Environment 

Key Ideas and Topic Sentences

● Environmental problems can largely be categorised into pollution, resource depletion and global warming

● The aims of sustainable development can be achieved if it is constructed, shared and implemented in a truly global way
that takes account of traditional, local and non-Western approaches. ​Instead of top-down plans and wish-lists​, we
need to look from the ​bottom up​. Linking the many approaches that actually work - ​wiring together new systems, not
rehashing plans​ - is the key to shaping a new era in sustainable development. We need to challenge the notion that
environmental resources are there for the taking, that Nature provides a free lunch. The mismanagement of these
resources carries a cost that we are only just beginning to appreciate. We are borrowing from the future, and leaving the
next generation with an ​environmental overdraft​. We need policy to shift from viewing economic growth as inviolable
to seeing that environmental limits and people’s rights are more important. And we need to accept that the solutions to
poverty and inequality lie in sustainable growth, not growth at all costs.

● A comparison of the pollution and degradation inflicted on the environment and the relatively miniscule and superficial
efforts taken to ameliorate the devastating effects of decades of industrialisation indicates that innovation and research
and development is insufficient to absolve Mankind of the charge of ruining the planet.

● When comparing whether DCs or LDCs should play a bigger part in environmental conservation, consider: (1) moral
obligation (2) ability and technical expertise (3) incentive and vested interest. In addition, consider how DCs and LDCs
can contribute in various capacities. Also consider the importance of cooperation by industries and households.
○ According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, protecting the environment would be a concern of the rich and
privileged because of their emphasis on the quality of life. Given this concern and their ability to afford the skills,
technology and costs of protecting the environment, the rich and privileged are often placed with greater
responsibility to protect the environment. Apart from the aforementioned reasons, their influential position in the
world renders them even more responsible. Therefore, with their economic advantage and political clout, the rich
and privileged do hold a greater responsibility to tackle the environmental problems.

● Nuclear Energy Summary

 ● From the speeches of world leaders to the protests of earnest young activists, climate talks, forums and collaborative
discussion on how to best achieve environmental substantiality without compromising on economic growth have often
landed in the embarrassing failure in the public eyes.
● The failed Kyoto Protocol, Copenhagen Summit and Rio Earth Summit have revealed that because unrealistic goals to
conserve the environment are set, attempting to manage a global trade-off between environmental concerns and growth
remains an overly ambitious undertaking.

Important Events and Names

● Nicholas Stern
○ 2006 Report on the Economics of Climate Change
○ Consequences of no early action to arrest the problem: losing at least 5% of global GDP per annum. May
increase to 20% eventually.
○ Rise in temperature of 5-6 degrees Celcius per annum
○ Mitigating costs of 1-2% of GDP required to be invested to avoid worst effects of climate change.
○ Detractors Martin Weitzman and Nigel Lawson claim that economic growth endow countries with wealth and
superior technologies that can mitigate climate change. Incurring costs of converting to alternative fuels may
incur higher opp costs.

● Al Gore
○ founded a number of ​non-profit organizations​, including the ​Alliance for Climate Protection​, and has received a
Nobel Peace Prize​ for his work in ​climate change activism
○ sought to create a ​Global Marshall Plan​,​ "under which industrial nations would help less developed countries
grow economically while still protecting the environment
○ Gore strongly pushed for the passage of the ​Kyoto Protocol​, which called for reduction in greenhouse gas
emissions. He was opposed by the Senate, which passed unanimously (95–0) the Byrd–Hagel Resolution
○ Al Gore produced a documentary An Inconvenient Truth which was credited for raising international public
awareness of ​climate change​ and reenergizing the ​environmental movement

● Ehrlich and Holdren

○ Ehrlich and Holdren developed the IPAT equation to describe the impact of human activity on the environment.
It recognises that the impact (I) of a human population on the environment can be thought of as the product of
the population’s size (P), its affluence (A) and the environmental damage inflicted by the technology used to
supply each unit of consumption (T).

● Elinor Ostrom, a Nobel laureate of economics, shows that we can govern the commons if the invest in trust, local,
action-based partnerships and cross-scale institutional innovations, where local actors, together, can deal with the global
commons at a large scale. But even on the hard policy area we have innovations. We know that we have to move from
our fossil dependence very quickly into a low-carbon economy in record time. And what shall we do? Everybody talks
about carbon taxes -- it won't work -- emission schemes, but for example, one policy measure,feed-in tariffs on the
energy system, which is already applied, from China doing it on offshore wind systems, all the way to the U.S. where
you give the guaranteed price for investment in renewable energy,but you can subsidize electricity to poor people. You
get people out of poverty. You solve the climate issue with regards to the energy sector, while at the same time,
stimulating innovation -- examples of things that can be out scaled quickly at the planetary level.

Compilation of Examples
Example
Climatic changes:
Scientists project that if emissions of greenhouse gases aren't reduced, ​average surface temperatures could increase by 3
to 10 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century​. Such temperature increases will increase evaporation rates and cause
lakes and rivers to dry up quickly in places that are ​hot and dry,​ such as the​ Sahel region, resulting in droughts​. In ​Europe,
increasing summer temperatures have led to heat waves​ which caused many deaths - ​2003 heat wave in Milan​.
Satellite images from space have shown that ​glaciers are retreating and the amount of ice cover has decreased in the polar
regions​. The melting of these frozen stores of water has caused ​sea water to rise​.
Scientists predict that sea levels will continue to increase at an average rate of ​1mm to 2mm each year​. Low-lying coastal
countries are especially vulnerable to rising sea levels. The lives and property of an ​estimated 100 million people who live on
land within one metre above sea level, such as in Haiti and islands in the French Polynesia, ​are threatened by the possibility
of flooding.
During the ​Southeast Asian Transboundary Haze in 2013 caused by forest fires in Sumatra​, Pollutant Standards Index in
Singapore reached the very hazardous range at​ 401​. Air quality deteriorated and there was a surge in patients with
respiratory illnesses.
2014 saw the largest climate change march globally, involving 570 000 people from over 161 cities including London, New
York and Melbourne. This was ahead of the UN Climate Change Summit in New York where individuals were vocal in
expressing their need for environmental protection even against the backdrop of rising incomes and increasing affluence.
Destruction of habitats and species of organisms:
Examples of animals threatened with extinction include the ​Sumatran Tiger, Black Footed Ferret, Borneo Pygmy Elephant
and the Giant Panda​.
According to a British government report, climate change could cost between ​5 and 20% of the annual GDP​. These global
costs have already been felt by local communities and businesses. In ​southern New England, lobster catches have
plummeted because of heat stresses and growing parasite threats due to rising sea temperatures​. Ski resorts in the ​lower
altitudes of the Swiss Alps have difficulty obtaining bank loans​ because of declining snow. High sea temperatures also
threaten the survival of coral reefs, which generate an estimated US$375 billion per year​ in goods and services.
Originally, 6 million square miles of tropical rainforest existed worldwide. But as a result of deforestation, only 2.4 million
square miles remain.
In the American West, uncontrolled grazing by cattle has transformed verdant land into desert. An average cow eats its way
through 900 pounds of vegetation every month. In sub-Saharan Africa, such cattle contribute to desertification by denuding
land of fragile vegetation.
Commercial overfishing has been observed in areas like the North Sea in Europe, the Great Banks of North America, the
Indian Ocean and the East China Sea. This can lead to disruptions in the ecosystem. The UN considers 70% of global
fisheries to be "fully exploited", "over exploited" or "significantly depleted"
Acidification of oceans due to increase carbon dioxide levels. Use of chemical fertilisers on land leads to higher
concentrations of nitrogen in the water, creating dead zones in areas with high irrigation runoff. (e.g. the runoff into the
Mississippi River leads to dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico)
In 2006, the Baiji dolphin, an exceptional freshwater creature found only in China's Yangtze River was declared functionally
extinct. When an amateur video shot in 2007 was confirmed as a sighting of this creature, conservation specialists searched
the waterways for the remaining members of the species in hopes of preventing it from going the way of the dodo. However,
this is futile because numbers are too small to be genetically viable. Climate conditions are shifting radically enough that it is
beyond our capacity to species at risk so rescue efforts do not more than delay the inevitable.
Fosas, the slinky and mysterious creatures, which are mainly found in Madagascar, are facing threats caused by
deforestation and habitat fragmentation on the island. There are only less than 2500 of them are surviving on this planet.
Efforts to protect the environment:
LDCs can play their part in saving Mother Earth by ​categorising their waste, planting trees, not discharging waste materials
into water bodies and ensuring that landfills are well-maintained.​ For instance, ​trees have been planted in the Gobi Desert​ to
prevent ​desertification.
When vehicles are fitted with catalytic converters, vehicle emissions of pollutants can be reduced. ​Since 1994, government
has made it mandatory to install catalytic converters into every vehicle​. This helps to reduce air pollutants like carbon
monoxide and nitrogen oxides. Since ​1995, all new cars imported into Singapore are required by law to install CFC-free
air-con systems.​ In recent years, there have also been efforts to promote vehicles that operate on electrical energy,
hydrogen fuel, biofuels, compressed natural gas etc.
The ​Kyoto Protocol​ is an international treaty that sets binding obligations on industrialised countries to ​reduce emissions of
greenhouse gases​. The Montreal Protocol is an international treaty designed to ​protect the ozone layer by phasing out the
production of numerous substances believed to be responsible for ozone depletion​.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium publishes seasonal and regionally specific reports about what is least and most damaging to
the environment. They also publish handy pamphlets, available at many grocery stores, as a means of reaching out to
consumers.
Raja Ampat in Indonesia contains a variety of Marine Protected Areas, where human activity and the number of visitors are
restricted, to protect what is considered one of the most diverse coral reef systems in the world.
Each region of the world should introduce a tax on CO2 emissions that starts low today and increases gradually and
predictably in the future. Part of the tax revenue should be channelled into subsidies for new low-carbon energy sources like
wind and solar, and to cover the costs of developing CCS.
According to the NEA, Singapore has one of the world's highest recycling rates at 59%. Yet the World Wide Fund for
Nature's Living Planet Report 2012 notes that Singapore has the largest ecological footprint of any country in Asia.
Singapore puts more pressure on the environment and requires more area to produce the resources it consumes than any
other Asian nation.
Europe has created a system that requires each industrial emitter to obtain a permit for each ton of CO2 emissions.
Because these permits trade at a market price, companies have an incentive to reduce their emissions, thereby requiring
them to buy fewer permits or enabling them to sell excess permits for a profit.
China is now the leading global investor in green technology and has closed down coal-powered factories all over the
mainland to prevent the deaths of 250 000 Chinese yearly due to air pollution. China has restricted the import of dirty coal
from Australia and even been one of the sole countries to champion environmental protection policies in the lead up to the
UN Climate Change Summit held in New York last year.
Bhutan has experienced rising economic progress through the past decade and yet, it has resisted the temptation to exploit
its natural resources unlike its neighbours India and Nepal. In addition to having a ‘no net loss’ policy where trees have to be
afforested/reforested when felled, Bhutan also has a policy in place where permits are required to fell trees even for religious
and firewood purposes. The healthy preservation of the environment has also garnered substantial tourist revenues (tourist
levies are in excess of US$200 a day)
Following the publication of the Brundtland Report on sustainable economic development, the concept of “sustainable
tourism”, which causes minimal environmental and cultural interference in destination areas, has become increasingly
popular. Sustainable approaches to leisure travel are often associated with the more ambiguous term ​“eco-tourism”, which
encompasses a range of political and business focussed campaigns and activities, including voluntary schemes, offsetting
the carbon produced by air and land travel and “encounter-tourism”, in which the inhabitants of marginalised and fourth
world communities play host to travellers and receive a fee for incorporating them into the life and activities of their families,
towns and villages. Ecotourism is an opportunity to preserve ecosystems and biological diversity that would otherwise be
lost. It is also a chance to generate revenue to support research efforts.

A well-known ecotourism success story is the Maquipucuna Reserve in Ecuador. The reserve is a 15 000 acre property in
the cloud forest region that is owned and managed by a private foundation. Visitors stay at an ecolodge that employs staff
and tour guides from the local community, and enjoy local attractions including a project to rehabilitate wild bears that had
become dependent on handouts from humans, a sustainably-harvested orchid collection, a pre-Incan archaeological site,
and the popular annual Bear Festival. The lodge is adjacent to a scientific research station. Thanks to the ecotourism
development efforts in the region, local people have been inspired to see bears as symbols of their heritage that they
proudly show off to visitors, instead of as pests or threats.

Another example of ecotourism is the world’s largest wetlands in Brazil which were rapidly becoming grazing ground for the
beef industry until Caiman Ecological Refuge, a working cattle station on 132 000 acres of forest, fields and meandering
waterways took a novel track by protecting the Pantanal region with a sustainable approach to ranching. The 21-year-old
refuge’s four ecolodges are setting international standards in a place where ramshackle hunting camps were once the norm.
Other ranches have caught on, and now more than 30 private nature refuges form a mosaic of wildlife corridors. Caiman
continues to house scientific teams, and guests can participate in jaguar and hyacinth macaw research projects.
In Thailand, incentives and loans allow small operators to run more than 300 small plants using renewable sources like the
sun, wind or agricultural waste. These plants in turn feed electricity back into the main grid, helping to supplement a power
generation system that is straining under growing demand. 5 per cent of Thailand's electricity is currently generated from
renewable resources, if hydropower is not taken into account. Thailand's farms and factories seem to have tapped just about
every type of waste to produce power. Rice mills burn husks for energy. Sugar mills do the same with bagasse, the fibre left
over after sugar cane is crushed. Pig farms use the biogas generated by manure to create electricity.
At Starbucks’ 2013 shareholder meeting, CEO Howard Schultz described the company's efforts to engage with suppliers
and local communities where they operate, accelerate investments in sustainable farming and reach Starbucks' goal of
ethically sourcing 100% of its coffee beans by 2015.

In addition to purchasing Fair Trade Certified organic coffee, the company is setting out to create green stores. By focusing
on creating “green” stores, Starbucks has been able to reduce both operating costs and the environmental impact of its
business practices. The company’s green building strategy includes adjusting the temperature in air-conditioned stores,
purchasing cabinetry made with 90% post-industrial material and incorporating low-flow water valves.
The increase in environmental consciousness and the desire of consumers to purchase “green” products and cleaner cars
have led to a paradigm shift in markets where companies are now incentivized to produce green products or to sponsor
green movements. Companies such as Toyota and Honda have taken advantage of such a change in drivers’ preferences
by creating smaller, cleaner cars and hydroelectric cards, leading them to “progress” and turn profits while protecting the
environment at the same time, unlike Ford and General Motors, which gas-guzzling cars have led them into business losses
in the order of billions of U.S. dollars in 2008.

Appearing green is also a trend for companies which are in the service sector. Wall Street research firm Standard and Poors
has concluded in 2008 that “green” corporate citizenship adds profits to a company’s balance sheet. This could explain why
highly respected Wall Street firms Goldman Sachs and the Bank of America have been sponsoring environmental reform
projects in China, ensuring that they do not provide loans to illegal loggers and promoting themselves as “green banks”.
Green Buildin​gs
● Changi Airport Terminal 3: ​first-of-its-kind roof design, consisting 919 intelligent computer-controlled skylights which
allowed soft natural light into the building while keeping the tropical heat out. This setup means that less artificial
lighting and energy is consumed. Together with a unique air-conditioning system that releases cold air via binnacles
rising up from the ground, energy consumption is significantly reduced which also saves costs.Terminal 3 also
 boasts a vertical garden five storeys high, known as the “Green Wall” - a tapestry of climbing plants, interspersed
with four cascading waterfalls and a hand-carved sandstone art wall display.
● Thameside Prison, UK: ​pollutants were removed from the site and the ecology enhanced. Among other
sustainability features, space and water heating is provided by waste vegetable oil biofuel boilers.
● The Green, University of Bradford, UK (student accommodation): incorporated real-time energy-use and water-use
displays in every student flat, so that students can control their energy and water consumption. Other sustainability
features include a rainwater-harvesting system, which provides 600 student rooms with toilet-flushing water.
Under the organisation and conduction from OMRON—a famous Japanese company, on “Omron’s Day”, 2010, more than
seven hundred volunteers enthusiastically joined in the reforestation project in various locations in Japan, together with their
families, friends, and even colleagues.
Ecosia is an Internet search engine. Internet search engines work by drawing revenues from sponsored links that appear
when you do a search. And Ecosia works in pretty much the same way. The difference with Ecosia though is that, in
Ecosia's case, it draws the revenues in the same way, but it allocates 80 percent of those revenues to a rainforest protection
project in the Amazon. It's taking profits from one place and allocating them into the protection of ecological resources.It's a
different kind of enterprise for a new economy. It's a form of ecological altruism. What we need the economy to do, in fact, is
to put investment back into the heart of the model, to re-conceive investment. Only now, investment isn't going to be about
the relentless and mindless pursuit of consumption growth. Investment has to be, in the new economy,protecting and
nurturing the ecological assets on which our future depends. It has to be about transition.It has to be investing in low-carbon
technologies and infrastructures. We have to invest, in fact, in the idea of a meaningful prosperity, providing capabilities for
people to flourish.
In Latin America, plow-based farming systems of the '50s and '60s led farming basically to a dead-end, with lower and lower
yields, degrading the organic matter and fundamental problems at the livelihood levels In Paraguay, Uruguay and a number
of countries, this was overcome by innovation and entrepreneurship among farmers in partnership with scientists into an
agricultural revolution of zero tillage systems combined with mulch farming with locally adapted technologies, which today,
have led to a tremendous increase in area under mulch, zero till farming which, not only produces more food, but also
sequesters carbon.

The Australian Great Barrier Reef is another success story. Under the realization from tourist operators,fishermen, the
Australian Great Barrier Reef Authority and scientists that the Great Barrier Reef is doomed under the current governance
regime. Global change, beautification rack culture, overfishing and unsustainable tourism, all together placing this system in
the realization of crisis. But the window of opportunity was innovation and new mindset, which today has led to a completely
new governance strategy to build resilience, acknowledge redundancy and invest in the whole system as an integrated
whole, and then allow for much more redundancy in the system.
Contributors to environmental destruction:
The increasing reliance of China and India, the world's largest populations on conventional energy sources is set to further
increase the rate of pollution and climate change, with China having signed a 30-year deal to import gas from Russian giant
Gazprom as a source of energy.
The U.S. alone is responsible for 23% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, with sources from methane from cattle
ranches to huge volume of noxious fumes emitted into the air from factories and processing plants. The exponential
increase in greenhouse gas emissions can be traced back to the days of the Industrial Revolution.
Evidence of human trash polluting the oceans is most obvious at the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a gyre in the Pacific
where trash, particularly plastic trash, collects due to currents.
Examples of oil spills: Deepwater Horizon explosion in 2010, Exxon Valdez in 1989
Despite an international agreement to end commercial whaling, passed in 1982, Japan continues to condone whaling ships,
using a loophole in the law to justify their actions
The Niger Delta, the world's third largest wetland, is endowed with mangroves and fish-rich waterways. Many people living in
the region depend on fishing for their livelihood too. But oil drilling has turned it into an extremely polluted place. Although
activist groups have recorded more than 6800 recorded oil spills, companies operating there have denied the severity and
their culpability for years. According to the UN in 2011, cleaning up the region could take up to 30 years, cost $1 billion and
become the largest cleanup operation in history.

Large-scale urbanisation and a rising global population, coupled with increasing individual energy usage, have led to an
extremely rapid rate of depletion of natural gas and goal. Furthermore, burning these fossil fuels is extremely inefficient and
polluting as the vast majority of the heat generated (as much as 90%) is not converted into electricity and wastefully lost as
heat to the surrounding. Burning of these fuels also generate massive volumes of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide
and sulfur dioxide, contributing to global warming
Multi-national corporations often exploit local resources in a Machiavellian manner to pursue the self-interested goal of
profiteering. The rise of the garment industry in Pakistan for example, has led to a rapid decline in soil fertility as farmers
continually cultivate cotton without allowing for fallowing time. It has been estimated that nearly 60% of agricultural land in
Pakistan has deteriorated drastically in fertility, as a result of having to mass-produce resources to support the likes of Gap,
H&M and Adidas.
When the Kyoto Protocol expired in 2009, efforts to enact another carbon limit come to naught. In a scene replayed in
Copenhagen, Durban and Cancun, economic powerhouses like China squabbled endlessly on who should take on a larger
reduction in carbon emissions.
Local governments turn a blind eye to corporations who burn forests to clear land for plantations simply because of bribery.
They do so despite thousands of complaints lodged by environmental advocacy groups such as Greenpeace as well as
neighbouring countries who suffer the aftermath of forest clearing - the Singapore government has repeatedly appealed to
the Indonesian government to tackle the problem of illegal forest clearing, as the haze is a hazard even to the healthy and
further disrupts the daily lives of individuals. Such pleas are made to no avail and the resultant effect is that Singapore and
her neighbouring countries face the effects of hazardous air quality annually.
A report of the United Nations Development Programme states that the crisis that looms is not due to water scarcity but the
poor management and governance of water. The problem is most acute in Asia, whereby 720 million people are without
access to safe drinking water.
Overfishing has resulted in a drastic fall in marine yield. The depletion of marine resources is exacerbated by accidental
killing of non-target animals. Empirical studies show that when a tonne of shrimp is caught, at least three tonnes of fish
perish and are discarded.
The drainage system in Mohenjodaro in ancient India initially allowed for clean environment and healthy living. The problem
of waste came to the fore as civilisation marched on and man built cities where the concentration of population with their filth,
waste and detritus surpassed the capacity of nature to dispose of them.
Fracking is the process of drilling down into the earth before a high-pressure water mixture is directed at the rock to release
the gas inside. Water, sand and chemicals are injected into the rock at high pressure which allows the gas to flow out to the
head of the well. Fracking allows drilling firms to access difficult-to-reach resources of oil and gas. In the US it has
significantly boosted domestic oil production and driven down gas prices. The extensive use of fracking in the US, where it
has revolutionised the energy industry, has prompted environmental concerns. The first is that fracking uses huge amounts
of water that must be transported to the fracking site, at significant environmental cost. The second is the worry that
potentially carcinogenic chemicals used may escape and contaminate groundwater around the fracking site. The industry
suggests pollution incidents are the results of bad practice, rather than an inherently risky technique.
The complacency of these big oil companies arises from a lack of forceful punitive measures when they commit crimes that
harm the environment. For instance, after the devastating Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989, instead of fining Exxon Mobil the
initial punishment sum of US$2.5 billion, the Supreme Court drastically cut payouts for plaintiffs, eventually only ordering the
company to pay US $500 million, a fraction of the initial sum. Given the high price of oil, $500 million would have hardly put a
dent in the company profits, and thus served as a poor deterrent for future crimes. (Lack of enforcement of strict laws gives a
leeway for the conglomerates to continue to exploit environment for immense profits)
The political involvement of the corporate oil lobby is also what makes big oil companies a formidable obstacle in the battle
for large-scale action to combat climate change. The US companies Koch Industries Incorporation and Exxon Mobil
Corporation are perfect examples of how businesses can influence politics, as the reliance of the Republicans on their
financial backing resulted in the elimination of US funding for the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC). (An
alliance of a support-seeking political party and a profit-maximising conglomerate is a major impediment to environmental
conservation)
Individuals may be complacent due to their distance from the immediate effects of climate change or their belief in their own
helplessness to alleviate such a huge problem. This mindset is a dangerous one, as it leaves them vulnerable to deceptively
comforting alternative explanations for climate change aimed at preserving the status quo, such as the ones created by the
oil lobbyists who claim that global temperatures are rising due to the earth’s “natural cycles” and are not the result of human
activity, and worse, that environmentalists should be blamed for causing uncertainty over this matter. (The danger of a
general attitude of apathy towards environmental conservation among the people)

Use of technology to address environmental problems:

Researchers have recently found a way to extract and use carbon dioxide to enhance and expand geothermal energy. In
a computer simulation, researchers found that compared to an average geothermal plant, a plant that uses carbon
dioxide could produce 10 times more power while also locking away carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power
plants. While carbon dioxide used to be an enemy in the war against climate change, science and technology has
allowed it to become an ally through its role in boosting an alternative source of energy.
Thermo-depolymerisation: converting carbon based waste such as turkey guts to used tires and cans to oil by adding
sufficient heat and pressure. The process expedites how nature produces oil to obtain the same byproduct. Proponents
of this technology claim that a ton of turkey waste can cough up about 600 pounds of petroleum.
Hydrogen fuel cell: A pollution free alternative to fossil fuels to generate energy, by making water through combining
hydrogen and oxygen and in the process generate electricity. Scientists have come up with ways to power laptops and
small devices with fuel cells. (But has to be produced from cheap and renewable sources to help cut greenhouse gas
emissions)
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion: The biggest solar collector on Earth is our ocean mass. According to the U.S.
Department of Energy, the oceans absorb enough heat from the sun to equal the thermal energy contained in 250 barrels
of oil each day. OTEC technologies convert the thermal energy contained in the oceans and turn it into electricity by
using the temperature difference between the water's surface, which is heated, and the cold of the ocean's bottom. This
difference in temperature can operate turbines that can drive generators.
Bioremediation: Using naturally occurring microbes to clean up a wide variety of air, water and soil pollutants. Under the
right conditions, bacteria can degrade spilled oil remarkably quickly. In the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the overwhelming
majority of the BP oil was recaptured, burned off, evaporated, flushed out by ocean currents or eaten by bacteria.
Examples also include the cleanup of nitrates in contaminated water with the help of microbes, and using plants to
uptake arsenic from contaminated soil.
In the far west of Australia, the city of Perth is exploring a ground-breaking plan to reduce carbon emissions to zero and
become the world's first geothermally cooled city. Scientists have launched a A$20 million (S$26 million) project to use
groundwater to cool a massive supercomputer and to provide air-conditioning for a large office building. They are hoping
to use the new technology to prove the large-scale potential of the earth's underground heat to not only generate
electricity but to also provide both natural heating and cooling for entire cities.The main obstacle to expanding geothermal
energy use will be convincing governments and investors to pay for the discovery and drilling of accessible aquifers.
Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) involves capturing CO2 emissions for storage underground. One approach is to
capture the CO2 at the power plant as the coal or gas is burned. Another is to capture it directly from the air using
specially designed chemical processes.
Photovoltaic cell convert the sun’s radiation into electricity which can be used for domestic and commercial purposes.
The largest photovoltaic solar plant - Desert Sunlight Power Plant opened just in February 2015. Located in Mojave
Desert in California, this plant is capable of supplying power to the entire Los Angeles region with minimal waste
production.
In recent years, scientists have studied the feasibility of wind power as a source of energy. In Crete, Greece, windmills
pump up irrigation for farmers. In Canada, a contrivance of conventional wind turbines known as the “Darreius rotor”
feeds electricity back into the main feed.
The world’s most ambitious nuclear project “Iter”, meaning “the way” in Latin, is scheduled to be completed by 2020.
Located in the South of France where 34 nations have combined both wealth and expertise to produce a plant capable of
harnessing power from the sun in a box without any detrimental environmental effects
Synthetic biology deals with the creation of entirely new organisms. For example, a new species of bacteria could be
created to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which would help to alleviate global warming.
Dams alter the flow and sometimes the temperature of rivers. After the building of the Aswan High Dam in Egypt, the flow
of silt which carried nutrients stopped. These nutrients helped the growth of algae on which sardines depended. The lack
of nutrients adversely affected the sardine fishing industry.
At present, renewable energy sources account for about 25% of Denmark’s total energy consumption, and the country’s
goal is to make this 100% by 2050. Contrary to the economic fears of most countries, renewable energy has allowed the
Danish economy to grow by 78% since 1980, even though energy consumption has remained nearly the same, proving
the feasibility of their model of sustainable development.
Use of nuclear energy
Generation of nuclear energy is more efficient and less polluting than the traditional methods. The principles behind
nuclear fission plants work by projecting a neutron towards an unstable Uranium-235 isotope causing the atom to split
into more stable radioactive products and more neutrons, which, in the fission, generate huge amounts of energy and
neutrons to fuel the chain reaction. To prevent a nuclear explosion or the generation of excessive heat, control rods are
dipped into the reaction mixture to control rate of reaction by absorbing the neutrons. This way of harvesting energy
yields ten million times more usable energy per unit mass than traditional coal burning.
Nuclear fission plants are extremely dangerous due to the uncontrollable nature of the chain reaction if left to their own
devices. This is evident in the many nuclear plant meltdowns in history such as Chernobyl - the largest nuclear accident
in nuclear history. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor meltdown was caused by an earthquake and subsequently a
tsunami which led to salt contamination of the reactor. Even with proper protection and safety precautions, nuclear plants
generate massive amounts of radioactive waste with half-lives of thousands of years which becomes a problem to
dispose of safely.
A new way of harvesting nuclear energy that is potentially safer and more efficient is being devised. Nuclear fusion is
being employed where 2 small atoms such as hydrogen are made to collide at high speeds to form a helium atom and
generate energy in the process. This method does not generate radioactive waste and can potentially be pollutant-free
while generating helium for industrial use. However, the present models for this method are expensive and high
temperatures are required as two positive charges (which repel) are forced to attract.
As nuclear power sites increase, the problem of waste disposal gains prominence. Burial used to be the answer, but
these incredibly potent wastes must remain sealed off from man’s environment for as long as 500 000 years due to the
long half lives of the radioactive species. We are in fact bequeathing this legacy to future generations, and this
constitutes a profound ethical and moral conundrum.
Controversies (To highlight that the science is not settled)
On 27 September 2013, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published the first of
three volumes of its fifth Assessment Report (AR5). The long-awaited report summary emerged amid a flurry of media
coverage and a volley of commentary, both pro and con. Its main conclusions were clear, however: climate change is
real, its effects are already measurable, and it is being caused by human activity.

● Human influence on the climate system is clear. This is evident in most regions of the globe.
● Warming in the climate system is unequivocal.
● Global surface temperature change for the end of the 21st century is projected to be likely to exceed 1.5°C
relative to 1850 to 1900 in all but the lowest scenario considered, and likely to exceed 2°C for the two high
scenarios
● Projections of climate change are based on a new set of four scenarios of future greenhouse gas concentrations
and aerosols, spanning a wide range of possible futures. The Working Group I report assessed global and
regional-scale climate change for the early, mid-, and later 21st century.

The summary report has sparked controversy worldwide. Some rushed to embrace the findings while others immediately
set out to disprove the science and question the motives behind it.
In a keynote speech at the 2009 Copenhagen talks, former U.S. vice-president Al Gore claimed the North Pole could be
completely free of ice by the middle of the next decade. He claimed a study showed a ‘75 per cent chance’ that the Arctic
could be ice-free in the summer months within five to seven years. However, Dr Wieslaw Maslowski, the study’s author,
said his research revealed ‘nothing of the sort’. His comments are likely to embarrass Mr Gore, who has been accused of
scaremongering. In 2007 , a High Court judge ruled his Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth was ‘alarmist’
and contained nine scientific errors.
Solyndra was a California-based maker of advanced solar panels. The company attracted substantial private investment
including part of the $787 billion stimulus legislation of 2009.The federal government backed loans of more than $500
million to the company. President Barack Obama toured its manufacturing plant. He touted its plans to hire 1,000 new
workers and embraced its math about producing enough solar panels in its expanded facility to replace the power from
eight coal-fueled electricity plants.

However, shortly after, Solyndra went bankrupt, its factory shut down and its workforce on the street. The FBI raided its
headquarters earlier this month, presumably suspecting fraud.

A series of emails between White House officials and Office of Management and Budget watchdogs suggests that
Solyndra got its federal guarantees prematurely, under pressure from the Obama administration, which wanted to stage
an event featuring Vice President Joe Biden announcing the guarantees at a ground-breaking ceremony.

But staffers reviewing the deal were voicing concerns about not having sufficient time to conduct proper due diligence on
the financial underpinnings of the loans. The evidence suggests taxpayer dollars were put at undue risk for the sake of an
administration photo op, leading to massive controversy in the United States.
Environmental organisations and lobby groups
Nature Society (Singapore) organises nature appreciation activities like guided nature walks, bird and butterfly watching,
slide talks and overseas eco-trips. Apart from that, they conduct conservation projects and surveys, collaborate with
schools and community groups to promote nature appreciation and education and campaign for the protection of natural
habitats.

Success:
● Successfully persuaded the Government to set aside Sungei Buloh as a mangrove and bird sanctuary. This site
is now legally protected and known as Sungei Buloh Wetlands Reserve. They also helped to relocate coral reefs
which were threatened by land reclamation.
● Staved off plans to develop part of Peirce Reservoir forest into a golf course.
● Published the Master Plan for the Conservation of Nature in Singapore, which has influenced Government policy
and planning.
● Advocated the preservation of Chek Jawa, a unique marine habitat on Pulau Ubin.
● The creation of the Butterfly Trail@Orchard with hotspots for butterflies to visit along a route spanning from
Singapore Botanic Gardens to Fort Canning Park.
● NSS also envisions a secondary role in researching conservation possibilities and advising the Government on
their findings; the NSS is capable of doing so because it has on its roster academics, experts and notaries from
various scientific fields as well as wildlife experts.

Challenges:
● Broadening membership base - “slackitivism”
● Reaching out to youths and young adults in a compelling way
● Putting in place a long term infrastructure for fundraising
 ● A focused but effective citizen science programme that will complement existing efforts by other agencies and
organisations
Greenpeace is a non-governmental​ ​environmental organization with offices in over forty countries. It uses direct action,
lobbying, and research to achieve its goals. The global organization does not accept funding from governments,
corporations, or political parties, relying on 2.9 million individual supporters and foundation grants.​ ​Greenpeace is known
for its direct actions and has been described as the most visible environmental organization in the world.​ ​Greenpeace has
raised environmental issues to public knowledge, and influenced both the private and the public sector.

Success:
● Forcing Nestlé to "stop using products that come from rainforest destruction". The world's third-largest food
processing company vowed to eradicate any companies from its supply chain that own or manage "high risk
plantations or farms linked to deforestation", particularly in reference to pulp and palm oil.
● US abandoned nuclear testing grounds at Amchitka Island, Alaska in the face of Greenpeace pressure.
● Put pressure on Japan to stop commercial whaling, and on Korea to stop conducting scientific whaling which
would have hunted mink whales

Controversy:
● Activists do not show respect for local laws and local culture
○ Greenpeace violated India’s Foreign Contribution Regulation Act. As per the FCRA act, no NGO can use
more than 50% of received funds for administrative purposes, and Greenpeace India is alleged to have
used 60% of these funds for administrative purposes.
○ In December 2014, Greenpeace came under fire following a publicity stunt within the ​Nazca lines​, a ​UN
World Heritage Site​ inside ​Peru​. Demonstrators entered the restricted area surrounding the
Hummingbird lines. In doing so, they tracked multiple footprints and damaged both the line itself and the
area surrounding it.
● Activists may pursue environmental goals radically without considering the possible trade-offs
○ Greenpeace supports the phasing out of substances such as insecticide DDT which also has malaria
control properties. Critics have slammed Greenpeace as the organization's campaign to shut down the
last major DDT factory in the world located in Cochin, India, would make the eradication of malaria more
difficult for poorer countries.​ ​An expert estimated the ban to have resulted in the deaths of 20 million
children.
● Activists may not back claims with factual evidence, resulting in sub-optimal decisions being made
○ In August 2006, Greenpeace released its first "Guide to Greener Electronics," which ranked leading
mobile phone, PC, TV, and game console manufacturers on their global policies and practice on
eliminating harmful chemicals and on taking responsibility for their products once they are discarded by
consumers. It was alleged that Greenpeace had no factual evidence, instead relying on unsubstantiated
official company information for the report in order to garner publicity, as well as political and monetary
support.
World Wide Fund for Nature’s ​mission is to stop the degradation of the planet’s natural environment and to build a future
in which humans live in harmony with nature, by conserving the world’s biological diversity, ensuring that the use of
renewable natural resources is sustainable and promoting the reduction of pollution and wasteful consumption.
In carrying out its work, WWF cooperates with many partners, including ​UN​ organizations, development agencies such
as ​USAID​ and the ​World Bank​. WWF also works with ​business & industry​ partners.

Success:
● The government of Brazil, working in partnership with WWF and other stakeholders, turned an expanse of
Brazilian rainforest larger than all the US national parks combined into a combination of sustainable-use and
strict protected areas. With national and international funding and leadership of the Brazilian government, WWF
has protected a place that stabilizes our planet’s climate and hosts incredible biodiversity.
● On Sept. 21 2014, hundreds of thousands of individuals flooded the streets of New York to bring attention to the
need for stronger climate policy and more renewable energy. WWF helped elevate the conversation in the
months leading up to the march, helping businesses chart a sustainable path forward and encouraging
homeowners to install solar panels through the Renewable It’s Doable program. And on March 28, more than
162 countries and 7,000 cities participated in Earth Hour—a global movement with the goal of creating a
sustainable future for the planet.
● In June 2014, President Obama announced he would direct the US government toward a new national strategy
to address black market fishing, and plans to lead the fight to protect world oceans. The administration brought
together a task force to outline solutions to address black market fishing and seafood fraud. WWF and its
supporters are taking action to ensure the task force recommendations outline a strategy that can tackle
international illegal fishing while creating a level playing field for US fishermen and supporting smart decisions by
American consumers.
Controversies:
● Distort truth to achieve aims
○ Touch Seang Tana, chairman of Cambodia's Commission for Conservation and Development of the
Mekong River Dolphins Eco-tourism Zone, charged that the WWF had misrepresented the danger of
extinction of the Mekong Dolphin in order to boost fundraising.He called the WWF report unscientific and
harmful to the Cambodian government and threatened the WWF's Cambodian branch with suspension
unless they met with him to discuss his claims.
● Greenwashing: green marketing is deceptively used to promote the perception that an organization's products,
aims or policies are environmentally friendly.
○ German media aired a documentary that claimed to show how the WWF cooperates with corporations
such as Monsanto, providing sustainability certification in exchange for donations – i.e. greenwashing.​ ​By
encouraging high-impact eco-tourism, the program alleges that WWF contributes to the destruction of
habitat and species it claims to protect. WWF-India is not active at the tiger reserve given as the
example,​ ​but it is active elsewhere seeking to limit adverse tourism impacts and better sharing of tourism
benefits to local communities. The program also alleges WWF certified a palm oil plantation operated by
Wilmar International, a Singaporean company, on the Indonesian island of Borneo, even though the
establishment of the plantation led to the destruction of over 14,000 hectares of rainforest. Only 80
hectares were ultimately conserved, the documentary claims. According to the programme, two
orangutans live on the conserved land, but have very slim chances of survival because no fruit trees
remain and the habitat is too small to sustain them. To survive, they steal palm nuts from the
neighbouring plantation, thereby risking being shot by plantation workers.

Useful Vocabulary and Felicitous Expressions

- Desecrating the environment
- Wanton destruction of the Mother Earth
- Insatiable appetite for non-renewable fossil fuel
- Mother Nature-related concerns are relegated to the back seat.
- It goes a long way in ensuring sustainable energy consumption in the future.
- The vanity of human in the face of power of nature.
- Reconcile the need for industrial development with concern for environment
- We have been living on borrowed time and energy and we use our natural resources as if there is no tomorrow.
- Throughout the ages, mankind has always relied heavily on the environment for survival.
- Sustainable energy consumption
- Lack of political will and social apathy would mean that the environment issues often take a back seat while more
pressing economic and global problems are at the forefront.
- Cavalier use to which we put our precious resources
- Prevalent throwaway culture
- Consumerist mindset / desires
- Planned obsolescence (with regard to product launches)
- nouveau riche
- carrying capacity of natural systems
- imperilled planet
- planetary risks
- Nature is not benign enough to condone this profligate use of resources
- The problem with trying to marry business with environment efforts can be likened to a cat and mouse chase—where
the environment is always at peril of being swallowed up capitalism.
- no incentive to halt _ when the potentially enormous profits are beckoning
- stable Holocene period: the current geological epoch that started from 11700 years ago when glaciers started retreating,
and climate has stabilised

Literary References
● “The Lorax” by Dr Seuss is a children’s fable that advocates for a balance between economic growth and environmental
conservation. ​At no point does ​The Lorax​ say “don’t cut down trees”; a world without industry is no better an option than
a world without trees. The book simply attempts to increase awareness of the possible extreme should industry go
unchecked. In 1971, when the book was released, the United States was embroiled in environmental issues left over
from the 1960s. The deforestation of the Pacific Northwest was chief among them; logging companies were cutting
down trees at alarming rates. Seuss personifies industry as a whole with the Once-ler, to draw interest and attention to
unchecked corporate greed as a threat to nature. The Lorax sounds the warning siren, but is ignored, as environmental
 groups often are, until it’s too late. But industry isn’t the sole culprit in this cautionary tale. Industry will only produce what
it thinks consumers will buy. So on a certain level, we’re all responsible for the fate of the environment.
● In “Hot, Flat and Crowded”, Thomas Friedman draws parallels between the environment and the market economy.
Thanks to lack of proper regulation both are being swept by crises – financial and ecological – that should be rare but
are now common. Hence, we need to rein in our profligate ways, get rid of inefficient energy sources and invest heavily
in renewable power.
● In his new book, The State of Fear, Michael Crichton argues that the threat of global warming has been exaggerated by
environmentalists. While there are many who question how unrealistically magnified global warming has been, the
effects of climate change may be increasingly palpable but measures and solutions are in place to control this
phenomenon.

Statistics
● The average American eats 195 pounds of meat a year, and this generates 3578 pounds of CO2 per year.
● Some 90% of all U.S. homes have an air conditioner.
● 3 litres of water are used to make a 1 litre plastic bottle
● For example, 99% of the world’s pesticides are chemically produced from oil and almost all industrial fertilisers derived
from natural gas, which means the entire industrial mode of agriculture that has taken dominance over the world’s
farmland depends upon abundant cheap petroleum.
● Before the Industrial Revolution, the amount of carbon in the form of coal under UK is the same as the amount of carbon
in the form of oil under Saudi Arabia. In 1918, coal production in the UK peaked and it fell ever since.
● To sustain the UK’s energy consumption of 1.25 watts per metre square, even if biofuel plants covered the whole of UK,
it would be insufficient. For wind farms to be the sole source of energy in the UK, it must cover half of the UK.

Quotes
● "We never know the worth of water till the well is dry" -- Thomas Fuller
● "To waste, to destroy our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its
usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand
down to them amplified and developed." - Theodore Roosevelt
● "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed." -- Mahatma Gandhi
● “I want to make it clear, that if there ever is a conflict [between environmental protection and economic growth], I will go
for beauty, clean air, water and landscape.” - Former US President Jimmy Carter
● “The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth” -- Pope Francis

Appendix: Fracking vs Conventional Oil Drilling

● A conventional oilfield has a small number of highly productive wells. The oil flows well naturally, but it is hard to find.
The oilfield may last for 8-10 years and produce large volumes of oil. "Enhanced production" methods like hydraulic
fracturing are used to extend the life of the field. An unconventional oilfield has a large number of low-productivity wells.
The oil is easy to find, but doesn't flow naturally. "Enhanced production" methods like hydraulic fracturing are used from
the outset, and even then each well may flow at only 2.5% the rate of a conventional play, and falls off very rapidly over
2-3 years.
● A conventional oilfield needs a lot of upfront capital expenditure for exploration, and building the production facilities to
deal with the flow rates which could be 40,000 barrels/day. From initial exploration to getting oil produced may take 8-10
years. An unconventional oilfield requires less capital, and the oil will start to flow in the first year, but you may get 1000
barrels/day in year one. Unconventional oil exploration is more like mining - they know where the oil is, its just tough to
extract it.