Global warming in Malaysia? You're kidding.

Some readers commented that I hardly touch on local topics on global warming. I agree and I too wish that our local media finds the topic worthy enough to report.

Let me ask a question. Being in a hot country, does anyone really notice if its a couple of degrees hotter or cooler today from yesterday? I doubt so. We're holed up in airconditioned offices, complexes and homes most of the time to notice anyway. We blame the warming of our highlands like Genting and Frasier's hill on rampant development of hillslopes rather than the ravages of invisible greenhouse gases. I guess if we can't see it, the problem doesn't exist

Its not that we don't care about the environment. Sure we make noise about polluted rivers, indiscriminate logging, land-clearing and toxic waste dumps but for different reasons. The truth is that we hate foul smells, soil erosion, losing nice greenery from land clearing and having our underground water poisoned.

These are serious issues no doubt but does anyone really pay any attention to the massive amounts of carbon we release and how it stands to affect our children's lives in the future? Like I said, for most people, if you can't see it, it doesn't exist.

I suppose its normal for people not to care about something until they lose it. I've no doubt we will one day see unusually ferocious storms that flatten entire kampungs, rising food prices due to more failed crops, higher disease rates, knee-high water in Georgetwon Penang and Port Klang, and generally some kind of humanitarian disaster that seem to have no visible cause.

The trouble with that scenario is that by the time it happens, it is already too late.

Sometimes our blessing is also our curse. Because the drastic effects of global warming is less visible in the tropics, we worry less about the weather. But its also a curse in that we've desensitized ourselves to a growing problem that could kill us. We are like frogs being slowly boiled alive.

Because our local climate and weather can be clobbered by carbon emissions from as far away as China and Russia as theirs are to us, it is naive to think that we could solve the problem by ourselves. A global problem needs a global solution. That means everybody working together, which is why we have worldwide commissions like Kyoto and the IPCC.

Its not just supposed to be a talk shop. Its supposed to be a do shop where governments collectively hammer out their plans for global change, from educating their citizens to turn out the lights when not in use to strict legislation of industrial carbon emissions within their countries. And these actions are supposed to become national policy, filtered down to local city levels complete with incentive and enforcement.

But I've long woken from that dream. China and India does recognize the problem but prefer to take the cautious approach (i.e. do little or nothing) because it may hurt their economy. The government of the US, the world's no. 1 emitter of greenhouse gases, doesn't recognize the problem, also because it may hurt their economy. The decision of these 3 giants plus the European Union will in my opinion determine the fate of man and whether he will still exist a century from now.

This is why many of my blog entries have so far dwelt on their actions and opinions.

So does it matter if we Malaysians care about global warming or not? Personally I don't think it'll make a difference one way or another because the problem has grown way too big for any single community to handle. The only thing we can do now is soften the impact by practicing energy-saving consumption habits and I've outlined several already.

In the bigger scheme of things I think the greatest contribution we or any country can make today is to be a such a great leader in the active reduction of greenhouse gas emissions that it inspires other countries to do the same. Will we ever become that torch bearer? Your guess is as good as mine.

Global warming: My perspective

(This post is reproduced from my other blog Bryan's Cafe)

Now that the silly season that is valentine has passed, I can safely move on to more down-to-earth things.

I was intrigued by a discussion on lowyat.net forum about the international debate on global warming. As with any worthwhile issue, there are 2 strongly opposing camps - countries that signed the Kyoto agreement and countries that didnt. One side says that humans are to blame for the warming while the other insists there is no proof to support that.

Okay, there is a 3rd school of thought - that the earth is being terraformed by aliens. Being a Trek fan myself this theory is my favourite but apparently it hasn't gained much of a following.

But regardless of whether man, mother nature or aliens are to blame, I do share the view that we are sliding down an irreversible path to climactic doom. The awakening of developing nations to the dangers of uncontrolled pollution, particularly China, comes too little too late as my recent trip to Guangzhou tells me. The US's lethargic response to its own CO2 emmissions is also very telling. Just how do you tell a red-blooded American that driving a gas-guzzling Hummer is a bad thing?

Quite frankly, even if everyone signed on Kyoto today, what difference would it make when the horse has bolted from the barn.

What does remain today are these facts.

- The arctic icecap is melting.
- Strange unseasonal weather patterns have beset the world.
- Storms and droughts are getting more intense.
- Deserts are expanding.
- Sea water levels are rising.
- Ocean temperatures are rising.

And that's not all. Other non-climatic events are also jumping into the fray.

- Noticeable increase in earthquakes and tsunamis.
- An environment struggling to cope with rapid population growth.
- The emergence of new fatal diseases like H5N1.
- The onset of "mass insanity" - world conflicts beckoning ppl to kill each other in large numbers.

So not only are we killing each other with our own industrial garbage and ideological differences, nature is kindly giving us a hand by throwing at us new incurable diseases, moving earth's crust around and cranking up the thermostat. With luck it might even throw in a couple of asteroid our way to make things merrier.

If I sound a little pessimistic, its due to the fact that out of 6.6 billion people on the planet, I estimate not even 1% has the capacity to understand much less do anything about global warming. Most don't have any choice but to go back to their air polluting vehicles, their strip-farmed land or consume products that disproportionately strip the planet of its resources. To convince the other 99% to take heed and actually do something will take a thousand years too many. We've started on the wrong foot. We've built entire civilizations on self-destructing habits like slash and burn farming and unbridled consumerism. If destroying and rebuilding cultures on a global scale is as easy as what Al Gore thinks, we would have it by now but we don't.

So am I being a little fatalistic in saying we're headed for a climactic armageddon? I don't think so. I believe only total rebirth and regeneration can save the planet. But to be reborn, the planet has to die first. All indications are that this is well under way.

Science is already predicting the arrival of a new ice age resulting from the melting of the polar ice cap. Great. Nature is defrosting the fridge before laying down some new ice, except this defrost cycle might last a million years. I'm not putting any hopes or money that man will survive it.

I've long shrugged off the world's petty bickering because of all this. All the opinions and beliefs, the rights and wrongs, none of it will change how our story ends. The way I see it, the most humane thing we can do today is to make sure the next generation can make their own exit as comfortably as possible. In fact, try not to have kids. Why have them and then leave them on a desert island. Even if you believe the situation is not as dire, deep down you know that the world is not likely to change in this lifetime or in your children's lifetime. What you can do is reduce future suffering by reducing the number of its recipients. The other thing is to consume less today so that there's a little more to go around tomorrow.

But who am I kidding. Isn't our greatest motto "its every man for himself?" Doesn't the attention span of the average human go only as far as his next meal, his next paycheck or his next shag? Will anyone listen if there's no bread on the table? On that score alone I'm convinced that as humans, we are pretty much screwed.