Climate change already harming the global economy

Never mind what's going to happen in 2100: climate change is already shrinking the global economy.

According to the Climate Vulnerability Monitor – a report by Spanish non-profit organisation DARA – in 2010 climate change shaved 1.6 per cent off global gross domestic product. The figure was calculated by adding the harmful effects of climate change to the problems of the carbon-based economy, such as air pollution.

Previous studies, such as the 2006 Stern Review, concluded that climate change would not become a net cost for decades. But they had not considered climate's impact on productivity. As the temperature increases,people work less well. "It has been assumed that a hotter living and working environment is nothing to worry about," says Tord Kjellström of Umeå University in Sweden. "But the 5 billion people living in the hot parts of this planet are already constrained by heat."

Climate change now costs more than the emissions cuts that are needed to tackle global warming. Such cuts would cost 0.5 per cent of global GDP, whereas the cost of climate change will be 3.2 per cent of GDP by 2030. If the claims stand up, it boosts the case for urgent action, says Cameron Hepburnof the London School of Economics. "Caps on emissions should be much tighter, and carbon prices much higher, than they are now

source: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22300-climate-change-already-harming-the-global-economy.html

How You Can Fight Global Warming at Home

There are steps you can take to fight global warming in your home and car. You do not have to wait for the government or big businesses to do something about it. It is better to take the initiative and do your part.
In your home, you can begin by changing your light bulbs. You do not have to do it all at once. Every time you change a bulb, though, you can replace the old incandescent bulb with a compact fluorescent. Not only does this reduce greenhouse gases, it also saves you money in the long run.

It has always been wise to seal and insulate your home, just for comfort's sake. Now, it is even more important. You can stop your home from emitting greenhouse gases and contributing to global warming by doing this. If you have any doubts about where your home needs insulation, you can hire an energy auditor to help you decide.

You can reduce global warming by simply taking care of the cooling and heating equipment in your home. You can change filters and have the equipment cleaned. Most importantly of all, when the heater or air-conditioner needs to be replaced, get an efficient model that is big enough for your dwelling.

In fact, it makes sense to buy all your appliances with energy efficiency in mind. Energy Star is a rating system that is reserved for efficient products. Buying such products will help decrease global warming.

Recycling is one of the easiest ways to help reduce global warming. Everyone can do it with little effort. You can also further the process by using products that are made from recycled materials.

You can help reduce global warming in your lawn, too. For one thing, you can use a push mower instead of a power mower. Since a push mower uses no energy but your own, this is a great savings. Even if you do use a power mower, you can still help. Use a mower that catches the grass clippings so you can mulch them.

As far as transportation, you can do so much more than buying a green car. You can drive it sensibly, with no rapid starts for instance, to help prevent global warming. If you keep your car well-maintained, it will be beneficial, too. Things like changing your oil and keeping your car tuned up can make a big difference in global warming.

Surprisingly, poorly inflated tires can lead to global warming. This happens because tires must have the proper amount of air in them for the car to reach maximum fuel efficiency. The less efficient your car is, the more it adds to global warming.

The best way to slow global warming by the way you use your car, is to make as few trips as possible. Walk when you can. When you have to drive, combine as many errands into one trip as possible.

If you fight global warming in your home and your car, you can make a difference. Some basic changes can be easily made. If everyone makes these simple changes, it can have a powerful impact on global warming.

Einstein's Refrigerator: And Other Stories from the Flip Side of History

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1

A Stolen Life

21

source: http://www.globalwarmingarticle.com/how-you-can-fight-global-warming-at-home.php

Integrated Micro-hydro Development and Application Program (IMIDAP)

Indonesia is endowed with large hydro potentials of up to an estimated 62.2 GW, which includes micro-hydro energy of 458 MW. Most of these energy resources are located in remote regions of the country. This is one of the reasons why only 4% of the potentials have so far been utilized. However, with the support from Global Environmental Facility (GEF), IMIDAP sees this as a potential solution to answer Indonesia’s rural electrification challenge. Today, nearly 40% of Indonesian households remain un-electrified. A good proportion of these households live in rural regions endowed with microhydro potentials.

 

 

 

 

 

 

IMIDAP is a comprehensive package of capacity development designed to assist the Government of Indonesia to achieve the following objectives:

1. Increase the microhydro business opportunities for local SMEs.
2. Implement a number of community-based microhydro projects in rural Indonesia.
3. Increase private sector and rural community join project implementation.

In short, the main activities the project undertakes include provision of a wide range of capacity buildings which among others include technical trainings as well as business plandevelopment for local microhydro developers, workshops and private or community-based users. The project however, doesnot cover investments and financing for building microhydroinfrastructures. Thus it is constantly searching new partners to find synergy in this respect. 

 

See more detail at: http://undp.or.id/factsheets/2009/ENV/Microhydro.pdf  

 

 

27 Provinces' Environments in Crisis

Of 33 provinces, there are around 27 provinces which are in poor condition.

by

Elin Yunita Kristanti, Aries Setiawan

VIVAnews - The environmental condition in Indonesia is getting worse. According to Communication Deputy for the Environment and Human Empowerment at the Ministry of the Environment, Hendri Bastaman, every year, the environmental condition is degrading.

"Of 33 provinces, there are around 27 provinces which are in poor condition due to, among others, landslide and and flood. We must seek the solution," he said on Wednesday, March 25.

According to Bastaman, several areas have suffered from terrible damage because of, for example, extreme weather change. "The nature could probably still support, but massive exploitation causes disaster," he added.

In February 2009, the overflown Bengawan Solo river flooded four regencies in East Java. The flood claimed the lives of 16 and inundated thousands of homes and buildings.

The damage in upstream areas caused water debit to increase, causing a dam to wrack.

Not only disaster, the environmental damage has also triggered conflict between humans and animals, especially concerning Sumatran tigers. Six people had been killed by the tigers, whereas the big cats were killed by angry mob.

A number of cases on tigers moving out of the forest has been considered as a nature's alert on environmental damage in the forest. The damage can be inflicted by forest exploitation, illegal logging, forest and land burning.

--

Translated by: Ariyantri E. Tarman
source:www.en.vivanews.com

Performance Evaluation of Commercial Bank

Performance Evaluation of Commercial Bank Branches Using Data Envelopment Analysis
Journal of Business and Management, 2005 by Yavas, Burhan F, Fisher, Dorothy M



Considerable research has been devoted to using multiple criteria to measure the performance of business units such as bank branches. However, bank managers continue to use traditional methods to evaluate their branch offices. In general, subjective weights for various criteria are used to arrive at a weighted average score to measure the performance of a bank branch. Potential deficiencies in an existing set of weights include bias and inconsistency with organizational objectives. This paper employs Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to evaluate the operational performance of a bank branch relative to the performance of its peer branches. Utilizing data from 31 branches of a major bank located in Southern California, the use of DEA yields the following: 1) rankings of bank branches using efficiency scores, 2) identification of areas of deficiency and 3) establishment of the reference group against which a branch is evaluated. Twenty-two of the 31 branches were found to be in need of improvements in various areas. In addition to identifying best-practice branches and those that are out-of-line with the best practice branches, DEA also points to the specific changes that must be made in the less productive branches in order for them to catch up with their best-practice peer group. The findings of this study should help management in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of their bank branches.

Discussion
Banks operate in a volatile environment that constantly requires them to alter their products and services. As indicated earlier, the trend is more revenues coming from such non-traditional offerings as insurance and financial services, while traditional banking revenues have declined. In fact, since World War II, the share of depository institutions in total assets held by the industry has declined from 55.9 percent to 35.6 percent between 1948 and 2000 (Saunders & Cornett, 2003). On the other hand, investment companies that give savers cheaper access to securities markets have seen their share of that business increase reflecting savers' shifting preferences toward securities markets over those products offered by commercial banks. In addition, information technology and a changing regulatory environment have resulted in consolidations in the commercial banking industry (Saunders & Cornett, 2003). In such an environment, banks compete with one another by developing new financial products and devising new ways of delivering these products to customers. Online banking and smart debit cards are two examples of new products in the banking industry. Equity and bond mutual funds are among the more recent offerings. Earlier examples of innovation included Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and credit and debit cards.
Along with seriously considering and analyzing domestic trends, commercial banks must now also compete with foreign banks and other financial intermediaries. Against this background, it is clear that the future performance of commercial banks will be based largely on the extent to which they adopt the newest technologies and offer new, competitively priced products, such as mutual funds and insurance. In such a highly competitive environment, performance evaluation of bank branches assumes greater importance. The challenges brought about by this environment may require new operating principles that in turn make changes necessary at the bank branch level as the mix of product offerings changes. Regardless of the sources of these changes, bank managers must know whether their banking policies have improved productivity and whether the changes and the new initiatives affect some branches differently than others.
Instead of using traditional techniques such as ratio analysis and observation, the management of the bank studied here decided to use DEA to identify areas where improvement could be made in the performance of the branches while maintaining service quality and also pinpointing opportunities where savings could be achieved.
The identification of bank branches that are functioning efficiently in contrast to inefficient branches is one of the most important outcomes of a DEA assessment. This is so because both efficient and inefficient bank branches typically use a similar set of resources (inputs) in producing a similar mix of services (outputs) in a similar environment. Therefore, inefficient branches can learn from and emulate their efficient peers regarding what needs to be done to improve. Furthermore, operational practices identified as contributing to efficiency may be studied, and information gathered may be disseminated throughout the entire organization that seeks to investigate, improve and grow.
Suggestions for further use of DEA include development of a DEA-based index (Fare et al., 1994) that measures productivity change and can be used to investigate the changes in productivity resulting from changes in product offerings and/or operating principles. In addition to measuring the impact of new offerings, such analyses could help address the questions of how to allocate operating budgets to units, how to minimize financial risks at branch levels, and how to use inter-branch data to monitor a bank's performance vis-Ã -vis other branches as well as other banks in the industry.


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Pengelolaan Sungai Tuntang....

Pengelolaan Sungai Tuntang dengan Pendekatan Co-manageement dan Analysis Hierarchy Process (AHP)

Tujuan dari penelitian adalah (1) Mengetahui pengelolaan dan pemanfaatan Sungai Tuntang dengan Pendekatan Kemitraan (Co-management) dan (2) Menemukan kriteria dan alternative yang diprioritaskan dalam pengelolaan dan pemanfaatan Sungai Tuntang yang telah direkomendasikan dengan pendekatan AHP (Analisis Hierarki Proses).

Objek penelitian adalah Sungai Tuntang, dengan panjang sungai 109 km. Sungai Tuntang termasuk dalam wilayah aliran Sungai Jratun-Seluna (Jragung Tuntang Serang Lusi), dimana Sungai Tuntang merupakan salah satu sungai yang mempunyai potensi air yang sangat besar. Alur sungai mulai dari Rawa Pening yang letaknya di kaki Gunung Ungaran, Kabupaten Semarang. Sungai ini melewati tiga wilayah administrasi, yaitu Kabupaten Semarang ke Kabupaten Grobogan kemudian menuju hilir di daerah Kabupaten Demak dan akhirnya bermuara di Laut Jawa.

Metode pengumpulan data yang digunakan dikelompokan menjadi data primer dan data sekunder. Penelitian ini menggunakan quota sampling dalam penentuan sampel. Sampel yang diambil sebanyak 120 responden yang terdiri dari 90 responden masyarakat (rumah tangga) dan 30 responden key-person. Pendekatan statistik deskriptip dipergunakan untuk Co-management dan Analisis Hierarki Proses (AHP) diolah dengan menggunakan alat analisis Expert Choice Versi 9.0.

Dengan pendekatan co-management dapat diketahui bahwa keadaan fisik Sungai Tuntang mengalami penurunan dari hulu ke hilir, pendidikan masyarakat di sekitar sungai yang relatif rendah, belum adanya aturan yang tegas dalam pengelolaan dan pemanfaatan sungai, serta kurang adanya kerjasama antar stakeholder baik di bagian hulu, tengah, dan hilir. Pengelolaan yang kurang baik pada Sungai Tuntang menyebabkan sungai tersebut gagal berfungsi sebagai pengendali banjir, yang akhirnya mengakibatkan terjadinya banjir pada musim penghujan dan kekurangan air pada musim kemarau. Manfaat Sungai Tuntang yang dapat diambil masyarakat antara lain untuk pembudidayaan keramba, pertanian, galian C dan tambak. Dengan pendekatan AHP (Analisis Hierarki Proses) menunjukan bahwa bersih/tidak merugikan masyarakat sekitar dalam pemanfaatannya merupakan kriteria yang diprioritaskan sedangkan memperbanyak pintu air adalah alternatif yang diprioritaskan karena dibutuhkan untuk pengaturan debit air dan pendistriabusian air dalam mewujudkan pengelolaan dan pemanfaatan Sungai Tuntang dengan baik.

Dari uraian di atas dapat disimpulkan bahwa diperlukan adanya kerjasama yang baik antar stakeholders dalam pengelolaan dan pemanfaatan Sungai Tuntang baik di bagian hulu, tengah dan hilir.

Kata Kunci : Pengelolaan, Pemanfaatan, Sungai Tuntang, Kemitraan (Co-mangement), AHP (Analysis Hierarchy Process).