3 Common Challenges of the World by Jeffrey Sachs

Extract of BBC report

Jeffrey Sachs delivers the first of five lectures at The Royal Society, London where he outlines 3 common challenges facing mankind and argues that we must adapt to the new age before it is too late!

The greatest challenge is learning to live in a crowded and interconnected world that is creating unprecedented pressures on human society and on the physical environment. Peace as a way of solving problems is a crucial concept for us since we are on a path of increasing risk and increasing instability, and by all objective measures the path of increasing hatred as well. We have not yet found a way of solving problems that our generation faces now.

According to Sachs, the 3 common problems are:
(1) The challenge of the Anthropocene – That is the idea that the physical systems of the planet -- chemical fluxes, the climate, habitats, biodiversity, evolutionary processes -- are to an incredible and unrecognized extent under human forcings (influences) that now dominate a large measure of the most central ecological, chemical and bio-physical processes on the planet.

(2) The challenge of geo-politics or the Age of Convergence – It's the notion that in a world that is more connected than ever before, a world where economic development, at least for the last 250 years, has been driven by technology, and now a world where those technologies diffuse rapidly around the world. One result is that there will be in our time a fundamental shift of economic power, and the political power that goes along with it. The unfortunate thing is we're (especially the West and the currently privileged) not ready for it.

(3) The challenge of the weakest links – In an interconnected world, all parts of the world are affected by what happens in all other parts of the world. We cannot be surprised when events in some far off and distant place can be of fundamental significance even for survival, for the spending of hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars for the direction of global politics especially those places in the world that suffer, where people die because they are too poor and those parts of the world which face horrific challenges to even get onto the ladder of development.

He cited examples such as the problem of peace-keeping in Darfur which is the poorest place on the whole planet where there is not enough water to keep people alive and where the electricity grid is hundreds of miles away. He questioned the situation where people are devoting massive sums of money to weapons that could be better devoted to combat ignorance, poverty and disease. He even shown us that one day's Pentagon spending could cover every sleeping site in Africa for five years with anti-malaria bed nets. His conclusion is amazingly simple: we do have choices -- they are good ones if we take them.

What do you think, friends?

Listen to his speech: Bursting at the Seams.

The Fate and Views of Nuclear Plants

CBS correspondent Steve Kroft reported on April 8 under the topic “France: Vive Les Nukes” (Long Live The Nuclear Plants) stated that “with power demands rising and concerns over global warming increasing, what the world needs now is an efficient means of producing large amounts of carbon free energy. One of the few available options is nuclear, a technology whose time seemed to come and go and may now be coming again.” Incidentally some 30 years ago, the French decided to go their own way and embrace nuclear power plants. Indeed, nuclear energy powers almost everything in France: its homes, its factories and even its high speed railroads besides Paris, the "City of Light". Nearly 80 percent of the country's electricity comes from 58 nuclear power plants. "

The said report reminds me of Dr James Lovelock, the leading environmentalist and scientist who invented the "Gaia theory" and has once told the Western Morning News that he regretted his endorsement of windfarms in the West country of UK. The core of the Gaia theory is about the earth as a self-regulating, living system rather than that of the Darwinian theory of competing physical, chemical and biological interests. Dr. Lovelock believes nuclear power is the only form of energy that will not contribute to global warming and could supply enough power for the planet. (for a fuller report, see Country Guardian’s WIND POWER JUST A GESTURE of 03 February 2004 )

You may also listen to Dr. Lovelock’s soundtracks on
(1) How he came to write The Revenge of Gaia,
(2) Dr Lovelock explains how Gaia theory informs his predictions,

(3) About Nuclear Energy available on the BBC - Radio 4 - Today Programme Science Report of July 6, 2006.

全球反常天氣報告

根據ETtoday.com東森新聞報2007年1月19日有如下報導：『 邁入2007年還不到一個月，全球各地都出現氣候異常，美國冰風暴已經持續一周多，‧‧‧加州馬里布20年來首見降雪，柑橘作物的寒害損失至少8億美元。 西歐、北歐也降下暴風雨，以英國情況最慘，最大陣風時速高達159公里，英國氣象局氣象預報員說，18日橫掃英國的狂風，風速是「1990年1月以來的最高紀錄。」德國也吹起最大時速170公里的如颶風般的狂風‧‧‧』

According to AccuWeather.com’s weather forecast of April 6th: “ A dramatic weather pattern will result in snow in some very unusual places, including the mid-Atlantic region and as far south as northern Texas, along with record-breaking cold and a stormy pattern into next week." It goes on further to state that this week's big, high-impact cold wave will get a shot at rewriting record books across a big swath of the nation early Easter morning.… Although the area of record-setting cold will reach westward into the Great Plains, it will be the South where the highest concentration of new low temperature extremes will be registered. … Daily record lows may fall by 10 degrees, even more. Needless to say, early spring growth, including fruit trees, vegetable crops and home garden plantings, will be at great risk of frost and freeze damage overnight.”

According to Peter Wittoeck of Science & Spirit : "The consequences of global warming for agriculture is seen in the rise of the sea level for low-lying coastal areas will be flooded and will no longer be useful for agricultural purposes. … Besides, it is expected that extreme weather conditions will occur more frequently, involving heavy storms or very dry and hot periods. Also, the present climat zones will move towards the poles: for temperate climates a shift by 200 to 300 kilometres can be expected for every extra degree Celsius. This poses problems for the cultivation of certain crops… Warming also means that summers will have more periods of drought. To get some idea of their impact, we can take the drought of 1988 in the United States as an example. Crop yields dropped by no less than 40%."

讓我們希望今天在美國南部出現的反常現象不是全球大氣變暖的一個直接後果；然而，全球大氣變暖現象和其與溫室氣體濃度的相關性(correlation)是超過90% (見維基百科：Scientific opinion on climate change)的數據，卻是對全人類的一個清晰警號！

A good "click" for climate changes around the world

Dear Eco Friends,

The BBC has provided a good map for an easy click to dicover climate change around the world. Try it yourself: Climate change around the world

Howard

World Health Day 2007

Today (April 7th) is the World Health Day. Its 2007 theme is "Invest in health, build a safer future". The concerned messages are:
1. Invest in health, build a safer future.
2. Threats to health know no borders.
3. Health leads to security; insecurity leads to poor health.
4. Preparedness and quick response improve international health security.
5. The World Health Organization is making the world more secure

Coincidentally, the World Health Organization was also established 59 years ago on 7 April 1948. The World Health theme 2007 is somehow related to some of the Millennium Development Goals adopted unanimously at the 2000 U.N. Millennium Assembly, namely,

• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. By 2015, reduce by half both the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day and the share suffering from hunger.
• Reduce child mortality. By 2015, reduce by two-thirds the mortality rate among children under five;
• Improve maternal health. By 2015, reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality rate.
• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases. Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases by 2015.
• Ensure environmental sustainability. Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs and reverse the loss of environmental resources. By 2015, cut in half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and sanitation. By 2020, improve significantly the lives of 100 million slum dwellers.
  

The interesting question here is: Can the various UN assemblies and committees work in a truly collaborative and synergistic manner to reach their goals? Otherwise, things could be dragged in a discord owing to bureaucracies and ambiguous accountabilities much after the fashion of the ineffectiveness in dealing with cross-border pollution among government bureaus in Hong Kong.

Call for Action by Dr Margaret Chan

The following is an abstract of Margaret Chan's speech delivered on April 2nd during World Health Day debate on international health security held in Singapore.

"We live in a world where threats to health arise from the speed and volume of air travel, the way we produce and trade food, the way we use and misuse antibiotics, and the way we manage the environment. All of these activities have intensified the chance of outbreaks of epidemic-prone diseases. Outbreaks today are larger in two ways. First, changes in the way humanity inhabits the planet have led to the emergence of new diseases in unprecedented numbers. In the thirty years from 1973 to 2003, when SARS appeared, 39 pathogenic agents capable of causing human disease were newly identified. Among them are Ebola, HIV/AIDS, legionnaire's disease, Hanta virus, Hendra virus, Nipah virus, and H5N1 avian influenza. This is an ominous trend. It is historically unprecedented, and it is certain to continue.

Second, people are highly mobile and interconnected in the 21st century. SARS taught us how quickly a new disease can spread along the routes of international air travel. Financial markets are closely intertwined. These trends mean that the disruption caused by an outbreak in one part of the world can quickly ricochet throughout the global financial and business systems.
In June 2007, the revised International Health Regulations will come into force. For the first time, WHO is authorized to act on media reports to request verification and offer collaboration to an affected country. If this offer is refused, WHO can alert the world to an emergency of international concern using information other than official government notifications.

Population growth, urbanization trends and unsanitary conditions in many parts of the world create ideal conditions for explosive epidemics of well-known diseases, such as yellow fever and dengue. Environmental degradation and changing weather patterns allow known diseases to flare up in unexpected places, at unexpected times, and with unprecedented numbers of cases. Today, mainstay drugs fail much faster than the pace of development of replacement drugs. Such threats reinforce our need for shared responsibility and collective action in the face of universal vulnerability, in sectors well beyond health."

World TUBERCULOSIS (TB) Day 「世界防癆日」

3月24日乃「世界防癆日」，本港據衞生署統計資料，香港每年仍有七千宗肺結核呈報個案，每年約有二百多人被奪去性命。提醒大家更是時候預防肺結核和其他傳染病的重要性，因今天病毒和病菌變種的危機比以前更為顯著！

以下是世界衛生組織﹝WHO﹞的新聞稿撮要：
A press release by the WHO on 22 March 2007 indicated that the global tuberculosis (TB) epidemic has levelled off for the first time since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared TB a public health emergency in 1993. The Global Tuberculosis Control Report released today by WHO finds that the percentage of the world's population struck by TB peaked in 2004 and then held steady in 2005. "We are currently seeing both the fruits of global action to control TB and the lethal nature of the disease’s ongoing burden," said United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Although the rate at which people developed TB in 2005 was level or even declined slightly compared to 2004, the actual number of TB cases continued to rise slowly. The reason for this difference is that world population is expanding. The number of cases in 2005 was 8 787 000, up from 8 718 000 in 2004.

An estimated 1.6 million people died of the disease in 2005, 195 000 of them people living with HIV. Indeed, TB is a major cause of death among people living with HIV/AIDS, and HIV is the main reason for failure to meet TB control targets in high HIV settings, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, where HIV/AIDS is dramatically fuelling the TB epidemic. The spread of extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) poses a serious threat to progress and could even reverse recent gains. "We have a clear plan on how to control XDR-TB, but countries are moving far too slowly on implementing this plan. Funding is an issue as well -- it will take an additional US$ 650 million globally to implement control of both XDR-TB and multi-drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) in 2007 alone," said Dr Mario Raviglione, Director of the WHO Stop TB Department.

The Report finds that the WHO Regions of the Americas, South-East Asia and the Western Pacific are now on track to meet their 2015 Global Plan Targets; while the African, Eastern Mediterranean and European regions are not. WHO's 2005 targets of 70% case detection and 85% cure were narrowly missed globally: case detection was 60% and treatment success was 84%.

For full release, please see HIV/AIDS and other obstacles still thwarting progress

響應3月22日世界水日

在香港，我們只需在家扭開水龍頭，便可享用清潔食水。同時，絕大部分的家居均設有廁所，市集中亦很易找到公廁。你可有想過現時全球每六個人便有一個缺乏清潔食水、每五個人便有兩個缺乏衛生設施和每日有3,800名兒童死於因此而引致的疾病。

為此，聯合國自1993年起，把每年的3月22日定為「世界水日」，呼籲各國珍惜和好好使用水資源。欲知更多相關資料，可擊入以下網站瀏覽
(1) 世界宣明會
(2) 2007年世界水日
(3) World Water Day

朋友們，希望你把這消息傳開，並參與珍惜用水！

Despair and Hope in a Bottle

by Christopher Fung*

What can a simple bottle of manufactured drinking water tell us? To some, it may mean progress and convenience and to others garbage and artificiality. Let us look closer.

Water comes in abundance in most places and is not worth much. Yet by bottling drinkable water, the cost to the consumer is at least a few hundred times what it would otherwise cost. Some manufacturers start with natural water mined from pristine aquifers. Others start by distilling water, then minerals are sometimes added to restore some semblance of naturalness. Both are then bottled, packaged, transported long distances, distributed, sold, consumed, and the empty bottles disposed and treated as rubbish. At every step of this process, energy is expended, cost is increased and pollution to our air, water and land are generated.

The impact of this lowly bottle does not stop at pollution and ridiculously inflated costs. When large numbers of people consume bottled water, creating billion-dollar industries, the economy expands creating work for people and increasing the gross domestic products (GDP). But is this good and what we want? The frivolous consumption means that most people will have to toil longer hours just to support this illusion of progress which must come at the expense of our time with our loved ones and for recreation …etc. and ultimately our lives as well. And the product is usually inferior: try watering your plants with distilled water to find out the truth.

Yet the unnecessary suffering brought on by the advent of bottled water impacts the already vulnerable disproportionately. Usually, the wealthy owners of these industries live far away from their polluting factories, highways, garbage dumps and incinerators, leaving those who cannot afford better accommodation to face the daily impact of pollution. To get good natural water, people who have been custodians of their water resources for generations can be chased off their land by governments colluding with outside forces like multi-national corporations coveting foreign water sources after polluting their own.

The bottle is only symptomatic of a much large phenomenon in which the more we strive, the more woes and miseries we have brought on the society at large and disproportionately to the poor. Around Hong Kong, the scarring of our landscape with phony slope and river management has destroyed valuable ecologies and created unsustainable areas requiring ever-increasing maintenance costs while depriving citizens of much enjoyment of nature. The indiscriminate use of air conditioning to keep out urban heat and pollution not only makes the air fouler, the city more uncomfortable, indoor air quality poorer and costs us more in taxes and electricity bills, but most significantly also contributes to global warming through fossil fuel use. From this last disastrous effect, no creature on earth is immune. Many hangman nooses are tightening around our stiff necks.

Humankind is carving out colonies of impoverished acceptability within abundant nature for our own comfort and survival while abandoning the outside world to hostile forces of our own making, like the filthy rich retreating into gated ghettos even on vacation. With global climate change, storm intensity may increase bringing more devastation each time. Rainfall pattern will change disrupting farming and destroying ecologies, forcing us to work harder for food grown with more artificial pesticide and fertilizer input. The impoverishment of nature (loss of biodiversity) and pollution will make plant and animal lives more susceptible to sicknesses. Our “human” world is rapidly closing in and the GDP we have been craving has morphed into Grief, Devastation and Poverty for all.

But this is certainly not the world intended by God. Facing the first test foisted on him to turn stones into bread, Jesus response was expansive: Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. Jesus pointed out the only physical foundation on which man must rest: Let there be light … a firmament … green plants … water teaming with creatures … land bringing forth animals …etc, God saw that this is very good (Gen 1). An earth supporting abundant and dazzling life forms, an earth of exquisite beauty with intricate dependence was created and this earth speaks profusely and unceasingly of the creator’s intelligence and loving kindness (Ps 19:1-6, Rom 1:20). Sweet water was then free and abundant.

It is over such a wonderfully satisfying creation, about which even God rested to appreciate (Gen 1:31;2:3), that man was made steward. God did not abolish such charge when mankind fell in Adam though it became harder for mankind to achieve this one and only mandate due to the many broken relationships he sustained to God and the rest of Creation. Yet, in the redemption that God has accomplished in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, these broken relationships are restored. On this restored foundation must our original mandate continue. A person who refuses to return to work after his sickness has been cured at the expense of the doctor is abusing the doctor’s good will.

The Church, being the community of those healed by Jesus Christ, must stand before God to proclaim God’s intention to the world. The rainbow is the sign of the eternal covenant of God with his creation to continue in his love and protection (Gen 9:4-6). God remembers this all the time (Rev. 4:3) and issues a very severe warning: He will destroy those who destroy his creation (Rev 11:18). When the Church preaches the gospel in Jesus Christ, she must make clear that fully resuming our stewardship over creation is the glorious task the good news points to. Forgiveness of sins removes the impediment to our stewardship and we must do what is expected of us in every functional dimension of stewardship known to us – social, economical, cultural, techno-scientific, spiritual … etc.

Fulfilling our mandate must start with knowing God’s mind-expanding design. God facilitated Adam in his stewardship by bringing animals before him for his naming. This naming is not a projecting of one’s wish onto the animal as one would name a yet-to-be-born child, but an encapsulation of the essence of the animal that he sees before him. Indeed, one can only work according to what God has ordained, which is now brought in front of Adam for his investigation and acquaintance (Gen 2:18-20). The resulting obedient knowledge enabled Adam to appreciate creation as a whole and find his role in God’s order.  Only then could he know his need of a helper, the woman, as his co-steward.

With the overwhelming problems the world is facing, hope seems to be in short supply even with our renewed sense of stewardship. Mankind seems to have unleashed a monster that threatens to kill its master and destroy the earth with it. Yet when we see the world’s problems all linked and encapsulated in a bottle of water, we know that our actions, no matter how seemingly insignificant, will percolate through the system to impact the world for the better or worse. Individual actions can and do make a difference. Here is our hope in God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead and will continue to work his purpose in each of us for his creation.

Greed, Desolation and Pollution – another GDP – feed on each other. When water is polluted, opportunistic entrepreneur push their bottled water by exaggerating the problem. When air and land are polluted, savvy developers look for more pristine land to desolate for their “exclusive” clients, e.g. building golf courses. But appreciating how God adorns the lilies of the valley and cares for the birds of the sky would banish much anxiety that feeds our greed. We can live more freely like our Lord. And what does our Lord envision? A river of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb … on either side of the river was the tree of life bearing twelve kinds of fruits, yielding its fruit every month and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations (Rev. 22:1-2).

The vicious cycle of Greed, Desolation and Pollution can be broken. While we must not forget the rudiments of minimizing plastic bags and paper consumption … etc., we must understand our only mandate and make stewards of all nations. We are made in the image of the creative God. In creatively stewarding our mammon, we can help the world’s needy to preserve their environment, e.g. building latrines to reduce water pollution, making solar oven to stop damaging forests, restoring ecologies and local food supply, providing basic education … etc., curb the destructive frivolous consumption from excess wealth, e.g. newspapers, binging, cell phones, big cars … etc., and restore positive value to work and be master of our economy. Through faithful stewardship, the glory of God in his creation will shine through for all to behold.

--------
*Dr. Christopher Fung is a member of Christians for Eco-Concern, a local group promoting creation awareness among Christians.

Welcome, friends!!

我們是誰？ Who are we?

我們是一群基督徒，深信聖經的教導和應許。

我們很注重神賦予世人的管家職分。

我們注意到地球很多資源正被濫用和破壞，這當然是罪對於世界的一種影響，如果人類不及時改正，它會危害我們和子孫的生存。

所以，我們因信主耶穌救恩的功效和應許，走在一起，呼籲世人應及早回到神為我們預備的祝福裏，讓大地成為我們生活的樂土。好叫世人和大自然能融洽地發展下去。

我們的使命宣言 Mission Statement

我們相信 神創造了美好的世界，而我們是 神所召命作大地的管家。

我們深切關注 被造萬物正被濫用和破壞─這就是罪，並且危及我們的生存。

我們相信基督徒需要心意更新及調較生活方式來投身關顧自然環境。

我們深信藉著耶穌基督，教會應有獨特貢獻來帶出醫治被造萬物的盼望。

因此，我們委身於提醒基督徒群體，從本港眾教會及信徒開始，對地球生態作出適切的關注及行動。

我們的活動 Our Activities

自2001年初，我們便開始以定期月會方式，相討有關環保關注的問題。

此外，我們亦協助本地教會推動環保主日，並提供相關的崇拜材料。我們現正草擬一份主日學之環保材料，以提供各教會團契使用。

我們亦間中參與香港電台第五台之宗教節目，藉大眾傳媒推廣聽眾對環保之認識和關注。

我們鼓勵成員參與對外之交流，例如，我們曾派出成員參與天主教信仰探討中心於2002年10月舉辦的「從基督教/天主教看地球峰會話香江」研討會；

我們亦會間中組織參觀本地的環保景點，我們曾於2003年5月參觀米埔濕地。

歡迎你加入我們的行列 You're welcome to join us!