Climate Change

The book I read to research this post was Climate Change A Very Short Introduction by Mark Maslin which is a very good book that I bought from kindle. Climate change consists of various cycles on the Earth one of which is the ice ages of the last 25 million years. In these ice sheets form in America, Asia and Europe and cover once temperate regions. There is also global warming where the Earth a cycle of warming up and cooling. these are dictated by convection flow between the various regions. It is estimated that currently 2-3 % of the worlds GDP would cover existing damage repair but this rises to over 20 % if tackled in the middle of the century. One thing is of course dependence of fossil fuels which cause global warming and the greenhouse effect with increasing the carbon dioxide increasing the tempertaure. There is also CFC’s that deplete ozone and increase the solar radiation getting through the atmosphere. There is also the depletion of the ice caps caused by warming that raises sealevels flooding land. With a rising population less and less resources is being spread more and more people. People in poor countries want the latest standards of living which can further make pollution worse. This book is around 200 pages so is a decent loength. It is interesting and I do recommend it.

Climate Change In South East Asia

The book I read to research this post was Environment & Climate Change In Asia by Victor R Savage which is an excellent book which I read at

http://safaribooksonline.com

This book is quite a complex work written in sections by different professors at various universities in Asia and some may find it a bit daunting to read but it’s interesting nonetheless. I certainly enjoyed reading and learned a lot about things I knew very little about. The book was financed by Shell Petroleum and a lot of it centres on Singapore which being a city state and a low lying port stands to suffer more than most if nothing is done about climate change. Some states like the Maldives accept they are going to be over run by the rising sea level due to climate change and even a rise of 60 cm would be disastrous for Singapore. Other ports at risk include Shanghai & Beijing. Particularly in Singapore which is quite a forward looking country efforts are being made to protect the coral reefs offshore & there is a tiny national park which comprises of 50% of flora and fauna found there. Elsewhere a problem is China uses 50% of the world’s cement output in building which isn’t sustainable. There are plenty of national parks in Asia but in the world as a whole 44% live in urban areas and of course in many parts of Asia the population is growing rapidly. Often any restrictions are lax to try and promote business with the result that rivers are often polluted and often by people dumping untreated faeces rather than factories. Many people who wash in the rivers daily have skin conditions and bowel problems. In cities the quality of life for many is very poor with many especially in places like Cambodia & Laos surviving on less than $2 per day. This book is definitely worth reading.