Friday, October 20, 2006

an inconvenient truth.

ok i had a fast but tiring week. the quiz and research assignment today really drained me and i was on some adrenaline high from lack-of-sleep and too many developmental biology knowledge stuffed into my head. wait till you hear us rattle off all kinds of language from french to japanese to swedish to who-knows-what-language. fushi tarazu and siamois anyone?

after satisfying ourselves with western food for lunch we further stuffed our brains with our weekly research assignment, this week we looked at the pioneering papers of DNA structure discovery and realised that watson and crick are really 2 smarties that used other scientists' data and experimental results, analysed it, put them together, use tons of knowledge of physics (x-ray diffraction), chemistry (bond angles, bond energies, hydrogen bonds, molecular structure etc.) and biology to derive the famous DNA double helical structure that we are all-so-familiar with. they did not do any experiments of their own. and admitted that they do not know how.

and yet they got the nobel prize.

and those scientists that slogged day and night doing x-ray diffractions (and getting cancer at the same time, or dying prematurely so they don't get awarded with the nobel prize) and don't know what kind of strange experiments and yet they end up with no big prize of a million bucks and fame.

so ironic.

p.s. cancer is particularly sensitive these days after learning tons and tons about cancer biology and our friend getting bone cancer and us having to deal with carcinogenic compunds and UV light during labs.

but i'm glad this week's over. ok maybe not. 'cos that means its 3 weeks to exams. and i haven't started studying my plants, neurobiology, cancer. ahhhh. am glad at least my research module doesn't really require much mugging. and that's one module down.

monday i treated myself to a free movie (courtesy of nanyang chronicle again) with sam. again i was struck quite hard by the hard facts that were presented.

the movie is An Inconvenient Truth. entirely narrated by former vice-president Al Gore, also former president-to-be before losing to someone.

he talks passionately, not about politics, but about the environment. more specifically, global warming.

yes we have heard so much about it. we have read about it. seen it happen before our very eyes. we witnessed the consequences. we even seen what could possibly happen in the near future in movies like The Day After Tomorrow.

yet we are still so ignorant. indifferent. can't be bothered. we have no response.

Al Gore gives talks about the impact and urgency of global warming all over the world. he has been doing that for years. and he is doing what he can to rally for his cause. and i really admire him for that. not to mention he is really charismatic and humorous. =) hurhur. some of his jokes are really quite funny. and he uses many mediums of illustrations to explain a point. even the cartoon futurama.

ok. for those, who like sam, like documentaries where they're always presented with no sides of a story. this is not one of them. simply because the other side of the story does not exist. there is no claim whatsoever that the activities of man are not causing global warming or its effects, directly or indirectly. the case against what al gore is preaching simply is invalid and irrelevant and totally wrong. hence the seemingly one-sided argument that this documentary presents.

back to the film/documentary. it switches from snippets of his global warming talk to an audience of 200+ caucasians to snippets of his life, the past and present. how he got into what he does. how he tries to use politics to make a difference. and he is just so confident that politics is the key to this indifference. because politics was the key to the ozone layer/CFC emissions project. throughout his presentation he gives an overwhelming amount of evidence that favours the global warming crisis. that's where its really alarming and all the evidence just gets thrown in your face. every fact, every statistic, every picture, every scientific review article (not a single one refutes the claim that global warming is happening.) all points towards our activities. our ignorance. our lack of care and concern.

so for the ones who are not informed fully.

what on earth is global warming?

this is ripped with thanks from the website of an inconvenient truth.

Carbon dioxide and other gases warm the surface of the planet naturally by trapping solar heat in the atmosphere. This is a good thing because it keeps our planet habitable. However, by burning fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil and clearing forests we have dramatically increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere and temperatures are rising.

The vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is real, it’s already happening and that it is the result of our activities and not a natural occurrence. (reference no. 1) The evidence is overwhelming and undeniable.

We’re already seeing changes. Glaciers are melting, plants and animals are being forced from their habitat, and the number of severe storms and droughts is increasing.

The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last 30 years. (reference no. 2)

Malaria has spread to higher altitudes in places like the Colombian Andes, 7,000 feet above sea level. (reference no. 3)

The flow of ice from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled over the past decade. (reference no. 4)

At least 279 species of plants and animals are already responding to global warming, moving closer to the poles. (reference no. 5)

If the warming continues, we can expect catastrophic consequences.
Deaths from global warming will double in just 25 years -- to 300,000 people a year.6
Global sea levels could rise by more than 20 feet with the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica, devastating coastal areas worldwide.7
Heat waves will be more frequent and more intense.
Droughts and wildfires will occur more often.
The Arctic Ocean could be ice free in summer by 2050.8
More than a million species worldwide could be driven to extinction by 2050.9

There is no doubt we can solve this problem. In fact, we have a moral obligation to do so. Small changes to your daily routine can add up to big differences in helping to stop global warming. The time to come together to solve this problem is now – TAKE ACTION

the references are here.

1 According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), this era of global warming "is unlikely to be entirely natural in origin" and "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence of the global climate."
2 Emanuel, K. 2005. Increasing destructiveness of tropical cyclones over the past 30 years. Nature 436: 686-688.
3 World Health Organization
4 Krabill, W., E. Hanna, P. Huybrechts, W. Abdalati, J. Cappelen, B. Csatho, E. Frefick, S. Manizade, C. Martin, J, Sonntag, R. Swift, R. Thomas and J. Yungel. 2004. Greenland Ice Sheet: Increased coastal thinning. Geophysical Research Letters 31.
5 Nature.
6 World Health Organization
7 Washington Post, "Debate on Climate Shifts to Issue of Irreparable Change," Juliet Eilperin, January 29, 2006, Page A1.
8 Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. 2004. Impacts of a Warming Arctic. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Also quoted in Time Magazine, Vicious Cycles, Missy Adams, March 26, 2006.
9 Time Magazine, Feeling the Heat, David Bjerklie, March 26, 2006.

***

like what al gore says. this has gone beyond a political issue. it has become a moral issue.

go watch the documentary and learn about what is happening to our earth. how this earth will not be around for our grandsons and grandaughters. how we would have no place to go.

and how serious this is. please if you can, go see it. it opens in singapore this coming thursday.



Click if you're planning to go see it. =) and spread the word.

An Inconvenient Truth
on Climate Crisis
on IMDB

This girl posted at 9:49 PM