Friday, May 25, 2007
Finally, a post for my dead blog. Topic today: Who's to Blame?Now, I believe many "greenies" around the world has heard of this when they go around on their awareness programmes, people pushing the blame to others. In a simple blame game, everyone pushes the blame to the older generation, condemning them to eternal damnation for causing global warming.
But are they really to blame? And who's the REAL culprit here.
Lets go back in time shall we? Back in time to the 1800's, the birth of modern day global warming- the Industrial Revolution. The industrial revolution brought about many new interesting sources of global warming. With steam power, new stuff could be invented; cars, industries, power plants, the list is probably endless. And with new inventions comes one thing, inefficiency. We all know that, new products are bound to have some problems that come with them. Pollution, the evil word.
For the first time in human history, man has been able to mass produce everything; cars, buses, toys, tools etc. And who can actually forget mass producing CO2, our favourite greenhouse gas.
Ahh... so here we have it... 1800's to the 21st century, a good 200 over years of non-stop carbon dioxide madness, sufficient enough to change the carbon dioxide concentration in the air to an alarming level.
And so.... the blame game starts. Whooooo's to blame? ITS DEFINITELY THE OLDER GENERATION, says many of us. However, are they as bad as we say them to be? Or would you say, there's someone else worst? My verdict- WE ARE WAY WORST.
And then you go silent. Me? Worst than them? How could it possibly be? I refuse to admit it! I did not cause the problems of global warming. I did not make the earth out to be what it is today. I was born only a few years ago. I, I, I, I this, I that, I did, I did not. WHATEVER!
From a global point of view, its really messy to point fingers, so we shall close down the scope to Singapore only. I see no point in pointing fingers at countries. Settle the internal problem then think of the external one.
Modern Singapore began in the 1960's, almost 50 years of massively increased carbon emissions. Back to our little blame game, who actually contributed all the carbon dioxide?
In the past, Singapore set out to create its economic success, industries were built all over the island to create jobs, manufacturing went all out and there was lots of economic growth. Industries polluted the air with their smog and all that crap. Slowly, as the economy progress, we phased out many of our pollutive industries and there you have it. Modern Singapore, cleaner air, water, land.. there you have it. Our environmental success story, we made Singapore cleaner and greener from what it used to be, we have minimized the problem and therefore the problem was created entirely from the older generation.
There you have it, the answer to the question about who's to be blamed, answered by a tree hugging cauliflower. However, I failed to mention one point, that was from an industrial and government standpoint, we haven't covered the crux of the problem- the average Singaporean.
Now here's the turning point of my argument. Compared to the average Singaporean of the past, who's the more pollutive? Who's causing more damage to the environment now? Is it me, or is it my grandparents?
From my viewpoint of the older days, life was relatively simple, at least for the average Singaporean it truly was. People ate less lavishly for most of them could not afford more than a simple meal. Electricity was available then, but there weren't much stuff to plug into the mains. possessions? Yea, a check with my mother (we won't even bother going as far as my grandmother), the only toys they had were one or two dolls and thats about all. Not that there was nothing to buy but there wasn't any money at all to buy too much "wants", possessions people had were mainly "needs". Heck, even to own a television was a real luxury.
Now lets compare this to the average Singaporean now, we don't even have to go as far as to ask how many cellphones the average Singaporean owns. We bring it down to the level of the past, how many televisions do you own? How many radios do you own? Straight away, we can see this obvious difference. Even without looking, I can safely say, an average Singaporean household has at least two televisions which are in working order and are being used. Radios? Each household at least has a few stashed around the house, be it a hi-fi, tonnes of free gift radios or mp3, walkman's, discmans.
Just basing it on the quantity of our possessions we have already exceeded the amount of carbon emission of any household in the past. EACH item we have in our possession, is a product of raw material and energy, and each product produced will let off some carbon dioxide. It doesn't take an idiot to see who has produced more emissions.
Then the opposition speaker comes on, and they speak of a touchy subject- cars. Now everyone knows cars of the past (well present too) are a major pollution source. Engines of the past were built with low efficiencies, oil was not created to be very efficient either, that certainly would have produced more emissions than the present car. Oil in the past was much cheaper, cars didn't have such a thing as COE and many people would have owned cars. Cars now are more expensive, people don't own that many. And yes, that would have been the equalizer, a 1-1 tie betweeen the present and the past. Oh really.. don't kid me.
Firstly, I must say, judging by the sheer number of cars on the roads nowadays, that not only has car ownership increased, but the number of cars one family owns has indeed increased. And you think about it and you say, hey, but the population has gone up, car ownership is bound to go up. And yes it should, its bound to go up, it can't possibly go down can it?
And, even if we choose to overlook that point. We choose to say hey, population increases and so do cars. Fine, but look at every car on the road nowadays, its getting bigger, bigger and more luxurious. The reality is that people are changing their cars to bigger, more comfortable models. Even without mentioning the fact that nowadays, people to change their cars more frequently (buy more cars, cause more pollution), cars are getting more and more energy hungry, due to the increase in their luxury status, making the car more viable to be an energy hog. And if you compare it to the cars of the past, there you have it, another point put down. the score, 1-0, cars are a no no in this discussion.
Old cars cause more pollution because they are not technologically advanced, new cars cause more pollution due to the fact that more luxury items are being placed into them, making them into a greater energy hog. And I pose you this question, air-conditioning is no doubt a significant part of the car's energy consumption. Would you turn it off to save the energy?
Final argument to put across, when we say, the people of the past are the ones who primarily cause global warming, we are implying that what they did was actually wrong. But what actually did they do wrong? Was it their pollutive industries? Not entirely. Their industries at that time were that pollutive, simply because at that time, that was the best form of technology that they had grasped, environments weren't in the picture when they first designed it. Should these industries have appeared in present day, it definitely would be the one to blame, as there are cleaner alternatives.
And what if they did not do it, just because it would seem environmentally unfriendly to do so. Would we be where we are today? Living in high rise buildings, having heaps of electronic equipment surrounding us, and air-conditioning, sweet sweet air-conditioning. Our current luxury, is due to the fact that someone started this pollutive practices to churn out what would be the foundation of our modern day luxury items. And get this fact right, if you are going to put the blame on these people, you are saying that you do not support what they have done, to get you this far, to get you living in the comforts of an air-conditioned environment.
And if you say that no, you still want to blame them for this predicament that we are in now, for this global environmental crisis, are you willing to abandon what they have achieved as a result of their pollutive methods? Will you say goodbye to your air-conditioned environment? Would you say goodbye to your computer, cellphone and anything connected to that power socket of yours? Would you light candles in the night for lighting?
So before you make a conclusion as to who is to blame, think about who is actually causing more damage now.
12:32 AM
Caulibeam