Food for thought

IYOR 2008 - Prof Chou Loke Ming - Keynote Address from BeachBum on Vimeo.

Coral paradise in Singapore by 2018?
What will it be like if our very own Southern Islands were a diver's haven.. *dream*
And on the other hand,
What will it be like if development takes everything away from us.
Singapore - the island with no reefs.

Which brings me to think of Wall-E (don't ask how I watched it before opening :P)
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Imagine if Earth degraded to the state in the movie... trash-filled with no signs of life, with humans wandering about in space waiting for Earth to be able to sustain life again. AND i love the humans potrayed in the movie - sitting around floating mobile chairs conversing with each other through virtual screens, even though they are like floating right next to each other. All humans in the show are like fat with stubby legs and stubby hands, and they can't even walk when they fall off their chair! - I definitely had a conversation with my brother about him ending up like that if he continues to do nothing but play computer games. See.. you never know..

"As humanity became more technologically sophisticated, the film argues, they became ever more divorced from nature, and their own nature. They developed a culture and society that was mechanistic and artificial, as opposed to organic and natural." - Full review here


So stop playing your Wii and get out and literally smell the roses! (or bougainvilleas for tt matter)

Random Wish list

If only fishermen had the means to fish for only half the fishing season...

and let stocks replenish the other half the season

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If only Dove had refill packs available in supermarkets or even better, set up refill stations.- saw refills only once at some dodgy neighbourhood store. (And notice how I couldn't even find a dove refill image to post.)

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If only styrofoams were banned in Singapore. It has already happened in 100 cities in USA.

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If only Green roofs were made compulsory in cities all over the world
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If only MOE made green education and field trips (like that organised by ecofieldtrips or nature groups) part of school curriculum. Always wondered why I never had the chance to go to Southern Islands when I was young. Didn't even know about it then. Read about Earth schools in Canada here.
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If only green media became the norm.
I would love to see a 'love nature' section in the Straits Times some day.
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If only humans could live with 'just enough'.
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"People can cry much easier than they can change"
-James Baldwin via Change Everything

Bottom-up Demolition

Amazing stuff. It's like watching the tower melt into the ground. Said to reduce environmental impact. Probably saves a lot of demolition space too.

According to the company, this method greatly reduces the environmental impact of the demolition, as well as the time. Kajima says that it speeds up the task by 20%, while making it easier to separate materials for recycling, as well as reducing the amount of products released into the air.

The process is called daruma-otoshi after a Japanese game that makes players take the bottom parts of a column—using a hammer—without disturbing the rest of the parts above.

For those of you who don't understand how this is faster, you need to remember that in normal demolition, a company needs to place the explosives in the positions where it will do damage, but not damage the surrounding areas. They don't just put a load of TNT inside and hope for the best. Usually it begins with talking to the building planners while trying to get the blueprints for the building. Afterwards, they need to go level by level drilling into walls to get to the support structures that they need to break down. This takes a long time, especially on a buildings that has more than five floors to it.

It's really saving time to remove one floor slowly, depress it, and remove the next. It may sound longer, but most videos of demolitions ignore the planning phase that wastes time.

Thanks to Gemssty for the link.

International Year of the Reef - Singapore Celebrations

Date: 9 Aug (Sat)
Time: 2pm
Venue: Function Hall, Botany Centre, Singapore Botanic Gardens (above Taman Serasi foodcourt), more about getting there.
Contact: iyor08singapore@gmail.com

Schedule of talks and activities

10.30am: "Life and Death at Chek Jawa" sharing experiences of a study of mass deaths on Chek Jawa following flooding in 2007, a talk by Loh Kok Sheng (more about the talk)

11.30am: “Wishing upon a Star” about our Knobbly sea stars, a recent emergence of baby Knobblies and discovery of a large population at Cyrene Reef, a talk by Tan Sijie, Star Trackers (more about the talk)

12.30-1pm: MAD for turtles (make a difference for turtles) : Games for kids about threats to turtles and how kids can help, by Cicada Tree Eco-Place and the Raffles Institution with four stations. Suitable for kids aged 4-8 years. (more about the event).

• Fishing for help: a 'fishing' game .
• Turtles and jellyfish: a story and animation with a simple computer-based game.
• Turtles and reefs game: a more vigorous activity.
  
• Pledge card signing.
  

2pm: “Are there reefs left in Singapore?” lifting the veil to reveal the hidden biodiversity of this almost forgotten realm, a talk by Jeffrey Low, NParks Biodiversity Reference Centre (more about the talk).

3pm: “Southern Haunt” about diving at Pulau Hantu, bringing clarity to the usually murky waters with underwater photos and videos, a talk by Debby Ng, Hantu Bloggers (more about the talk)

4pm: "Green, Mean, Photosynthesizing Machines!" a talk by Yang Shufen, TeamSeagrass and NParks Biodiversity Reference Centre (more about the talk)

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Looking forward to the talks.
Click HERE for more details.

Environmental Courses

DHI-NTU Education Hub Courses

The Green Room Cafe

Decided to blog more about my road to vegetarianism. Have been being good, staying clear of fish and only eating meat maybe 3 meals a week. Confession - been indulging when doing outfield work. Excuse being it's easy to get hungry not eating meat when u do active stuff, plus it's damn paiseh to be the deciding factor of where to makan when the survey team is all so hungry by the middle of the day. But I have to find a way to get around this.

Other musings of a vegetarian noob: it's bloody inconvenient to be vegetarian when u're eating out. The few credible makan places I've gone to only have a small (usually pathetic) number of vegetarian options on their menu. So when H saw on today's Straits Times Life! that The Green Room Cafe was a 100% vegetarian restaurant and chill place to boot, we headed down immediately. It was right next to a really nice bar and I swear the area is a neighbourhood version of Dempsey. Not in the habit of bringing a camera everywhere i go so no personally taken photos, but here's some shots from the Cafe's website:

vegetarian 'mutton' curry

$12.80

"thick and tangy curry flavoured with turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, curry leaf and chilli powder
served with organic brown rice"

portobello field mushroom

$12.80

"marinated in rich aged balsamic vinegar, topped with our homemade tomato relish served between a fresh baked bun with a fresh summer leaf salad"

H had the vegetarian 'mutton' curry and loved it, even being a non-vegetarian and a fussy eater. Me had the gnocchi ($13.00): "potato dumplings in a roma tomato and italian basil sauce finished with shaved parmigiano". No photo of my dish on the website but it was really good. The portobello mushroom is something i'll definitely try the next time I head down.

Food: Great
Food presentation: Great
Service: Excellent
Ambience: Amazing

Other vegetarian recommendations include the Cedele restaurant at Raffles City and vietnamese restaurant Va Va Voom at Seah Street opposite Raffles Hotel (though the later has only a few veg options).

Happy makaning!

IYOR'08 Web Seminar Series

An entire series of lectures by International Year of the Reef 2008 at your fingertips.
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Learn more about topics like:

• Managing top predators: Reef shark fisheries
• Connectivity, climate change and the future for reef fishes
• Muddy Waters: Water quality and run-off

Pity most of these lectures are based on the Great Barrier Reef. What happened to the Coral triangle?

The only lectures that were more regional (on South-east Asia) are these two:

• Power to the people: 25 years of reef management in the Philippines
• Before and after the Asian tsunami: Lessons for coastal management

and this one I think is particularly interesting:

• Rising Plague: Diseases in marine organisms and climate change

Check it out.