Asia’s disturbing urbanisation
By Wei Seng
This is not Fear Factor!
In The Economist, their Asian correspondent in the Banyan column wrote about the "alarming" developments of Asian cities and how Asia (in particular, China) is urbanising in an unsustainable manner.
Urban living need not necessarily be more pollutive, since in cities one travels about less to go to work, to marketing and so on (I shudder when I think of the suburban sprawl of America and the need to drive anywhere and everywhere, an anathema for someone like me who likes public transport). However, ill-planning has resulted in cities in China frequently tearing down recently-built buildings and rebuilding them, which is a waste of energy and resources. Also, even if environmental concerns are recognised by urban planners, "many new buildings are designed first, greened later", which is recognised to be "cheaper but less effective". It seems as if greening cities come as an afterthought rather than as part of a comprehensive, holistic design of a city. Urban planners need to include and increase green features in the cities they plan and build right from the beginning. It appears as if there needs to be a breakthrough in thinking among developers (in China, but elsewhere too) before green urbanisation can move forward.
Considering my personal experiences, I must say that it is not just China that has cities that are not very well planned and not green. I visit Kuala Lumpur (KL), the capital of Malaysia, frequently and find that while I like the shopping there, it is quite an un-green city in terms of environmental friendliness and greenery. There is not very much greenery around and the city is rather heavily concretised. The roads are not very well-planned and traffic jams are a constant feature of the streets of KL because of the poorly-planned road system that makes driving in KL traffic a headache. There are some green lungs within the city, such as at the Lake Gardens near KL Sentral and Bukit Nanas forest reserve around KL Tower, but it would be better to create more green lungs in and around the city, and even along the streets. At least Singapore's Orchard Road feels more comfortable because of the trees and shrubs along the shopping street.
Talking about Singapore, while I cant say we are the greenest city, our government is certainly doing a bit on its part to export its expertise on urbanisation. The Sino-Singapore Tianjin eco-city is a good example of how Singapore can help countries like China that are rapidly urbanising to urbanise greenly.
For those interested in urbanisation in China, the Go West Project website is worth reading for the case studies and news compilations.
Recycling in Singapore
By Wei Seng
Cant rely on the karang guni man for our recycling future right?
I read this article in The Straits Times last week about recycling in Singapore and how Singapore "has First World technology but Third World attitudes" with regard to recycling: plenty of green technology being developed comparable to that in the West, but poor adoption or underutilization of such technologies or facilities, comparable to that of many developing nations.
Singapore, on the surface, has a good recycling culture: 57% national recycling rate last year. Unfortunately "what gets recycled reveals that the rates are highest for construction debris... generated from industrial use and recycled by scrap dealers". In terms of common materials being recycled, the recycling rate is highest for paper (48%, probably thanks to the karang guni man who comes around to collect old newspapers every so often) and lowest for plastic (9%, because there are few facilities for collection of plastics for recycling as well as little awareness of plastics recycling). Households and businesses (not including industries) are not doing enough in the recycling effort apparently.
The writer Grace Chua suggests that "recycling should be legislated", which the government currently is loath to do in fear of inflicting higher costs. Then again, how much more incineration and landfilling can we do? Incineration seems to burn the trash problem away but the contribution to greenhouse gas emissions is not insignificant. While only incinerator ash and trash that cannot be incinerated are buried at the landfill (currently on Pulau Semakau), there will come a day whereby the landfill will be full and hopefully we wont have to "ship (our) ash to neighbouring countries... or find pricey ways to use the ash in construction".
Laws that promote recycling could start by demanding that businesses recycle certain packaging they use or produce in making their goods, or mandate the compulsory sorting of trash for recycling. More expensive but certainly more useful and direct would be to have recycling chutes in each block rather than the current setup of bins shared among a group of blocks in an estate, which recycling companies rarely empty. Singaporeans are too used to convenience that the added trouble of going downstairs to throw away recyclables would doom / have doomed the recycling effort in HDB estates. I used to have recycling bins at the void deck of the block next door, but several months back when I tried to dispose of some recyclables the bins had disappeared. Apparently it has been underutilized and hence removed by the recycling company.
Financial incentives could also be used, and it would probably work if people are motivated just as they sell newspapers to the karang guni man (rag and bone man) for money. Landfill taxes or charging by volume of waste collected would create incentives to cut waste produced and recycle (or reduce and reuse, even better for the environment) more. Such incentives have to be introduced because unfortunately for the karang guni men, their numbers are dwindling and they are collecting less and less of newspapers (recycling companies are paying them less and less for the amount of paper collected) and more and more of what brings in the money, which in recent times would include old wine such as aged XO or old, damaged electronics. So to continue to rely on the karang guni men to instill the habit of recycling would not be sensible.
To appeal to the competitive streak in us Singaporeans, Singapore needs to catch up with other countries that Singapore supposedly competes with on the global arena. Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan, all Asian economic giants and considered to be of First World stature, all have very good recycling initiatives and high househould recycling rates. It is not feasible to just rely on industries to recycle and do their part for the environment, households and businesses have to get into the recycling habit as well, if not for the environment, at least for their wallets.
White in America – the new minority?
By Wei Seng
Not back to these days I hope
The last idea from the '10 Ideas for the Next 10 Years' column in Time magazine that caught my eye is one that pertains to America in particular though it could have ramifications in future for other countries facing a similar fate (even Singapore, for example).
Gregory Rodriguez writes about the "white anxiety crisis" and how "native-born white Americans" are poised to become the minority in America soon, as early as 2050 according to estimates by the US Census Bureau. This could certainly cause a backlash (amongst the white, that is) about what it means to be American, as well as attitudes of positive discrimination towards black / coloured minorities. Thus far the image of America has been one that is white, with African-Americans and Hispanics seen as the minority, the same way that the image of Africa conjured up is black while whites are the minority (usually remnants of colonial rule). How palatable (to the white as well as the black) would it be to have an America that is in proportion no longer majority white but still viewed or governed as a white-majority nation? The colouring of the United States would probably be seen as disturbing for "native-born whites" (in all honesty, the true natives of America are the native Indians, who have long been shunted and sidelined by the government). As the minority (at the moment still Hispanic and African-American, even Asian) clamour for more representation and more rights, the majority would now fight back as they see the threat of being overwhelmed in near future.
Worse still, could the threat of becoming the new minority cause the revival of white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan? I shudder to think of such an eventuality, but I am quite certain white supremacist thinking in some is still alive, just as much as blacks still think that the whites still have something against them.
However, it must be noted that the colouring of America is taking place in select states such as California, such that a convoluted situation would occur: 'majority' (in terms of land size / number of states) of the United States is still white but "strong white-minority political consciousness is most likely to arise in regions that are nowhere near... becoming majority-minority". The current minority are unlikely to expand to become the majority in many states such as Montana (think of the mountainous, central states of America), but it could well be people from states such as these that might be making the most noise about the colouring of America. I am reminded of the movie The Blind Side which I watched, where the black-white suspicion-tension often surfaced throughout the storyline and where racial segregation and discrimination is still not dead. It might not be an accurate reflection of the whole of America, but movies tend to portray some form of indication of societal views as well as perceptions.
So how is this all relevant to Singapore at all? There are parallels. Frequently in the papers articles emerge with regard to the Singapore government's promotion and welcoming of immigrants into Singapore, and then there will be letters and commentary about how native-born Singaporeans are being threatened and face a high likelihood of becoming the minority (just like the whites in America in 2050). Such fears are not exactly irrational, as this article from The Kent Ridge Common suggests. Studying the figures from the Statistics Singapore website, after some rough calculation the current non-resident (non-resident refers to people who are neither citizens or Permanent Residents) proportion of the population of Singapore as of 2009 is 25% while Permanent Residents form 11% of our total population and 16% of the resident population. These numbers are not huge but they are not exactly negligible either. Whether native citizens of Singapore will become the new minority in future remains to be seen; after all Singapore was created by immigrants centuries ago... though America was also created by immigrants centuries ago.
There may be lessons to learn from how America deals with this demographic situation.
The paradox in energy conservation
By Wei Seng
To conserve or not to conserve: as easy as a roll of the dice?
I have been desperately trying to catch up on current affairs and news that I missed while I was away without access to the outside world in India for almost half of March. Skimming through The Straits Times, I try to look out for interesting articles on issues that interest me, as well as issues that I could write about here. I found an article, written on 15 March (just one day after I flew off to India), with regard to a paradox that one often encounters when championing environmentalism: why is it that despite knowing that green technology can save money and energy, so little investment goes into it?
Tilak K Doshi of the Energy Studies Institute of National University of Singapore suggests several reasons, examining it from the viewpoint of an economist. Usually, economists deduce that when acting rationally, this paradox occurs if there is market failure (in terms of imperfect / lack of information about such technologies) or if "objective cost-benefit calculations" have already been done to indicate that such technologies do not really lower costs and energy consumption. However, it is also rational to suggest that because the cost of adopting these technologies "are likely to fall as the technologies become more commonplace in the future", it is better to "wait and see".
In addition, if investments in green technology cannot be recouped or if benefits cannot be reaped in the short term or tangibly, there might not be incentives to invest. The article uses the example of a house owner selling his home: if investing in energy-saving appliances would not allow him to charge more when he sells his home, why bother spending that extra money? If considering this vis-a-vis energy savings leading to lower bills, both forms of thinking make perfect sense... so how does the home owner reconcile the differences? The writer proposes "develop(ing) an audited home energy rating system to give house buyers and renters reliable information about their likely savings on energy bills", which would bridge the differences nicely.
So economics can still be applicable in solving some of these nitty-gritty problems, even though some have suggested that it is the economist's way of thinking (for instance, profit-maximisation hence resulting in the concealing of hidden costs on the environment) throughout the past century that has created the environmental problems we face today.
Nukes in the backyard
By Wei Seng
Ever seen a nuclear reactor this small?
I borrowed Fortune magazine from a friend while I was in India, and while I found The Economist more interesting compared to Fortune, this article on mini nuclear power plants in its 22 March issue caught my interest. It applies to the American context but it would be quite applicable for Singapore as well.
The writer Brian Dumaine highlights new technology that allows the construction of mini nuclear reactors underground instead of one huge reactor as is the case for most nuclear power plants in service / under construction today. Also known as "backyard nukes", they are supposedly cheaper to construct and safer. It can provide power for small / mid-sized towns (20000 homes) in America, which means that one such unit could probably also power a HDB estate in Singapore.
There is nothing much very convincing about the cheaper price tag in the article, but in terms of scale if the whole reactor unit and protection around it would just be the size of a hot tub, it would certainly be quite small scale. And supposedly it is easy to replace the whole unit when refuelling of the core needs to be done. It will be useful in Singapore given that we dont have the land (both for the plant and for buffer) available to host one single nuclear power plant, so these backyard nukes that work within our space constraints are worth considering. But no one has dared to order from the manufacturer yet... the issue of safety is quite a big question mark. It is not exactly tested yet, and chances are that smaller but more of such nuclear power units would be harder to protect than one large single reactor that can be cordoned off. And the question of nuclear waste disposal is not resolved here.
For more detailed reading, these backyard nukes have also been featured in The Christian Science Monitor and Discover magazine.
The Polarity of the Internet
By Wei Seng
Like Poles Agree...
In today's The Straits Times, Rachel Chang comments about "the power of the Net to polarise".
She cites the examples of how vocal people on Facebook and their blogs, who have publicised their political views or displayed their political affiliations, have been slammed and harasssed online to the point that one such blogger stopped writing. The empowering voice of the Internet appears to work like a double-edged sword, threatening to slit the throat of the person wielding it in the face of the majority or the powerful.
It scares me sometimes how polarised views on the Internet can get. There does not seem to be room for compromise or discourse, it is very much an "us against them" game in terms of opinion rather than the moderated views across the spectrum. Chang quotes Cass Sunstein of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs for his view that people who "interact with others who share the same views... tend to become more extreme". Of course, "the opposite is also true", but at least looking at some of the incidents Chang has had to cover for The Straits Times, it appears as if the former applies more than the latter.
I can very much feel for myself this polarity when I visit The Temasek Review. It is considered a source that is less influenced by the government (as opposed to The Straits Times, which some may deem to be a government propagandist body) but I am seeing quite a lot of critical anti-government writing. Ever since I started visiting this website, my rosy views about the govenrment have been somewhat tainted, not in a bad way. At very least, I feel as if I am considering other non-governmental viewpoints that might reallly be the voice of the people and not just what the government feeds to us via the press. It is scary, however, how netizens slam each other for their views, be it pro-PAP or anti-PAP. It is rather heartening that there is much debate about Singapore's future, and by and large discussion there is rather measured. It can get disturbing when emotions are flared up, as I notice in this write-up. I dare not express my views on this website for fear of being flamed to death by both pro-PAP and anti-PAP netizens.
Democracy... certainly brings about a cacophony that needs to be understood and tolerated, for all in the society to benefit. Hopefully with all the debate online and offline, people will come to a better understanding of what they want for their society. And it must mean dangerous times if arguments on the Internet spill over into real life and disrupt society.
So in essence... take heed online.
And just like Chang, I must add the disclaimer that I expect people to "shoot me nasty, unsigned email messages after reading this column", if only just to pre-empt comments considering the nature of my writing.