Post COP15.. Leading close to 2012

We are into 2010, and for some who have been actively monitoring the progress leading to post Kyoto Protocol forecast, this means that the world has only TWO years left until the mentioned nations in the treaty to achieving the 2012 carbon emission target. To read and view the context of the Kyoto Protocol, just click to the following link: http://unfccc.int/essential_background/kyoto_protocol/items/1678.php. One of the ways to monitor the progress of climate change efforts, is to hold annual meetings called "Conference of Parties (COP)", which is also the time when government agencies and NGOs discussed, with activism occurring outside the venue compound.

About a month ago, nations throughout the earth took part in the Conference of Parties 15 (COP 15) meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark which saw world leaders attending the meeting, including President Barack Obama. It was also due to his presence that many world leaders decided to show up for the meeting.

So exactly what came out of the COP 15? Simple, the answers are: i) Copenhagen Accord; and ii) more disappointments. First, let's have a look as to what have been hoped for during the time of the meeting with this video from Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's Governor (synonymously known as the Governator), who describes what everyone can do in combating climate change.

Such an inspiring speech, makes one feel hopeful and be passionate that the COP 15 will yield great success. Well, unlike all fairy tales, the speech isn't so realistic to reach the minds of the world leaders. This next video is from the Stupid Show, which shows the progess of events that occurred during the COP 15, and also from the same crew who gave you the film, "The Age of Stupid".

Knowing the truth, it's quite evident to see how such agreement (relating to the Copenhagen Accord) can be established without the full consensus (consensus means agreement in the judgment or opinion reached by a group as a whole) of every nations. Sadly, this is the reality of life that is felt despite the false hopes that are at times promised to the concerned individuals.

[It's Getting Hot In Here] Newsroom

Hi ya folks! How's the exam preparation going? I know the UMT's DEMI English Debate blog has been inactive for a very long time. So to keep up to date, I have attached the latest message posting by Khairun Nisa, a debate alumni of UiTM Shah Alam, who is very much active on debating and fighting on climate change issues. So again, to those who have not sign up for malaysian_debaters Yahoo! group, please do so now by clicking onto the box below.

Click to join malaysian_debaters

From: Khairun Nisa
To: MyCJN09 ; COP15 Malaysia ; BYEE Alumni ; UiTM training Yahoogroups ; uitmdebaters@yahoogroups.com; malaysian_debaters@yahoogroups.com; australs@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 15:39:10
Subject: [malaysian_debaters] Channel your debating talents into changing the world!

Climate change and debating. My favourite passions!

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Shadia Fayne Wood <shadia.fayne@gmail.com>
To: unfccc_youth <unfccc_youth@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, 21 October, 2009 12:28:34
Subject: [UNFCCC youth] Fwd: [It's Getting Hot In Here] Newsroom

Hey All,

I received this email through the itsgettinghotinhere.org newsroom. I wanted to pass the opportunity along to those that it spoke to.

shadia

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Crane <dc@debatewise.com>
Date: 2009/10/14
Subject: [It's Getting Hot In Here] Newsroom
To: shadia.fayne@ gmail.com

Name: David Crane
Email: dc@debatewise.com
Website: http://www.debatewise.com

Dear sir or madam,

I am the founder and chief executive of Debatewise.com, a leading debating web site. I'm also on the board of the International Debate Education Association, one of the largest youth debating organisations in the world. I'm emailing to propose a way of engaging young people in a global debate on issues around the Copenhagen summit.

The idea arose from the World Online Debating Championship, an event which has just ended and was the first of its kind. We had entrants from 25 countries and five different continents and they told us they loved debating with young people from other cultures in a way that didn’t involve great travel expense or environmental cost.

We propose using our software, our experience and the extensive contacts we have in the global debating community, to get young people involved in a global debate around the specific issues arising from the summit.

We propose two specific elements to our event:
During the summit: We form a panel of 1,000 young people from various different countries around the world. Some members debate the issues or conclusions from the summit as they arise, others vote on these debates. This forms an up-to-the minute indication of what young people around the world think of what delegates are doing.

After the summit: Young people debate the impact of the agreements and commitments made during the summit on their own country. They discuss whether they will work, the consequences that may result and what else they would like to see happen. In this way, we take what happens during the summit into the lives of people and make it real for them. We get the opportunity to counter misconceptions and motivate people to continue the work started in Copenhagen.

We would be very grateful for any help you could give us recruiting people for our panel. We are looking for English speakers (not native, but they will need a high level of understanding of written English and the ability to write well in English). They should be under 25, be divided equally between men and women, live in all continents of the world and represent all major religions.

If this is of interest, we’d send you a short email which you could distribute to people as you see fit.

In return, we’d be happy to ask members of the panel to debate issues important to your campaign and to use them as a mechanism for discovering global youth opinion on environmental issues.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Regards,

David Crane

About us
Debatewise
Debatewise (www.debatewise. com) is a not for profit online debating site which aims to become the Wikipedia of debate. Anyone can start a debate on any subject they like and anyone can edit and strengthen that debate. This ensures that over time the strongest and most definitive arguments emerge and so provide a highly valuable resource for anyone looking to make up their mind. Debatewise was founded in 2008 and is based in the London internet hub of Hoxton, East London. Patrons include Michael Crick, Gabby Logan and Chris Heaton Harris

The International Debate Education Association:
The International Debate Education Association (www.idebate. org) was created in 1999 and acts as an independent membership organization of national debate clubs, associations, programs, and individuals who share a common purpose: to promote mutual understanding and democracy globally by supporting discussion and active citizenship locally.”

About the debaters
Our panel of debaters will include current and ex World Champions, chief adjudicators of world events and debaters from debating clubs and universities in all four corners of the globe. For more information about the World Online Debating Championship please see here: www.debatewise. com/wodc and here: www.debatewise. com/wodc- debates

--
www.debatewise. com
020 3393 7223 | 07956 292 567
www.twitter. com/debatewise

Time: Wednesday October 14, 2009 at 6:51 am
IP Address: 217.151.108. 18

Sent by an unverified visitor to your site.

--
Shadia Fayne Wood
Project Survival Media Coordinator
Organizer Visionary Photo Journalista
Berkeley, CA
Skype- ShadiaFayne
315-868-4946

http://www.projectsurvivalmedia.org/
itsgettinghotinhere .org
ejcc.org

"A noontide have you been in our twilight, and your youth has given us dreams to dream."
The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran

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Kelab DEMI's Earth Hour Poster

Earth Hour Malaysia

This coming Saturday, 28th of March will be a symbolic event for Malaysia as citizens unite to show their stance on climate change. Known as Earth Hour, this year will mark Malaysia's first time participating (however, I'm sure there were a few who did took part since 2007). Earth Hour is an event that was first brought up in Sydney, Australia back in 2007 that was organized by WWF Australia and the Sydney Morning Herald. This led to the participation of 2.2 million residents and business to raise the awareness on the urgency of actions on the issue of climate change. By 2008, the Earth Hour event became an international event with the involvement of other countries like United States, United Kingdom, Italy, Thailand and the Philippines. In 2009, this event is now known as a global election event where all one person need to do is switch off their light for one hour from 8:30PM to 9:30PM.

However, there are the skeptics who have criticized on the Earth Hour. It all breaks down to the question of effectiveness, is Earth Hour a benefiting event that can achieve change in attitude and habit toward climate change? Going back, all a person just need to do is to switch off the light to show that the person is aware about climate change; this doesn't mean that she/he would take measures to reduce their dependency on resources (i.e. use less electricity, less water, go carpooling, open windows instead of switching the fan or air-condition on, etc). Some have gone to the extent of labeling Earth Hour as a slacktivism, a movement that utilize minimum efforts to show support for an issue and resulting in minimal impact or result (e.g. signing in a pledge form, wearing an accessories or clothing to state the support of the issue). Another argument is the fact how much of the energy is being conserved from the event. Critics argued that at the time of Earth Hour, the power conserved does not make any influence on the release of carbons into the atmostphere.

Criticisms aside, WWF have replied stating that the objective of having Earth Hour is to create awareness and to create a stand on climate change. Realistically, you don't expect a person to automatically be conservative toward their use of resources in an instant. Like anything, it takes time, and with proper methods, this can be achieved. For more info, head to Earth Hour Malaysia, and enjoy the video clip below.

Greetings! Would you like your CDs to be made from carbon dioxide?

First of all, I would like to thank to Kama and Uzair for their initiatives to start this blog for English debaters. I do hope that the current members of DEMI and future members will always remember and retain the bond between Bahasa Malaysia debaters and English debaters. Compared to other universities, our relationship is very uncommon as many tend to differentiate from each other. However in UMT, we are all debaters and regardless of our course, faculties, year, or even our backgrounds, UMT DEMI debaters will always and forever be bond together as a family. On the other note, I also would like to wish all the best of luck to everyone with their exams and to some, with their industrial training. The following is from my new post that I just composed today from my blog, http://whatjimzthink.blogspot.com/. Enjoy! (",)

Ever wondered exactly what does mineral water bottle or DVD are made of? Answer: polycarbonate plastics. On to the next question, is it possible to extract the carbon dioxide from smokestack (as in those big smokes coming out of those huge chimneys)? And use that carbon dioxide as a raw material for polycarbonate plastics? If ya answered NO, then that information was so yesterday (well actually off by a week).

How I came to stumble with this information? Well it all started when I wanted to check my email last night, and I recieved a message from the Marine Biology International yahoo group. The message provided a link on a news article about US government spying on environmental groups. I found the article quite interesting and I pondered to the thought of the harsh espionage treatment an environmental conservationist would get. Afterwards, I decided to check out the news site, Mother Jones, and they have such interesting articles on current issues ranging from politics to blogs. Then I decided to look up into the Environmental & Health section, which led me to the article that really got my jaw dropped. The title reads out, "Lock Up CO2 In DVDs."

According to the article, during the 235th American Chemical Society National Meeting held in New Orleans last week, Prof. Thomas E. Müller and Dr. Toshiyasu Sakakura conduct a press conference that discussed about their research, "DVDs and CD-Roms that Thwart Global Warming," on how carbon dioxide can be use as raw materials for the polycarbonates plastics. According to Prof. Thomas Müller, he mentioned how carbon dioxide is so abundant as a raw material and that this method can help to reduce the carbon dioxide emission. Although this may sound good news, I would have to agree with Julia Whitty, Mother Jones's environmental correspondent, as she quote:

"Good idea: make polycarbonates from waste CO2.
Better idea: make less pollution and less polycarbonate plastics."

So exactly how would the carbon dioxide be collected? Well I went for further reading and I stumble upon this article from MSNBC, "Remove CO2 from air? Experts working on it - One approach uses lye to absorb greenhouse gas." The article mentions of two mechanisms: i) to suck out the air and have the carbon dioxide react with lye to turn into limestone and then sublimed (making solid turn into gas) back into gas; ii) to use solar heat to extract the carbon dioxide; and iii) similar method in number two but to use electrochemistry instead. Frank Zeman from Columbia University described the use of his device to direct the air through a chamber and is react with lye (sodium hydroxide) which will absorb the carbon dioxide into liquid form. Afterwards, the liquified carbon dioxide is mixed with lime to produce limestone, which is later baked in a kiln (which is like an oven) to release and then store the carbon dioxide. These methods are still in the experimental phase, but are still hopeful to yield much benefits in the future.