Comparison and Contrast

Indonesia and the United States have different approaches to deal with climate change. Indonesia, as a developing country, is using ‘human’ approach as it doesn’t have a good technology yet. In contrast, the United States, as a well developed country, has already had the technology and uses less ‘human’ approach.

According to Indonesian State Minister for the Environment (2007), Indonesia is dealing with climate change by placing a value on carbon emissions, which means that people or factories will have to pay when they pollute the environment. The government is hoping that people will start reducing their pollution to environment when they have to pay for it and this is hoped to be able to improve the environmental condition.

In a well developed country like the United States, the government tries to use technology to deal with climate change. According to the Greenpeace Global Warming Campaign (2007), the United States has been successful in reducing its reliance on fossil fuel (oil, gas, etc) and has started to use renewable energy sources. In the US now, nearly 80% of electricity can be produced by these renewable energy resources and it also has succeeded in reducing their carbon dioxide emission by 72%.

From the statistics, it can be observed that the US is seemed to be successful in its way of dealing with climate change. For Indonesia, as this policy is still new, the result is still a bit invisible and is expected to become visible in several years ahead.

References

"Dealing with Global Warming Without Nuclear Power." ENewsUSA. January 27, 2007. Retrieved February 19, 2008, from

http://enewsusa.blogspot.com/2007/01/dealing-with-global-warming-without.html

“Indonesia asks for technology transfers in dealing with climate change.” People’s Daily Online. December 1, 2007. Retrieved February 19, 2008, from

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90777/6313157.html

Climate Change (Cause & Effect)

In Indonesia, climate change effect has been clearly experienced since a while ago in most major cities like Jakarta, Bandung, etc. The most obvious effect is the increment of global temperature which has made these cities hotter than they were years ago. This change in temperature has also melted the snow in the only snowy place in Indonesia, Puncak Papua.
Monsoon wind, which controls the seasons in Indonesia, is also affected by the change of temperature. According to co-author David Battisti (2007), if the temperature is increasing more, rainy season will be getting shorter and dry season will be getting longer. This is very bad for agriculture in Indonesia, because it is really hard to predict when there will be rainfall and when the rainy season starts and really potentially destroy most of the agriculture in this country.
This has happened a few times which the rainy season starts around February and ends around April while the rainy season is supposed to start on September until March. Dry season starts to dominate this country and really affect the lives of the people as Indonesia is an agricultural country.

References

Shwartz, M. (2007, May 1). Climate change a threat to Indonesian agriculture, study says. Retrieved February 18, 2008, from http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-05/su-cca050107.php

Busy Days in NUS

Whoa..Suddenly my days in NUS become really busy. I don't feel like having 24 hours for 1 day. I wake up in the morning, having classes, lunch, more classes, dinner, and suddenly it's already evening. I’ve been wondering what I use my day for. I’m not playing games or chatting lately and I’ve been trying to use my time as effective as I can. Somehow I still lack of time and I even can hardly have time to study and review my modules.

I also feel lost for some of my modules even though I’ve never skipped their lectures and tutorials. I just cannot understand what the lecturers are talking about and they move to the next chapter before I can even figure out and understand the previous chapter (Maybe I’m a bit hyperbolic. I understand what they’re talking about because they use English, but still I cannot understand the concepts that they are trying to teach).

I’ve been trying to catch up my modules, but I also have many projects and tutorials to be done and of course, I’ll choose to do tutorials and projects because their deadlines are coming soon.

Now it’s week 5 already and mid-term tests are around the corner. I’m really not ready for mid-term tests. I’m asking myself now, what have I learned from week 1 until now??

I guess I need more holidays so that I can have more time to study (even though it’s really difficult to study in a holiday).

I’ve just realized that maybe time does not really fly that fast, but there are just too many works to be done and most of the works need a lot of time. One of my module, CS1102C (C++ programming) really consumes my time with its weekly lab. The lab question is quite difficult and it can’t be finished in an hour or two (Lab 2 even roughly took me 2 days++).

It is Valentine already now (02:20 AM), but I doubt that I’ll be able to have time even for myself. Math Lab in the morning, EG1471 presentation right after the lab, CS1102C sit-in lab (this one is really scary....), and lecture until around 5pm.

I do not hope much for this valentine with my schedule for today. I’m just hoping for one or two good things to happen to me to brighten up my valentine a bit (I’ll really need it after my day).

I have to sleep now and rest myself for tomorrow (or should I say today? Haha..)

by the way, Happy Valentine all!!

I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.

W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence
English dramatist & novelist (1874 - 1965)