The heads of the nation's five branches of government, as well as top business executives, were invited to watch the premiere of ±2°C (±2°C ─ 台灣必須面對的真相), a documentary on climate change in Taiwan, at the Butterfly Pavilion in Taipei last night.
TV commentator Sisy Chen (陳文茜), the producer of the film, said she hoped that those who watched the film would write letters to the Presidential Office and ask the chief executive to list climate change as a national security issue.
Chen said she had seen several documentaries on climate change, including An Inconvenient Truth by former US vice president Al Gore and Home by Luc Besson. None of these films, however, mentioned the impact of climate change on Taiwan.
“Don't take that as a cue that Taiwan is exempt from its influence. In fact, people in Taiwan might become the first group of victims of global climate change,” Chen said.
“Many people know that countries like Maldives might sink sooner than other places around the world, but few know that what may happen to the Maldives could also happen to Taiwan one day,” Chen said, adding that some locations in Taiwan might soon be underwater should temperatures and sea levels continue rising.
The film's name came from the consensus reached at the Copenhagen Summit last year, which was to take actions to keep any temperature increases below 2°C, she said.
Emphasizing that the film is a non-profit project, Chen said only wanted to use the film to educate the next generation about the issues surrounding climate change.
Any TV station can broadcast the film free of charge, she said.
Chen said she would also work with local governments so that the film could be shown nationwide. The film runs about 70 minutes and examines the issue of climate change from the natural disasters that have occurred around the world in the past six months to the scientific research and eventually focus on problems on the home front.
The production of the film began after the devastation caused by Typhoon Morakot last August.
An estimated 2 million people are expected to see the film, she said.
ALIGNED THINKING: Taiwan and Japan have a mutual interest in trade, culture and engineering, and can work together for stability, Cho Jung-tai said Taiwan and Japan are two like-minded countries willing to work together to form a “safety barrier” in the Indo-Pacific region, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday said at the opening ceremony of the 35th Taiwan-Japan Modern Engineering and Technology Symposium in Taipei. Taiwan and Japan are close geographically and closer emotionally, he added. Citing the overflowing of a barrier lake in the Mataian River (馬太鞍溪) in September, Cho said the submersible water level sensors given by Japan during the disaster helped Taiwan monitor the lake’s water levels more accurately. Japan also provided a lot of vaccines early in the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic,
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) on Monday announced light shows and themed traffic lights to welcome fans of South Korean pop group Twice to the port city. The group is to play Kaohsiung on Saturday as part of its “This Is For” world tour. It would be the group’s first performance in Taiwan since its debut 10 years ago. The all-female group consists of five South Koreans, three Japanese and Tainan’s Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜), the first Taiwan-born and raised member of a South Korean girl group. To promote the group’s arrival, the city has been holding a series of events, including a pop-up
TEMPORAL/SPIRITUAL: Beijing’s claim that the next Buddhist leader must come from China is a heavy-handed political maneuver that will fall flat-faced, experts said China’s requirement that the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation to be born in China and approved by Beijing has drawn criticism, with experts at a forum in Taipei yesterday saying that if Beijing were to put forth its own Dalai Lama, the person would not be recognized by the Tibetan Buddhist community. The experts made a remarks at the two-day forum hosted by the Tibet Religious Foundation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama titled: “The Snow Land Forum: Finding Common Ground on Tibet.” China says it has the right to determine the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation, as it claims sovereignty over Tibet since ancient times,
Temperatures in some parts of Taiwan are expected to fall sharply to lows of 15°C later this week as seasonal northeasterly winds strengthen, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. It is to be the strongest cold wave to affect northern Taiwan this autumn, while Chiayi County in the southwest and some parts of central Taiwan are likely to also see lower temperatures due to radiational cooling, which occurs under conditions of clear skies, light winds and dry weather, the CWA said. Across Taiwan, temperatures are to fall gradually this week, dropping to 15°C to 16°C in the early hours of Wednesday