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International environmental and economic issues

2016/03/31 03:42

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International environmental and economic issues

【文/創管碩一Anni】

Do you know why it was so hot in November?

WMO: 2015 will be the hottest year on record

The current El Nino is on track to be one of the strongest recorded, the strength of it at the end of the year is expected to be enhanced. The negative climate impacts on tropical and subtropical regions around the Pacific will increase. For example, much dry climates in Southeast Asia may be observed, India monsoon rainfall may be reduced, while Kenya and other places are facing flood risk.

As United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) pointed out, "The El Nino phenomenon is growing at an unprecedented manner. Our planet are facing drastic changes due to the rising of ocean’s temperature. In addition to the loss of Arctic iceberg, more than one million square kilometers of summer snow has disappeared in the northern hemisphere."

The world in the recent years has been doing much better in terms of preparing for El Nino. Countries in these impacted regions are ready for the impacts from El Nino on sectors such as agriculture, fisheries, water and health. Disaster management plans are being implemented to save lives and reduce economic losses.

(1)El Nino comparison: 1997 (left) and 2015 (right).

The world's largest online shopping festival!

2015.11.11 Global Shopping Festival

Alibaba group and other Chinese e-commerce companies just hosted the world's biggest one-day shopping holiday, capitalizing on an annual event dubbed as "Singles Day."

This year's 11.11 global shopping festival had more than six million products from more than 40,000 businesses. More than 30,000 brands from 25 countries, including China, United States, Europe, Japan and South Korea were part of this festival.

“Alibaba broke its Singles Day record.” Alibaba announces the latest total: RMB 91.2 billion ($14.32 billion) in sales. About 72% of sales were from purchasing made on mobile phones, Alipay peaked at 85,900 transactions per second. It demonstrated how Alibaba was able to use big data successfully, cloud computing and mobile innovations to create the best shopping experience for buyers and sellers. The countdown to next year’s Shopping Festival has begun.

(2) Making the 2015 11.11 global shopping festival the largest shopping day in history.

Invisible Killer: PM2.5

TAIWAN’s environmental problem

"Air pollution is second only to active smoking as a public health threat, and in the past decades we have greatly increased our understanding of its dangers." - BBC NEWS

TAIWAN is experiencing an environmental problem of PM2.5, "Purple Alerts" have been issued by various air inspection stations around the nation in the past few days.

(PSI: http://taqm.epa.gov.tw/taqm/tw/b0201.aspx )

PM2.5 or Fine particulate matter is an air pollutant that is 2.5 micrometers in diameter or smaller, and can only be seen with an electron microscope. These fine particles are produced from all types of combustion, including motor vehicles, power plants, residential wood burning, forest fires, agricultural burning, and some industrial processes. Exposure to fine particles can cause both short-term and long-term health effects.

This is not just a Taiwan exclusive, but rather a global air pollution problem which will become more serious and dangerous if we do not pay more attention to environmental protection and air pollution issues.