Preparation instructions
Following on from your earlier tutorials on population, and campus sustainability, we will think about and discuss the impact of population on sustainability by thinking about the maximum population that a country such as Singapore can sustainably support, reflecting on the resources that students think affect their proposed population limit. Following the completion of this topic, it is expected that students will have a deeper understanding of the complex policy, and ecological issues that are inherent to population policy.
There are two goals that need to be accomplished for this weeks collaboration:
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Share your views on what population you think Singapore can sustainably support with students from the ANU and why. Listen to students views on what they think Australia can sustainably support and why. Discuss your reasons for why you came up with your figure.
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To create your final collaboration entry in your learning portfolio on campus sustainability, which addresses the following questions:
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What are the global implications of population that make it a significant issues in terms of sustainability?
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What is the best path to a sustainable population future?
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Provide a conclusion in your learning portfolio which sums up your collaboration experience, and what you have learn over the past 3 tutorial topics which have been shared with students from the ANU.
Your responses to these questions will form the basis for our tutorial discussions:
- Your estimate of what population you think Singapore can sustainably support.
- ANU students will think about a sustainable population target for Singapore.
- Briefly substantiate your figure by listing (in order of importance) the most significant resources that limit the population Australia and Sinagpore can sustainably support
- What are some of the similarities and differences between the resources that limit Australia's population to that of Singapore?
- 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.
And to all my Singapore project mates... We have another assignment to do, due 2 weeks from now.. Maybe we can brainstorm the ideas that we have on this space as well... Here it is..
Task Description
Choose ONE of the following four topics:
1. 1. Critically evaluate the usefulness of international collaboration in appreciating the significance of cultural perspectives on environmental issues.
2. What can NUS learn from international initiatives to promote campus sustainability?
3. How would you design a research investigation to determine the performance of campus sustainability initiatives?
4. We are halfway through the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014). Critically evaluate how universities have responded to the challenges and what more might be done.
Notes. In all questions it is possible to draw upon your collaboration with ANU students, but please note that this is not a course requirement at the ANU end of the partnership. You are encouraged to bring in examples from the collaboration to illustrate points, but the “success” or otherwise of your collaboration should not impact on assessment.
In question 1 you are free to range across different issues or to concentrate on one particular aspect of the collaborative exercises. Similarly, discussions with ANU students should give perspectives on the other questions. In Question 3 you might consider conducting a short data collection (e.g. measuring temperatures across campus to test the 25 degrees campaign, finding out about university energy use, etc). Please consult us if you need equipment to make measurements. The NUS Office of Environmental Sustainability may be able to provide some data but please liaise with course leaders first. In Question 4 you may also consider the curriculum issues. If this university will produce future leaders how do those leaders obtain environmental literacy?
Thanks for the post, Natalyn.
ReplyDeleteThis question of what population Singapore can responsibly sustain is interesting. If we define overpopulation in terms of our comfort level and how many people we feel is a "comfortable" number in Singapore, my personal opinion would be to say, "Ya already passed it." Coming from a rural community in the heart of the U.S. I'm used to having plenty of space. There's probably as many people in my block as there are in my hometown.
I think, however, that resources, rather than comfort, is what we're basing this sustainable population figure on. In Singapore's case, this seems tricky. Singapore relies so much on imports of food, water, and other resources. Land is a resource quickly being devoured. Air quality is pretty good. Roads and public transit seem to be crowded, but infrastructure is always being expanded. To be honest, I really have no idea what a good figure is, I'm new to this. What do you Singaporeans think? I'll let you ladies throw out the first number :)
As for the collaboration project for NUS students, my vote would be for #1. We've got access to people from 3 different universities and it seems pretty straight forward. I'm open to whatever, though. I'm thinkin it wouldn't hurt to meet up in person and get a good start on this before we have tutorial next week. What are your thoughts?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the response, Sam.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with your answer towards the population in Singapore. Singapore is a very small country (just a small dot in the world map - haha!), and we do not have the resources at all.
So in redefining the term "Overpopulation", sometimes I have to accept the fact that Singapore is overpopulated. However, we do have the financial capital to import food/water/etc into Singapore. However, to what I feel that is a good figure for a country size, maybe about 3.5 million? I think our current figure is too overpopulated. Maybe Singapore should cut down on foreign labor, and focus more on their local workforce. As there are more and more graduates in Singapore nowadays, why do Singapore have to import foreign talents? =)
And I don't mind doing #1 as well. When are you guys free? =)
This is just an observation, but do you think Singaporeans would be willing to do a lot of the jobs that the foreign labor is currently doing? I know in the US, people grumble a lot about the influx of Hispanics, but when it comes down to it, no one wants to do those jobs anyway. What do you think?
ReplyDeleteI think we should meet tomorrow. I'm free before 12 and after 2, when is everyone else available?
I think both natalyn and sam raised a very valid point on how foreign talent had inevitably increased our population tremendously (almost a million!). However, will Singaporeans want to take up undesirable occupations that involves the 3Ds (dangerous, dirty and demeaning)?!
ReplyDeleteI would say that I felt pretty comfy and all when our population was a mere 3 million. There was loads of space. The roads were rarely jammed up as well; stringent styles of taxation on road usage were far cheaper and lesser.
I am good with meeting tomms before 12 as well!!! I have a short break from 2 to 3pm. BTW, i'm okay with any of the question =)
ring me if you guys decide to meet tomms.
mobile: 98754179
I think Jasmine's proposed population of 3 million might be too little for an aspiring global city-state like Singapore. We definitely need the human capital for all the business, financial, tourist and whatever else hub that we are developing. We can probably sustainably support a bit more...like 4 million. With 4.8 million population at present, we feel very packed and crowded already. The HDB flats are built so close to each other that we can see what our neighbours are doing. So 4.8 million is overpopulated.
ReplyDeleteI think water is the resource that will limit our population. We only have like 15 reservoirs in Singapore to provide our own water. If we have more people, we need to import more water to sustain the population. This increases our reliance on other countries. I think this is similar to Australia's?..
Yes, Singapore's limited resources (e.g. water) do play a part in limiting Singapore's carrying capacity. Thus, limiting the number of people that Singapore can comfortably support.
ReplyDeleteWell. I did the math.
Based on the figures that had been thrown out so far, we are somewhat agreeing on 3.5 million.
ok i'll try to summarise this.
ReplyDeleteQ1. Since Singapore relies heavily on foreign imports (resources), we think that overpopulation occurs when our quality of life is negatively affected (i.e. feelings of crowded spaces, intrusion of privacy, jammed roads and expensive road taxes).
Even though we have sufficient financial capital to import resources like food and water, our high dependance on foreign resources makes us very vulnerable to food crisis and foreign politics. e.g at one time, Indonesia imposed ban on exportation of sand to Singapore.
With 4.8 million population at present, we think that Singapore is already overpopulated because we feel that our overall quality of life is negatively affected.
Keeping in mind Singapore's ambitions to become a global city-state and the fact that human capital is essential, we think that 3.5 million is what Singapore can sustainably support.
Q2. Local resources that limit Singapore (in order of importance) are:
1. Food (only a few frog farms,chicken farm, hydroponic farms)
2. Water (4 National Taps strategy- 17 reservoirs, NEWater, desalination, import)
If we completely cut off water import from M'sia, Ministry of Environment and Water Resource states that we can sustain our present population with the amount of reservoirs we have (for limited length of time and with water rationing).
3. Land (699km2)
We have only so much land to develop on, so very little land is set aside for growing food. Perhaps Singapore can invest in high-tech farming to reduce reliance on food imports.
Q3. I think the only similarity with Aust is the water resource because of their climate and geographic location.
Aust has sufficient land to grow own food..and they export food too so i guess this's the difference from Singapore.
feel free to change or add on...
from an australian point of view i feel that we need to manage and distribute our resources more effectively. for example: we have far more land to farm on than signapore of course but due to our extremely dry continent much of this land requires huge amounts of irigation to be productive.due to this we need to redistribute and prioritise our water,also with landuse aswell.
ReplyDeletei havnt as yet settled on a specific amount of people we would be able to support sustainably in Australia.my dilemma is that if some people modified their lifestyles even slightly we would be able to manage far easier.we have enough water for our 21million people to drink and use domestically (though there is plenty of wastage through unnecessary water usage in long showers and cleaning).theres plenty of room in our huge country,its just that i doubt most people would want to live in the desert,therefore our coast are really urbanised which i feel is going to have to spread out to be sustainable.
if everyone lived the way i do,we would only be able to sustain about 10million people or so.
definately the most important resources to sustain are food and water...mainly food as water can be gained through processes such as desalinisation with our huge coastline.
so yes thats my basic thoughts but i would appreciate input from other ANU students as im completely open to suggestions and havnt really thought about my ideas very much,or have much of an idea on the large scale of this discussion.
sorry for the late reply...
ReplyDeleteI basically agree with you, Liv. Australia is currently producing its food and products for national use and export very unsustainably, particularly in regards to water... as we are constantly being told, we need to 'start living like real Australians' and adjust to our landscape rather than trying to pretend it is the same as a European one.
I am also having trouble coming up with a concrete number for a population target, but I wold say that we need to have less people than we currently do, in order for society to function sustainably. This is mainly due to water concerns, as well as arable land (but that is strongly linked to the water issue also). If we were to have huge influxes of immigrants we would also have issues with infrastructure etc as well, but I think that is a minor issue compared with the basics of having enough water for everyone to drink and produce food.