The Environmental Quality Protection Foundation yesterday launched an around the island run campaign in Taipei to promote the importance of trying to reduce carbon emissions.
Gathering at the Liberty Square in front of the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, five runners — four students from National Dong Hwa University and a trainer who has already completed a run around the the island — started out their 23-day trip early yesterday morning.
Foundation chairman Hsieh Ying-shih (謝英士) said the initial idea came from one of the four students — Liu Pin-hsien (劉品賢) — in an e-mail he wrote to the foundation about wanting to initiate a charity run to remind people of the need to safeguard the environment.
Hsieh said that as carbon dioxide concentration levels have already reached about 400 parts per million (ppm) worldwide, a new peak, it is important that people are made aware of the changing natural environment, notably global warming and climate change. Consequently, the runners will live a low-carbon lifestyle on their journey.
Based on research in Hawaii by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography published in May, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere there has exceeded 400ppm for the first time since measurements began 55 years ago.
The foundation said it has collaborated with the Chinese Taipei Association of Ultrarunners to develop a smartphone app that will allow runners to keep track of their carbon footprint.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching