Climate Emergency: Why Every Effort Matters | Big Brain Energy EP 2 | Faizal Parish, Dr. Khamarrul

Climate change and the increasingly frequent occurrence of floods, landslides, and other disasters may seem like a colossal issue that no one individual alone can solve. But who said you have to do it alone?

In this age where carbon footprint trackers are available online, it's easier than ever to start our personal journeys towards sustainability

Dr. Khamarrul Azahari Razak, Director at the Disaster Preparedness & Prevention Center UTM, and Faizal Parish, the director of the Global Environment Centre (GEC), join us on this second episode of Big Brain Energy to talk about all things climate. What happens if the greenland ice cap melts, or temperatures continue to rise? Could Malaysia be underwater?

Watch the full conversation here, where they break down how Malaysians can come together to build the path towards recovery.

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Markers:

02:00 | Why did you start GEC? Have you always had an interest in the environment?
02:56: | What’s your backstory, Dr. Khamarrul? Why did you find interest in disaster risk management?
04:12 | If you weren’t in this field, what would you have pursued?
05:14 | How does your belief relate to the work you do in GEC?
08:31 | What’s the most ‘environmentally unfriendly’ thing you do or used to do?
12:14 | What’s the most memorable (good or bad) interaction you’ve had with a climate denier?
15:20 | What’s the scariest environmental news you would hate to wake up to
18:06 | What’s your take on “doomscrolling” and climate anxiety? How do we digest the news without feeling too disempowered?
21:23 | What would be the first thing you’d do if you were the Environment Minister for a term?
22:49 | Ad break
24:43 | Malaysia faced one of the worst floods in December 2021. Now, more than a year later, would you say we’re better equipped to face disasters like this?
29:54 | Was there a critical moment that made people realise they had to take action immediately to fight a worsening climate?
34:31 | Big companies will have to act for real change to happen. Thoughts?
41:32 | Dr. Khammarrul experience on natural disaster research in Japan
43:38 | The most rewarding thing about working with people on the ground, and how The Merdeka Award help paves the way for more programmes that impact lives
48:12 | Thoughts on the new generation working on environmental issues
50:03 | One final thing you'd say to people who want to work in your field

[dylanlow]

Who are those new generation environmentalists they mentioned at the end? Would like to search and find out more from them.. thanks!

I’ve only watched David Attenborough so far

[gohbianchiat]

the fact when the said that Klang valley will be underwater is not accurate. Currently, Holland, London, and South Vietnam is below the level of high-rise tide, you dont see them sinking any time soon. What they "forgot" to mention is human ingenuity and the ability to adapt. When the time comes for the sea level to rise, the people of malaysia, i do trust, will band together and build dikes that are high enough to withstand the tide.

[LakaranMusimBunga]

Love this. Thank you for the interview ☺️

[gohbianchiat]

i am not saying climate change is not real, it is, so does the rise of average temperature. But there are better way to address it, and it is not all about "green this", and "green that".
the way to move forward is "human ingenuity".
lets take example the hole in the ozone layer, people find a replacement for CFC, then found a replacement for HCFC which is a catalyst to break O3 into O2. Currently we are using R32 which has no impact on the ozone layer. that speaks to human ingenuity.

Lets take CO2 for example, any economical action will produce CO2, even manufacturing of hydroelectric, wind, solar will. there are just no way out of it. but the problem now is we dont have better replacement!
In order to power the entire penensular malaysia, we only need the solar array farm as large as entire bangsar, with solar panel running at 25% efficiency. but then what is the cost to replace and retrofit all this? who will foot the bill? the gov? the politician? the people? god?
and when talking about caring for the environmental, german now stocking coal in anticipation for the cut down of natural gas from russia, now talk about "caring for the environment".

in the big scheme, the only thing we can do is put trust in humanity to come up with an ingenious solution to either : scrub CO2 out from atmosphere, or find a radical way to replace current means of energy generation and energy consumption.
another big way is to lift people out from poverty, if you are poor, you cant afford to care for the environment, you also cant move from "flood prone" area, becuase you are too poor to move to anywhere safer! and you certainly wont invest in your surrounding to make it flood proof, because you dont have money!
3rd is invest on education, and focus on STEM and focus purely on merit! i dont want to say more about this for afraid to get me into trouble.

[viviansong]

Stay at maximum what is optimun!
No need for foreign labour at every nick and corner! No need to be ambitious in economic terms. All will fall even your best condo is the highest and the best. So what? So be reasonable in everything.

[OldScientist]

He was right at the start. This is about jobs for the boys.
There is no climate emergency. The Earth was warmer in the recent and distant past. It also warmed faster in the past.

[gohbianchiat]

and now they move to SME, yeah, it is easier to say that, you know, when you are not the one doing the business.
alot of the SME are surviving day-to-day and struggling to grow their business, and earn very meager profit to stay competitive, they are going to go for things that are the cheapest, not the most environmentally friendly.
their survival comes before anything else, if buring coal get them out of the survival, i have no doutb most of them will do it, even though it contributed to more CO2 release.

[gohbianchiat]

also, when he said that previously there were 100 year flood and now become 10 year flood. do they ever consider a things call "Bull Eye's Effect"? Is not the floor that is increase, is the expansion of human into the area that are flood prone, then someone thinks, oh, this is flood caused by climate change. You look at the recent KL flood, i think DBKL sold the land that was designated as flood mitigation, to the developer, and you chuck that to "climate change".

[zollani]

too late climate changing...bye...bye ..we are at war, time for faith healing so whatever"come what may" we are ready 🥳🥳🥳

[gohbianchiat]

Also, counting CO2 emission is not that really helpful, the conclusion of the environmentalist saying that the CO2 cases rises of temperature were based on the model by MAGICC, partly developed by US EPA. So if using that model, from 2000 to 2100, if we stop all CO2 production ffrom the advanced nation, it will account for lowering of global by 0.7F, that is while the entire advanced nation STOP producing CO2.

But then the problem arise, when you stop the production of CO2, you stop your entire economical process, because CO2 is a part of by-product for economical activities.

For the Paris accord, what they did was so funny. The politician said, we want to kept the global temperature steady, target by 2050, then they throw it to the scientist to tell them to come out with the result. This is similar to saying, "well, the way to find all German submarine in the Atlantic ocean is to boil the sea, now scientist, figure it out", said the Admiral during WW2.
Then the scientist did come out with answer, and they said, not verbatim, that it will take a measurement of epic proportion. That means, you need to completely modify how you produce, how you do business, and how you generate electricity. and to be honest, in reality, there are no way for any nation to achive that in 50, sorry, 30 years.

and you see all the people who attended the Paris Accord, they are either flying private or 1st class.
now why dont they just use zoom, and dont fly, since this will actually cut down the emission of CO2?