Climate
change serious: panel
TIME TO ACT: From fewer hours of sunlight to less light rain and more
frequent sand storms, global warming is not to be taken lightly, forum
participants said yesterday
By Meggie Lu
STAFF REPORTER
Wednesday, May 14, 2008, Page 2
"Since the industrial revolution, Taiwan's temperature has increased 1.4oC,
while the global average was 0.6oC."－Liu Shaw-chen, director of the
Research Center for Environmental Change at Academia Sinica
Michael Nobel, the great-grandnephew of Nobel Prize founder Alfred Nobel, joined
a group of local governmental officials and business leaders yesterday in Taipei
to call on the public to take the battle against climate change seriously, a
subject they said could affect the survival of humanity.
Nobel was the key guest speaker at the Energy Efficiency and Green Environment
Forum, an event cosponsored by the Taiwan Architecture and Building Center and
the Taiwan Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-conditioning Engineers (TSHRAE).
"Such of the comfort of modern society depends on freely available electricity
at reasonable prices. However, non-renewable energy, like the name suggests,
will run out," Nobel said.
Not only is the world facing an energy shortage crisis, but energy consumption
at present levels creates heavy pollution, which is causes global warming and
threatens the survival of all species on the planet, he said.
"If the world's carbon emission does not decrease by 50 [percent] to 85 percent
by mid-century, the ecosystem that we have now could collapse," Nobel said,
citing last year's Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
report on climate change.
Taiwan should make greenhouse gas reduction the highest priority in its energy
policy and act on global warming immediately, as the nation's rate of
temperature rise was steeper than the rest of the world, said Liu Shaw-chen,
director of the Research Center for Environmental Change at Academia Sinica.
"Since the industrial revolution, Taiwan's temperature has increased 1.4oC,
while the global average was 0.6oC," he said.
The impact of this rise for Taiwan has been serious, including shorter periods
of sunshine－300 hours less each year compared with three decades ago－50 percent
less relative humidity and 30 percent to 50 percent less light rain in the past
30 years, he said.
"Light rain is essential for the environment," Liu said.
The increase in the frequency of sandstorms in China in recent years is a
possible result of that decrease in light rain, he said, because "while heavy
rain usually goes directly into rivers, light rain is absorbed by the soil and
keeps it moist."
During the forum, dozens of governmental officials and business leaders made
vows to do more to conserve energy and preserve the environment.
"A 'no-waste awareness' should be instilled in the public ... technological
advances can also be used to develop more energy-efficient equipment," National
Taipei University of Technology department of energy and refrigeration professor
Chuah Yew-khoy said.
The legislature will formulate new environmental laws and policies, including
tree-planting projects and carbon emission reduction goals, Deputy Legislative
Speaker Tseng Yuan-chuan told the audience.
"Ultimately, carbon emission reduction requires collaboration between
governments, industry leaders, academics and the public," TSHRAE chair Tony Soo
said.
"If you don't change the way you think and behave, the result will be the same
... By doing small things like reusing your towels at a hotel, or setting your
air-conditioner at a reasonable temperature, your efforts add up quickly," he
said.
Olympic
torch continues journey of obliviousness
FUJIAN LEG: Officials said
the route could not change without the IOC's permission, despite online
protests. The torch passes through the disaster zone next month
AFP, BEIJING
Wednesday, May 14, 2008, Page 4
The Olympic torch relay continued its "journey of harmony" around China
yesterday despite the Sichuan earthquake, triggering an Internet outcry.
China's official Xinhua news agency announced that the torch had embarked on its
12th domestic leg in Fujian Province just one day after the quake devastated
vast areas of southwest China.
The leg kicked off at 8:12am in Longyan, a town in the western part of the
province, with China's Olympic weightlifting medalist Zhang Xiangxiang running
the first stage, Xinhua reported.
On its Web site, the Beijing Olympics organizing committee showed a picture of a
beaming Zhang holding the torch aloft.
Li Zhanjun, a spokesman for the organizing committee, said the organizers were
"very sad" for the victims, but the quake would not affect the preparation of
the Games or the torch relay.
"The earthquake-stricken area is not on the route of the torch relay, so the
relay will go on as scheduled," he told Xinhua.
Li said the "route and schedule were a joint decision by the International
Olympic Committee and [the Beijing organizers]. We have no right to change it
alone."
Today the relay － whose motto is "ourney of Harmony"－ is scheduled to head to
Jiangxi Province as it continues its three-month journey through China,
culminating in Beijing with the lighting of the Olympic cauldron on Aug. 8 to
begin the Games.
Hao Hailei, spokesman for the provincial torch relay organizing committee in
Jiangxi, insisted that the relay would go ahead as planned, according to the
state-run China News Service.
The decision to carry on despite a major natural disaster triggered an outcry on
the Internet, with Chinese netizens slamming organizers.
Posting the committee's main telephone number on Sina.com, a popular web portal,
one resident of Hubei Province said: "All Chinese should ring them up and
condemn them for being so inhuman."
A Fujian resident said the relay should be canceled and the money saved should
be sent to help quake victims.
"I think this whole wasteful relay should be scrapped － let's show a little
humanity," the post said.
The relay is due to pass through disaster-hit Sichuan Province next month, with
a leg planned for the provincial capital Chengdu on June 18, four days after
Chongqing, which is also reeling from the quake.
Efforts to contact relay organizers in the quake-hit province were unsuccessful.
The relay has been dogged by protests since the flame was ignited in Olympia,
Greece, on March 24, with international legs witnessing protests over China's
rule of Tibet, its human rights record and support of Sudan's pariah government.
When the relay ends, the torch will have traveled 137,000km around the globe
over 130 days, the longest Olympic torch relay in history.