Get your answers to questions relating to climate change in Thailand. Dr. Anond Sanidvongs, one the country’s leading climate researchers, and his team are on hand to try to clarify any query you might have on what science can tell about the impacts Thailand might experience as the planet heats up.
Hi Dr. Climate:
1. How does Thailand's carbon emissions and other greenhouse gas pollutants compare to other countries? What would be the most important thing we in Thailand could/should do to help with global warming?
Dr. Anond said in the panel at the Asia Climate Change Conference that, climate change cannot be mitigated, it's about adaptation. What does adaptation entail? Provided that we have been changing our living environments, e.g. in Bangkok, against the nature and seems reaching the point of no return, what hope do we have for adaptation.
Chantana, MAID, Chula
Dear Dr Climate
Here is what I think.
Climate change is a result of a number of human activities as we all know. But it is not the only result of those activities. Dead sea is an example of other result. In short, dead sea means changes in deep ocean eco-system resulting in deaths of living organisms including plants and animals from
the bottom to the surface of the ocean. Evidence has shown that this catastrophic phenomenon was resulting from over use of chemical fertilizer in land farming leading to over growth of green algae on the ocean surface.
I bring this observation to highlight an interesting notion about behaviors of a complex system linking to climate change. With this notion, we can start thinking about a number of entry points to problem solving instead of focusing exclusively on cause-effect relationship of climate change.
I would like to hear your opinion on this.
Thanks much for your attention.
Paibul, The Public Health Ministry
Dear Khun Paibul
You are very correct (and that is always my arguement) that climate change is another purturbance to already very complex natural AND social systems. And that why I alway argue against any proposals that climate change be dealt and managed by its own domain. We need to integrate (or a more recent buzz word 'mainstream') climate change into our development and other agenda. The same planners have done for other factors such as population growth, GDP, etc.
One good thing about climate change is we now begin to have scientific understanding enough to 'project' future climate scenarios. Tese projections are not perfect, nor they are 'predictions', but at least give planners some directions to think about when they make plans for 20-50 years from now. Politics, for example, is much harder to project for what wil be happing 20 years from now.
Anond
Dear Doctor Climate
1. do experts belive that carbon credit is the best strategy for combating
global warming or is it better to slow down the overall economic development
rate by limiting our consumpritons of all kinds?
2. are there really evidences on diseases resulting from global warming or
are they just theories? Even as a theory o theoretical possibility, what
should we do in order to avoid some of the emerging diseases? If the concern
is on emerging diseases, is it not better to emphasize environmental
conservation as against global warming (which might shift emphasis wrongly
to just CO2 emission control but still promote excessive and unnecessary
consumptions?
Dr. somsak
Dear Dr. Somsak
1. I am not an expert on carbon emission and trading but my own view is that carbon credit will not help much in slowing down emission growth in globally overall. However it can facilitate low emission technology be transfered to developing countries but only if there is no restriction on the property right. Only a personal view for the sake of discussion.
2. Disease outbreaks are very complex phenomena and can not simply attribute to just one cause, such as temperature. Not to mention that it is not the average climate but or al climate extreme that need to be concerned. Therefore most of researches done so far need to use some 'models' to bring as many processes and causes together (normally in some quanitiative ways). However by doing so, som simplification and assumptions are involved and the researcher must justify his/her models by some data. It is therefore very rare to have a paper that will attribute any observed disease with climate variables without any 'modeling', unfortunately.
You are very correct to me that we should look at the whole environmental system but keep in mind that climate is one of the factor. Is is dangerous just to look at the changing climate and assume other factors are constant.
Anond
Dear Doctor Climate,
If you are to convince a skeptic that climate change is caused by human activities including those in Thailand, what will be your most persuasive evidence? I read a number of literature on the issue and found both sides of the argument interesting, some of which are more convincing than others. I haven't made up my mind, and perhaps I don't need to (I'd like to play referee). But at least think I should hear directly from a scientist.
Thanks. I find your forum very creative and it does generate a healthy discussion.
Cheers,
Vin
