task 2

When comparing Singapore and other countries in South East Asia, Singapore has mainly differences as compared to the other countries rather than similarities. One of such differences is the land area of Singapore as compared to the other countries. And in our reflection, we will focus on the differences between Singapore and other South East Asian countries, leading to different reactions to our research topic, which is the trust towards alternate resources of energy.
Differences
Singapore and Indonesia:
Indonesia is an example of a country that invested heavily on alternate sources of energy. Known to all, Indonesia is one of the largest producers of palm oil, which is extracted from palm oil trees as an alternate energy source to the use of fossil fuels. Besides relying heavily on alternate sources of energy, the people of Indonesia, as compared to the people of Japan, have yet to encounter any major incidents from their use of alternate energy resources. As much as the people of Japan lose faith in nuclear energy after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the people of Indonesia not only have not experienced any of such disasters, they also earned a large amount of income by exporting their palm oil to other countries. With the lack of incidents and also with money earned in return, the people of Indonesia will hardly find reasons to lose faith in their palm oil industry. Singapore on the other hand, has little experience in the use of alternate energy resources: they do not plant palm trees like Malaysia/Indonesia and they do not build hydroelectric plants like the Three Gorges Dam of China or the Hoover Dam in the United States of America. In conclusion, Singapore does not have the resources required to invest in the use of alternate resources and thus will of course not be able to enjoy any of its benefits nor suffer any consequences from possible incidents. The view of the people in Singapore towards alternate resources of energy will be mainly influenced by analysis from related experts, lessons learnt from other countries (the Fukushima nuclear disaster) or other sources of information. Due to the primary problem of land constraint and lack of experience in such matters, the view in Singapore can be easily influenced by any global happenings.
Singapore and Malaysia:
Our current research topic on energy sustainability pertaining to the impact of Fukushima Nuclear disaster on people’s confidence in usage of alternative forms of energy applies differently in the two countries. One important difference between Singapore and Malaysia is the total land size difference, it is obvious by viewing the world map and it will be really easy to compare the land are by both countries. Malaysia also has a population of only 27.5 million and although this is around 5x that of Singapore, we know that the land area of Malaysia is not merely 5x that of Singapore but much more. As a result, Singapore is much more densely populated than Malaysia, with much more people living in per unit area. Due to this, the people of Singapore will be more sensitive to building alternate sources of energy such as nuclear energy than the people of Malaysia. With the tragedy at the Fukushima nuclear reactor in Japan, the Singapore government, who once considered building a nuclear reactor, will have to reconsider because Singapore is severely constrained by limited land and if a similar nuclear disaster were to happen in Singapore, the consequences will be even more severe to a much smaller Singapore than Japan.

Week 1 Task

1) From the talk by the Nature Society, regarding Singapore sustaining their nature habitats in the process of development, in the Singapore context, we can bring in the problem that is unique to only Singapore and not other developed countries - that is our rather limited land. With a booming population of 5 million people but with only limited land, the government is tasked to maximise their use of the limited land. As a result of a large population and national development, much of our land is used up for buildings. Through the process of building, our nature environment is under risk from the entry of modernisation and thus it is imperative that Singapore should learn to not just develop blindly by clearing forests,swamps etc, but also sustain and protect our nature environment. One controversial topic being hotly debated recently is about the developing of Bukit Brown for building of houses.Some have brought up the issue that it should be conserved for the benefit of future generations for admiration. The Nature Society who are campaigning for such a cause, talked about sustainable development which can be interpreted as leaving enough resources, nature habitats especially, for the later generations. In conclusion, in the Singapore context, sustainable development is to develop cautiously without over-exhausting our limited resources.

One of the foremost concern in Singapore currently is about the Bukit Brown issue where some debates that the land should be used for development and building of houses while some argues that it should be preserved and sustained for the benefit of future generations. Despite the fact that Singapore has limited amount of land, due to our increasing population, it is inevitable that we have to make full use of every plot of land for purposes such as development and housings. In the process, some natural habitats would be needed to be cleared and "sacrificed" to meet our increasing need of houses. Bukit Brown, being a valued and popular natural habitat since long ago, it is indeed a public concern in the weighing between the importance of conserving the beauty of nature and the imporatance of meeting the current need for houses. Hence, we believe it is one of the foremost concerns in Singapore currently.

One of the College efforts in contributing towards sustainable development is the newspaper collection put in place recently. Respective houses, with combined house efforts, were to collect as many newspaper as possible in a limited period of time. The amount of newspaper collected was weighed and the house with the most newspaper collected will emerge as the winner. The newspaper collected can be recycled and used to produce recycled papers for usage. This reduces the cutting down of trees for paper production. Trees are the main characters of a natural habitat. By conserving trees, we are also conserving natural habitats and sustaining it for future generations. As students, we can play our part by participating in the activity and actively sourcing for unwanted newspaper and contribute to the collection of newspaper. With every student playing their part, the school contributes significantly to the sustaining of nature which we are all responsible for.

Research topic and questions

Main question:
After the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, has people lost confidence in the usage of of alternative forms of energy supply? How significant is this problem and how can we solve/improve it?

1.What do you mean by sustaining energy?
2.What kinds of energy?
3.What is the importance of doing so? Who do we have to sustain energy?
4.How exactly do we make things sustainable? How much is considered enough for future generations?
5.Why is energy in particular, required to be sustained?
6.Despite the existence of sustainable forms of energy, why do countries around the world still resort to non-renewable sources of energy?
7. What exactly is the root problem of the ineffectivenss of current practices?
8.Will the process of finding new alternative sources of energy threaten the world in other areas? E.g, environmental damage, nuclear disasters.
9.What are the various target groups we can focus on?
10.What are the approaches we can carry out to specific groups of people?

Reason for research topic questions

In collaboration with our enhanced boarding programme that aims to nurture leaders with a sense of duty to the community, we choose this topic because it is related to energy which is a vital part of human life. Energy is what we need for everyday life, we use it to operate cars,planes,ships and many other elements which are crucial to human development. As we all can agree, the world is exiting the Oil Age with our petroleum supplies depleting rapidly and may risk entering an energy crisis.We believe we have the responsibility to promote our cause of saving our energy resources for the Earth.That is why in conclusion, we chose this topic.