Environmental Impact of Hi-Tech Trash

How many of us know that we are softly been killed by toxic substances found in PCs and electronic appliances that are dumped in to the environment? These hi-tech trash when land filled or incinerated can emit poisons into the environment! Lead, cadmium, mercury, plastics, barium, beryllium, PVC, etc are the some of the toxins found in PCs and peripherals. Since technology is advancing very fast PCs and electronic equipments are becoming obsolete and are being disposed off even when they are still usable. Another important fact is these unwanted high-tech trash is shipped to third world countries for dumping. According to Stanford Resources 500 million PCs to be obsolete by 2007. The only environment friendly solution is recycling of PC parts at its end of life-even though it is rarely practiced now-it is high time to propagate the message to ensure less damage to humans and the environment alike. Suitable awareness programmes should be devised to make the citizens understand the environmental impact of these toxic substances produced from PC and other electronic trash.

Uncertain Science . . . Uncertain World

The book Uncertain Science Uncertain World by geophysicist Henry Pollack descibes in clear language aimed at a general audience the puzzling world of uncertainty of science. It arises when scientists have more than one answer to a problem or disagree amongst themselves. He argues that urcentainity should be recognised as a stimulus for creativity, problem-solving and scientific progress rather than taking itas an excuse! Pollack explores the nature of uncertainity in different fields and also shows how non-scientists can apply their everyday experiences to evaluate and understand uncertain science.By giving examples from every day life, Uncertain Science Uncertain World helps the reader to evaluate uncertainty from their own view point to and find out how science actually works.

The War of the Worlds

The War of the Worlds

Long or Short?

Long or Short?

Road Accidents in Malaysia

Malaysia is considered relatively safe for driving compared to other developing countries. But if we observe past years’ and recent road accidents statistics/reports, we can perceive that the propensity of road accidents in Malaysia is on the rise. Now I think, Malaysia really requires an investigation in the geographical distribution and regional variation of accidents rather than looking at the accidents in a national perspective. There may be certain geographical areas where accident proneness may be higher. These variations in accidents can be analyzed by developing a set of geographical indicators for different categories of vehicles (buses/cars/motorcycles/tucks) such as percentage of accidents involving a particular category of vehicle in a particular geographical area (state/district); vehicle related accidents per 100 vehicles in a particular geographical area; accidents per million vehicle kilometers in a particular geographical area, etc These indicators may be rudimentary in nature as they only indicate the extent of problem and have several limitations. Furthermore, these indicators can be used for developing an accident proneness index for each geographical division.

The following figure shows an approach that can be adopted for developing an Accident Proneness Index for each category of vehicles. It may be generally assumed that the traveling environment in general is unsafe due to a large number of factors. However, there are certain specific factors that influence accidents (for a particular category of vehicle) more adversely than other minor factors. The factors of unsafe environment such as road condition, driving habits, condition of vehicles, enforcement level, etc. are difficult to measure effectively.

Accidents are generally classified as single vehicle accidents in which the vehicle is either colliding with fixed objects or with pedestrians or the vehicle may fall in a ditch etc. and multiple vehicle accidents in which two or more than two vehicle can either collide head–on, or one vehicle may collide with the front vehicle at the back or may a have side-swipe type collision. Studying the collision pattern will give an idea about the accident pattern. It was of interest to note that (in most of the studies conducted elsewhere) two vehicles of the some type were rarely involved. In fact two buses or two trucks or two cars rarely collide together. Similar findings can be found and will be useful in road accident analysis.

Most of the accidents are attributed to the fault of the driver. It is mainly due to the need for fixing the responsibility on some one. Generally the fault is placed on the driver of the bigger vehicles, unless the cause of the accident is obvious, such as fire, electrocution etc. Mechanical causes such as brake failure, tyre burst etc. are also there in lesser number of cases. Therefore, the majority of accident causes are linked with road conditions and driver behaviour. In most of the accidents, a single factor is not present and an accident is a result of a number of complex factors that jointly and singly may be responsible for the accident.

Some of the important factors of vehicle accidents are (i) demographic characteristics of drivers - It is said, "Young drivers and new vehicles are not a safe combination". It is common practice to see very young drivers handling quite heavy vehicles of modern technology. These vehicles have better acceleration and deceleration rates and consequently can stop in very short time and also pick up speed quickly. The behaviour of the driver generally governs the attitudes of the driver. Rash and negligent attitudes may result in more accidents. Socio-economic background was also found to influence the driving behaviour. (ii) driving fatigue-excessive driving, late night or early morning driving, long route driving etc. may also lead to accidents.(iii) road network limitations-whether the roads are in agreement with the stipulations regarding the quality of road surface, curvature, gradient, sight distance etc. (iv) excessive speed, i.e. in order to perform more trips and maximum revenue, buses may exceed speed limits.(v) heterogeneous traffic - two vehicles of the same types normally do not collide with each other. In major roads in Malaysia, the traffic is very heterogeneous and consequently results in greater number of traffic accidents. (vi) driving checks- drivers are not generally checked for their driving behaviour. In western countries "Sobriety checks", are found to give positive results. Such checks are conducted during late night and early hours to find out drunken and sleepy drivers. During daytime sobriety checks are conducted to book speeding and rash driving. (vii) Lack of medical facilities- according to sources available, fewer people die on the spot while more people succumb to their injuries either on the way to or at the hospital. This indicates the lack of trauma care facilities and absence of speedy transportation of accident victims from the accident spot to the hospital. Actually, there should be a well-connected network of trauma care centres, doctors, and ambulance services all along the major roads. Ideally the accident victims should get first aid within 15 minutes, and full medical within an hour. (viii) ill-maintained vehicles-heavy vehicles are not maintained for accident free driving and drivers of these vehicles are driving excessively. Buses are at times over loaded, which may result in sudden tyre burst, axle breakdown, brake failure etc.

Enforcement measures and improvement in road conditions would also reduce accidents. In fact integrated measures in the form of road improvement, driver education, road safety education to school children and public and effective enforcement will reduce accidents considerably.

Tsunami-should we have known?

There are no words to describe the death and destruction caused by the tsunami. We boast ourselves to be the zenith of evolution and marvellous in technological advancement. How little we are in front of the Mother Earth - a slight movement of the crustal plate or a meteor from outer space may brush aside human race. More than 150, 000 dead (and expected to rise sharply as tens of thousands of suspected deaths are uncovered) and as many as 5 million peoples lives ruined in 11 countries. Could many of these deaths have been prevented?

Geologist all over the world constantly monitors the Earth for seismic events; in fact there is tsunami-warning system in Hawaii. If they detected the earthquake, why they didn’t use all the possible communication channels (including internet) to warn the authorities and people? A detailed investigation needs to be conducted to know how and why this miscommunication happened to build an effective early warning system (EWS).

Is the UN Security Council relevant?

UN is still the only body, which brings together major powers in close proximity. The Security Council is the vital UN organ whose primary responsibility is the maintenance of international peace, stability and security in the world, but the Iraq war had undermined its authority and exposed its utter helplessness to prevent the conflict, the very objective for which it was set up. The US had gone into war on a unilateral footing without a clear consent of the Security Council. The emergence of new world order after the Cold War has created new challenges to the UNSC. The primary responsibility of the UN Security Council is to promote international peace and security. It acts on behalf of all the UN-members and according to the UN-Charter (Article 24). The Council determines "the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression (Article 39).The Security Council is a fifteen- member body comprising five permanent members viz., the United States, Russia, France, People's Republic of China and Great Britain and ten non-permanent members (It is interesting to note that after the defeat of Germany and Japan only three countries (the United States, erstwhile Soviet Union and Great Britain) from the World War II emerged possessing any real military and political power. However, when the United Nations organization was set up in 1945-46, China and France, both weak and shattered nations were made permanent members of the UNSC without any justification. It was ironical that the Chinese seat on the Security Council was occupied by the Republic of China (Taiwan) till 1971.). In accordance with established practice, elections are based on geographic distribution. The non-permanent members serve two years terms and half of them retire each year. The Security Council can pass resolutions deciding on pacific or military actions as suggested in the UN-Charter (Chapter VI, VII). The first aim is always to seek a peaceful solution to the problem by negotiations and talks. If these fail, economic sanctions can be implemented, which could include methods like "complete or partial interruption of economic relations, rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations" (Article 33). Again, if these do not improve the situation in question or are not feasible, the Security Council can decide on military action like "demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations (Article 42)".Any member can move a resolution in the council. Nine votes are sufficient to carry a Security Council decision, but any permanent member may exercise a veto over any substantive proposal. While the veto if used judiciously and selectively in the interest of world peace can be a useful tool for the Security Council's capability to preserve international peace and security but this power has been often misused. The permanent members have the right to exercise their veto-power regarding any Security Council decisions. To date, the veto has been invoked 241 times: 4 times by China, 18 times by France, 29 times by the United Kingdom, 117 times combined by the Soviet Union and its successor state the Russian Federation and 73 times by the United States. During the Cold War it was used repeatedly: a whopping 238 times in totalOn security problems, a negative vote by one permanent member can defeat a proposal, even if it crossed the magic number of 9. This privilege of any one permanent member to incapacitate the Security Council is called the 'veto power'. World without wars remains a dream; more than 350 wars occurred since 1945. In the past 10-12 years alone, 5-6 million (mostly non-combatants) were killed. The Council invoked its mandatory powers some 60 times, imposed sanctions against 20 governments and groups, sent 40 peacekeeping operations, and authorized military actions in 10 instances.The membership of the UN that has touched 191 and it has gone up nearly four-fold since its inception, most of the late entrants being from developing countries of the third world. The Security Council remained virtually inaccessible to bulk of 191 member countries. Nearly 80 of them never got a chance to serve in the Council, while another 40 barely had one term. So much for the principle of democratic character of the Council! There is no denying that the present day international peace and security calls for a more representative Security Council. The reform process would be considered a success only if an enlarged Council enhanced the representation of the developing countries. While it is certain that leading economic powers like Germany and Japan would be natural contenders for the reworked UN Security Council, there is some difference of opinion on the proposed reconstitution plans.While Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) members would like expansion based on equitable geographical representation, Arab/Islamic bloc and East European nations have also staked their claim for representation on the Security Council. But the final consensus may emerge on proposal for an additional five permanent seats, with one each going to the developing countries of the regions of Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean. Along with casting its shadow on the Council, US conveniently avoided going through the Council for intervention. NATO's 'humanitarian' intervention in Kosovo in 1999 was perhaps a turning point to signify a new momentum in the Council to rally behind the cause of multilateralism, to stand by the multilateral value of the Council and resist the American attempts to dictate. If present indications persist, yet another worth watching phase of some promise in the Council's history may be in the making
.Useful Links
Global Policy
Political Strategy
Accuracy
The UN veto and Iraq
Is the UN relevant, or is it US against the world? - EvC Forum
Why the UN is relevant?