Richmond Lee Today Online 13 Nov 12;
This year alone, there have been alarming weather activities possibly caused by climate change: Droughts, floods, the record melting of Arctic ice and the recent Superstorm Sandy.
We cannot foresee if such abnormalities will persist, but these may be an entree for something big served later.
Singapore is fortunate to have no natural calamities, but we may still bear the full brunt of climate change should it affect global food production and sea levels.
Singapore acceded to the Kyoto Protocol in 2006, which required us to reduce carbon emissions, and the Government has taken pragmatic steps to do so, for example, by using natural gas for power generation as a cleaner alternative to oil.
At a micro level, there is greater imperative for policymakers to examine externalities generated from economic activities.
For instance, the plan to remove a woodland in Pasir Ris to build an international school will be a negative externality to residents when they incur the hidden cost of having warmer nights as a result of having fewer trees.
As externalities do not seem to have price tags, we often neglect them in pursuit of tangible economics. But negative externalities do have costs which are revealed later.
We should be cognisant of the full costs of our economic transactions and try to minimise or not generate a negative environmental externality.
As consumers of energy and products, we generate waste. We could be more responsible by choosing products with less packaging or demand goods that cut down on this or bring our own bags for grocery shopping.
Perhaps we should also look at old suggestions of sorting our rubbish into recyclables and compost or imposing an environmental tax on vehicles that pollute more.
There has been debate and consensus on how we should proceed on our green road map, but interest seems to have waned. Decision-makers should lead the way by incorporating green costs into their plans.
If they remove a forest, for instance, they should plant more trees to repay our natural environment. They could also, like the Japanese, legislate that buildings be built in a way that makes them more recyclable after demolition
In retrospect, we have neglected the full costs and hidden environmental price tags of economic progress. Only if we are aware of the externalities of our actions can we then build a more organic living environment and actively cut down emissions.
