Phuket gets ready to celebrate World Environment Day

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Phuket gets ready to celebrate World Environment Day
The Phuket News


Climate change will have consequences on all aspects of life on the planet, especially food supplies. Image courtesy of the European Environment Agency

PHUKET: -- Tomorrow (June 5) is World Environment Day (WED), an annual day designated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to promote environmental stewardship in urban centres across the globe.


"Planet Earth is our shared island, let us join forces to protect it."

– UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon


There will be a number of exhibitions and activities to mark WED in Phuket from Thursday through Saturday (June 7). The theme for this year's event is, ‘Raise your voice, not the sea level’, and will focus on how urban dwellers can reduce the causes and impacts of climate change.

This year's WED activities have been made possible by the Phuket Provincial Administrative Organization and Phuket City Municipality, who have joined together with provincial water and waste management officials, along with various local organisations – private and public – including the Prince of Songkhla University Phuket Campus, SEEK (Society, Environment, Economy and Knowledge) and a number of local hotels and government agencies.

The aim is to raise awareness and knowledge through a number of activities planned for the three days at the Chalermphrakiet 72 Pansa Maha Ratchanee Park (Queen’s Park), located just down the road from the Seng Ho book store, between Thalang and Dibuk Roads in Phuket Town.

Set up at the park will be a number of exhibitions promoting “pollution-free city of trees” – innovative reuse and recycle projects and inventions will be on show, as well as demonstrations and learning stations for how to properly dispose of toxic waste in Phuket (household batteries, chemicals, and so on); news, developments and breakthroughs in sustainable energy, cycling and booths by SEEK as well as the National Institute of Development Administration.

Other activities include an awards ceremony for recent Phuket Green Awards recipients; second hand items from hotels for sale, and various booths selling eco-friendly products. General medical check-ups will be provided by OrBorJor Phuket hospital, there will be photo and drawing contests, an environmental seminar, live music and stage performances, as well as tree planting by children.

A highlight on Saturday morning will be a community planting of Bougainvillea flowers, in Thai called fueang fa, which is the provincial flower of Phuket. A total of 500 flower trees will be planted along Klong Bang Yai canal, which empties much of Phuket's treated and untreated wastewater out into the ocean at Saphan Hin.

WED was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1972 on the day that the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment began. The first World Environment Day was celebrated in 1973. WED is the United Nations’ principal vehicle for encouraging worldwide awareness and action for the environment.

Over the years it has grown to be a broad, global platform for public outreach that is widely celebrated by stakeholders in over 100 countries. It also serves as the ‘people’s day’ for doing something positive for the environment, galvanising individual actions into a collective power that generates an exponential positive impact on the planet.

WED activities in Phuket will take place from 8:30am until the evening on June 5, 6 and 7; the opening ceremony on Thursday begins at 9am.

WED Phuket itinerary

June 5

8-9am – Opening ceremony

9-10am – Phuket Green Awards

10am-3.30pm – Display environment picture contest works / exhibitions open

3.30-4.30pm – Announce environment picture contest winners

6-7pm – Presentation about WED by PSU

7-9pm – Music and shows


June 6

10am-3.30pm – Display environment picture contest works / exhibitions open

5.30-6pm – Announce/award environment picture contest winners


June 7

9-10am – Planting of Bougainvillea flower trees, starting from Phuket Vocational College at Saphan Hin

Source: http://www.thephuketnews.com/phuket-gets-ready-to-celebrate-world-environment-day-46654.php

-- Phuket News 2014-06-04

[Kerryd]

Soooo, I should start buying land and setting up bars and B&Bs in the far northern reaches of Canada, as an area that is currently frozen 11 months of the year and has permafrost (frozen soil) a foot down, year round, will see a dramatic increase in agricultural productivity ? Well, I guess an increase from 0 to "a little bit" could seem like a dramatic increase (over the next 75 years).

Then again, I would probably be better off selling insect repellent and heavy-duty mosquito nets instead (if you've ever been to the North West Territories, you'll know what I'm talking about). The bugs are bad enough now, imagine if larger areas were to become more "habitable" ?

Somehow I'm guessing though that if things get warm enough for that to happen, that whole area will be one large (and still very cold) pond, because as the ice caps melt and sea levels rise, the only thing sticking up out of the water in that area will be large, non-productive rocks !

(A mere 100 million years ago, give or take a couple thousand millennia or so, large parts of North America, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Circle, were underwater as a part of the "Western Interior Seaway". Granted, tectonic plate action, rather than global cooling and ice ages since then, have probably had more to do with the fact that area isn't still flooded. It's not a coincidence that areas like the Black Hills in South Dakota and the Western parts of Alberta are rich in dinosaur fossils, as those area were at one time the shores and interior lowlands of that seaway.)

However, large parts of those current (and future) agriculturally rich areas would likely be the first to be submerged, meaning we would probably be looking at an overall decrease in productivity, not an increase ! Then add to that the fact that as the low-laying lands become flooded, where are the people currently there going ? To the higher, drier areas, of which there will be less and less as time goes by. Many more people crowded into an ever shrinking area that isn't able to sustain even a small percentage of the people living there.

(Play the same scenario out in other parts of the world, where large percentages of the population live in areas that will be among the first to disappear under the waves)

The good news is, the earth has gone through these changes, all by itself, many time over the last few billion years and has always bounced back pretty healthy and happy.

The bad news is, we aren't likely to still be around to see it when it has "bounced back" next time. As I've said before, we will undoubtedly be the cause of our own demise. The question isn't "if" but "when", and who will be the next dominant alpha species.

I'm betting on hybrid "crocroach lizardmen". The hideous offspring of crocodiles who've been raped by cockroaches who've been mutated by the contaminated environment left by the previous dominant species (us). All hail the future crocroach overlords !

[JetsetBkk]

[NomadJoe]

[zappalot]

Maybe they should put this day in a plastic bag...

[kannot]

I cant stop laughing......"Thailand" and "Environment" in the same sentence!!

Your average Thai cares not one jot about the environment, trained from birth to drop litter and dispose of anything any place.

[rickirs]

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To be fair there is concern with Ian Plimer's theories of a cliimate change hoax.

See the video "Ian Plimer's volcano claims vaproize under questioning on Australian TV" where Plimer airs his weaknesses with inaccurate statements on science and "bullying" among academics.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/dec/16/ian-plimer-versus-george-monbiot

[martinatkins]

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To be fair there is concern with Ian Plimer's theories of a cliimate change hoax.

See the video "Ian Plimer's volcano claims vaproize under questioning on Australian TV" where Plimer airs his weaknesses with inaccurate statements on science and "bullying" among academics.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/dec/16/ian-plimer-versus-george-monbiot

So Ian Plimer got some things wrong about a complex subject. Any one that has actually read the leaked emails from the East Anglia Climate Research Unit knows that the whole catastrophic climate change movement is a nasty hoax by a bunch of politically motivated crooks.