the neo earth

People around me will know my hatred for coal and my disgust of how the government managed to swindle common folks into believing that having a diversified energy source that includes coal in the Tembusu Multi-Utilities Complex is beneficial to Singapore. After years of sticking our guns to greening our energy sources, Singapore opened its fired up its first coal power plant in 2012. Years of Clean & Green Singapore, “commitments” to environmental sustainability, even imposing “special taxes” on diesel variants of vehicles despite the green credentials of new diesel engines, yet we opted for coal at a time when most countries are making commitments to exit this dirty fuel source.

This begs the question of how far the government is willing to go to commit to environmental sustainability. Have we given up all hope and climate change and is the setting up of the various environmental and climate change framework, including the National Climate Change Secretariat, under the Prime Minister’s Office all but a faux? Clearly we are not what we thought we are.

P.S. Besides Huaneng which owns the plant, companies which tap on the dirty fuel source should also be noted, they are, Lanxess, Dairen Engineering, Asahi Kasei and Zeon Chemicals.

How much of the economy should we sacrifice for the sake of our environment has been a much debated issue for decades now. Governments from all over the world, gather year after year during climate change conferences to discuss the issue of how much of their economy should be sacrificed for a sustainable environment. Yet, not once have they realistically thought about how much of the environment have we been sacrificing for the economy?

You may laugh at the thought, but do you know, that the climate change you experience today is a result of the doings of the past generation? Climate studies focus on a classical period of 30 years, which could mean that what we are experiencing today, is likely a result of a build-up of “sins” of the past 30 years. Yes, go ahead and blame your parents or the you 30 years ago, but bear this in mind, your children and yourself of the future will be casting the same blame on you if you do not take any action now.

In the movie 2012, we saw a world, indifferent towards everything else but preserving the future of mankind – must we wait for such a day before we reconsider our actions? In the movie, our chaotic world calmed after 2 months of violent weather, and all refugees were returned to land where they find a new world awaiting them. Will we be able to do the same if we turn our world upside down?

Our government is constantly going  on about how much it did for our environment, but quizzed further about the exact positive impact it has created, how much it has spent to positively combat climate change, it remains mum, and points to the economic sustainability we have to maintain. What is the use of having so much money in reserves, if we are never going to spend it? Are the figures in the bank better to look at or a better environment we can live comfortably in, more important?

Our obsession with instantaneous wealth has led us to ignore the fact that failing to be green, eventually erodes our wealth. The extra load brought about by the myopic decisions to keep policies less stringent and leave environmental initiatives to the private sector will only amass greater costs in the future. Our hunger to maintain easy economic growth through fancy buildings, cars, and even people i.e. population surge, will only hamper the healthy growth of our people. What makes us economically comfortable does not necessarily make us environmentally so and we eventually have to spend more to maintain that lifestyle.

Recently at an environmental awards ceremony, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, Vivian Balakrishnan mentioned that young people are more aware about the environment, and are more active proclaiming their causes for the Earth. Yet, in a study done before the General Election, statistics show that the environment ranks among the least important concern of young voting Singaporeans. The same opinion echoes through the audience at a recent forum I attended where grassroots leaders vote for the top concern they want the mayor to address.

Perhaps, there really is an increase of awareness for the environment, but the focus has always been too small to begin with, there just isn’t any impact. Obviously, the pace of our move towards  a greener lifestyle has not been able to match that of nature. Because combating climate change requires more than just plain gimmicky marketing and awards, we are doomed for good if we choose to be obstinate about dollars and cents over common sense.

Photo by Andrew*’s on Flickr

Each year, 6 billion of these plastic cards are produced worldwide

I was at an IT fair recently when I signed up for my first credit card – sometimes I think to myself, how are credit cards related to such fairs? Although I’ve been using credit and debit cards for many years, that day was the first time I’ve signed up for a credit card on my own. I was amazed at how easy it is to obtain a credit card despite having started on my job for only 2 weeks.

Each time I walked past a banks’ booth, its credit card officers will come up to me and shove a copy of the banks’ brochure in my hands. One of the banks in particular had 7 credit cards in its brochures, each with different features for my pick. I could have applied for every single card it offered that day without paying a single cent.

I then asked the credit card officer what is the purpose of having that many cards, to which he replied, they serve different purposes and target groups. If that’s so, why am I eligible for every card out there? In fact, less with the design and privileges of the different cards, I can’t spot any other difference with them. In that case, why can’t they simply combine the privileges of all these cards into one? They all belong to the same bank anyway.

In the end, I applied for 3 cards from that particular bank. One gave me the discounts of lifestyle facilities, while the second, the convenience of taking public transport, and the last because the credit card officer said, take a MasterCard (the other 2 were Visas). Initially excited over the benefits, I was only stricken with guilt when the packages arrived just yesterday. Not only did the packages come with thick stacks of brochures, there was also an additional card for a ready credit line which I did not remember signing up for.

According to statistics obtained by Sierra Club, the annual production of cards totaled over 6 billion worldwide. Enough to form over 50 stacks the height of Mount Everest, or even reach the Moon! Made of Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), these cards last forever in landfills around the world. Yet, no one seems to take notice of the damage credit cards are doing to our economy and our environment. Perhaps its monetary benefits to GDP figures outweigh that of economic stability, or perhaps its convenience outweigh that of its environmental damage, but one thing for sure, its use is here to stay.

While Sierra Club noted the indifference in attitude of issuers such Visa, MasterCard, JP Morgan-Chase, there is still a lot a consumer can do. First and foremost, stop applying for credit cards which you do not need. One less card in a market where each consumer holds an average of 3.5 cards makes a difference. You may also want to look out for cards with annual fee waiver for at least 5 years (the lifespan of a typical card), unless you are very sure that the waiver will be carried forward every year. Although not exactly measures that will prevent more plastics from being released into the pool of growing economies, these actions will at least help to minimize our carbon footprint and hopefully mitigate a climate crisis.

With the incoming wave of Near-Field Communication (NFC) technologies promising more convenience for credit payment with mobile phones and stickers, are we also seeing the end of these rectangular plastic cards? Then again, mobile phones also pose the problem of electronic trash as each model gets refreshed every 6 months to a year. The only solution then, is to limit our appetite of wants over needs.

2002 marked a significant milestone in Singapore’s bid to achieve sustainable water needs when then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong toasted the crowd of 60,000 Singaporeans during National Day with NEWater. NEWater, essentially water obtained through a reverse-osmosis process, albeit added processes to make it even purer. Yet, as we inch towards the tenth year of its introduction, we wonder – have Singaporeans really accepted NEWater as part of their lives?

Contrary to what the government would like people to believe (Clean, Green, and Blue), support for NEWater in general has remained low. Even after nearly a decade, Singaporeans still attach a stigma to the idea drinking water recycled from the sewage. Not that I have any qualms drinking NEWater – in fact I would rather be drinking NEWater everyday in Pulau Tekong over the highly-chlorinated water found on the island (Chlorine amongst being a carcinogenic agent presents numerous harmful effects on the human body), but the fact is that the sustained marketing campaigns for NEWater have not been effective towards an acceptance of the source.

While reception from non-domestic users has been positive since NEWater is in fact cleaner than water obtained naturally, acceptance by the general public has been less so. A simple survey of my friends on Facebook with 30 voters – not much, but it still tells what it should with even friends of friends voting – returned with only 4 people who say that they would pay for a bottle of NEWater. So where did the bottles of NEWater go?

Well, having organized a number of events over the past few years, I can safely tell you that organizers simply love NEWater. Why? It’s free. No pinch on the pocket if people start throwing them away. It does pain me to see the waste though. Which is my point exactly.

Each and every year, we manufacture thousands and thousands of bottles of NEWater, giving them away for free, inadvertently putting more junk into our bins. Yet, we haven’t been able to change the perception of people. We then scratch our heads thinking, what went wrong? May be the marketing wasn’t good enough, so we changed the packaging and put out more bottles of NEWater out there for people to waste – I mean try. What we really need to do though, is read the Black Swan Theory – I’ve only read a few pages of it, but the idea’s there alright. There is simply no use in telling people that we need NEWater in order to survive. People will only realize it when that day comes.

But no, we don’t have to stop the production of NEWater, we just have to divert our resources, and concentrate on putting the treated water to good use. YES! While people take time to decide that we are really running out of water, we should focus our efforts on pushing for the maximum utility of what is available to us. Consider the amount of junk we will save, the objective we had initially set out on, and you know it’s time to make the change.

The tech industry has been making a lot of claims lately, and one of them – online digital content. It’s being touted as the next big thing, probably bigger than the apple dropping on Washington’s head. Flagged off by Apple, Google and Microsoft have both joined in the game.

The benefits of offering products online are endless. Zero logistical cost, zero retailer’s commission, zero environmental damage – well almost there. As compared to traditional forms of digital product sale the main costs accrued by “streaming” products are usually limited to server storage and bandwidth costs – a negligible cost. Take television and movie rental company, Netflix for example. As Netflix heavily invests in  its Watch Instantly service, a software which streams videos over the net to everything from computers, phones, tablets, to gaming consoles and blu-ray players, a study of its accounts offers a glimpse of what the internet could do for us.

Even as the number who opt to have content streamed to them become the majority of Netflix users – almost doubling and a complete reversal of numbers with DVD-by-mail subscribers, the costs associated with content delivery merely increased by $1 million much attributed to the exponential fall in the cost of bandwidth. Whereas, costs of Netflix’s DVD-by-mail service increased by $23.1 million and set to increase further as postal rates rise.

Joining in the fray to tap on the internet to distribute its products just last year was the largest and powerful technological company in the world, Microsoft. When Microsoft launched the latest Office suite last year with much fanfare, it made available the option to purchase the product and obtain it via the internet using its Click-to-Run technology. Click-to-Run allows users to obtain the latest Office suite in the swiftest and fastest way without the need for a DVD. Not only did it allow Microsoft to reduce packaging and logistical costs, it effectively reduces the tech company’s carbon footprint on CD production. To entice consumers, Microsoft offered a discount of between US$30 to US$150 for the downloaded version. Users were also given the assurance that they can install the software any time, any where as long as they have an internet connection.

In contrast to Microsoft’s push for more environmentally friendly initiatives, it is saddening to know that others are more conservative about the push. Take Norton and Amazon for example. It is assuring to know that Norton, a company that provides protection from viruses and other internet threats, has taken the step forward to provide its product as a digital download, saving customers from the need to get a physical copy. However, Norton’s corporate policy allows the product to be downloaded from their servers for only 60 days! That is for a product with subscriptions ranging from a year to three. To be able to download freely for up to a year, customers will have to pay an additional charge for a “download insurance”. What’s worst is that the hard copy of the software retails for the exact same price or may even be available at a a promotional price at times. Customers who have the hard copy have the complete assurance that they will be able to install the software 24/7 without the need of an internet connection, without having the worry of accidentally deleting the installation file and in the course of it, save some money.

Over at Amazon, digital download customers are again placed at a disadvantage. With the Apple iPod revolutionizing the digital music industry, MP3 sales have become norms to couple any album sale. Even though it costs almost nothing for Amazon to sell an MP3 album, as compared to having a physical album delivered to the customer, MP3 albums actually costs more! To prove my point, I did a search for an album Glee: The Music, Volume 4. Whereas the audio CD retail for $11.88 with free shipping, the MP3 version costs $13.99, and even though the digital downloads are supposed to have the advantage of only buying certain tracks, some tracks are only available when users buy the entire album.

As the digital revolution goes beyond the dot com bubble burst, it is only natural that we depend on the internet for ever more convenience and reduce our carbon footprint in many ways. Yet, this should not come as a cost to consumers who are in fact helping companies trim their cost lines by going digital. Yes, I like to be environmentally friendly, but I definitely hate being treated like a boo boo for doing so.

P.S. If you already bought your Norton products online and did not keep a copy of the installation file nor pay for the insurance, there is a way to still download the program legally. Go to Norton, and download a trial version of the program you own a license to, key in your serial number after installation, and ta-da! It works just like the one you would have paid for!