North pole:'(

North Pole may have no ice this summer: US expert

WASHINGTON (AFP) — There could briefly be no ice at the North Pole this summer, a US scientist said Friday, an event that would mark a new stage in the melting of the Arctic ice sheets due to global warming.

"We could have no ice at the North Pole at the end of this summer," Mark Serreze, a scientist with the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, told AFP in an interview.

"And the reason here is that the North Pole area right now is covered with very thin ice and this ice we call first-year ice, the ice that tends to melt out in the summer."

If the ice, albeit briefly, were to break up completely this summer it would be the first time this had happened in human history.

Serreze put the chances of this occurring at 50 percent -- if it does happen, in September "it's possible" that ships could sail from Alaska right to the North Pole.

Last summer, melting ice allowed ships through the Arctic's Northern Passage linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans for longer than ever before.

Serreze pointed out that even if there were no ice left at the North Pole, there would be ice in other parts of the Arctic Ocean this summer.

But he recognized the symbolism of an ice-free North Pole in the minds of the public, and said it was yet another indication of the environmental changes taking place because of global warming.

"There should be ice at the North Pole, and there might not be at the end of the summer and that is telling that something is wrong," he said.

"Clearly if you look over what we have seen in the past three years and where we were headed, we are in ... this long-term decline and we may have no ice at all in the Arctic Ocean in summer by 2030 or so," he said.

He recalled that a few years ago, such a scenario was not expected to happen until between 2050 and 2100. Personally, he said that five years ago, he would not have imagined the situation occurring now.

In last year's Arctic summer, the surface of the ice sheet in mid-September was the "the least sea ice that we have ever seen in satellite record, probably the least in a century," Serreze noted.

The sheet melted by 23 percent, breaking the previous record from 2005.

Arctic ice begins to melt in about mid-June and reaches its thinnest level around mid-September, before beginning to freeze over again and reaching a maximum around mid-March.

Cutting greenhouse gas emissions to reduce the rate of global warming should slow down the effect of such melting but to reverse the trend will take a long time, Serreze said.

On the upside, the melting of the Arctic ice sheet could help ships by providing an alternative route around the world to the Panama Canal, while it has also made accessible areas rich in natural resources, experts say.

from: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iU9UOmEQ5-DXROTg33PsMch2Xopg

Edited by : ELLY SEE

No more north pole?

Just a couple hours ago, our vice president Kui Phin has informed me about the melting of North Pole. So, I quickly browse into the chinese newspaper and read it. Below is the english version.

PLEASE , FOR NOW ON EARTH ...DO SOMETHING! TO SAVE OUR EARTH!!!!!

North Pole ice may completely melt away this summer

Updated Fri. Jun. 27 2008 12:59 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

For the first time in modern history, the North Pole may be iceless this summer. Scientists say it's an even bet that sea ice in the region will completely disappear in the next few months, perhaps as soon as August.

Ice at the North Pole quickly and significantly melted away last year, and that may be causing further melting this summer. Scientists say the disappearance of long-term and thicker ice formed over the years has disappeared. Now, most of the ice that's left is seasonal ice, which melts away much more quickly during warm weather.

"This year there is a lot of young ice. There's always some, but this year there's a lot," Andy Mahoney, a researcher at the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center, told CTV.ca.

Satellite observations indicate the ice remaining at the poles is melting faster than last year's rate, which was already a record year for Arctic ice loss. Scientists say whether or not the ice melts completely, this year's northern melt is yet another example of the impact that global warming is having on the planet's environment.

"There were some people who were saying last year was a rogue year. If the same thing happens again a lot more people are going to be persuaded about the consequences of global warming," Mahoney said.

"A lot of people think it's a very small change in temperature. This shows that the change in sea ice is quite a dramatic consequence."

As the ice melts, interest in the region is intensifying. Canada and other nations that border the Arctic -- including Russia and the U.S. -- are scrambling to lay claims to vast parts of the area, which may someday allow new resource development and shipping lanes.

"If the North Pole melts, then you don't have to worry about the Northwest Passage. It will still be significant, but going on top of the globe would be politically easier," Mahoney said.

A UN panel is supposed to decide on control of the Arctic by 2020. Last year, Canada's Conservative government announced plans to acquire up to eight Arctic patrol ships and to build an army base in Resolute Bay and a naval station in Nanisivik.

Under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, Arctic countries have 10 years after ratification to prove their claims under the largely uncharted polar ice pack. All countries with claims to the Arctic have ratified the treaty, with the exception of the United States.

copy from: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080627/iceless_north_080627/20080627?hub=CTVNewsAt11

edited by : Elly SEE

Stop dodo! seeking for job?

Seeking for a job for long?
Ever thinking for a job which could help on earth?
why don't try this:
http://www.stopdodo.com/

Stop global warming

The presentation slide below was the one I read before, I think it would be a very nice idea for me to share it here:

| View | Upload your own

Well back to the title above,
STOP GLOBAL WARMING?

could WE Stop this?

What do you guys think?


STOP GLOBAL WARMING....
To conduct activities which with the aim of stopping global warming...Really isn't an easy piece of work in Brunei.
Due to some circumstances and narrow knowledges of public regarding global warming, it makes us (those who want to conduct/run these activities) facing a lots of problems which stop us for doing these.



Could we stop global warming?
of course WE COULD!!!
There is nothing impossible for us if we want to do.
JUST NEED OUR OWN cooperations and FOREVER HOT BLOOD for doing these.
If we don't stop this...What would happened to our earth after decades?
Perhaps some of the small small forest and islands will vanished. The temperatures will rise dramatically, plants die...animals lost their habitat and humans lost their humanity.

Tsunami, typhoon, earthquakes,drought, floods,hailstones and some other serious disasters have actively happened on our earth recently.
Don't you think they are all the warning been given by our god mother/earth to us?

Humans , because of our own selfishness and mind of "busy chasing money"+wild with technology have killed and make a lots of complications for us now.

We make factories/buildings for making more money (business) and own benefits,in the same time...The factories emitting a lots of industrial harmful waste to our atmosphere as well as our water source like rivers. They have polluted the aquatic habitat for those aquatic animals.
We also clearing the forest/burn it for empty land to build big buildings and residents. We got buildings and residents now, but those wild become extinct because their food sources and habitat have been destroyed and clear.



Lastly share some JOKES with you guys here..WELL Please take note!! below are just JOKES


By: Elly SEE

updated news

MANILA, Philippines - A group of 28 ferry passengers and crew washed ashore after drifting at sea for more than a day from the site where a typhoon capsized their ship and left most of the hundreds aboard missing and presumed dead, officials said today.

Manila's DZBB radio said the survivors, 20 male passengers, four women and four crewmen, drifted at sea for more than 24 hours wearing their life jackets, reaching Mulanay township in eastern Quezon province late yesterday. The head of the coast guard, Vice Adm. Wilfredo Tamayo, announced early today that they had been found, raising the total number of survivors to 38. All were discovered after making it to land.

Tamayo said rescuers might have to bore a hole in the capsized ferry to allow divers access to areas where many aboard the Princess of the Stars were believed to have been trapped.

Coast guard frogmen who managed to get to the stricken ship got no response when they rapped on the hull with metal instruments, then had to give up late yesterday because of the strong waves. The ship carried more than 740 passengers and crew.

Rescuers hoped to get inside with U.S. assistance requested by the Philippine Red Cross. Typhoon Fengshen has killed at least 163 people across the sprawling archipelago, setting off landslides and floods, and knocking out electricity.

Six bodies, including those of a man and woman who had bound themselves together, have washed ashore, along with children's slippers and life jackets.

About two dozen relatives went to the Manila office of the ferry's owner, Sulpicio Lines. Some wept as they waited for news.

"I'm very worried. I need to know what happened to my family," said Felino Farionin, his voice cracking. His wife, son and four in-laws were on the ferry, which was going from Manila to Cebu.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo talked to officials in a teleconference aired live on nationwide radio yesterday, scolding coast guard officials for allowing the ferry to leave Manila late Friday despite the bad weather.

Reynato Lanoria, a janitor on the ship, estimated that about 100 people could have survived, "but the others were trapped inside."

"I think they are all dead by now," he told DZMM radio.

Lanoria said he was on the top deck when a crew member ordered people to put on life vests about 11:30 a.m. Saturday. About 30 minutes later, the ship began listing so rapidly that elderly people and children fell on the wet deck.

Jesus Gica, a passenger, worried that many people were trapped below when the ship listed.

"There were many of us who jumped overboard, but we were separated because of the big waves," he said. "The others were also able to board the life rafts, but it was useless because the strong winds flipped them over."

The ferry initially ran aground a few miles off central Sibuyan island Saturday, then capsized, said Mayor Nanette Tansingco of Sibuyan's San Fernando. With the upturned ferry visible from her town, she appealed for food, medicine and embalming fluid.

The nearly 24,000-ton ferry - with 626 passengers and 121 crew members on board - was "dead in the water" after its engine failed about noon Saturday, Tamayo said.

Pope Benedict XVI said yesterday that he was praying for the victims of the ferry disaster, particularly the large number of children aboard. The Philippines is predominantly Roman Catholic.

The typhoon-prone Philippines was the site of the world's worst peacetime maritime disaster when the ferry MV Dona Paz sank in 1987, killing more than 4,341 people.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/world/bal-te.philippines23jun23,0,5043085.story

another typhoon?Oh, noooo

*ELLY: Sorry guys, I don't have time to write/update the info in this blog today. Well I just share with you guys the recent typhoon happened which attacking Philippines on last Saturday.
More discussion/summaries will be done on next coming days. Sorry for this:)


Hundreds still missing after Philippines typhoon· 28 survivors from ferry alive after 24 hours at sea
· Navy and coastguard scouring waters around ship

Twenty-eight more survivors of the Philippines ferry accident were found today when they made it to shore after drifting in a tiny rubber life-raft for 24 hours.

The discovery of the party more than 80 miles from the scene of the sinking brought the number of those discovered alive to just 32 out of 863 aboard the MV Princess of the Stars, which capsized when it sailed into Typhoon Fengshen on Saturday.

Rescuers from the Philippines navy and coastguard scoured the waters around the ship's upturned hull still visible above the waves, though it is feared many of the missing may have been be trapped inside the vessel when it capsized.

Divers who reached the ship sitting on a sandbank several miles off-shore, banged on the hull but got no response. They were expected to cut into the vessel in the slim hope that survivors had been trapped in air pockets.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo criticised authorities for allowing the Sulpicio Lines' ship to set off on the 22-hour voyage from Manila to Cebu on Friday when there were typhoon warnings.

But officials said the 23,824-tonne ship was in compliance with the regulations for larger vessels, and that Typhoon Fengshen had intensified and altered course dramatically.

The ferry's engines failed shortly before noon on Saturday and it ran aground on a sandbank off Sibuyan Island in the mountainous seas whipped up by winds gusting to 120mph. Radio contact was lost and rescuers were beaten back by the storm, only reaching the ship 24 hours later.

Nine bodies - all men from the ferry - washed up on the central Philippines island of Masbate, while life jackets and clothing from the stricken vessel was discovered all along the coastline.

The 28 survivors - mostly men - drifted in the life-raft were found by villagers at Mulanay township, Quezon province. It was reported that two people were washed overboard in the huge seas. One survivor wearing a life jacket was picked up by a fishing boat.

Richard Gordon, chair of the Philippines Red Cross said another survivor described towering waves and chaos as the ferry sank on Saturday afternoon.

"According to him it was so dark," said Gordon. "It was high noon but it was so dark, and there was too much rain and the waves were just too much for the ship."

Emotional relatives waited at the Sulpicio Lines' offices in Cebu, desperate for word of their loved ones as nuns and priests tried to comfort them.

Edgar Go, vice-president of Sulpicio Lines, today expressed his regret over the loss of life. "Sulpicio Lines deeply mourns the tragic loss of lives and its good ship, Princess of Stars, last 21st June 2008, losing to the untamed fury of mother nature in an unfortunate tragedy that nobody, least of all the company, wanted to happen," he said.

The official death toll from Saturday's typhoon reached 163, with authorities saying that 250,000 hectares of farmland - mostly paddy fields - had been damaged.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2008/jun/23/philippines
Watch the video above, thank u!

from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/23/typhoon?gusrc=rss&feed=travel

Typhoon Fengshen kills 17 in Philippines

The Associated Press

Sun, Jun 22, 2008 (12:06 a.m.)

Navy and coast guard ships battled huge waves and strong winds Sunday to reach a stranded ferry carrying more than 740 people after Typhoon Fengshen battered the country killing 17.

Rescue vessels aborted an initial attempt Saturday to get to the MV Princess of Stars after it ran aground near Sibuyan island, but efforts resumed amid stormy weather Sunday, coast guard chief Vice Admiral Wilfredo Tamayo said.

Fengshen lashed the central Philippines for about four hours Saturday, setting off landslides and floods, knocking out power, and blowing off roofs from houses.

Packing sustained winds of 74 miles per hour and gusts of up to 93 mph, the typhoon shifted course Sunday to the northwest and battered the capital Manila at dawn, chief government forecaster Nathaniel Cruz said.

In southern Maguindanao province, at least 14 people drowned in flash floods Saturday, including 10 who were swept away from riverside homes, said provincial administrator Norie Unas. Five others were missing.

Meanwhile, the 23,824-ton ferry _ with 626 passengers and 121 crew members on board _ was "dead in the water" after its engine failed around noon Saturday, Tamayo said.

Port captain Nestor Ponteres said the ferry's owner, Sulpicio Lines, had lost radio contact with the ship and the fate of its passengers remained unknown.

"A lot of efforts have been done to send off rescue boats, but we really can't get through the very rough weather," Tamayo said.

A 50-year-old man and his 10-year-old grandson were killed when a landslide buried their hillside shanty in Cotabato city Saturday, Mayor Muslimin Sema said. Authorities recovered the body of a farmer, one of three people reported missing in neighboring Cotabato province.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo directed the defense and local government departments to stand by for relief and rescue missions before she left for the United States late Saturday.

Officials said neck-deep flood waters had risen further with a high tide, forcing the evacuation of 5,000 people in Sultan Kudarat township in southern Shariff Kabunsuan province, near Cotabato city.

Officials ordered the evacuation of more than 117,000 people from areas prone to floods and landslides in central Albay province. But many returned home by midday Saturday after the typhoon missed the area.

The National Disaster Coordinating Council reported flooding, landslides and power outages caused by toppled power pylons in many areas in the southern and central Philippines. More than 100 domestic flights were canceled because of the typhoon.

Application form

Application form (demo) is now available for public.

http://www.upload.ae/file/5145/-www-upload-ae-registration-form-new--doc.html

Our logo

Hello!
Rainbow society is now having its own LOGO!
The logo is having a copyright protection under Rainbow society.

Meaning behind the colours of rainbow:
Blue = SPIRITUALITY

Blue is the color of distance - oceans, skies, the heavens. The energy of blue helps us to look beyond the immediate environment, expanding our perceptions towards the unknown.

Blue is the color of Divinity. It brings:

• Peace and understanding
• Enhances the easy flow of communication with yourself or others
• Calms and relaxes

Yellow = WISDOM

Yellow is naturally associated with the sun itself, and so with its life giving and sustaining energy.

Yellow enriches, lightens and activates many of the systems of the body. It's bright sunny energy brings about:

• clarity of thought
• orderliness
• memory improvement
• better decision making skills
• alleviates confusion

Red = VITALITY

Red is the color with the longest wavelength,

We feel in red - ACTIVITY. The red ray furnishes sustenance for the physical body. It brings about:

• energy
• enthusiasm
• interest and passion
• security

When blue is in harmony with yellow and red, there is peace and balance in body and mind. From this trinity of primary colors emanate the secondary colors...

Orange = CREATIVE ENERGY

Orange combines red and yellow. It contains the fiery energy of red with the wisdom and control of yellow. Orange is a dynamic energy like red but more thoughtful and controlled.

Orange brings about:

• creativity
• playfulness
• exploration on a practical level
• relief from boredom
• equilibrium

Green = LIFE, BALANCE, NATURE

Green is the merging of yellow (mind) and blue (spirit). It is located exactly at the point of color balance - midway between red and violet on the color spectrum.

The human eye is able to recognize more variation in the color green than in any other color.

Its energy contains:

• harmony
• sympathy
• health
• abundance
• balance
• growth and expansion

Indigo = INFINITY

Indigo amplifies the energy of blue in a profound way. At a physical level, while blue is calming, indigo is sedating. It deepens and turns blue energy inward.

The indigo ray symbolizes the bridge between the finite and the infinite and opens the door to the mystical borderland.

While blue energy is fast, Indigo energy is more often lightening fast.

• opens the subconscious
• spiritual attainment
• self-mastery
• wisdom
• sudden awareness
• intuition
• psychic abilities

Violet = HIGHEST ELEMENT OF SPIRITUAL MASTERY

Violet is the ray of spiritual mastery. It is the highest and most subtle specialization of light, being at the opposite end of the color spectrum to red.

It should be viewed as both a completion as well as a beginning of the energy vibration beyond the visible color spectrum.

Violet is a combination of both red and blue and this is key to understanding this color. It brings a stabilizing energy to the franticness of red. It lends practicality to the undirected spaciousness of blue.

• darker tones are associated with sorrow
• deep purple signifies high spiritual attainment
• pale lilac brings love for humanity
• bluish purple brings idealism
• sparks the imagination and inspiration
• integrates other energies for healing purposes

copy from http://www.crystal-cure.com/color-emotions2.html


We will soon designed some society's T-shirt and post out here.

About Global Warming

I guess you might already heard about "global warming".
But do you know what are the factors causing global warming?
Do you ever heard about the complications from global warming?
Have you noticed that in these recent years,
many parts of the earth's continents being suffered and attacked by the dramatic attacking disasters like tsunami, tornadoes, earthquakes, floods,snowstorms etc...?

Rainbow society hopes you could join us to concern about our earth's future.
Please join us and learn/know more about Global warming . Together, we COOL our earth.
To cool our earth?
Do we need to be COOL?
LOL!!!!

What is global warming?
Well, global warming hrmmm...
according to MSN encarta;

Definition:

increase in world's temperatures: an increase in the world's temperatures, believed to be caused in part by the greenhouse effect

Global warming is the observed and projected increases in the average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans.

The Earth's average temperature rose about 0.6° Celsius (1.1° Fahrenheit) in the 20th century


Temp. increase in the last 1'000 years
(graph from http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/b/bb/1000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png)

What causes global warming???

Cause of global warming

Almost 100% of the observed temperature increase over the last 50 years has been due to the increase in the atmosphere of greenhouse gas concentrations like water vapour, carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane and ozone. Greenhouse gases are those gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect (see below). The largest contributing source of greenhouse gas is the burning of fossil fuels leading to the emission of carbon dioxide.

The greenhouse effect

When sunlight reaches Earth's surface some is absorbed and warms the earth and most of the rest is radiated back to the atmosphere at a longer wavelength than the sun light. Some of these longer wavelengths are absorbed by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere before they are lost to space. The absorption of this longwave radiant energy warms the atmosphere. These greenhouse gases act like a mirror and reflect back to the Earth some of the heat energy which would otherwise be lost to space. The reflecting back of heat energy by the atmosphere is called the "greenhouse effect".

The major natural greenhouse gases are water vapor, which causes about 36-70% of the greenhouse effect on Earth (not including clouds); carbon dioxide CO₂, which causes 9-26%; methane, which causes 4-9%, and ozone, which causes 3-7%. It is not possible to state that a certain gas causes a certain percentage of the greenhouse effect, because the influences of the various gases are not additive. Other greenhouse gases include, but are not limited to, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and chlorofluorocarbons.

Global warming causes by greenhouse effect

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (see above) act like a mirror and reflect back to the Earth a part of the heat radiation, which would otherwise be lost to space. The higher the concentration of green house gases like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the more heat energy is being reflected back to the Earth. The emission of carbon dioxide into the environment mainly from burning of fossil fuels (oil, gas, petrol, kerosene, etc.) has been increased dramatically over the past 50 years.

Effects of global warming

There are two major effects of global warming:

• Increase of temperature on the earth by about 3° to 5° C (34° to 41° Fahrenheit) by the year 2100.

• Rise of sea levels by at least 25 meters (82 feet) by the year 2100.

More details about the effects of global warming :

Increasing global temperatures are causing a broad range of changes. Sea levels are rising due to thermal expansion of the ocean, in addition to melting of land ice. Amounts and patterns of precipitation are changing. The total annual power of hurricanes has already increased markedly since 1975 because their average intensity and average duration have increased (in addition, there has been a high correlation of hurricane power with tropical sea-surface temperature).

Changes in temperature and precipitation patterns increase the frequency, duration, and intensity of other extreme weather events, such as floods, droughts, heat waves, and tornadoes. Other effects of global warming include higher or lower agricultural yields, further glacial retreat, reduced summer stream flows, species extinctions. As a further effect of global warming, diseases like malaria are returning into areas where they have been extinguished earlier.

Although global warming is affecting the number and magnitude of these events, it is difficult to connect specific events to global warming. Although most studies focus on the period up to 2100, warming is expected to continue past then because carbon dioxide (chemical symbol CO₂) has an estimated atmospheric lifetime of 50 to 200 years. For a summary of the predictions for the future increase in temperature up to 2100

The above texts have partially been taken from Wikipedia.org and then adapted and complimented accordingly.

Try this:

For your information

Rainbow society is a new society been found by HUI LING & her friends.
For your information,
Rainbow society is a non profit youth organization.
rainbow society is still a new society which haven't been register.
Hui Ling plan to register the society once she got the link/cooperate support from some success green organization. If she couldn't get any of them by September 2008, she will then just try to register/propose this society under Brunei Ministry of Education (PLAN1)

This is the platform where public/students from other schools could join.

The founder named this society as RAINBOW society, it is because she thinks that rainbow shows the sign of life, with seven different colours. Rainbow also represents the happiness and peace of being together. In this society, there is no racialism and other negative activities but just HELPs and contribution of us to our only home, earth. It also means that this society is opened to everyone of us with no limitation of ages, sexes, races and ranks.

Our earth is now facing some traumas, which are the "greenhouse effect/global warming" and "natural disasters". As a member of earth, we should do some actions to save our earth. With the strength of our members, we couldnt make up any differences. SO, we decided to set up this blog as a platform where all of us (people in cyber world/other regions) could exchange our ideas and information with this particular matter.



The aims of setting up this society:
*Help those victims and people in the third-world.
*Giving awareness to others/public on global warming issues.
*Spread Green
*Spread/share information and let others know about what happened in the third-world.
*Show our love to those unfortunate people and save our only home, earth.

For further information please contact:
1. rainbow.society@hotmail.com
or
2.crazy_elly@hotmail.com

You can get the registration form from ELLY SEE (crazy_elly@hotmail.com)