Tuesday, May 6, 2008

1987 2009


http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/photo/2009/01/16/2008033894

PHOTO CAPTION: American expat Dan Bloom displays a fried egg that looks like the face of a smiley in front of a breakfast shop in Chiayi City in southern Taiwan. Bloom found the egg in his plate when eating at a breakfast store in Chiayi but was only joking when he told a photographer who snapped this photo that he planned to auction the egg on eBay because he said the egg can make people laugh in this sad, tragic world, but he was only kidding. He never auctioned it off. In fact, he ate it after the photo was taken

.Jan 16, 2009

PHOTO: by YU HSUEH-LAN, Liberty Times/TAIPEI TIMES


An interview with Wang Suya, a
"Dot Earth" blog commentator from Inner Mongolia, who has lived in Japan since 1987. [She is of Mongolian, Chinese and European ancestry. Wang Suya was born in Inner Mongolia of China and grew up in Inner Mongolia. Her father is a
native Mongolian, while her mother's father comes from a mixture of European
and Chinese ethnicity.]

video link here with Wang Suya speaking:
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/your-dot-meet-the-neighbors/#comment-37630

[conducted by Danny Bloom, American freelance writer based in Taiwan]

Webposted: May 10, 2008


DANNY BLOOM: Reading your many comments at the New York Times blog
called DOT EARTH, it appears that you are very concerned about climate
change and global warming.
You often post comments in English on Dot Earth, even though you are
from China -- Inner Mongolia -- and have lived
in Japan now for many years, since 1987.

Why are you so concerned and worried about
climate change? What inspired you to speak out so often at Dot Earth
and make your feelings and opionions know to many readers in the West?

WANG SUYA: My major at university was in the computer field, and I am
currently working as a systerm engineer for a well-known Japanese
company. Aboout 4 or 5 years ago. I felt that I wanted to get involved
in something meaningful outside my work -- in terms of life, the world
-- so I began to look around on the Internet. First, I came across
the website for the International Solar Energy Society, and
I wrote to them to ask if I could do some work for them but they said
there were no positions at that time that were open for me.

Many scientists and researchers are working with NGOs and contributing
their ideas to green issues, so I decided to follow this path, too. I
found a univeristy
near my home here in Japan where they was a night class. I told the
professor that I want to learn more about solar energy, and he told me
there were two fields -- solar electricity PV and solar thermal
energy.
He himself was researching solar thermal energy, so I asked if he
could take me on as a student for a master's degree, but he said that
since I already had an M.A., it would be better to take me on as a
research assistant and that is what we did.
At the same time as this, I wanted to promote renewable energy, so I became
a member of the international solar energy society, and received a
renewable energy newsletter by email every week.

In order to improve my English so that I could communicate with people
around the world by email about these issues, I began studying with an
American English teacher here in Japan once a week. As part of our
lessons, we studied New York Times
science articles and BBC news arcticles about the envrioment. From my
reading, I learned more about climate
change problems and I knew that global warming was becoming more and
more serious.

When I found the Dot Earth blog written by Andrew Revkin, a science
reporter at the Times, I felt that his blog would be a good place to
me to read up on the issues and make my own comments in the blog and
communicate with people around the world. It became my weapon to fight
against global warming. I hope for world peace, I feel sorry for
people who have to live in poverty in manyh nations of the world, and
I hope all people can be happy in life.
These ideas inspired me
to contine to post my comments at Dot Earth.

QUESTION: You are from Inner Mongolia in China. When did you come to Japan, and
what do you do in Japan? Do you often travel back to Mongolia, or is
most of your time now spent in Japan?

WANG SUYA: I came to Japan in 1987, and I studied Japanese only at
first for three months. Then I entered Kyoto University and studied
at the Tsuda Lab as a research student for one year.
During this year, I prepared for my graduate studies examination, and after half
a year, I took the grad school exam with Japanese students. I passed
and started my M.A. studies in the information science department at
Kyoto university. However, after a year of hard work and studying in a
foreign country, with new surroundings, I felt tired and decided to go
back home to rest and come back later to Japan to continue my studies.
In 1992, I graduated from Kyoto Univerisity
and started working at Sumimoto Electric Industires as a system
engineer. It's still my day job.


QUESTION: Do you feel that the public in Japan is concerned about climate
change and global warming? Are the people in Japan worried about these
issues?

WANG SUYA: Yes, I think that Japanese people are concerned about
climate change and global warming. Japansese
TV often shows programs about these issues, and the Japanese are easy
inflenced by TV. Many scientists here that I contact say they are also
worried about climate change, but the people in general, the general
public of Japan, I am not so sure.



QUESTION: Do you feel that the people in China are concerned about climate
change and global warming? Are they worried about the future of
climate change in China?

WANG SUYA: No, I do not feel that the people in China are concerned
about climate change and global warming.
For them, money comes first, making money.

QUESTION: How did you find the Dot Earth Blog at the New York Times website?
Did someone introduce you to the website? Or did you find it by
yourself? And what motivates you to comment, almost daily, on Andrew
Revkin's blog -- and in English, too!

WANG SUYA: Actually, I found DOT EARTH online by myself. You know, I
want to fight against global warming for the world
and for human beings. I want to be meaninful myself to the world and
to other human beings, so this motivates me to write comments almost
daily on Mr Revkin's blog.

QUESTION: Now it is 2008. What do you do think the future will look like on
Planet Earth in 2050? Will people be more concerned with global
warming then, or less concerned, in your opinion? And do you feel that
human beings will conquer the problems connected with climate change
and global warming in the future? How will they do this?

WANG SUYA: I think future people will more concerned about global
warming, because they
have to do it, global warming will become more serious. Altough, I am write
comments on Dot Earth and think that I am fighting against global warming, I feel
half and half human being will conquer or will not conquer the problem. Seeing the situation
now, people just talking so much and action less, although earth like our whole human being
home, but coming to mandatory greenhouse gas emission, everyone want to escape. If people
continure like this situation, the earth will not be saved.

QUESTION: How do you feel about the problem of overpopulation on the planet
Earth? Can the Earth support 10 billion people one day, or maybe even
15 billion? Is there any good way to solve the overpopulation problem?
Or is this problem beyond our control?

WANG SUYA: I am very concerned about the overpopulation problem, I think it
is very important issue.
Now the Earth's population is almost 6.7 billion, but still over 2 billion people are living at under $2 per day.
When the population arrives at 10 billion or 15 billion, I do not think Earth can support
them. We have to control the population problem now, and let every woman give both to only
one child or at most just two.

QUESTION: In your everyday life in Japan, how do you try to live a "green"
life and reduce your carbon footprint?

WANG SUYA: This is a good question. I asked my husband to stop driving me two extra train stations every day, so this saves is some gas mileage every month. I also bought an electricity switch for my company computer
to save electricity. I have also joined my company's eco-family activity to input
our electricity, gas, water, gasoline bill every month. These are my small private, personal steps to be more green here in Japan.

QUESTION: You are very interested in solar power as an energy source for cars
and homes. Please tell me more about your interest in solar power?

WANG SUYA: Now I am designing something using solar thermal energy for a
regeneration cooling system.
This will be my PHD course's objective. I want to get a PHD.

DANNY BLOOM: Is there anything else you want to say in English to
readers in the West?

WANG SUYA: Yes. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to be
interviewed by email this way. I want to say this: The Earth is round.
Every country's greenhouse gas emissions will impact everybody else
around the world..
Please Western countries, help the developing countries get out from
poverty and help them
go to low carbon, green economies. These will benefit both the West
and the East, the world world!

==============================
==============================



Here are some samples of some of Wang Suya's comments at the Dot Earth
blog, run by Andrew Revkin, science reporter at the New York Times.


On May 3, 2008, she wrote:

"Now I am on travel [here in Japan where it is Golden Week vacation
week], whole day play make me tired to read all posts. But I know this
thread is important for overpopulation problem. Steven Earl Salmony
are doing hard job to express his thinking. You are the professional
than any of us. Many of us support you. Say what you want to say
loudly. They will not waste, your saying express our what we want to
say. I am very agree your opinions. You are my teacher and inspire me
to fight against overpopulation, overcomsuption, overproduction and
world bad leaders. Keep going Steven Earl Salmony and others. I am
sorry that I will sleep, a few days maybe not show up. Hope everyone
in our Dot Earth family, fight,fight,fight."

NOTE: To see the actual post, go here:
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/cia-chief-lists-population-as-a-top-concern/#comment-31977



"It is true that coal companies have to do their business, but they
have to fit the age. If they do not do this, they will failure in the
future. Yesterday, in Japanese TV, it was showing a news that is UMA's
officialdom come to Japan want to find new business. Although their
county got wealth from oil now, they realize that oil age will go, new
age will come. They said that they are interesting in Japanese solar
energy technology. Is that is good news? The businesses which are bad
to enviroment should realize that their businesses will failure by
human being's awareness on environmental problems."

LINK:
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/09/striking-back-at-big-coal-on-video/#comment-807

On April 9, 2008, she commented at Dot Earth:

"I see this kind of reef as too many population in the world then make
too many waste. These waste no way to processed then throw into sea.
They just make sea more ugly and do not let people feel it is
beautiful nature....
I am scared that until one day earth full of garbege on the land in
the ocean. Earth hold too many population, too many waste. Even fish
are happy with it, but people full bad feeling. It is not our earth
original style, it is not nature."

9 comments:

DANIELBLOOM said...

7.May 7th,
2008
DOT EARTH comment by Wang Suya

added here by interviewer DB:

"Andy Revkin, great video, but they maybe become history of Arctic. After a few years, you can show people that Arctic used to be this beautiful silver
land, you can play kai on it like people in video.Earth is deversity, have ocean, grass land, desert, wetland, now have silver ice land, but in the future, maybe we will lose the beautiful silver ice land and we use buoy to show “Arctic was here”. What a sad thing. Hope human being can left our next generation this silver ice land."

— Posted by Wang Suya

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/07/science-on-shrinking-north-pole-ice/#comment-32938

DANIELBLOOM said...

Danny Bloom op-eds:

[This is a 600-word oped piece I submitted to an Alaskan newspaper this week:]

Titled:
"What does global warming have to do with Alaska? Plenty!

Text:
What does global warming have to do with Alaskans? Plenty!

If global
warming does what most scientists are
saying it will do, including senior scienist James Lovelock of Britain, there
might not be any Alaskans left on Earth in 500
years. That's about 30 generations from now.

If nothing else, such a
thought should make us wake up and take notice, not only as
human beings on this Earth, but also as Americans with an appreciation
of our history as a pioneering nation.

Climate change, and the possible impact it might have on humankind in the
far distant future, could
make the 200-plus period of American history disappear in a possibly tragic
and dystopian future that might end up with just a few thousand
breeding pairs of humans in Alaska and other northern regions of the globe.

It won't be a pretty picture. As Americans, we should be very
concerned -- and very active in the international fight against global
warming.


As a former Alaskan, who spent twelve years in Juneau (and Nome), my
own particular focus is on a concept I have dubbed "polar cities".
These communities are projected as safe refuges for
survivors of global warming in the far distant future. They won't be
at the poles exactly, but in northern
areas of the world, from Alaska to Russia, and including northern
Canada, Greenland, Iceland and Norway.

Hopefully, humankind will not need
these so-called "polar cities". I concieved of them, and
commissioned some illustrations of what they might look like, merely
as a what I hope will be a non-threatening
thought experiment.

Some blogs have recently taken note of the idea;
in addition, Dr. Lovelock, after viewing some blueprints of a polar
city, told me in an
email last January: "It
may very well happen and soon."

Although I hope that polar cities will never be needed as safe
refuges for human beings in the distant future, I feel that we should be
prepared for whatever "comes down the pike".

We need action,
and we need action now on global warming and climate change --
government action, United Nations action, international action. No
more foot-dragging, no more global warming denialism, no more
shrugging our shoulders and saying we don't know enough.

We know
enough now that we should be very, very concerned. The very extinction
of the human species is at stake.

When America decided to go the moon
in the last century, the world
witnessed a nation divert huge
resources into achieving that seemingly impossible goal, and America
succeeded. The world is now faced with climate disaster
in the somewhat distant future,
so why are not proportionately huge resources being diverted into
developing solutions? Are we incapable of acting pro-actively and
collectively? Human civlization, and its leaders around the world, needs
to wake up, quickly, and take action.


I became active in
the global warming debate only two years ago after reading a book by Lovelock
about the seriousness of climate change and its possible impact on
human life in the future. Lovelock has said in recent interviews that he is an
optimist, but
that thinks that time is limited already, and that the tipping point may
have already occurred. He has been quoted as saying that the next
40-50 years will be pivotal in humankind's fight for survival as a
species on Earth.

I think so-called "polar cities" are something that the Homeland Security
department should be considering, in addition to UN agencies and other
international groups. ===================
[Danny Bloom, founding editor of the Capital City Weekly in Juneau in the
1980s, is a freelance writer. For information about polar cities, go
to (http://pcillu101.blogspot.com)

Anonymous said...

Elizabeth Tjader comments: ON DOT EARTH

''I am no where near qualified to make comments or critiques on the scientific aspects of the melting ice of the Artic and Antarctica. I am qualified, however, to agree with Wang Suya, Tenney Naumer, and Laurie Doughtery on the emotional response evoked by witnessing the tragic loss of a mysterious and pristine part of our Earth that was once unaffected by human negligence and greed.
This is feeling to me on a much grander scale much like returning home from when I was child. It is going, going, going. My old neighborhood is developed, pummeled, stripped and gone where it was once beautiful open space and a great wild place. On an historical level, watching what is happening to both Poles is no different. They’re just bigger and have endured for millions of years. I feel nostalgia and meloncholia returning to the house where I grew up, not to mention my college, which is only 30 years ago, which was also once undeveloped, magical, clean, green pastoral hills and glorious Oak Trees. Much of it now is paved parking lot and new dorms. I’m beginning to feel a meloncholia with the Artic. I wonder when the paving of the Poles will begin? Hopefully not my lifetime.
I know you try very hard to practice “journalism” in here, Andy, which is neutral and objective reporting, but I cannot imagine you not feeling tinges of sorrow knowing what is coming. Could I be wrong? I hope so, but odds are pointing for a sad disappearance of two great wonderous and frozen places for those of us who have known the Artic and Antarctica as they’ve been.''

DANIELBLOOM said...

To those who missed the note yesterday, there is now a good interview with Ms. Wang Suya, a regular Dot Earthling based in Osaka, Japan, who was born and grew up in Inner Mongolia, China, and who, in the interview, discusses the reasons why she cares so much about Planet Earth. Her name "Suya" means "bud" in Mongolian, and Wang is her family name. So Elizabeth, you should call her Ms Wang as you are Ms Tjader, but informally you can address her as Suya, as you might call me Danny!

Here is the blog interview with Suya: (http://wangsuyainterview.blogspot.com)

Elizabeth said...

Elizabeth Tjader comments:

I posted a response to the Wang Suya interview on Dot Earth, May 7.
In it I acknowledged how much I love Wang Suya's posts. I am consistently moved by Ms. Wang's comments. She is an inspiration and example of courage, consummate commitment, ongoing education and great heart in her pursuits to "be the change she wants to see in the world", especially when it comes to healing this planet.
I applaud you Danny Bloom for inviting Ms. Wang to share her ideas, inspirations and thoughts with us here. I did not know "Suya" means bud in Mongolian. No wonder, Ms. Wang, you are a like a flower bud continuing toward full bloom. I'm a landscaper by trade and self taught naturalist by passion, so the metaphor for bud seems perfectly appropriate for Wang Suya's wonderful "being" here on Earth.
I consider Ms. Wang my "friend" as I consider her the Earth's friend.
Thank you Danny and Wang Suya for continuing to inspire all of us to take action in healing the Earth and leave our home healed.
Elizabeth Tjader

DANIELBLOOM said...

Thanks for visiting, ET!

DB

Anonymous said...

Elizabeth Tjader comments:

Regarding the Wang Suya interview, I just learned from Danny and Suya the proper way to address Wang Suya. So, Suya, my apologies again for my incorrect etiquette.
Thanks Danny for correcting me in my ignorance.
As you know, Danny, I also love your posts on Dot Earth and everywhere.
I do wish I shared your optimism though.
Thanks Wang Suya and Danny Bloom!
Elizabeth Tjader

DANIELBLOOM said...

http://northwardho.blogspot.com/2008/06/polar-cities-as-fire-exits-for-future.html

Anonymous said...

How on Earth are we going to adequately feed the hungry and starving, and simultaneously not keep 'feeding the problem' of human overpopulation?

http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/frostovertheworld/2011/02/2011259341259393.html

How is it possible for so many top rank experts of great stature to be adamantly advocating for more "food production to feed a growing population" and yet be failing to mention the profound implications of skyrocketing absolute global population numbers on Earth? For such a thing to be occurring in 2011 appears preposterous. It is morally outrageous and dangerous both to future human well being and environmental health, I believe, for well established experts to be reporting ubiquitously in high-level discussions such things as are directly contradicted by unchallenged scientific research of human population dynamics and human overpopulation. Is it possible that so-called, self-proclaimed experts are not aware of peer-reviewed, published research in their area of expertise that indicates the food supply is the independent (not dependent) variable and human population numbers is the dependent (not independent) variable with regard to the relationship between human population numbers and food supply? It appears that many too many experts are collectively reporting specious theory and data regarding the human population that cannot be supported by the best available scientific evidence, I believe.

The food supply is the independent variable not the dependent variable. Human population numbers is the dependent variable not the independent variable. The believers in demographic transition theory and in the idea that "we must increase food production to feed a growing population" are simply mistaken. The false promise of Demographic Transition Theory, that population stabilization will somehow occur benignly and automatically a mere four decades from now, as well as the upside down thinking that human population numbers is the independent variable and food supply is the dependent variable, are at least two of the crucial and deliberate misunderstandings that are being deployed to direct the human community down a patently unsustainable "primrose path" no human being with feet of clay would ever choose to go.

The uncontested scientific finding of the relationship between food supply and human population numbers is being obscured and denied by the very experts upon whom the human community relies for guidance and direction. Conscious obsfucation and willful denial by 'the brightest and best' of the scientific finding regarding the relationship between food supply and human population numbers has been occurring pervasively for way too long a time. This incredible failure of nerve by 'the smartest guys in the room' in my not-so-great generation has got to be acknowledged, addressed and overcome.

The children's future is being stolen by thieves of the highest order. And what is the communal response? A code of silence! Are people going to choose yet again to be bystanders at a moment when bold action, intellectual honesty and moral courage are required? Willful blindness, hysterical deafness, elective mutism and utter passivity cannot continue. The children will soon enough express their anger and disbelief at what the elders in my not-so-great generation have either failed to do or else done poorly "on our watch", while wealthy and powerful crooks in high places robbed those among us who are still young of a good enough future.

How on Earth are we going to adequately feed the hungry and starving, and simultaneously not keep 'feeding the problem' of human overpopulation? This is the question no one is asking, the one that needs to be asked.

Please speak out loudly and clearly....


Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1176
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/
http://www.panearth.org/