things and are bound to be involved in more challenges ahead.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)