End of SEm.! ! !

hey allllll ...!
Our exams are finally overrrrrr...!
We just want to say thanks alot for all your hardwork and that we had fun working with u guys.. =)
All the best for the rest of your semester k?

Human as a resource... hmmmm =)

Heyyy..! After reading the post, our group got inspired... and decided that our previous post was actually lacking in some information...! THe point made about human being a resource was something that we left out... what were on the post previous was mainly on physical resources such as food, water and land...

However, human should not be neglected as a resource in limiting population. Firstly, as mentioned by Tas, there are human services such as people providing healthcare services, such as caretakers, doctors, nurses, that are in shortage. This is the case in Singapore too. Due to the aging population, the increase in demand and need for these services actually pushes these resource to its limit. WIthout them, it is difficult to maintain the aging population.

Another point to be noted is that humans can be technically categorised into 'productive' and 'non-productive' resources. The younger and more able-bodied are considered to be a more productive resource, supporting the less 'productive', or the dependents in the country. Hence, we can say that the 'more productive' population is the valuable resource which the rest of the population depend on... however, the aging population in Singapore, decreasing the 'productive population', increasing the 'dependent population', is resulting in a limit to Singapore's population as well. There is a limit to the number of dependents in which one productive unit can support and this will eventually limit population size.

I hope this makes sense...! =)

Btw, below is a map of Singapore, showing the many competing land uses we have on our very small piece of land and the very small catchment area we have... =\

My take on population

Hi guys,

I'm really sorry about the late reply, I should have told you earlier but we had a lecture on populations today and I was waiting until afterwards to write to you so that I would have the best possible understanding of the topic.

Okay firstly, from our reading it is forecast that Australia will be able to support a population of 26 million. Seeing as we are at 21 million already and have a very high birthrate for such a developed and affluent country, 1.8% pa, it is forecast that we will be there by 2050.

The most significant resources limiting population growth in Australia are varied. One of these is certainly water. There is just not enough rainfall on this continent to support our massively expanding population, especially considering our agricultural and industrial needs. Another problem is arable lang. We have no problem with land in general, there is heaps of it, but the fact that it is economically useless limits the amount of land suitable for human habitation or agriculture. Another factor, as you have mentioned, is soil quality. Australia is the most stable continent in the world, meaning that there is little to no geological activity, and that means that there is little nutrients in our soils. The areas that have both sufficient rainfall and good soils are few and far between. Food is nowhere near as bad a problem in Australia as it is in Singapore, we produce much more wheat than we consume, we also produce a lot of beef and other meat, a lot of fish and a lot of our own fruit and vegetables, however sizeable amounts of rice, etc. are imported.

Our lecturer told us to think laterally when we were addressing the resources limiting growth and I think one of them is the shortages in some employment fields, especially in health. We are very short of doctors and nurses and this could affect the way that we are capable of maintaining our population.

Okay, they are my thoughts on the subject for the moment. You see, you guys are just so efficient that it is difficult to add anything valuable to discussions with you!

limits to population sustainability =)

HEY heyyy..! this is our Singaporean take on the population and resource limitation issue... hope to hear from you guys soon..! =)


2. Briefly substantiate your figure by listing (in order of importance) the most significant resources that limit the population Australia and Singapore can sustainably support.

Singapore, being a very small country with extremely limited land area, LAND, is definitely the most significant resource that limits the population size Singapore can sustainably support. Land encompasses many other resources. Firstly, living space is directly related to land area. With a small land area, population density becomes extremely high (6814/sqkm, pushed upwards by our most prevalent type of housing, the HDBs, high rise flats), increasing congestion and hence making it difficult to maintain a high standard of living. When looking at sustaining a certain level of comfort and high standards of living, population density cannot be too high. With the effect of congestion already starting to be felt at the present, a sustainable population size in Singapore, for a good standard of living, should not exceed our current population by too much.
Next, associated to the small land area, Singapore faces WATER CONSTRAINTS. Singapore does not have any natural freshwater lakes; hence most of the water comes from rainfall. However, even though Singapore has a high rainfall, she has limited area for water storage. Singapore’s reservoir can only support about 67% of the domestic water needs. The others are supplied through importing from Malaysia, desalination, and recycling of waste water. Even though technology has helped in easing the water constraint, these methods are extremely costly, and cannot be entirely depended on at the moment.
The next important resource that limits Singapore’s population is FOOD. With a small land area, the many different competing land uses (eg. Urban areas, housing, businesses) diverts land resources away from agriculture and food production. Furthermore, Singapore has little arable land due to poor soil quality as Singapore’s soil suffer from serious leaching due to high rainfall, high temperature, and high rates of removal in vegetative cover. Besides that leaf litter is constantly cleared, coupled with high bacterial activities, which oxidises any leaf litter left, soil nutrient in the top soil is extremely bad. With that Singapore cannot survive on food products produced locally.
Singapore has extremely little resources of her own. Hence, Singapore is heavily dependent on imports. Therefore, one must take into considerations the resources that limit the importing of other resources into Singapore. One of them will be oil. Oil fuels the transportation eg. Aeroplanes, ships, which brings in resources such as food products, into our country. Being a finite resource which is rising in price, oil prices directly affects the price of imported food brought into the country. Whether we can afford to import depends directly on the availability of Oil and fuel.






3. What are some similarities and differences between the resources that limit Australia’s population to that of Singapore?

There are resources that limit Australia that does not limit Singapore vice versa. Being in 2 different climatic belts, with extremely different land size, it is natural that there are differences in the limits to population of the two countries.
Singapore and Australia are different in many ways. Firstly, in terms of land area, Australia, being an entire continent on its own is about 10 times larger than Singapore. However in terms of population density, it is much 3 times lower in Australia as compared to land scarce Singapore. However, one must also note that the population density in varies spatially in Australia too. About one third of Australia is covered is desert, which is almost unpopulated. However, even so, in terms of living land area, Australia can support a greater population as compared to Singapore.
Next, Australia, being located in the 15 to 40 degrees South on the globe, it is subjected to certain climatic events which brings about many problems that Singapore, which is located at the equator does not have to endure. Firstly, the falling limb of the Hadley cell at about 25 degrees North South, extremely dry conditions are prevalent in this high pressure region, resulting in the formation of deserts and dry seasons. Singapore, located at the equator is in a low pressure region, on the rising limb of the Hadley cell, with cumulonimbus clouds formation frequent, and high rainfall.
Lastly, as mentioned above in question 2, with land scarcity and competing land uses, food production and agriculture is extremely low in Singapore. Hence, being unable to produce enough food to sustain her own population is a problem in Singapore. Whereas, Australia, with the abundance of land has a thriving food production sector worth about $24billion.
However, both countries face similar problems too. Firstly, water scarcity. In both countries, less than 1.5% of the land area is water. However, the water scarcity is a result of different reasons and causes in both countries. In Singapore, it is due to the lack of water catchment areas, and storage areas due to the lack of land. Whereas, in Australia, it is due to the dry climatic conditions.
Lastly, the lousy soil quality found in both countries are also limits to population the country can sustain in terms of food production. However, the reasons for bad soil quality in both countries differ too. In Australia, it is due to the dry conditions, resulting in low vegetation cover, high surface runoff, dry soil, and eventually low nutrient content. As for Singapore, it is due to soil leaching, whereby the high temperature and high rainfall encourages the rapid decomposition of the surface litter, and the rapid infiltration and permeation of nutrient in to the deeper layers.

Hi everyone, this is the final set of questions already ! Hurray !

Your responses to these questions will form the basis for our tutorial discussions:

1. Your estimate of what population you think Singapore can sustainably support. (4.84 million currently according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore#Population)
* ANU students will think about a sustainable population target for Singapore. (Hehe)

2. Briefly substantiate your figure by listing (in order of importance) the most significant resources that limit the population Australia and Sinagpore can sustainably support (e.g. land, water)

3. What are some of the similarities and differences between the resources that limit Australia's population to that of Singapore? (commonalities and dissimilarities?)

4. Come prepared to discuss and defend your sustainable population target for Singapore. The ideas presented in lectures, readings and collaboration discussions with ANU may be helpful in supporting your views. (ZzZz haha)

An environmental disaster or creating equality?

The Tata Nano was unveiled a couple of days ago in India, marketed as the cheapest car out there and targeted to the growing number of Indians who would like to have their own car but cannot afford to have one.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/11/2136595.htm

In class we have been talking about this. Is it fair to deny this opportunity to developing countries just because they have greater populations and have the capacity to do greater harm to the environment or should this car be hailed as a great product, providing supply to a huge demand in India?

google on the green journey!

hey guys!
chengwei found this interesting website about google going green. it's really interesting, and we can incorporate some ideas from this corporate enterprise as well! check out the video above and their website here! :)

Sorry about the late post.
As Tas said I also found it interesting how little things can lower our ecologlogical footprint. Someways that I could lower my own footprint is drivimg less, eating more local produce and also eating less meat.

In regars to the way that the ANU is attempting to lower its ecological footprint is by placing recycling stations around the uni enabling people to recycle some of their waste and not just put it all in the bin. The uni also has a hot rot composter. This machine rots down food waste and turns it into compost that can be used on the gardens and in the vegetable garden. When new buildings are being planned they are now planned in conjuction with ANU green, which is organisation that is responsible for the environmental conservation at the uni.

Another simple idea that has been employed is the idea of using old photographic film cartridges as cigarette butt bins. These can be carried around by a person easily as they are only small and prevents butts being left across the uni.

Most of these systems go against the social norms. People are used to just throwing their rubbish, regardless if it is recyclable or food waste, into the one bin and with cigerette butts people would normally just throw them on the ground. However i think with the strong presence of ANUgreen at the uni the social and institutional "norms" are slowly changing and more people are becoming aware of evironemental problems.

Paper management at the ANU

Default double-sided printing is a great idea, particularly for people in a hurry who just aren’t thinking about their paper consumption (and those who aren’t particularly concerned about it anyway), but the issue with recycling paper is that the more you recycle it, the smaller the fibres in the materials become and eventually they can’t be recycled anymore, so even though some people might think they’re being environmental by printing out their class readings on recycled paper, the truth is that it’s not actually reducing their consumption enough. If they were to read it from the computer, or perhaps just print one copy between a few in a group and take turns reading it before discussing it, the positive difference in paper consumption would be huge. ANU Green and the campus librarians educate our students in proper paper consumption to minimise waste – little things like using scrap paper to print non-assessable items, and reducing page size on the photocopier (so you can fit three or four pages onto one A4 page). Another option which I thought was interesting is that I passed by a petstore on the weekend, and in the window they had a sign saying ‘Any shredded paper desperately needed for our animals’ – something I thought was really nifty. So once the paper has been used on both sides, another option for already-recycled paper is to shred it in a paper-shredder and pass it on to be used as pet shavings. The ANU Green website has a number of ways to help with paper usage on their website, including the brands of paper reams which are environmentally friendly, and those to add to your black-list til they pick up their game.

Another personal footprint story

Hi everyone, this is my first post here. I’m Serena, by the way. I thought I’d make my entrance by telling you guys all about my personal carbon footprint.

There are definitely more things that I could be doing to reduce it, but I’m not the worst offender that I know, which is mildly comforting (though still guilt-inducing). For example, I am a bit of a foodie, and I love meat which I know is not only animal-unfriendly, but environmentally-unfriendly. However, I go to the fresh produce markets every week (usually twice) to make sure I’m purchasing local food that hasn’t had to travel halfway across the country to reach me. I always buy organic and free range meat, and have lately been trying to cut back my meat consumption. The effort is actually a good one to make, because not only are you supporting more environmentally friendly food, you’re also getting much better quality!

In terms of water use, my family is really big on reusing water – if I take a bath (which I love), I have to bucket the water out into the washing machine as wash water, and then use the rinse water in the machine as either wash water for the next load or use it to water the garden. We have mostly drought-related plants in our garden, which my father takes good care of, so our water use in the garden isn’t bad at all. We have timers on our shower walls to make sure we don’t spend too long in there, and have water saving toilets and shower nozzles.

We recycle all our paper, but don’t have a scrap paper box at home which would be an excellent idea since we use a lot of paper and often only print on one side (I know, we’re awful L). Another way we could save is to buy recycled paper – I only recently discovered we’ve been buying Reflex paper which is one of those evil environmentally-unfriendly paper brands. We also should be buying recycled toilet paper and kitchen paper. I’m a huge bottled water person – I love it, and I get dehydrated so easily so I always have at least one waterbottle on me. I usually reuse the same bottle for a number of weeks, but I’m a little scatterbrained and have a tendency to lose them a lot. This means that I probably buy a bottle of water once every three weeks, more often if I’m working and get thirsty. I should be being more careful about this because this is an area which is really hurting Australia at the moment – I think there was some gigantic number of littered plastic drink bottles collected on Clean Up Australia Day.

Like Tas, we also used to leave our computers switched on at the walls until about a year ago when we realised it ate electricity even without being on, and now my family is fanatical about leaving nothing on overnight, including computers, televisions, vcrs and dvd players, cd players and so on. We have ducted heating in my house, which would be a big thing to go without since my mother and I feel the cold dreadfully (we grew up in the tropics and Canberra was a real shock!!!) However, over the last few years, we have all been consciously trying to reduce our use of the heating, never letting it go higher than 20 degrees and only letting it on between certain hours of the day during the week and only in the afternoon/evening before bed on weekends. We do have a fireplace which we use A LOT in wintertime (there’s something so comforting about a roaring fire) but I’m not sure on the effects of burning a fire. I’m going to assume it’s also quite bad, so there is somewhere that I can definitely improve simply by adding an additional layer of clothing instead.

That’s all I got for now, more later. J

In answer to question 2

ANUgreen has many strageies that they use to acheive their environmental goals, the ones below are some of the more lateral thinking ones.

1. Participation of many external elements within the university including the residential halls and colleges at ANU. For example, cafes and restaurants, as well as halls and colleges, have been provided with a seperate waste bin for organic matter to go into the composting system (refer to earlier post). Intercollege rivalry can also be very fierce with many sporting and other competitions between them. Reducing their output becomes a matter of a competition of who can reduce their use of resources the most. Other colleges also lead the way in things such as solar power usage. One of the residential buildings, Bruce Hall, has installed on its roof a solar electricity producing prototype developed by the university itself. Each hall or college has a green representatives who liase regularly with ANUgreen.


2. Increasing public awareness within the university community. There are clearly labelled bins, for garbage and for recycling, all around the campus with sbig backboards detailing what goes into each. There is also a "toilet door campaign" where posters are posted on the back of toilet doors for users to peruse at their leisure. To tell you the truth, they totally work. On of the ones that I found really changed my view was one that said that the amount of paper printed at ANU in a year is equal to the height of 41 Telstra Towers if the pages were stacked one on top of the other. The awareness of that fact lead to me arranging with my tutor to hand my tute questions in electronically.
   N.B. Telstra Tower is a major Canberran landmark, it is a telecommunications tower which is clearly visible from ANU, as well as most of Canberra. If you go to the ANUgreen website, http://www.anu.edu.au/anugreen/, and look at the picture on the home page you can see it in the background in the top left corner.


3. Community events and participation. There is an organic garden in the grounds of ANU which is open to everyone to go work at, it increases participation on a grassroots level and increases awareness and horticultural skills. One of the major events is on this Saturday and that's Earth Hour celebrations, the photo I referred to above was taken at Earth Hour last year. ANUgreen makes it a large event and this year has organised entertainment and food as well. It has marketed the day as a fun family event.

ANUgreen: The basics

Hi guys,

Sorry for not putting this up earlier, but in case you haven't come across it before here is a video detailing what it is that our environmental office does. The video is about 6 minutes long and would do a much better job of explaining than I will (if you look at my posts below, you will know that I'm not the world's greatest explainer).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e15FtidHEAY

An introduction to compost

Okay, just a bit of a crash course in the idea behind composting, which is basically a food recycling system. Every year heaps (unfortuantely I don't actually have a figure to provide here) of food waste goes into landfill where it basically just decomposes, releasing heaps (also an unspecified quantity) of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, I believe it might be methane, like what is released from agriculture (believe it or not, cows (of which there is a huge industry here in Australia (if you have watched the movie Australia you'll know what I am talking about)) farting is one of the biggest greenhouse gas emitters).

So composting is pretty much the most ancient form of recycling, because our ancestors have been finding uses for organic waste before paper, aluminum cans and plastic bottles were invented.

Most composting systems are very small scale, unlike waste disposal and other forms of recycling, which are organised by local governments or town councils. For example, at home our composting system consists of a big old icecream bucketsitting next to our dustbin in the kitchen in which we put food scraps and sometimes other things such as tissues and every few days Mum will empty the bucket into the garden. We also have buckets in the shower and to collect water we use in the kitchen to wash anything from vegetables to dishes. By the way, the vast majority of people living in Canberra live in low-density housing, generally houses with front and back yards, although many don't have vegetable patches and fruit trees like at our place. I'd assume that in Singapore, most people live in medium- to high-density housing, based on what I've seen of the city flying over it in a plane :D

However, this largely individual form of recycling has been undertaken on a much greater scale on the ANU campus. You might have heard of our sustainability office, ANUgreen, and as part of their recycling campaign, they have now put in a large-scale composting system, because up to one third of our waste going to landfill is organic matter. Its called a HotRot and can recycle up to 2 tonnes of compost a day. There have been systems set up to deal with this. There are wheelie bins which are grey as opposed to green (rubbish) or with a yellow top (recycling) or blue (paper) and these grey bins have been placed in cafes, restaurants and halls and colleges on the ANU campus and trucks pick up the waste every few days.

As you may know, Australian soils are also the most nutrient deficient in the world as well, so our soils need a lot of care and extra nutrients to grow almost any plant which isn't native. So all this food waste basically comes back as rich compost for use on the campus reducing our waste output.

I was giong to post a picture of the HotRot system at ANU but unfortunately it doesn't seem to be working. Oh well, if I can work it out I'll put one up.

What can the campus do about it? Who's responsibility???

4. Devise 2 strategies that ANU or NUS could implement to reduce their footprint, and enhance sustainability. Who is responsible? Individuals changing their behaviour, the university changing the way it conducts business, or both? Why?


The first strategy we propose would require the way the university changes the way it conducts its business. Changes to the campus facilities can only be achieved by the university. This includes putting in place motion sensors in the campus to ensure more efficiency in energy consumption. These sensors would be able to switch off lights, fans and air-cons if it detects no motion for a certain period of time. In the same way, it would be able to sense motion and respond accordingly. Air-condition systems should be altered from a central control to one that allows individual controls in lecture theatres and classrooms. A system should be in place to ensure the air-cons are switched on during the allocated class period instead of letting it run the entire day. Air-cons should also have a default setting of 25 degrees Celsius and it should not be adjusted unless necessary. Such sensors requires a large capital to be put in place, but it helps the university to save energy in the long run and ensures energy is being used efficiently. In addition, the campus should consider allowing students to open the classroom windows in campus if the weather is not too hot and humid.

The second strategy would involve both a change in individual’s behavior and the way the university runs its businesses. We propose having Green Weeks throughout the year. This would have to be supported and put in place by the university, while the students have to believe in the importance of it and participate actively. During Green Week, students are to bring their own Tupperware, and canteen vendors are not allowed to use plastic containers. In addition, there will be an additional carbon tax on all cars using the school’s carpark. This is beyond their current season parking and carpark charges. Carpark fees will also be doubled to encourage students to use the public transport. These are some examples of disincentives to deter students from using resources inefficiently. It facilitates the idea that there is a price to pay for convenience and we should never take such resources for granted. On top of incentives, incentives can be introduced to encourage the students to carry on the habit of being environmentally friendly. One example may be to award students with points whenever they bring their own Tupperware and carriers, and these points can be accumulated to obtain a free meal. The logic behind such a campaign will be so that students will at least get STARTED with leading an environmentally friendly life, to let them know that it is POSSIBLE. Such an idea is taken from another concept implemented by the Singapore government on schools. On Civil Defence day, school canteens stop selling food and only provide sweet potato porridge. This is so that students can understand how it feels like when there is war and there’s a lack of food supply. Similarly, Green Weeks are to get students to understand how being green feels like.

As the saying goes, it takes 2 hands to clap. Therefore, we need both parties’ (school and students) support in order to make our approaches operationalised and effectively implemented. Without an adequate support of the students to empower these approaches, measures can be deemed useless to our green goals as well as redundant and ineffective. Moreover, legislation and implementation might only look like a rigid, hierarchical top-down approach which can be regarded as a lip service paid to the tree huggers and also the pragmatic global competition for achieving green campuses and in aid to be environmentally relevant.

On the other spectrum, the targeted result will also be inconclusive when there is an evident absence of the school authority to push ways for green measures. Armed with financial backing and by harness its relationships with relevant green enterprises and local government, the school can be a significant potent entity to execute green projects and also able to monitor their sustainable progress over a long period of time. Not to forget, tertiary institutions are the breeding grounds for future leaders and therefore this emphasizes the pressing urgency for them to engage, appreciate and inculcate green measures and estimating potential damages as soon as possible. This also presents the need for present students to have a comprehensive and multi-disciplinary idea of how environment has a huge stake in our present as well as future and generate genuine concern for the nature most importantly.

Looking at the scale of influence, the university changing the way it runs its business have impact and influence on all its students, who will eventually spread the environmentally friendly lifestyle as they mix with other people. Whereas looking at the scale of an individual, it is pretty difficult to influence a large number of people to follow a green lifestyle. For example, a society called SAVE (mentioned above) in NUS, have extremely environmentally friendly members. They adhere by strict rules, such as by limiting the use of plastic bags and containers; they do not package or bring their food out of the canteen, so that reusable utensils can be used. However, even though some of our friends are from that society, as an individual, they have less impact on influencing our mindset and actions. However, if the school bans the use of plastic disposable packaging, an immediate effect will be visible.

In conclusion, with only intermixing synergies and enthusiasm that can be generated from the school’s authority and students can we able to pursuit reduction in carbon footprint and improve sustainability. Besides, it is also pivotal that both parties can engage in open dialogue and be transparent in order to forge a genuine attempt to help the environment.

What do you guys think about this question? =)

CAMPUS strategies

3. List some innovative strategies that the educational institutions like the ANU and NUS are doing to reduce their overall ecological footprint.

The NUS Office of Environment (OES) pledges to effect a total shift to environmental sustainability in all aspects of campus life by integrating sustainability into operations, planning, construction, education, research, instruction, and public service. Together with the student body, NUSSU SAVE (Students Against Violation of the Earth), they have
implemented several changes to NUS in recent years in its effort towards becoming more environmentally friendly.

OES main: http://www.nus.edu.sg/csc/circulars/circulars_main.html
Rebate2Earth: http://www.nus.edu.sg/csc/news/2008/Rebate2Earth_main.html


Plastic Bags cost 10cents in NUS bookstores
According to www.reusablebags.com website, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year. Therefore, the main objective under Rebate2Earth is to reduce the excessive usage of plastic carriers in NUS through controlled issuance of plastic bags by stall vendors and practicing the 3Rs(Reduce, Reuse, Recycle). Plastic carriers from the NUS bookstores are now charged at 10cents each and the money collected will be used to fund future environmental projects. This project hopes to use such disincentive to reduce the consumption of plastic bags and to nurture a culture of reusing carriers among the student body.

Recycling bins placed around Campus
The recycling infrastructure was recently revamped by the OES and SAVE initiated under Project ZeroWaste- Campaign to raise awareness of recycling. Recycling stations have been set up at prominent places and at specific timing with campaigning, such as placing bins outside examination halls during exams for students to recycle their lecture notes and also placing bins at the hostels after the exam periods when student moves out. There is a bin for plastic bottles (marked green), another for aluminum cans(marked yellow) and a trash bin. Paper recycling bins (marked blue) are only available at selected common access areas on campus due to fire hazard.

http://www.nus.edu.sg/csc/circulars/2008/recyclingoncampus.html
http://www.nus.edu.sg/csc/circulars/2008/zerowaste.html

Arts Faculty

Engineering Faculty

Recently, an inspection done revealed that the faculty of Arts and Social Sciences has the highest level of segregated wastes, but the engineering faculty has the highest level of contamination. This goes to show that despite the same implementation of program across the campus, individual faculty varies in result, which most likely boils down to the differences in individual’s attitudes toward recycling.


Default Double-sided printing
Initiated under Save3s Campaign, all the computers in NUS are set to default double sided printing. The Board of Undergraduate Studies and the Board of Graduate Studies has also given the green light for all submission including Honours and Graduate Theses to be submitted on double side print.

Green Carnival
SAVE’s flagship project, Green Carnival 2008, is held annually to serve as the platform for NUS to underline this commitment publicly. It also mobilizes the NUS community towards environmental consciousnesses and to raise awareness about climate change and its effects on earth and society.

Integrating Environmental theme to events
In this year’s NUS Arts Festival, they have adopted a theme that is related to the environment and going green. Groups taking part in it, e.g the NUS Dance Blast would attempt to paint a story of how recycling plays an important part in making our world a better world to live. They explored the realms of hip hop culture with the environment theme. The NUS Jazz Band presented Treat Her Like A Lady!, an exhilarating musical revue consisting of a dialogue of songs which we as humans are singing to the Earth and songs that the Earth is singing to us as a direct response to the environment theme. The NUS Wind Symphony and Chinese Orchestra honoured Mother Nature with a repertoire that included pieces such as Amazonia, Vesuvius, The Yellow River, etc.

By integrating environmental themes to such events, NUS is emphasizing the importance of such environmental issues by creating awareness through big events such as this. Just as we are taking this module to gain more understanding about environmental sustainability, the campus is also attempting to do the same through other platforms. Such events together with legislations, constantly remind people to be environmentally responsible.

Do any of these strategies challenge social or institutional "norms"? (That is, Change the way people behave or think?)

The sorting out of garbage and recycling have been a practice that is highly encouraged for many years. However, it has never been very successful in Singapore. The sorting out of garbage is not a norm in Singapore, and most people find it a hassle. This is contrasting to a country like Japan, whereby the categories of garbage sorting have increased to 10. There are even booklets teaching residents how to sort their trash. What is interesting is the extent they go.

“Lipstick goes into burnables; lipstick tubes, "after the contents have been used up," into "small metals" or plastics. Take out your tape measure before tossing a kettle: under 12 inches, it goes into small metals, but over that it goes into bulky refuse. Socks? If only one, it is burnable; a pair goes into used cloth, though only if the socks "are not torn, and the left and right sock match." Throw neckties into used cloth, but only after they have been "washed and dried.".”

(The New York Times, 12 May 2005)

Unfortunately, Singapore does not have a culture of sorting garbage, hence sorting out our trash before recycling is uncommon and out of the norm. How about in Australia?

There are certain practices that are not out of norms. For example double sided printing which is cheaper than single sided printing is usually used even without the default setting. Though there is the economical reason behind it, I will not deny that Singaporeans do realize that it is more environmentally friendly.

However, it just goes to show that in Singapore, people seldom put in the effort to be environmentally friendly. Only when it is convenient to be ‘green’, eg. Printing double sided will save them some money, will they do it willingly.

My personal footprint, just by the way

I thought that I'd share it with you because it is pretty bad despite trying to take so many precautions. If everyone on Earth lived like me we'd need 2.5 planets to support us all. That's pretty scary, but with just the one change of eating locally and eating less meat, it is reduced to 1.8 planets, which is still bad, but much better. I was really surprised by how just that little change can have such big effects. Its made me feel much better about being able to do something, even small, to help the environment.

Personal habits

Okay, like you, here's the personal first. Sorry its not in dot points but it's not really my style and I tend to make really crap notes when I condense information so sorry about the wordiness. By the way NUS guys, we decided to jsut send our own indivual stuff at the moment because we tried to get organised for last week and it just didn't work. So here's my two cents. I'll be posting more up soon.

To reduce my personal carbon footprint, there are a number of steps that I can take. In the first place, I use public transport almost everywhere (because I am too lazy to get my licence), I recycle all my paper and send and read a lot of files electronically and put all my food scraps in the compost, I also use buckets to catch the water when I wash dishes or when I shower (here in Australia we have a pretty awful drought so people tend to be pretty aware of water usage, and besides, my mum is a total greenie), so there aren’t a lot of things for me to change in regards to my waste (although I could actually take shorter showers).

On the other hand there is a LOT that I can change in regards to my food and electricity consumption. 90% of our lights at home are energy efficient but I wasn’t aware until last week that laptops and mobile phone chargers consume electricity if they are plugged into the power socket, even if no electronics are hooked up to the charger. I now make a conscious effort to switch off power points when they are not in use, especially if there is a charger plugged in. I am constantly switching off lights and try to use heating as little as possible, although in winter it does get terribly cold here and so I use a column heater in my room and always wear a jumper and socks.

Another problem is my eating habits. My brother in on a high protein diet, and so in my household there tends to be a lot of red meat at dinner and definitely some sort of meat. That creates a huge carbon footprint as you all know and so I’ve decided to cut back on red meat (although I do love lamb, which is like Australia’s national food) along with my sister who is on a low fat diet, and doesn’t like eating red meat much anyway (I’m the only one of my siblings who is NOT on a diet). This is another problem, in order to reduce one’s carbon footprint it is necessary to change many parts of one’s lifestyle and I think making people change their habits is really hard.

Local produce is not hard to find, as long it is fruit and vegetables, but it is difficult to know where meat comes from, one of the biggest problems is that there aren’t really labelling systems to show where things come from within Australia, even if they are from within the country, and it is almost impossible with any sort of processed or packaged food. I think just cutting down on packaged food would be good.

I think the biggest problem is that habits become ingrained and they are hard to change, people don't want to restructure their homes, eating habits and lifestyles for no reason and I think that that's why we have to make sure that people know the good that their actions can do. So yeah, I'll be following this idea up later but its more than 11.30 and so I'll post my ideas up later when I'm more awake.

Inputs and Outputs

2. What are some of the resource inputs and waste outputs of universities like the ANU and NUS and how do these contribute to their overall footprint?

We would identify resource inputs as things we use and consume. These inputs may be necessities for our bodies, or it may be used to satisfy our interests. Some of these resource inputs are listed in the following:

• food
• water
  
• paper
• electricity
• heat

On the other hand, waste outputs are resources wasted due to underutilized usage during the consumption process or it is deemed worthless or unneeded. Such waste outputs include:

• Paper trash (including excess brochures and pamphlets)
  
• Wasted food (e.g. overdue food, leftovers, etc)
  
• stationery
• Utensils (especially those plastic wares)
  
• Plastic Packaging
• electricity (left running the whole day)
  

In instances where resources are provided free of charge, users are usually less responsible towards the use of such common resources. Take Jenny's band group as an example... they are allowed to print scores at the Arts Centre for free, but users are not concerned about how many they print, since these printers are available to them without charge. These often leads to much wastage of resources.

NUS campus' lecture and tutorial rooms are fully air-conditioned. However, there is no system to ensure efficient usage of electricity as air-cons are left running the entire day and lights and fans are constantly left on after use. The central air-con temperature is also adjusted at very low levels at all times which is energy inefficient.

NUS students, including myself, is guilty of packaging food in the plastic Tupperware from the canteen to another part of the campus ground for convenience sake. Very often, we leave behind leftovers as well, without a single tinge of guilt. =X

Personal take first!

1. What can you do to reduce your own ecological footprint?

for the first personal question, we have listed some personal yet practical steps:

• take more public transport. (especially for chengwei, who owns a car. he will attempt to take the NUS internal shuttle bus more often instead of driving his car. :P)
• support local food instead of imported food
• switch off our laptops instead of putting it in hibernation or sleep mode, unless necessary
  
• switching off the mains when not in use. (e.g. switch off the mains after the handphone is fully charged, and switch off the lights and fans after use.)
  
• support energy saving products (like light bulbs, refrigerators, etc.)
• use the fan instead of the air-con unless necessary
• when in use, keep the air-con temperature within 23-25 degree Celsius range
• avoid redundant printing as much as possible

:)

A Proper Introduction

Hi Jenny, Janice and Chengwei, this is a photo of us taken just after our class. That's me, Tas, on the left, Liam in the middle and Serena on the right. We just wanted to send you guys a photo so that you'd be able to put names to faces.

Don't worry, we should be sending you our ideas on the next collaboration topic soon!

Thanks Jenny. We were trying to coordinate ourselves a bit better this time, we are working on it individually for the momennt. We'll be sending our ideas over shortly. Sorry about the wait.

tutorial 2 discussion Campus Sustainability!

Hey guys!
Take a look at the questions on the webbie below...

http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/geodlh/public/ge3239/Lectures_and_Tutorials/Tutorials/week%2010.html

We'll have to ans the questions on the website for our tutorial =D (They're mostly on campus sustainability and our ecological footprint)

Thanks.... we'll be posting our take on the questions soon too...!

Sharehouses

Okay, I'm going to give it a go, as Liam did in telling you guys about our most common type of common, sharehouses. Sharehouses are where generally young people live together in a house or apratment and all contribute money to the rent in order to spread the costs. This can lead to a lot of problems not only are they sharing the rent but also space.

In many situations t can be seen that people when they access to other people's things may use them without asking. For example, if people all contribute to buying a bag of rice because it is cheaper to buy a bigger one, someone might take more than the others. In a lot of cases it is simply easier for everyone to buy their own supplies and label them. Some go so far as to allocating space in the fridge or in the cupboards. It also helps when people who live together get to know each other and care about each other.

A lot of landlords or even tennants of a sharehouse will have a formal or informal set of house rules which are normally told to people before they apply or are visible somewhere in the house. Below is a link to a tenancy website in Queensland that you could look at.
http://www.rta.qld.gov.au/about_house_rules.cfm

Tutorial Preparation

Hi guys at NUS,
I'm really sorry about the lack of organisation going on over here. Thank you for the work that you've put into answering the questions. I'm afraid that we haven't been so thorough. When is your tutorial though? Perhaps we'll be able to work out our group and formulate our responses so that we can be of as much use to you as you have been to us.

Challenges to Sustainable Management of Resources

Hi! the three of us discussed this question posted to us as well. feel free to share with us your comments and how the situation is like in Australia! :D

Identify the challenges that will confront the global community, nations, and communities, in sustainable managing resources.

In the tragedy of the commons, it is said that resources that are shared, or commonly held, such as oceans, rivers, air are highly susceptible to massive degradation. This is due to the theory of self interest. A metaphor was raised in Hardin's article imagine a group of herders sharing a common parcel of land (the commons), on which they are all entitled to let their cows graze. In Hardin's view, it is in each herder's interest to put as many cows as possible onto the land, even if the commons is damaged as a result. The herder receives all of the benefits from the additional cows, however he only bears a fraction of the cost of overgrazing as the damage is shared by the entire group. If all herders make this supposedly ‘rational’ decision, the commons is destroyed and all herders suffer. Thus Hardin concluded that “freedom in the commons bring ruin to all”.

In our opinion, most of the commons in the global context has a fluid form. The open air and water is the most obvious examples. There are also static territorial resources such as forests which though cannot be seen as a common, as it is located within a geographical boundary of a country and technically not shared, the relationship between the management of these static resources and fluid resources cannot be neglected. For example, the huge amount of carbon we are emitting into the air, which eventually leads to the degradation of another resource, which is our current climate through global warming, is directly affected by more static resources such as forests (which acts as carbon sinks).

One major challenge in sustainable resource management when static resources come into play, is that there are many scales in which we have to look at. On different scales, there are many different communities involved, be it global, national or regional, there are very different and often conflicting views on what is considered sustainable management of resources. For example, one type of resource often talked about especially in the light of the global warming controversy, will be forests. Acting as a carbon sink, forests reduces the amount of carbon in the air, hence slowing global warming. On a global scale, sustainable resource management in this case will be to preserve the forests, maintaining a high level of carbon sink potential. However, on a national scale, the state’s priority may not be to preserve these forests, but to cut down these forests for several reasons, such as agricultural purposes, that can spur economic development, or to solve social problems such as starvation. There are many examples of these conflicting views. Most often, it is a conflict between environmental sustainability, and economic development. At the Amazon, governor Blairo Maggi, leading pioneer on Brazilian frontier once said that he’d rather feed a child than save a tree. As Upton Sinclour said in ‘the inconvenient truth’, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it”. These conflicting goals and what communities at different scales view as more pertinent and important will be a challenge in sustainable managing resources.

Another challenge will be human activities. As we enter another period in Earth’s history which many term the “Anthropocene”, we cannot ignore the impact that human culture and social norms play on the usage of our resources. For example, the demand for different types of food, determines land usage in terms of agriculture and farming. In the US, with a food culture that is leaning heavily towards a meat diet, especially beef, which is a major contributor to global warming (belching of cows, releasing methane into the common air). Such food cultures is definitely not sustainable at the moment in terms of solving social problems in other countries such as starvation (80% of the corn grown and 95% of the oats in the US are fed to livestock not people), nor is it sustainable in temporal terms due to the Greenhouse Gases released, encouraging global warming. Another example will be the increasing number of cars on the roads, for example in China. However, we have to also applaud some relatively newer emerging human culture, that encourages sustainability, such as “Earth Day”, introduced first in Australia which eventually spread to many other areas, where entire cities shut down their power for an hour to show their support towards energy conservation.

Singapore's Commons

Hey!
Here’s a brief Singaporean perspective from the three of us on the tragedy of the commons. In the case of Singapore, with limited land area, there are actually very few commons.

1. What is a commons?

• Something shared. resources held in common.
• Eg. Open unregulated waters, Shared wages in a communist system, shared public utilities (public goods in economic terms).
• Many associated problems.

1. Open unregulated waters => Overfishing at the Atlantic ocean by European countries and the US, causing near extinction of species such as the Blue Fin Tuna. Bringing in a 100 more fish will benefit the fisherman much more instead of the impact of losing 100 fish which is shared among the many fishermen in that area.
2. Communism =>Communal system. Common ownership. Free rider problem. Working harder will get you the same reward as someone that worked lesser since end rewards are equally divided. Everyone will work less, as there is no reward for working harder.
3. Public Goods => A type of market failure in Economic terms. Similar free rider problem. Hiring someone to clean up a common street will bring about benefits to all living along that street even if one refuses to pay, as others will take up the payment, and hence one will still reap the benefit. As a result, everyone will not pay

HDB flats are some of the most common housing type that can be found in Singapore. These are multi storey apartment blocks, whereby the residents share many common utilities and spaces.

a typical HDB void deck

One such space is the void deck, which is the space on the ground level of the HDB flat. These areas which are shared are often subjected to littering, dirtying of walls (dirty soccer ball marks), and vandalism. To maintain the cleanliness of these common areas, besides policies and regulations such as fines and corrective work order, before 2003, there was the cleanest estate competition, where the winner gets a cash prize of a thousand bucks. This was eventually scraped, and replaced with the “Our town sparkles program”, where estates will be judged, and if public areas are seen as clean and tidy, they’ll be awarded a sparkle sticker and a plague which residents can proudly stick at their lift lobby or display.

What are some of the key determinants that dictate whether the communal systems identified above examples above have worked or not?

• Firstly, there are regulatory bodies and policies that maintain these commons, such as the heavy fines imposed on littering and vandalism. These regulations prevent the degradation of the void deck.
• Next, another key determinant which made it work was recognition. As long as someone’s work and effort is appreciated and recognised (through cash rewards for example), communal systems can work out.
• Furthermore, using competition and showing recognition to estates that put in the effort to maintain the commons, also instils a sense of loyalty, pride and place within the residents towards their estate, encouraging community effort to maintain a common area which they can be proud of.
• These encourage residents to care for the common area even without regulation.

HDB laundry

Another common space will be the common walk way and corridors residents living on the same level share. Problems such as blockage of the corridor with plants, or increasing risk of a fire hazard by placing rubbish or stacks of old newspapers outside one’s house, blocking the walkway at the same time.

Lastly, being a high rise residential area, the air around is also communal and matters quite alot the case of HDBs. This is because, the open air is used as a space to dry and sun wet laundry. As all the residents’ laundry are hung out on the same column of designated open air, problems such as wet laundry from the higher floors dripping water down on to the clothes on the lower floors, or even worse, some residents hang out wet mops, which may drip dirty water on to the clean laundry of those staying below.



What are some of the key determinants that dictate whether the communal systems identified above examples above have worked or not?

These communal areas do work out alright as the commons of HDBs are mostly regulated and taken care of by a body called the Town Council. Any complaints will be handed into the Town council, which will eventually take action.

Furthermore, the Singapore government puts in plenty of effort to instil a sense of togetherness and belonging of different residential areas. This is done through the setting up of common play grounds and parks, which provides the residents a platform to interact. There are also community centres set up, with many activities available such as Yoga, or singing lessons, which encourages interactions between people living in the same area. When a sense of belonging, friendliness between the residents is instilled, responsible usage of the commons will be encouraged.

Be a good neighbour!

Singapore's Housing & Development Board (HDB) have certain appeals and guidelines regarding communal housing. Many issues have been raised in regards to irresponsibility on the neighbour's part. The following are cartoons to help raise awareness among Singaporeans to be more considerate to each other.

In our high-rise, high-density environment, when residents exercise mutual consideration, tolerance and understanding, life becomes more pleasant. Let's Be A Good Neighbour!

Often, neighbourly disputes arise over issues such as wet laundry, dripping mops, littering and noise disturbances at night. In most cases, these are resolved when neighbours start to show more understanding and consideration. Be Considerate to Your Neighbours!

-source (HDB)

***************************

The following is a guideline listed in HDB's website to instill responsibility among neighbours.

As part of the HDB community, you can contribute to its well-being and harmony just by observing these simple guidelines:

(i) Show consideration for your neighbours and do not cause nuisance or disturbance to them:

• When you are carrying out any activity that produces sound or noise, such as listening to the radio, watching TV, playing a musical instrument, carrying out noisy DIY jobs, please avoid doing them late at night or in the early hours of the morning.
• Please ensure that your children do not make too much noise when playing, or jump or run in the flat excessively.
• Advise your visitors to refrain from any act or behaviour that may disturb your neighbours.
• Do not drag furniture or large objects across the floor. Do consider rubber stoppers on furniture legs to absorb noise.
• Do not hang out wet laundry; wring off excess water first.
• Do not throw items out of your flat as these can injure passers-by or damage property below.
• Check your air-conditioners regularly and maintain them in good condition. This will help prevent water from dripping into your neighbour's flat below.
• Keep your flat clean and tidy and do not store flammable materials.
• If you keep a dog, do train it well and take good care of it. Do not allow it to disturb your neighbours with incessant barking. Do not chain it to your front door but keep it inside your flat, where you can take care of it. When out in public, keep it on a leash and pick up its droppings and dispose of it in the bin.

(ii) Exercise a reasonable level of tolerance towards your neighbours - some noise is inevitable in high-rise, high-density living.
- source (HDB)

A glimpse of Singapore's HDB flats

this is a short video we managed to find from youtube to introduce you to Singapore's HDB.

and this is an example of a common corridor in a HDB flat. responsibility is needed for residents to share the common space in peace and harmony! :)

Greetings from Singapore!

Anyway sorry for this late introduction . Basically we are students from the National University of Singapore . My name is Janice (Year 3 Social Work major) and my other two friends are Chengwei and Jenny (both Year 2 Geography Major). On that note , we are looking forward to work with you guys ya !


- "There are no strangers in this world , only friends you haven't met"

hi again

in relation to the questions for this week's tutorial i have been involved in a communal dining room when i spent time at a boarding school. it worked because the food that was given out was regulated by staff, which meant that each person got the same food.

a system that i have been apart of that didnt work was when i played cricket and there was a set of gear which was used by any person in the team that needed it. but throughout the season most of the gear went missing.

what communal systems have people in singapore been apart of?

hi everyone, my name is liam and like Tas i go to the ANU. lokking forward to working with you all

Welcome

Hi everyone,
Welcome to the ANU-NUS collaboration. I hope you all received emails from me saying hi and invitations to join the authorship of this blog. Please introduce yourselves and feel free to post up here. Have a go, the blog is pretty simple to use but it will be better if you get the hang of it before you go to post any information you find on our topics. Next week's one is the Tragedy of the Commons, so if you find anything interesting then please blog it.
--Tas