International-event

2nd International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA)



Hullo everyone... hmmm..... several weeks ago, I experienced an interesting moment in my boring life. Well actually not that kind of something really big happened to me, but it's just something fancy that passed through my boring life. It was the 2nd International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA) which is held in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. I was participated as an associate assistance that his main task is only accompany the Olympiad participant from a room to a field which is the distance is only about 50 meters. Well something unpredicted always happened. And later our task is also being a supervisor like, look out the olympiad participants from cheating while some others went to the field for observation with the telescope. Yeah.. at first we were being strict to them. But later we can not afford being strict as they feel boring and looks not happy if remain siting on their own desk quietly. Yeah we gave them a video to make them feel comfortable and remain on their own desk... but holly shitt... the audio is a damn. It didn't make a good sound. So... the participant started to act on their own, killing their boring time until they got their turn. Holaaa..... we are the assistance can not do anything except join them.... hehehehehhee.......and....hell yeah.. that was the best part of being an associate assistance. That was the only chance tobe able to interact with the participant. I was so happy... I was able to talk with participants from romania, ukraine, iran, cambodia, and mostly south korea. I miss you seoung youn..... ^^

After all the olympiad activities, this event was closed with a garden party on a roof in Sabuga ITB. Hell yeah it was the most interesting for me. We are all having fun, eating, singing and dancing together. There was a show where each country participant should make a show on the stage. It was very interesting. Oh yup, not only the country participant, but also the LO which is always being with the participant, should make the show on the stage. I like the show from the LO, south korea, india and indonesia. Well we shouldn't forget with the band that accompany that night show. The band is also good with a good music selection for the show. I enjoyed "can't take my eyes of u".

Well what can i say, this event was very interesting for me and i want to join those experiences again. Thank you to the event organizer, ITB, who made this possible, thank you to Mr. Mudji as our supervisor, thank you to all of you associate assistance who made the sky of my life blue again, thank you to other assistance who work together with us, thank you to the LO, thank you to all of you participants of 2nd IOAA that made my life colorfull, and special thanks to seoung youn ^^

anyway2... I took pictures during the event, it's free for you to take the pictures, especially for my associate assistance friends that most of them fill in the pictures. If you take the pictures, please kindly leave a comment. Thank you.

-special notes: for the ohu team... lets play ohu again.. OHU!!!-

go to the album or download the pictures

The Great Global Warming Swindle

The Great Global Warming Swindle


Global warming. Almost everybody know those words today. And almost everybody support the prevention of it also. But maybe only a few people that know the fact. This global warming has been becoming debate issue since long time. There are some people that really believe on it and there are some that said to be skeptical. The main debate is about whether the CO2 is the main cause of global warming??? Is the heat is a function of CO2???

hmmm... just a few days ago, I watched a television program in a video about the great global warming swindle. I am curious what will they are talking about, since there are many evidence about the effect of global warming on earth and that's why global warming is hard to be doubt. And what I found in that video was truly amazing. Many experts talk about their opinion in global warming. And of course all of them are the opposite. I mean all of them are thinking that global warming is bullshit. So..... what is the reason??? The first reason is.... do the heat is the function of CO2??? Or maybe the opposite???

If you ever watch "inconvenience truth" by Algore, you will see that there is a positive correlation between the CO2 and global temperature. And the things that is disturbing is the temperature graphic in the end of second millennium (1990-) is climbing so high. That is the point where this global warming became hot issue. The increase of this temperature is followed by the increase of CO2. The correlation of CO2 and temperature is of course not exactly 1. I don't know the number, but it should be positive. even though there is a correlation, the scientist in "Great Global Warming Swindle" pointed that there are something strange in the years after the world war 2 ended. The concentrate of CO2 in the atmosphere should be higher than the years before, because they think after the world war ended, there must be many industrializations to build the crack piece. As we know, industrializations is the highest source of man made CO2 emissions. But the fact is the graph showing that the years after world war 2 is decreasing until several years. Not only those kind of fact that amused them, but also the fact about climate change. It is like because of global warming, the climate is changing. But hey... isn't the climate always changing??? Maybe some hundred or thousand years before, the same phenomena with todays is also happened. And about the sea level rise and the melting of ice in the antarctic. One of researcher who expert in antarctic study said that from historical record it is clear that the antarctic is always changing. It expand and narrow from times to times.

From those kind of thought, they said that the fact what we see today is not a cause of global warming. Yes the earth is getting warmer. But it is also not the product of CO2. The first thing that we should analyze when the earth getting warmer is the source of the heat which is the sun. From their research, it is clear that the correlation between sunspot activity and the earth temperature is better than the CO2 and earth temperature. And also there is a positive correlation between sunspot activity and concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. The ocean is the largest CO2 emitter. Therefore when the heat is warmer, the larger CO2 will be emitted.

I don't know if i can tell you accurately and come to your understanding. But I hope this can be a new knowledge for you. After I watched that video, as like they said, this global warming conspiracy is a political action. A political action through ecology and environment issue. And this kind of issue is hard to deny, because the impact is also for human goods and for the future. In some side the earth environment might be better. But in other side the global warming issue is potentially keeping the poor country to be not developed. Why??? As there is the limitation of greenhouse gases that should be emitted every year, the poor country can not go industrialize because the industry activity has been used by the developed country . Alternative energy are very expensive and haven't meet high efficiency. What can poor country do is only selling the carbon emission and do conservation project. In other words, their will always be the supporter and underling of developed country.

For me, without this global warming issue, I hope we can always care about our environment. Truthfully I was thankful with this issue, because it is a chance to protect and creating a healthy environment.

Global Warming

Adaptation or Mitigation?

Do you feel the winter warmer than before? Do you feel the summer longer than before? Do you feel the weather is hotter than usually? If the answer is yes then you are also one from million of people that feel the direct effects of global warming. What is global warming? Global warming can be defined as the rise of the earth average temperature globally. Not only in Asia or Europe, but also America, Australia, Africa, and all place in the earth. This rise of temperature is caused by the rise of carbon emission in the atmosphere. Carbon is a particle that has million of years life cycle. So, this can be concluded that the carbon amount in the atmosphere will always be rise and never decrease. Carbon in the atmosphere has a function to warm up the earth that called green house effect. The sunlight radiation that came through the earth as short wave radiation will be received by the earth and transmitted back to the sky as long wave radiation. When the long wave radiation came through the carbon in the atmosphere, this will made the carbon vibrate and produce a heat. And this heat will be transfer back to the earth as a long wave radiation. And this is what green house effect is. All of it is a natural process like how the water becomes a cloud and a cloud becoming rain. But what happen recently, as the population growth and people always try to make their lives much more comfortable through technology, the carbon emission increase more than it should be. And the global warming happens.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) models predicted that from 1990 to 2100 there will be an increase for global temperature around 1.1-6.4 C. This rise of temperature will lead into global climate change. Global climate change is a serious matter. The more warm the earth, the more the ocean warm. The more the ocean warm the more it can lead into catastrophic hurricane. Since 1970’s the number of hurricane level 4 and 5 has been jumped up. The warmer earth also can raise the sea level. Until 2100 it was predicted that the ocean level can rise into 6 feet. This rise will bring economic and humanity problems, as there are also people and country activities on the shore. Not only people on the shore, people that live from agricultural activities will also feel the effects. The rise of temperature will definitely bring effects to the amount of precipitation. Some region will have more precipitation and some will have less precipitation. This is definitely no good for agriculture. Drought will come more often than before or maybe floods becoming new problems to some. The effect is to the crop yields. The crop yields will be decrease and will become economic and humanity problems. Climate change becoming more serious as it also affects to humans health. The changing will force human body to adapt to the changing. But not all human body can adapt to the change. As the result it will bring sickness to the human. The warmer earth will give a chance to mosquitoes to longer their lives. This mosquito is mosquitoes that bring a disease like dengue fever, malaria, Hantavirus and other viruses. This is a serious problem. Many will infected, many will sick, and many will die. And this is happened recently in Indonesia. Finally, global warming that lead into global climate change is really serious challenge for humanity future.

So, how to overcome the global warming? What can we do? There are only two ways in handling it. Choose to adapt to the change or doing mitigation. Adaptation is an act in receiving the global warming and try to be nice to the change that caused by it. Meanwhile, the mitigation is an act in refusing the global warming and tries to prevent it becoming worse. Adaptation example is like changing the life style. Recently in Romania, as the winter becoming warmer, the Romania Football Federation Chairman, Mircea Sandu said that if the things continue on for the next 2-3 years, the league vacation will only be available for 23 December until 15 January. Usually, the league will have vacation from mid December until 2 months ahead, as cold winter cover Romania. Another example we can see from the farmer. The farmer need to make more advance technology in caring their crop from floods or drought. As for the government, to take care their country from the effect of global warming through climate change, there are two ways in using adaptation as their prudential. “Top Down” or “Down Top”. “Top Down” is an adaptation process derived by government perspective about how should their people adapt to local climate change. As an example, when drought becoming longer than before, government can take a decision to change the plantation that usually their farmer do. Meanwhile, the “Down Top” is a converse from “Top Down”. “Down Top” means government decision is based on how the local people adapt to the change. For example, as the drought comes longer than before, the farmer change their usual plant into a plant that resist to the drought, thought the selling is not good enough. This two ways of adaptation will have better decision when the government has been had a “mainstreaming” for their country development, which make the two kinds of adaptations wont becoming a burden to the country developments.

As for mitigation, the action is much clearer but hardly to do. The purpose of mitigation is definitely how to prevent the carbon emission raise highly. Protocol Kyoto is the result of mitigation action. This protocol rules the world carbon emission for the future. The chosen country in this protocol should reduce their carbon emission for about 5.2% to the average of carbon emission in 1990. To reduce the carbon emission, first of all we should see the data for what actually the most thing that emitted the carbon. And the data show that the carbon emission comes from 21,3% power station, 16,6% industrial process, 14% transportation fuels, 12,5% agricultural byproducts, 11,3% fossil fuels retrieval, processing and distribution, 10,3% residential, commercial and other uses, 10% land use and biomass burning, and 3,4% waste disposal and treatment (http://wikipedia.org). From the data, it can be concluded that the energy source and forestry is the main problems. The power station, industrial process and transportation now days still use fossil fuels as their primary energy source. Fossil fuels emitted carbon as their final work. Therefore it is needed another source energy which is less emitted carbon. This source energy is called alternative energy. Many alternative energy can be made, such as, sun radiation, the wind, the wave, geothermal, and biodiesel. Biodiesel emitted 75% less carbon than fossil fuel. Besides looking for the most suitable alternative energy, caring the forest is also part of act in mitigation. Forest is the most absorber carbon in the world. Without forest, the global warming will come much faster. Therefore an act to make the world keep green is needed.

The final question maybe about “What can individual do?” or “Which one should we use? Adaptation or mitigation?”. Many things can individual do since this is a serious matter for the future. First of all, each individual should understand completely how important this issue is. Then spread as much as possible this issue with its solution. Use alternative energy for any activities as much as you can and grow some plant in your home to help the world keep green. Adaptation or mitigation? It’s up to you.

Sustainable River Basin Management

The Impact of Climate Change to River Basin Management

The world now days up roared by an inconvenience truth about human future. The truth which is seen skeptical by some people slowly saw its impact to human activities. Finally, much people better believe on the truth rather than denying it. Finally peoples rather believe that climate can change through global warming, which is finally this climate change becoming number one global issue. What’s wrong with climate change? What so fear about it? Climate that can be define as atmospheric long term condition in ones region has a strong bond with all life activities on earth. This is due to climate cycle system which is influence by the atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere, kriosphere, and biosphere. The climate change in ones region will bring many difficulties to humans life, especially in agrarian, economic, environment related, such as natural disaster, humans health, and government development prudence. Climate change can cause ones region precipitation decrease or increase. Hence, the climate change is related to rivers behavior.

All rivers are different, but they all work in a similar way. The way the rivers do is depend on its basin. The basin as the place for river waters to flow has important role in directing where the water will flow, how the water flow and the water condition. Hence, the river basin management is needed. As the climate change happen, river basin management should be take more seriously. Let us assume that the climate change cause ones regions precipitation increase. The increased precipitation will raise the river debit and cause flood in some area which the river cross, and definitely the area which call the river downstream. Not only reasoning the probability of flooding, increase precipitation can shallow the river basin and give bad water quality to the river. This is due to increasing material that rain brings to the river. Higher precipitation the more material can bring along it. Meanwhile, climate change can also decrease ones region precipitation. Decreasing precipitation will mean decreasing of water availability in the river. Fewer water supplies are a big problem. Hence, those few water supplies should be able to be used maximum. However, if the water quality is not good enough, then there is no use again for the river except brought the things flow to the sea. This is how the river basin takes the role. Dirty basin will cause bad river water quality. Hence, how to manage the river basin when it comes to increase or decrease precipitation is the same. The first same idea is how to keep the river water quality good. The different is when it comes to increasing precipitation, the idea is how to make the river water not spill to the land and not cause flooding. But when it comes to decreasing precipitation, the idea is how to make use the river water as maximum water supply to the land.

Climate changes continue on without we realize about it. Especially to the ones who live in tropical region. If we keep not learning about it and just being skeptical it might bring disaster for the future. Climate change might cause a failure in government prudence for city development. Choosing the right time to build public infrastructure, such as the road or river basin repairing is the example. If the government didn’t learn the climate change and only make a decision base on experience, their decision might be cost a lot than what they have been predicted. Off course it is a bad idea to build the public infrastructure when it is raining. Maybe they have planed about it, but they plane it only based on experience. This would be more horrible when that orthodox way is used for river basin management. River basin management needs the right time to run the project. Moreover, if the things continue on with the trend without any proper action, as the impact of climate change, the river can bring disaster. In the winter it may bring flood and in the summer it may not be able to supply the water to people around it. Those things will impact many sector in our life such as economic, agrarian, healthiness and transportation.

There should be an integrated action to solve the problem. For the government who has the authority in managing the river basin, the first thing to do is learning the climate change in their region. What cause it, how to manage it and how to implement it to the river basin management. The second is use the first act as basis for doing the project to keep the water river clean. As an example, the government can take an action to reduce mobile transportation as they emitted the greenhouse gases which is cause the climate change through global warming. Or the government may take an action to change all industry fossil fuel with the one that more suite to the environment like biodiesel. As the fossil fuel such as coal emitted methane, carbon monoxide and sulfur which is act as greenhouse gases and a particle that can bring acid rain. Acid rain can polluted the river and make the river unhealthy. The last is making a good socialization to the society about climate change and the river. Promote about the cause of climate change and its relation to the river. Promote that we need a clean river and a good basin to maximize the function of the river. Finally, the river basin management will not work without society or individuals’ participation. Individual participation in keeping the river and the air clean is big. Individual shouldn’t throw garbage or any harm things to the river. Individual should try to change their fossil fuel with biological fuel. Individual should remind each other about the importance of river and also the climate change that can impact to it. And last, individual should realize that river is part of environment. Good environment will resulted to good society.