It have been a while since I came here. Nowadays I am a bit busy with my work. FYI, i just started as a research officer in a gov research institute. I just wish that the post I am in is a permanent but sadly it is a contractual a basis post. As a researcher so surely I have a project or two to carry on. I might be lucky since what I got is actually a hot topic right now through out the world, and guess what, it is on global warming.
The project I am in is looking at carbon sequestration. If you don't know what that is Google it okay. In my part of the project, there are a lot off aspects I will be looking in. But for the time being I am busy collecting water samples and methane gas samples from a peat swamp forest. Why PSF you say???FYI the PSF is a very dynamic ecosystem which supports carbon sequestration in it's environment. PSF is very unique with the normal flooding of soil that makes it swamp but compared to other swamps, PSF water is acidic and tea color. More to that, PSF emits CO2 and CH4, greenhouse gases that comes from the soil that is high in carbon biomass that makes it peat. Peat degrades into soil eventually that comes from plant litter and decomposition happens in 2 ways. It is either aerobic or anaerobic. So what is the difference? As i mentioned CO2 and CH4 is emitted from the soil. During the monsoon season where PSF is flooded with water, CH4 is emitted with much greater concentration to the atmosphere (anaerobic decomposition). Mean while, during the less flooded times causes much higher aerobic decomposing happens and this increases the rate of CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. If you are wondering, CH4 is 23 times more damaging than CO2 in respect to green house effect.
As this matter is being studied by me, Malaysia as a country blessed with PSF needs to protect this space. There have been news that a lot of forest such as this in Malaysia have been opened up for development. It is a sad thing since this type of forest is very rare and can only be found in a country with a clime such as my own. The main culprit for deforestation at this moment can be seen as agriculture and more specific the uprising of lore oil palms. As the race to convert fossil gas to biofuel, 3rd world nations are in a race to make the raw ingredient of this new black gold. Malaysia is also one of them, but previous studies shown that PSF is an environment very good carbon storage. It keep the carbon in its peat rather than being in the form of gases that heats up the world even further. There are also some work being done to promote these countries with PSF not to ruin this environment by givng them initiatives to their effort to protect it. In meaning that the country will gain carbon credit (money) for saving these type of forest.
There is more to say about biofuel that is making havoc to the world today. If you noticed that food is getting much more expensive and such insecurity for the whole world is very worrying and have you guessed the source of this problem yet. In my opinion it is from the race tio produce biofuel. Anyway, I leave it to that then. Hope what I wrote was informative and if there is anything more interesting facts about the environment I'll be sure to add more. Cheers
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