My Personal Reflection

After reading this article for almost the fourth time, including the headlines of The Straits Times and Today papers, my mind was on all my friends in Indonesia and whether there would be another huge tsunami disaster like the last time which would crush the economy of the world all over again in the year 2004.

I am really glad that all the countries in the world have learnt from the horrible incident which occurred 3 years ago. Merely thinking of the incident back then can cause shivers to go up the spines of many people.

I heard on a radio station a few days ago about a DJ and a professor discussing the matter of the earthquake. They were focusing on the issue of the earthquakes being felt closer and closer to the equator of the earth and wondering whether Singapore would be safe in the future. There was also a person who called in and said he lived at woodlands but he still felt the tremors from the earthquake which measured 8.4 on the Richter Scale. Surprisingly, neither my friends and family nor myself had felt a single tremor from the main quake or any of its aftershocks at all.

I was really very worried because one of my good friends who lived in Indonesia had not gone online on MSN Messenger ever since the disaster struck, but my wait paid off as he signed on this morning. However, it turned out that I was worrying for nothing because he lived in Batam and he didn’t even feel any tremors. Anyway, it’s the thoughts that count.

I feel that us people living in Singapore should feel grateful because there have already been two such catastrohpic disasters striking on the side of Indonesia opposite that of Singapore, thus the possibility of a tsunami hitting the coasts of Singapore would be very low. Nevertheless, I feel that the Singapore government should come up with a plan to protect Singapore from any tsunamis should there be any. Singapore is only that big, a single tsunami of a decent size should more or less destroy at least half of Singapore, judging from what a tsunami managed to do 3 years back.

Prevention is better than cure; We should be ready at all times.

Powerful quake shakes Indonesia

Some buildings collapsed in West Sumatra after the quake hit

A powerful earthquake and several aftershocks have struck off the western Indonesian island of Sumatra, sparking fears of a tsunami.

Tsunami alerts were issued for several nations in the Indian Ocean, though some have now been lifted.

Buildings collapsed on the west coast of Sumatra. Hospitals are on alert in case there are significant casualties.

A massive undersea earthquake sparked a tsunami that killed more than 220,000 people in December 2004.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre issued an alert for the entire Indian Ocean region following Wednesday’s main quake, which the US Geological Survey said measured 8.4.

Danger eases

Besides Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and a number of small islands were put on alert. Kenya, on the western rim of the ocean, also raised the alarm.

There were unconfirmed reports of a small tsunami – estimated at 1-3m (3-10ft) hitting the Sumatran coast – but not causing major damage.

But about two hours after the quake, Indonesia’s meteorology agency said the danger of a serious tsunami had passed, and Sri Lanka and India also dropped their alerts.

Wednesday’s main earthquake struck at 1810 (1110 GMT), about 30km (18 miles) under the sea, some 130km (80 miles) south-west of the city of Bengkulu, the US Geological Survey said.

Local media said buildings had collapsed in Padang, the capital of the province of West Sumatra, and in the town of Mukomuko.

There were also reports of inhabitants fleeing swaying buildings in the capital Jakarta, 600km (370 miles) away, and in Singapore.

“You could see the road as if it was waving, people could hardly walk so they just lay flat on the road. I could also feel the earth I was standing on was like the sea,” Zulkifli Lubis, a local journalist in Bengkulu, told the BBC.

Damage

Officials said it was very difficult to get clear communications with the area to make damage assessments.

Animated guide: Earthquakes
Deadly history of quakes

They are sending disaster teams from the capital Jakarta, fearing that there may be significant casualties, says the BBC’s Lucy Williamson in Jakarta.

Officials said at least two people had died and dozens were injured.

But as it is dark, and many of the stricken areas are be remote, it may take some time to find out how bad the situation is.

“At least one person died when he was hit by a falling tree when they were evacuating after the quake,” Salamun Haris, an official from North Bengkulu district, told ElShinta radio.

“Dozens of people were injured in damaged buildings” across the district, he said, and hospitals were clearing wards in anticipation of receiving casualties.

Fearful memories

This was one of the most powerful earthquakes in Indonesia since the one which caused the Asian tsunami in 2004.

That measured 8.9 and struck under the sea near the northern Sumatran province of Aceh, triggering a tsunami that killed more than 220,000 people around the rim of the Indian Ocean.

Our correspondent says quakes on this scale are rare and memories of 2004 have made the country terrified of a repeat.

Indonesia, part of the seismically active Pacific “Ring of Fire”, is frequently shaken by earth tremors.

Access this article here.

My Personal Reflection

There are two main issues in this article. The first issue is regarding the illegal exploitation of Torrent technology. The second issue is regarding the excessive usage of bandwidth which Torrent technology consumes from Internet Service Providers(ISPs).

First of all, I would like to express my thoughts on BitTorrent. I feel that Torrent technology was not made for the purpose of illegal exploitations. The peer-to-peer technology was meant to make sharing of files more convenient for all the people in the world. However, there is always a group of baddies who want to exploit anything they can get their hands on to their advantage.

Personally, I feel that Torrent technology should not have been released as a freeware. Because of this, Torrent technology became popular and widely used in an extremely short span of time, thus attracting the group of baddies very quickly.

The way a Torrent website works is quite simple. Every Torrent website has a Torrent Tracker, which acts similarly to the human brain. This Torrent Tracker checks and approves any torrent submitted by users around the world and manages the peer-to-peer transferring of all the files submitted to the Tracker.

Now I will explain in detail the second problem which Internet Service Providers (ISPs) face due to Torrent technology. First of all, we will go down to the very basics of the World-Wide-Web(WWW). When you are downloading a file, for example you are downloading a game client engine from a gaming website, it is definitely not a one way transfer of the file. When you are downloading the file, the file is being uploaded to you by the server where the file is located. There are two main factors affecting the download speed of your file. They are your broadband and the server you are downloading from. Your broadband may be a very good one but the server may have a very lousy upstream speed, so your download cannot go over the limit of the server even though your broadband has higher limits.

So, when the server is uploading data to you, who is downloading it, the server uses up bandwidth. Bandwidth can be defined as the amount of data that can be sent over a network connection in a given period of time. Thus, offering illegal downloads of movies which are extremely big in filesize would not be feasible at all because bandwidth is very costly. Thus, BitTorrent rose to fame very quickly. This is because Torrent technology allowed files of huge size to be transferred easily by making use of the bandwidth provided by the ISPs of the users who are downloading the files, so the Torrent technology will consume very little bandwidth but it will allow users to obtain huge files!

One very famous Torrent tracker on the web is www.thepiratebay.org. This organization is practically a company already. They managed to obtain copyright protection through a proposal to the swedish government and is now internationally recognized as the most notorious legal distributor of illegal files, which is absolutely ironic because the copyright protection is internationally recognized and no country or organization can do anything against it.

I feel that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the Torrent technology used, but the ones who should be pursued by the copyright act are those who are downloading the illegal files and the ones who are uploading them. The ISPs are simply not acting on the right stand by restricting the bandwidth of their users, thus they do not have my support at all.

BitTorrent battles over bandwidth

In the last few years users have started to share that content with each other across the net, whether legal or not. This is something that has plagued the music industry for several years. And now, mainly thanks to a system called BitTorrent, the movie industry could face the same struggle. But BitTorrent could also be the solution. Hollywood is definitely interested in distributing its movies over the net. King Kong is the first major film in the UK to be released as a download at the same time as on DVD. Users on the web will visit a download site and pull the data onto their computers. Many users can be served at once but, if demand is huge, users will effectively have to queue up and wait their turn. But there is another way to get hold of content and it has caused a nightmare for the music industry of late, with users sharing content amongst themselves, their peers. Using a peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing program and a decent internet connection, a user can make all his files available to anyone else who is using the same program. If you wanted to get hold of a particular song, your file-sharing program would hunt for that file on other people’s hard drives. When it finds it, it downloads a copy to your own computer. The more users who download the file, the more places there are for other users to get it. This reduces the likelihood of bottlenecks, and is a very efficient way of distributing files across the net. Of course, it is illegal to share copyrighted material like that. But this has not stopped people doing it. Larger files More recent developments include being able to download different parts of the same file from different users. But video files are much larger than music files and have slower upload times. This is where BitTorrent comes in. It is an incredibly efficient way of distributing large files, like video, across the net, even when there is a high demand, and even when only one person has the complete file. The key is that a user’s computer does not need to wait until it has downloaded the entire file.

A 16-year-old from Stavanger has become the first Norwegian charged with illegal file-sharing for distributing copyright protected material via the Internet.

Police in Rogaland aim to get the accused a suspended sentence of 60 days in jail and a fine of NOK 4,000 (USD 644). In addition the boy’s parents face a six-figure fine for compensation from the music and film industry, newspaper Dagbladet reports on its web site.

“We are very pleased that the police have taken charge and will punish the person behind it. This sends a signal that this kind of operation is illegal,” Roald Dye, secretary general of the Norwegian Videogram Association, told Dagbladet.

“This boy must answer for his conscious actions. He was fully aware that this is illegal. The case is also a powerful signal to parents – they must pay more attention to what their children are doing,” Marte Thorsby of the recording industry organization IFPI told Dagbladet.

The boy is charged with running the network known as the Stavanger Dragon Hub in the file-sharing program Direct Connect, and administering the sharing of 7,000 films, 150,000 songs and 20,000 video clips.

“We will calculate how much music and how many films were shared, how many copies are distributed and the value of this. We may demand compensation in a civil suit after the criminal case. It can quickly work out to a six-figure sum,” said lawyer Espen Tøndel.

This article can be found here.

As a teen myself, I myself have surfed the net widely and am sufficiently tech savvy too. I have observed many such cases online too. Some very good examples are currently the hottest way of file sharing, like free file hosts, paid file hosts, and torrents! By far, torrents have been observed to be the most widely used form of illegal file sharing so far… This is mainly because of the convenience which is provided. When sharing files via torrent, not much information is required to be given into your profile, thus your information is rather discrete. With much secretiveness, you can share your files via torrents with a very low risk of getting caught. What’s more, the file sharing is yet extensive in a way but from the outside look, it doesn’t look extensive at all!

Another obvious source of illegal file sharing is RapidShare. Through a rather short period of time, RapidShare grew on the internet very quickly and gathered their userbase very quickly too. They offer very good paid services but very lousy free services. Thus, with the already humongous and growing popularity of RapidShare, many different types of legal material are hosted there by paid users. What I don’t get, is why the police aren’t doing anything about these cases? They are sharing illegal material in broad daylight which is totally equivalent to daylight robbery and the police are still keeping mum!

As a webmaster of a website myself, I always make it a point to make sure I have no hand in any illegal activities and I also make sure my website userbase does nothing of the sort. My advice to fellow webmasters in this matter is to put up a legal disclaimer on their site saying that they are in no way responsible for anything the user does with their computer on their website. This way, webmasters would be safe from suing attempts at them for things they did not commit.

Would you switch everything off and rely on natural light to save the planet? It’s the only answer for the families going to extreme measures to cut emissions.

Most families get up in the morning, switch on the lights and start their ablutions. The Robinsons do not.

The Robinsons get up, leave the lights off and open the curtains a crack so some light gets in but little heat escapes.

This is the world of “carbon rationing”.

The term may fill some people with horror – conjuring up images of wartime austerity measures and queues for bread and sugar.

Using the streetlamps and other tips

For others it may suggest green fundamentalists forcing us to swap our central heating for woolly jumpers and run our cars on chicken dung.

ROBINSONS’ ENERGY TIPS

Don’t turn on lights in morning – open curtain slightly to allow light in but stop heat escaping.

Cycle or walk to work or school. An electric bike has low emissions – and makes the journey easier.

Keep thermostat for heating and water on low. When showering, collect water for shaving in a jug.

Cut out or cut down watching television during week. Never leave it on standby.

Evenings, stay in kitchen to avoid switching on other lights. Use energy-saving bulbs.

Read more tips

A recent poll suggested only 28% of Britons thought the idea of setting mandatory limits on individuals’ carbon emissions – raised by Environment Secretary David Miliband – was socially acceptable, even though most feel lifestyle changes are needed to reduce the impact of climate change.

But the term does not trouble Peter Robinson, and dozens like him around the country who have signed up to voluntary groups whose aim is to substantially reduce the CO2 their members are releasing into the atmosphere.

These Carbon Rationing Action Groups advise their members, known as Craggers, on how to minimise energy use.

The Robinsons have eagerly set about finding ways to cut their personal energy use, many of which have also proved financially beneficial.

It’s not draconian, you’re not leading the life of a monk Peter Robinson

“It’s only when you stop and start looking that you realise that you do waste a lot of energy, not out of spite or just being lazy or anything, it’s just your normal lifestyle,” Peter says.

“Our lifestyles were very energy-rich whereas now… there are things you can do in your life that don’t stop you having a really nice time… but you can still make really substantial savings.

“It’s not draconian, you’re not leading the life of a monk, it’s just stuff that’s really easy to do.”

The 36-year-old school administrator may not think it is draconian but there are some who would raise an eyebrow at the prospect of using only the upstairs bathroom during the hours of darkness and relying on ambient light from streetlamps.

PETER’S ENERGY SAVINGS   Use jug to collect hot water in shower for shaving Open curtains a fraction instead of switching on light Walk or cycle to school/work

But Peter has been an enthusiastic “cragger” since joining his local Crag, in Worcester last year.

Though he, his wife Sarah, and children Jacob and Molly, have been actively trying to reduce their carbon footprint for some time, he believes being members has helped to focus their minds on the task in hand.

“Being involved in the Crag… has really made a difference – monitoring how you produce your carbon… is what really has driven me and enabled us to look at what we do, how we live our lives, make those savings,” he says.

It is easy to see the Robinsons as driven. They do not watch television, but for reasons that have nothing to do with the environment. Their children are allowed to watch DVDs at the weekend but the brightness control has to come down.

Developing habits is the key, Peter says. He described how he once visited a prison with a group of psychology students.

RISE OF THE CRAG   Currently at least 23 groups throughout the UK Each group sets individual targets, but most going for 4.5 metric tons per person for 2006/7 In some Crags, a financial penalty for those who exceed limit Aim is to reduce personal footprints by about 10% a year, to achieve a 90% cut by 2030

“One thing you notice there is that each time any of the prison staff went through a door they would close it and lock it, it becomes second nature. And when I started going round at home turning lights out it reminded me of that routine.”

Most of the family’s savings have come from using less heat (turning it off altogether from April to October and restricting its use at other times), less light and turning off electronic equipment at the wall. Peter has also pledged not to fly this year.

He says they reduced their personal carbon emissions from 12.7 metric tons in 2005 to 10.9 in 2006, well below the national average. He is hoping savings this year will have knocked another 10% off their emissions by December.

Financial penalties

Frustratingly for him, his local Crag has not offered any guidance or reduction targets. But in nearby Hereford one of the first groups to be set up recently finished its carbon “accounting” for the year April 2006 to April 2007.

It set a limit of 4.5 tons per person. Some Crags have elected to impose financial penalties for those who exceed the limit, but Hereford decided not to.

Carpenter Steve Ball, 36, who joined Hereford Crag last year, found a combination of his car use and a flight to Slovenia had pushed him well over the limit to more than seven tons.

Craggers do not like energy-hungry tungsten bulbs

But although he had never previously calculated his footprint, he believes changes he has made have already cut deeply into his emissions – for instance, converting his car to run on a biodiesel mix and resisting regular calls by friends to fly off to Tallinn or Prague.

Like Peter, Steve has taken small steps across the board – like using a small motorbike for some journeys or insulating his converted loft.

He plans to insulate his floor as well, but his dream is to build afresh.

“Renovation is quite a hard thing to do, to make an old house efficient energy-wise, but I’m looking into building a new house,” he says.

Both Peter and Steve have made massive changes and are prepared to go further. But they both seem wary of the Crags’ ultimate aim – to reduce personal carbon emissions by 90% by 2030, which the movement says is necessary to avoid dangerous and potentially runaway climate change.

“We would struggle as a family to get 90% cuts,” Peter says.

“If it’s do-able, then great idea,” says Steve. “We can strive for it, but whether or not it’s realistically possible I don’t know.”

One thing is sure. If anyone can do it, it’s the Craggers.

Below is a selection of your comments.

What an incredible idea! I’d love to start something like this in the States. My husband and I have been independently trying to do some of these same things, but it would be so much easier with group support.
Sara Eiser, Lancaster, PA USA

Hat’s off to all these families. Like them I hardly use my heating, never leave things on standby and conserve water, but living on my own it’s a lot easier for me.

On the subject of rationing, I think we should be looking at graded charging for gas and electricity. Each household would have a per person target and energy use up to that target would be charged at an economy rate. Usage over the target would be charged at a premium rate, say 25% extra, and high usage would be charged at a punitive rate, say 100% extra.
Jonny, Nottingham, UK

Why should the millions of hardworking people care about the future of the planet. We get little or no luxury in our short lives while the rich squander all the beautiful and natural resources of the planet and always have done. Stuff them and their future generations. Until the rich start being responsible and doing their bit why should the rest of us.
Joe, Cardiff

I think those are wonderful ideas that should be supported by everyone, regardless of their personal viewpoint on global warming or the environment. It only makes sense to conserve our resources instead of wasting them apathetically.
Nathan, San Diego, CA, USA

I’m all for saving money and if this save the environment that ok, but this is just silly. We emit so little co2 compared with nature that it makes so little difference. Time to stand up smell the roses.
Anthony Brittain, Leeds

In Melbourne we have had water restrictions in place for as long as I’ve lived here. It sounds like hard work to limit the length of your showers or divert grey water from your washing machine to water the garden. After living here for three years, I don’t even notice the restrictions anymore. I imagine that measures put in place to limit carbon emissions would be exactly the same: it would take a small adjustment period before it was simply second nature.
Reid, Melbourne, Australia

I think this article a somewhat condescending tone towards Craggers, when they should be applauded for their noble actions. Trying to make a difference in a world full of greed and overconsumption is not something to be mocked for. You should question your own definition of “normalacy” before judging others against it.
Mary, Seattle USA

I think it’s great what the Craggers are doing, and everyone should follow suit. It’s not asking for a lot and I think it’s time we all actually did our bit to save energy wherever we can instead of just talking about it. We all need to stop being selfish or hypocritical about enviromental issues because it affects all of us.
Krissi, South Africa

It’s all well and good, switching your light’s off, lowering the temperature of your thermostat – this all makes sence, but “staying in the kitchen”, so you don’t have to use lights in another room – only open your curtains a little bit to let light in but no heat out? Come on people, if you want to live like that, sell the house – and go buy a tent – or better still, give your house to some poor people – that way you will feel even more superior that you are helping the world. Rubbish – total rubbish.
mark amory, brighouse

It’s not just about the carbon footprint. I’m convinced energy (oil, natural gas) itself is going to be in short supply in a decade or two. We have to reduce our consumption and start saving energy.
Jan van Tonder, Vienna, Austria

The difference they are making will have no effect on the carbon footprint of the world until China and America do something about their output. All they are doing is making their lives miserable so they can have social one upmanship on the rest of society, I imagine them all to be like the modern parents in Viz.
James Fendek, Dudley

Instead of pressurising private individuals to ration carbon emissions, what about the blatant waste of electricity used in all-night street and road lighting? Local authorities and the Highways agency take note. An ideal target area for massive carbon emission savings and would also help reduce our concil tax bills as well! And why do we need street lighting whilst we are asleep? The French switch off street lighting at midnight.
Jake Toczyski, Worksop

I’ve always done all this! I thought it was just me being a skinflint. Now I have the excuse of being Green.
Judith, Farnborough, Hampshire

Man made global warming is not a threat – watch Channel 4s “Great Global Warming Swindle”. This time 30 years ago we were being told the earth was going to freeze over because of us and now this. And surely they fact the hottest temperature ever recorder was over 100 years ago tells us something. The earth naturally heats and cools. Nothing to do with us.
Steven, belfast

I’m highly carbon-footprint conscious and already practicing many ideas said in the article. Some are very easy to do and need very little initial investment, like switching to CFL bulbs, no heaters from April-August, using a jug to hold hot water while shaving, sparing use of electrical appliances, etc. To start with, it only needs your willingness and after sometime it becomes habitual. The community, Craggers is something I didn’t know earler, will definitely join one in my town. Being low on Carbon is a matter of self-judgement and reason, whether or not you want to leave this planet in a reasonably good shape for your children, if not better than what you got from your parents.
Manikanda, UK

This article can be found here.

It went like this: At the start of the year, we went ahead as planned with our grouping which we had already formed in Secondary 2. We had two choices in mind for our annual Research Education Project, GreenWave or ThinkQuest. We really wanted the laptop prizes for ThinkQuest but upon thinking through it, we opted out on ThinkQuest because we were the youngest of the age group of 15-19. Thus, we started off on our GreenWave project with Mrs. Martina Ong as our teacher mentor!

With our strong faith in protecting our world and our environment, we decided to spread environmental awareness via the modern method! We made use of our pre-arranged gropuping talents which were previously meant for ThinkQuest participation, thus we had 2 IT-savvy members and 2-Researchers/Analytics! With this, we started creating our online community website to promote environmental awareness. Our chosen target age group was rather young at the age of 7-12 because we thought that instilling values into children at younger ages would be more effective rather than trying to compete with the already established NEA of Singapore to help the older age groups.

We then further split the IT-savvy, Ryan and I into two parts of the website. Basically, I was the webmaster and Ryan was in charge of the website interactive content like flash games and short stories. With all the information flowing in by the other two group members, Jonathan and Kevin, our site was soon established enough to be put up on the internet. So, we adopted the site name “GreenBucket”, and put up our site on the internet with the url http://www.GreenBucket.uni.cc

Until now, we are still progressing as we add more interactive content and share more environmental tips with others! Feel free to take some time off your busy schedule and get your sons or daughters to visit our site and I assure you that you won’t regret it!

WAR driving is a very popular activity. Whether to get online for free, just out of curiosity or a myriad of other reasons, around the world it has become a topic met with bitter controversy. Loved by some, annoying to others, it treads on new legal ground and opens up new privacy issues. Those issues, however, are closed in Singapore, where a 17 year old is facing up to three years in prison for hopping on to someone elses wireless network. While it doesn’t specify that he was in fact in a car, the basic principle is the same, and simply stealing Internet access was enough for him to face a jail sentence and a potential fine:

Signing off,
Ng Wei Zhong

Friday • March 2, 2007

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Thursday that global warming posed the same threat to humanity as war and warned of an “unconscionable legacy” being left for future generations.

In a speech to a UN International School Conference, Ban acknowledged that the “majority” of the UN’s work still focuses on the prevention and resolution of conflict.

“But the danger posed by war to all of humanity — and to our planet — is at least matched by the climate crisis and global warming,” he said.

Pledging to raise the issue at a summit of the G8 major industrialised nations in June, Ban said the absence of decisive measures to combat climate change would place an appalling burden on succeeding generations.

“That would be an unconscionable legacy; one which we must all join hands to avert,” he said. “As it stands, the damage already inflicted on our ecosystem will take decades, perhaps centuries, to reverse — if we act now.”

The secretary general highlighted the far-reaching ramifications of global warming and its impact on economic growth, the spread of disease, migration patterns and other changes that “are likely to become a major driver of war and conflict.”

Referring to the G8 summit in Germany, Ban stressed that the task of tackling climate change was beyond the capacity of any one nation.

“We are all complicit in the process of global warming … these issues transcend borders,” he said. “Only concerted and coordinated international action, supported and sustained by individual initiative, will be sufficient.”

The United Nations is due to hold a conference on climate change in Bali in December.

Earlier this month, UN scientists delivered their starkest warning yet about global warming, saying fossil fuel pollution would raise temperatures this century, worsen floods, droughts and hurricanes, melt polar sea ice and damage the climate system for a thousand years to come.

In its first assessment in six years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) dealt a crippling blow to the shrinking body of opinion that claims higher temperatures in past decades have been driven by natural, not man-made, causes.

The United Nations’ paramount scientific authority on global warming highlighted a range of changes that had taken place in Earth’s ice cover, rainfall patterns and permafrost and declared that most of the temperature rise over the past 50 years had “very likely” been caused by human activity. — AFP

Copyright MediaCorp Press Ltd. All rights reserved.

This article can be found here.

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My Thoughts and Opinions

I feel that global warming is just a time bomb which is counting down faster and faster as we humans destroy the earth by polluting the environment in all sorts of ways. I hope that the human race will turn around and unite as one to prevent this catastrophe from surfacing in our lives so that the next generations of people can live to tell the stories of how their ancestors saved them from a humanitarian disaster!

There are quite a few things we can do to prevent this impending disaster. One example is to use more public transport instead of private transport vehicles like cars which consume fuel and release huge amounts of carbon which pollute the environment. Certain environmentally-friendly cars can still be used like the solar-powered car though. Another example is to grow more plants all over the world so as to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the air which damage the ozone layer.

By reducing the amounts of greenhouse gases and carbon, global warming will be, if not gradually stopped, slowed down by quite a bit at the very least. I hope that scientists will soon find a way to totally replace fuel in cars so that carbon will not be produced on such a large scale every single day.

I feel for the environment as I live in it myself. This is why my Research Education group had decided to embark on the Singapore National GreenWave competition which requires us to contribute innovative ideas on how to save the environment from further harm. Our idea currently has been refined to a point where we are thinking of creating an interactive web portal where people can learn about caring about the environment. We will also include entertaining games which are environment related and we will put ads up for free on our website which advertise for environmentally friendly products such as biodegradable disposable cutlery, which helps in the waste management of the earth. I hope our greenwave project is successful and we might get the prize money so that we can sustain our web portal for a longer period of time.

~357 words~

Signing off,
Ng Wei Zhong