- Writing business plan for a sustainable social enterprise
- Appointed as a mentor for the UNEP Tunza-South East Asia Youth Environment Network for Singapore. Now looking at nominees for a youth rep
Read full article here
Friday, November 16, 2007
Daily Green Actions: 15 Nov 2007
Read full article here
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Daily Green Actions: Birthday Edition
14 November 2007
- Good thing about the monsoon season is that the weather is so cooling that we don't need the air conditioning! use a fan!
- excited at the idea of camping overnight on Ubin in the first weekend of December but remembered that it's the monsoon season! Very rainy!
- the asiaisgreen website just reminded me that i should clean my aircon filter to make it more energy efficient! http://tinyurl.com/35jb2h
- one bad deed done today: i killed an american pitcher plant within a month of owning it. lesson learnt? do not keep exotic plants & animals!
- have been climbing the stairs instead of taking the lift for 2 flights of stairs. taking the lift is like driving to get across the road.
- Unfortunately I succumbed to taking a taxi to school today. eek!
- Instead of printing 52 pages of text on 52 pieces of paper, I reduced it to 6 pieces by printing 4 pages in 1 and reducing font, spacing etc
- First green thing I did on my birthday - make potpurri out of the roses I got from my fiance. That's good way to reuse and recycle :)
Read full article here
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
MAFF at ACRES
6 months ago, I started a crazy plan to raise fund for ACRES Wildlife Rescue Centre during my birthday this year. Thus, the Monkey Animal Friends Fund was created.
ACRES Wildlife Rescue Centre
You may recall reading about it on this blog. I even drew a very sweet monkey mascot for it.
My aim was to raise $6000 for the primate enclosure at the Wildlife Rescue Center. Thus instead of asking my friend to give me a present this year, I asked them to donate to the MAFF instead.
The insides of a monkey enclosure
While I was not able to raise $6000, I am proud to say that MAFF raised $1500. Today being my 26th birthday and the end of the MAFF fund raising project, I thought it would be a good time to write about the day MAFF spent at ACRES, helping to paint the monkey enclosure!
Monkey just finished painting the wall!
So on 4 November 2007, a group of monkey's animal friends trooped down to ACRES at 91 Jalan Lekar. Despite not being able to have our name on the primate enclosure, we were given the opportunity to paint it! The MAFF contingent sadly comprised mainly of Evie, Joe and myself. Hannah and her friend also came down but were doing separate tasks! Overall it was a really fun time.
The girls at work!
We even made our own sandwiches and japanese riceballs and picnicked at the wildlife rescue center! It was a good day spent outdoors, doing a good deed. Joe even got to save a few snails and frogs in the process of cleaning up the place!
Caught Joe in the act of eating the egg mayo sandwiches she made and Evie made those awesome onigiri
I also passed the $1500 to ACRES Executive Director, Louis, that morning. A few days ago, I received the receipt and a letter of thanks. It was really sweet seeing it addressed to the Monkey Animal Friends Fund. All of you who contributed, the animals thank you.
Before and After
While I would like to have said the Monkeys thank you, but the $1500 will go towards the reptile enclosure instead. So thankssss! The monitor lizards, iguanas and other snakesss thanksss yousss!
Even for those of us who are not reptile-inclined, I must say that they are just as important as the primates. In fact, they are often subject of the illegal pet trade and the problem is definitely bigger than primates, especially with them being less charismatic and all.
Other volunteers there that day!
Overall, I would say this is a meaningful way to spend my birthday with friends and animals. Thank you all again!
Photos from the day can be seen here.
Read full article here
Daily Green Actions: 13 Nov 2007
- Trawling press releases at the moment to find a quote by Singapore leaders stating that they cannot forsake economic growth for environment
- A little bird told me that there will soon be a biofuel-powered bus prowling the roads of NUS next year!
- heard and saw a pair of very noisy white parrot-like birds outside the University Cultural Centre. Since when do we have resident parrots?
- walked for about 15min from my office to the climate change talk by Prof CJ Somerville. Then walked home from MRT station. Feels good walkin
- Concluded that Belinjo is indeed a most sustainable snack. The tree is grown in as windbreak, can live up to 100 years and high yielding!
- Invited to be a regular contributor on the new SEC Youth Portal. I hope they wouldn't expect me to only write about climate change. boring.
- reminding myself to bring chopsticks to school later so I will not succumb to disposables. I already have a fork/spoon and lunchbox in sch
- working on the new WildSingapore blog reminds me of when I was a news intern with Jean-Michel Cousteau's Ocean Futures www.oceanfutures.org
- @budak brought my attn to a new documentary movie King Corn which delves into the global food system http://www.kingcorn.net/ check it out!
Read full article here
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Daily Green Actions: 12 Nov 2007
- Received a thank you letter from ACRES for the donation of $1500 that Monkey Animal Friends Fund raised for ACRES in the name of my birthday
- Just read that there is now a Energy Studies Institute in my own university (NUS) and I didn't even hear about it!
- Reading about oil spills around the world this month - first in california and now in Russia! What's up with that? http://tinyurl.com/25gd5g
- 4 primary school boys just came to my house to hand out dengue prevention flyers. they sure start them young these days.
- Can anybody tell me how my Belinjo is cultivated? The Belinjo nut must come from somewhere. Is it plantation? large? monoculture? multicrop?
- Recently addicted to Belinjo emping - vegetarian keropok! More sustainable than prawn crackers? Trying to find out how Belinjo is grown
- writing my research proposal on studying the environmental implication of singapore's food import and feeling guilty for eating maggie mee
- Saw the article about chopsticks brassieres which help remind people to bring their own chopsticks. No more disposable! Good reminder for me
- Signed up to attend Green Drinks Singapore on 28 Nov. http://www.greendrinks.sg/ They have a list of lifestyle tips on their website too.
- recycling etiquette: briefly rinsed my empty aluminum cans before putting them in the recycling bin to ensure cleanliness & keep pest away.
Read full article here
Monday, November 12, 2007
Daily Green Actions: 11 Nov 2007
- As of 4.19pm, I've donated 1000 grains of rice through http://www.freerice.com I really hope this is for real! I'm working hard for this!
- Being a green tourist with http://www.environmentallyfriendlyhotels.com and http://www.greenopia.com/
- Playing a vocabulary game on http://www.freerice.com/ - for every word you get correct, sponsors will donate 10 grains of rice through UN
- Looking at staying in the Ambrose, a green hotel in Santa Monica that won the sustainability award and serves only organic food!
- Feeling guilty for planning to celebrate my 2008 new year at Disneyland in California and spending my consumer dollar in the wrong place!
- How do we convince people that we cannot rely on technology to solve everything. changing behavior will reduce $ spent to solve problems
- wonders how I can convince my parents to use organic cleaning detergents. That will reduce the amount of chemicals we wash into our sewage
- One good thing about being home alone - I can dramatically reduce electricity usage in the house by switching power off at the source
- woke up to multitudes of emails about a local coral reefs campaign, pet hermit crabs issues and launch of http://www.youthhabitat.sg/
Read full article here
Sunday, November 11, 2007
SEC Youth Portal
On 10 November 2007, Singapore Environment Council (SEC) launched their brand new Youth Portal. It is a fantastic resource of article, projects and even job listings!
I was also pleasantly surprised that my article for the latest issue of Elements (the SEC newsletter) has also been uploaded on the website. It is not even in pdf form but a web version. Very convenient. Too bad 90% of the photos are not included.
You can also find the interview with Ron and Grant on the Chek Jawa Boardwalk guided walks on the website as well. They also have a calendar of events that looks just like WildSingapore's calendar but less visually exciting. But what is more useful for people looking for seed funds, there is a whole list of funding opportunities! For those who are following my daily green actions, you may be interested to know that the website also has a list of green tips.
Despite this being a youth portal by SEC, I do hope that there would be more information about SEC's volunteer arm, the Green Volunteer Network (GVN) itself! Understandably this is not GVN's website but so much could be known about the effort by GVN on Pulau Ubin, especially the green house on Ubin built by GVN. I think there are a lot of people who would love to know more about it. Of course monkeys like me would love to have an easy link online to connect people to the green house. I guess I'll just have to write something up sometime soon!
Still, great effort on the youth portal. It looks like a very promising website. Hopefully people will put it to task and utilize it as it is meant to be!
Read full article here
Daily Green Actions: 10 Nov 2007
Read full article here
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Daily Green Actions: 9 Nov 2007
- Do Singaporeans knows or even cares to know where their food comes from? about 22 hours ago
- Reading up on the water footprint. Did you know it takes 3400 litres to grow 1 kg of rice. I just consumed 1700 litres of water! about 23 hours ago
- Is it environmentally irresponsible to be a picky eater? Does it matter if I pick the carrots out from my veggies just coz I don't like it? 03:55 PM November 09, 2007
- Somebody asked: Does saving electricity and water count as going green? YES! It is a myth that Singapore is invulnerable to water scarcity! 03:24 PM November 09, 2007
- If Ben and Jerry learnt how to make ice cream in a distance learning course - monkey can make ice cream! http://tinyurl.com/2z2wzh 03:14 PM November 09, 2007
- Resisted buying bens and jerrys last night! they have lost their eco-friendly vision after bought over by Unilever. Now mere luxury goods 03:06 PM November 09, 2007
- Office is freezing even though the aircon is set at 25C. Wondering if I should switch it off and just embrace natural ventilation! 02:56 PM November 09, 2007
- Missed the collection date for national recycling program this week! Now there's a bulging bag of recyclables waiting for collection 01:23 PM November 09, 2007
- Walked home from the MRT station. Walking is most sustainable. In Singapore, MRT is the least pollutive form of public transport! 10:55 AM November 09, 2007
- What green action did you take today? 10:32 AM November 09, 2007
Read full article here
Friday, November 09, 2007
What green action did you take today?
A new project that tracks the "green actions" that I do (or do not do) each day, I hope to inspire greener lifestyles. It's not easy living sustainably but often, the littlest action matters. I'm no expert and I'm not perfect and I hope that by writing about my daily attempts at living conscientiously, I would be able to share some tips and the difficulties in living sustainably in Singapore.
Click for full size
I've started a new twitter account called leafmonkey and it will mainly record the daily things I try to do. I am sure many things are little things which we do daily but overlook or did not realize the importance. Along with things I do, I will also try to explain why certain things are important. All of it can be found on the twitter account.
Subscribe to the RSS feed of the twitter stream or if you are on twitter, simply follow leafmonkey and get updates on your twitter page! I have also added the updates on the sidebar of the leafmonkey blog. Check back often!
Why have I decided to start this project? It's really yet another attempt to talk about little things to do every day. But I realize that it really needs to begin with me. One way to make myself more conscientious in practicing what I preach is to be critical of my own lifestyle.
This project is not just about listing the things I've done. I think that's done all too often. You don't need to turn to me to find out what you can do for the environment or how to change your lifestyle. There are too many of those. But what I am really hoping is to share the process of changing our lifestyles. The trials and tribulations if you will. It's like one of those blogs that track how a person try to loose weight. Well this is the project that tries to track how a person can have a greener lifestyle in Singapore!
I look forward to it as a process of transparency and disclosure which will then help me become more responsible towards my daily actions. Environmentalists are not perfect. Most of us eat meat, and even drive! There has been reports on how Al Gore and some other environmental personalities in Singapore have giant utility bills. Well this monkey is not perfect either! There are lots of things I don't know and hopefully through this, people can send me comments and answers to questions I have! Likewise, I do hope to inspire and answer your questions. It's all a learning process so let's do it together! I look forward to hearing from anybody.
For those who are not twitter-savvy, I will be posting summaries of each week's daily actions on the blog. Remember to question me and make me question myself!
Read full article here
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Going Beyond Green
"A journey through the growth and change in nature and environmental conservation groups in Singapore from the eyes of an aspiring "environmentalist"."
Last month, Xinyi, a college friend of mine who now works for SEC called me up asking if I would like to write an article for Elements, the Singapore Environment Council's newsletter. The article is to be about green groups in Singapore as well as this latest rise in nature bloggers. Since I had just conducted the blogging for nature workshop the day before, I couldn't be more excited. Besides, it's also very related to my honors thesis on nature conservation groups in Singapore.
However, they were looking for something not so academic and thus I decided to write it from a personal point of view. It does help that I'm actively deep in the mud. But of course only figuratively because for those who know me, this monkey prefer to stay away from the mud after sinking to my waist at Beting Bronok, in the middle of the sea! Another story for another day.
After harassing both Ria and Otterman to help me vet the article numerous times, I finally submitted it a few weeks ago. Shortly after, I gave a tutorial class on nature conservation in Singapore and the list of groups I cooked up for the article came in handy in the class!
Today, I got an email from Xinyi informing me that the 2007 issue 3 of Elements is now pulished! You can read my article here [pdf] or pick up a copy of Elements. Of course to avoid creating a demand for dead trees, you can download the issue from their website. But since they are in the process of updating their website, you can download the issue here [pdf].
On page 8 and 9, you can also find an interview with GVN's Grant Periera and Naked Hermit Crab's Ron Yeo about guided walks at the Chek Jawa Boardwalk which opened on 07-07-2007!
Factoids
Why "Going beyond green"? If you haven't gathered the answer from the article already, it's because groups are not longer just green! There are blue, brown, gray, and all other shades of the rainbow. There is a big move in diversification in groups and now the internet has given us a greater reach and a louder voice for the environment in general.
Read full article here
Friday, November 02, 2007
Top 5 Per Capita Carbon Emitting Countries
In 2005 when I was on exchange in the University of California Santa Barbara, I saw a large poster on the door of a professor. The poster consisted of a world map indicating the top 10 Carbon Emitters in the world. To my dismay and resigned disbelief, Singapore is one of them.
Since then, I have been trying to find the source of this information online. Even as I was working on Singapore's carbon emissions for my Environmental Issues assignment, I had difficulty finding proof.
However, today, I noticed this map on the climate change notice board outside my office.
Source: www.mapsofworld.com
Finally! Proof that Singapore IS one of the top 10 per capita carbon emitting countries in the world. In fact, we are in the top 5! This is definitely a "first" that we do not want to be proud of.
Source: Earth Policy Institute
In fact, according to the Earth Policy Institute headed by Lester Brown, Singapore was #2 in 2005. We must have gotten our act together in 2006 or that we simply increased our population. But then again, I do not know the source of the 2006 map so it's difficult to provide a fair comparison if they are calculated differently.
So how is it that I missed it before? Blame it on my lousy research skills but the interesting thing is that if you search for top carbon emitting countries, Singapore is far from the top! In fact, in terms of total, we do not produce that much. However, if you look in terms of per capita emission, meaning the amount of emission per person - taking the total emission of a country divided by its population - we immediately shoot right to the top!
Why? This is because for a very small nation, we produce a whole lot of carbon emission!
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So do not be fooled if people tell you that Singapore's carbon emission is really nothing compared to the rest of the world. Sure, it doesn't compare to China who has to deal with emissions of 1.3 billion people or the US who has 300 million eager consumers. In fact, most of Singapore's fuel consumption is from power generation (51%) and industry (31.7%). Our electricity consumption is also from industry (43%) and buildings (31%). Power generation and our oil refining industries are one of the biggest sources of carbon emission in Singapore. Singapore processes approximately 1.3 million barrels of oil in our refineries every day! Think about the amount of carbon dioxide emitted from that alone?
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On the brighter note, the government is stepping up efforts to tackle Singapore's contribution to climate change through its E2PO taskforce. According to the E2PO publication, efficient power generation is one of its strategies. In fact, PowerSeraya Ltd "will commission an 800MW natural gas-fired co-generation plant by 2010 to replace its three oil-fired steam units. This... will help the company reduce its overall carbon dioxide emissions by a further 10% in addition to the 30% reduction over the last 10 years". Tuas Power and Gas Supply Pte Ltd also came up with a join project to develop the first 5MW trigeneration plant completed in October 2007 to reduce carbon emissions by 17% per annum. Another 9.2MW trigeneration facility will reduce carbon dioxide emission by 24% yearly. This is due to open in mid-2008.
I guess this might explain the fall in ranking by Singapore from 1996 to 2006! We have gone from #2 to #5. Hurray! But what happens when we build another oil refinery in the near future?
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Then again, these calculations are always problematic of course. If you noticed on the 2006 map, it states that Guam is the 10th highest per capita carbon dioxide emitter in the world. Guam is a small little island territory of USA in the north pacific with a population of 180,000 people and land area no bigger than Singapore. Unfortunately, due to the US military base on the island, Guam generates and consume more energy per person than Singapore does! The smaller the population, the higher chance of having a high per capita carbon emission.
Still, it is logical because one would not expect a small nation to be producing excessive amounts of carbon. Most of the top per capita emitters are usually countries dealing with oil and associated industries with very small population. Still you don't see Brunei on that list!
Read full article here
Friday, October 26, 2007
Use Twitter in Crises
As previously during the earthquake in Sumatra leading to tremors in Singapore, Twitter has again come of use during yet another times of crises. This time, not just by users but by emergency services.
KPBS is the local San Diego news station and they have taken on to Twitter as well during this time of fire crises in the San Diego county. Notices of road closures yesterday and today, messages to evacuated residents to return home!
Even at night it keeps burning. I can't imagine how it's like there right now, full of ash and dust. Worse than our haze. Source: sarah.c
For me in Singapore, it is the only way to get in touch with the news in San Diego where my fiance and his family lives! Most of the news in Singapore focus on the south Los Angeles county mega-homes while the lives of displaced farm workers in San Diego goes unnoticed.
I could of course sit in front of the computer all day and try to look out for depressing news as they get updated regularly. Alternatively, I could go about my work and get messages sent to my phone via Twitter. Otherwise I just check on twitter every so often together with the rest of my twitter messages online.
W's family lives near the area being evacuated. Source: Eric Byers
This is a perfect case study of how twitter can be of use in a productive and efficient manner. Twitter updates can be sent directly to subscribers' cellphones and even if power is out, you have no Internet access at home, you can still get these messages on your phone. Of course, for those with relatives in San Diego but unable to find out news on their local television network, this is also perfect. There was power outage in the beginning of the fire and I know that some of the local news websites were down. Also, twitter allows for short messages which may not fit into the scheme of things in an actual news website.
The sky over Chula Visa. I'm visiting in 2 months. I wonder if the air quality is going to be just as bad. Source: rennae_lc
Of course radio is still the preferred tool of communications in event of crises but not everybody hangs on to the radio. Twitter now proves to be the new alternative in emergency communications. It also shows how mainstream media is now integrating with web 2.0 technology for more effective communication. After all you stop drawing the line between mainstream and web media when a crisis is at hand!
Read full article here
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Monday, October 15, 2007
Tissue for thought
Today is blog action day and in support of this day and the environment, the monkey wishes to bring everybody's attention to the most insignificant, often overlooked daily hygiene product that you cannot live without.
The Toilet Paper.
Tissue Paper, Tisu, Kitchen Towel, Kleenex, Toilet Roll, Facial tissue, or whichever name you know it by. All of the above.
In a survey conducted on 1683 students and staff of the National University of Singapore, 21% (353) said that they "love soft, strong and white tissue paper". Only a miserable 5% disagree with the statement while the rest of the 95% weigh heavily on strongly agree (21%), agree (31%) or neutral (34%).
Why does this matter? What's the big deal with liking some comfort on my sensitive skin? It's just a piece of paper which we wipe and throw away without even thinking of it. Personally, I am guilty of consuming large amounts of facial tissue due to my chronic sinus problem. In fact, every time I visit the toilet, I could am flushing a forest down Singapore's excellent sewage system.
According to the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF):
"Every day, about 270,000 trees are flushed down the drain or end up as garbage all over the world.When I first read this website, that image above woke me up. But it was not until I was in Sabah, that the image of deforestation from Borneo's virgin rainforest that really sank it in.
In fact, every time you use a toilet roll or other tissue products you might be directly contributing to this environmental destruction.
Source: WWF
Tissue products, such as toilet paper, handkerchiefs, kitchen towels and napkins cannot be recycled after their use, for understandable reasons!
So it is important to ensure that the tissue products you buy contain a high level of recycled content.
To make your facial tissue, large areas of virgin forests may have been cut and burnt to make room for fast growing Eucalyptus plantations."
Scenes of deforestation in Borneo. Photo taken in Feb 2007
Every single dead tree lying there are potentially going to end up in our toilets, on our toilet roll and before you know it, flushed down the pipes!
Lumberyard in Sabah Borneo. Photo taken in Feb 2007
Lumberyard like these were easily seen in Borneo. Scenes of deforested areas were dime a dozen. Had it been for something less trivial a reason, perhaps it wouldn't seem so senseless. But did you know that while 25% of the wood fibre imports for tissues in Europe come from regions with mainly plantation forestry for pulp (US, Brazil, Chile, South Africa), and a significant part comes from countries where illegal logging is a big problem like Indonesia, Russia, and the Baltic States. (Source: WWF)
At the same time, it is paper pulp mills that is potentially causing the haze in Singapore due to the scorching of land in Indonesia? It could even be burning to clear the land for paper plantations! A tropical rainforest is high in its diversity of plants which then provide homes to an equally high diversity of wildlife. Do you think a monoculture of tree plantation can provide the same?
On the way to being shipped to... Singapore?! Photo taken in Feb 2007
And guess what? The whiter your tissue paper is, the more bleach is being used in your paper. That bleach not only can be harmful to our bodies but also to our water supplies when we dispose of the paper.
"Toxic emissions - dioxins and other organochlorines - are produced as by-products of chlorine bleaching, a process that is used by the pulp and paper industry to whiten papers. They are released in waste-water from pulp and paper mills using chlorine chemistry. These harmful chemicals spread everywhere - in our water supply, food chain and bodies." - WWFOf course WWF kindly provided a list of companies and the amount of recycled fibre they use in their paper products. However, the list does not include Asian brands. As such, I made a point to contact Kimberly Clark which produces the brand Scott and Kleenex which my mother purchase fatefully.
This was their reply:
"Yes, we do use recycled as well as 100% virgin fibre. As a general rule, all tissues bearing our Scott branding, have some recycled material in them with the Scott Extra toilet roll being 100% recycled. However, pls note that the Scott Deluxe is the only exception here, being 100% virgin fibre.For their honestly, I applaud them. But for their use of 100% virgin fibre, I shudder at how many trees I've been killing without knowing. Understandably virgin fibre just means that no recycled materials are used but whether the fibre came from virgin forests or plantation trees, we don't know. But the impact, though not the same, can be reduced by our action!
For Kleenex facial and toilet tissues, they are all 100% virgin fibre."
So what can we do? Find out how to make a conscious consumer decision to stop buying 100% Soft Strong and White toilet rolls. In addition, we can also, very simply, reduce our use.
Source: WWF
How about handkerchiefs? Or washing with water and drying with a towel? In fact, did you know that a simple hand dryer in the public toilet would potentially help you reduce your impact on the environment compared to that one square of hand towel you would otherwise use?
It has become quite a trend recently to install hand/face towel dispensers in public toilets. I admit, I do prefer that much more to burning my hand on the hand dryer. But this blog comes up with a detailed accounting of why hand dryers are much more beneficial than hand/face towels. It can be easily concluded by this statement:
"The truth is paper towel is one of the things where the useful part of its life is far smaller chunk of its total life (unless large part of such towels is recycled, which is not the case today). Such things are rarely environmentally friendly. So even though, in restroom, electric hand dryer consumes more electric energy than paper towel roll, if you see the big picture, you are better off with electric hand dryer both financially and environmentally." - Saving Energy BlogThis is not even taking into consideration the amount of energy you use to produce the paper!
Or as a green website suggested - why not be patient and just dry your hands off by evaporation as life intends it to be!
So next time you picked up a piece of tissue, think about where it came from. Or perhaps like me, I think I'll go invest in a handkerchief today.
Read full article here
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Going beyond blogger
Last Friday, the monkey under the workshop arm of the Naked Hermit Crabs, organized a workshop on Blogging for Nature for advanced users at NIE/NTU. Many animal friends and naked crabbies were recruited to share on various tools and social network services beyond blogging.
There were buckets of adult humor and geeky web 2.0 fun as typical in any conversation with the monkey. Here above is duck talking about his pussy as a flickr example while the barnacles display their evolved prowess in copulation on youtube!
The workshop was organized in 3 parts - introduction, tools and how to disseminate your content beyond blogs. For continuity and participation beyond the class, the participants get to collaborate on google document for a list of web resources. The class is also supposed to participate in the Blog Action Day for Environment on 15 October.
Originally the idea was for the advanced students to be tutors for the beginner workshop next friday. However, there are just not enough volunteer tutors so I guess we'll have to work doubly hard next week!
Read more about last friday's workshop details on the Naked Hermit Crabs blog. July from NIE Green Club, our host for the event, also blogged about it.
Read full article here
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Blogging for the Environment
15 October 2007 is Blog Action Day. This year's theme is the Environment!
"If you have a blog and want to join in, all you have to do is use that day to post something related to the environment, in whatever way, shape, or form you prefer. You can pick an environmental issue that has meaning for you and let us know why it's important. Organize a beach or neighborhood cleanup and tell us about it. If you're into fiction writing, give us a story with an environmental theme. Have a podcast, videoblog, or photoblog? Join the fun! The idea here is to have a mass effect on public awareness by sharing as many ideas in as many ways as possible."All you have to do is register your blog with Blog Action Day and remember to write about something related to the environment on 15 October itself!
This is coming at such perfect timing because this Friday, we will be having a Blogging for Nature workshop so the homework shall be to blog for the environment on 15 October! What better way to culminate a workshop but to join in the rest of the world and the 7,000+ other blogs who have signed up for this.
Watch this video to learn how the organizers think Blogs will change the world!
Thanks to La Crispa who alerted me to this!
Read full article here
Thursday, October 04, 2007
This Week's Green Initiatives
Aspiring eco-paparazzi monkey spotted a few hot new green initiatives around town this week.
SGCARPOOL.COM
Launched just last week on 30 Sept, there is a new outlet for people interested in finding carpools in Singapore. sgcarpool.com is transportation matching made easy. In the sgcarpool blog, they even included a list of alternative transportations and carpool etiquette! In the US, there are even carpooling lanes on highways to encourage more people to travel together instead of having single-occupancy vehicles causing traffic jams, wasting time and resources. Not forgetting, polluting our environment and consuming fossil fuel! Carpooling works in many ways - you can rotate drivers, cars or if you don't drive, you can catch a ride with somebody who does! Sharing fuel cost is a common practice unless there is a rotation of cars and drivers.
My earliest understanding of carpools came from the comic strip Blondie and Dagwood where Dagwood is seen every morning, rushing out of the house to catch the carpool or as in the following strip depicts, he forgets that it's his turn to pick the carpool up!
So far my own experience in carpooling has been very positive especially in the US where there is no public transport to the nature reserve near UCSB. Thankfully, the volunteer docents were kind retirees who did not mind picking this monkey up every friday to go for the training sessions!
Likewise in Singapore, I am embarrassed to say that I often depend on friends who drive to give me a ride to out of way places. While I've resisted driving for 26 years, I do acknowledge now that driving is a necessary skill and in fact, I may be learning how to drive this December. Like Dagwood, I realize that carpooling doesn't have to be a one way street, sometimes I can actually be the one driving others to return the favour. Hopefully I won't be as blur as him!
CCO Blog Launch
Speaking of driving, one of the biggest challenges to sustainable mobility is the contribution of greenhouse gases and subsequently climate change.
The climate change organization (CCO) in Singapore has come up with a new initiative to bring greater awareness of climate change to Singaporeans! This Saturday, CCO will be launching a group blog penned by the big wigs of the environment circle such as Dr Geh Min and Mr Howard Shaw - head of Nature Society (Singapore) and Singapore Environment Council respectively.
Unfortunately, I have my fair share of green activities that day and will very unfortunately, be unable to attend the launch. Guess I'll have to miss out on taking photos with the CCO Mascot, Snowball the Penguin. I do so love mascots after all!
Blogging Workshop
Blogging is the rage these days but content specific blogs like the CCO blog are very much in need! The Naked Hermit Crabs are organizing a series of blogging workshops hosted by the NIE Green Club in the following fridays 12th and 19th October 2007. Of course being such a fan of carpooling, we will be arranging for carpooling to the workshop as well! If you are interested to know more details of the workshops, leave a comment below.
Read full article here
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Monkey's Animal Friends Fund
I first had the idea for Monkey's Animal Friends Fund (MAFF) as early as June 2007. It all began with a friend's email. This friend of mine in Philippines has been asking friends and family to plant a tree for every birthday that she had since the age of 10!
Likewise, I was inspired to celebrate my 26th birthday through celebrating a worthy cause instead of asking for birthday presents this year. In fact, I will be giving up the purchase of a new phone - and instead donating the cost of the phone to the monkey animal friends fund. I've been tempted to buy a Nokia N-Series for the longest time but I'm pledging instead to donate the cost of a phone to the fund.
Think of it as a birthday gift to me or simply contributing to a good cause!
In June, I sent this message to all my friends:
"This year my birthday, instead of asking for gifts for myself, I am asking my friends to pledge to the Monkey's Animal Friends Fund which will donate to ACRES towards the building of a monkey enclosure at their wildlife rescue center. My target is $6000 and will end on my birthday 14 Nov 2007.All the money will go towards Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres)'s Wildlife Rescue Centre. The Acres Wildlife Rescue Centre (AWRC) is almost complete and is slated to open in the middle of next month. But it is still in dire need of funds.
You could pledge any of the following:
1) Pledge a sum of your choice
2) Pledge to save $0.50 or $1 everyday till November 14
3) Pledge my age ($26) or double my age ($52)
4) Pledge the meaning of life ($42)"
"The centre has raised $627,000 since October last year and needs another $460,000 to cover operations costs. But while donations from the public, which has donated 46 per cent of the money raised so far, corporations have not been as forthcoming, contributing to about 25 per cent."Read more about the AWRC here.Excerpt from "Little help for our wild friends"
By Sheralyn Tay
TODAY, 27 September 2007
AWRC at night
At the moment, I have collected pledges amounting to SGD$1116.50, with about $300 already collected. Of course that is a little to go a long way but I am hoping to raise enough to sponsor a monkey enclosure. The little teary monkey above was drawn by me to be the mascot of MAFF. He represent all the smuggled and now homeless monkey, unable to return to their homeland, and possibly having to be put to sleep if not for places like the AWRC. Please put a smile on his face and contribute to the MAFF!
Of course it is partly also because I am a monkey and it would be rather quaint for the monkey to help other monkeys. Best of all, I am hoping that on my birthday, we can all go down to ACRES and help paint or work on an enclosure with them in addition to just giving them the money so we would all feel like we have a stake in helping the animals.
Adorable monkeys drawn by students at the AWRC
To find out more about ACRES, visit their website www.acres.org.sg
To contribute to the MAFF, email me at isid0rette at yahoo dot com or leave me your contact information in the comments section of this post. ACRES is a registered charity and all donations are tax deductible! Let me know if you need a receipt.
If you prefer to donate directly to ACRES, please go ahead but do drop me a note so I know you've thought of monkey :)
Thank you!
Read full article here
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Sharing Nature Workshop @ SBWR
Shortly after the talk on Secret Shores of Singapore at the Theatrette in Sungei Buloh, Ria and I quickly don our workshop cap and made a beeline for the workroom at Sungei Buloh. Thanks to the coordination, hosting and especially food(!) provided by the staff of Sungei Buloh, we have arranged for a "Sharing Nature with Ordinary People" workshop for volunteers from SBWR, Naked Hermit Crabs and just about everywhere else! Several toddycats were also present, especially familiar faces from my Pedal Ubin group.
I couldn't capture everybody in the room with my camera but it was a huge crowd!
Although we only anticipated 24 people for the workshop, almost 40 turned up! There were a total of 39 people including myself and Ria. It was an excellent sharing session where guides of all experience level comes together to share problems and solutions for different type of situations a guide encounters out there in the "wild". Mainly with different type of visitors.
The workshop started with a general overview of where everybody are from - at least those 24 who preregistered - what their favourite and least favourite aspects of guiding were and a short discussion of each aspect. Discussions really got on the way with animated conversations and contributions from everybody when we broke out into smaller groups. Each group was tasked with a different type of visitors.
Group 1: "School Children" group
Group 2: "Photographers" group
Group 3: "Foreigners" group
Group 4: "RC" group
Group 5: "Mixed Families" group
We overran the time a little towards the end because there were just too much to share. I guess I forgot to introduce to the group that I was actually the note taker for the workshop so I guess people were wondering why I'm walking around taking photos of them! My job was to "instantly" transcribed the points discussed into the round up slides and other general miscellanea. All in all the sharing session had its share of laughter and good ideas! I think we all took away something useful from the workshop. We were expecting some role playing from the groups but darn, none gave us the pleasure of watching them play out the situations prescribed to them. I think next time we'll have to give specific instructions! *grin*
Feedbacks are still coming in from the participants but so far it's been very encouraging and we definitely hope to do this again for the other guides who were actually out on our shores and forests while we were at the workshop! We have not forgotten you - more workshops are definitely in the works.
Photos can be seen at my flickr set.
Read full article here
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