Essay time...

Heh feeling writish so wrote these. LOL

Singapore’s efforts in the Green movement

Lately, the world’s leaders have been caught up in a very important debate, or more accurately, a movement, which is that of preventing the worsening of global warming, the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and the oceans. It has become a real threat in recent years, and thus the rise of green politics, a political ideology which places a high importance on ecological and environmental goals, and on achieving these goals through broad-based, grassroots, and participatory democracy. Singapore is one of the countries that has actively participated in green politics, and this essay will discuss about what its governing body has done to ensure that Singapore maintains is healthy image as a clean and green country.

Compared to other countries in the region, Singapore has a head start in the race towards "greenness". The country already prides itself on being a tidy, efficient, "clean and green" metropolis — thanks largely to a government that uses self-sponsored media campaigns to shape social behaviour. In most other countries, the green crusade starts from the ground up, by way of grassroots consumer groups that exert pressure on politicians to adopt more environmentally responsible policies and companies to produce more environmentally friendly goods. Singapore’s own green effort, by contrast, has the distinction of being almost entirely government-driven. The changes have been initiated at the top, with the hope they will trickle down to the lowest rungs of consumer society.

The main focus of the green movement in Singapore would be that of economics, ranching into areas such as transportation, trade and industry. In terms of transportation, it can be seen that Singapore it doing more to keep cars off the road through measures such as electronic Road Pricing (ERP) charges and the implementation of the Certificate Of Entitlement (COE). Also, the have been the promotion of hybrid cars and public transport, which means that more people will be transported while producing less greenhouse gases.

Singapore has worked hard to maintain its name as a Garden City, and at the same time aiding the world in the bid against global warming. It is well known that forests are environmental buffers. Some forests intercept moisture from clouds, increasing the availability of water. Such watershed forests protect soil cover with their roots, preventing soil erosion. That is why many forested areas of Singapore have been listed as protected, so that Singaporeans can live and breathe better, despite their usually hectic lives. Also, the government has recently, spent around four billion in revamping Orchard Road so that it contains more plants, in an effort to make the shopping haven a more environmentally place.

There has also been a slew of movements in Singapore to promote the green movement. 1990 saw the launch of the government’s "Clean and Green Week...Green for Life" public-education programme. The event was held from November 4 to 10, and is intended to be an annual event. The Ministry of the Environment spent $650,000 over a one-month period to promote the campaign on television, radio and in newspapers. The account was put out for tender in June 1990, with Ogilvy & Mather Public Relations winning it in August. The campaign was a natural outgrowth of Tree Planting Day, an annual event initiated by Lee Kwan Yew in the early 1970s. Another early initiative was the government’s clean rivers project (the much needed clean-up of the Singapore River and Kallang Basin), begun in 1977 and completed a decade later.

Clean and Green Week was a daily series of activities and promotions, variously targeted at schools, consumer groups and the business community. Major programmes included tree-planting in housing estates, a "Care for the Environment" exhibition at Marina Square, a "Ride and Walk" programme for the business sector, encouraging participants to leave their cars at home for a day and use public transport to get to work and "Adopt-a-Beach-and-Park" for children.

To spread the word, O&M came up with print ads, a TV spot, outdoor posters, taxi-top ads and a wide variety of collateral such as a Clean and Green Week colouring book for children, sponsored by Shell and the Ministry of the Environment. About 200,000 copies of the colouring book were printed and distributed to children in primary grades three, four and five. Much of the promotional material featured an official mascot, a cartoon frog named Captain Green.

Though both the Singapore government and the private sector have taken great strides in spreading the green message, the country still has a long way to go before it meets David Bellamy’s vision of a "squeaky green" place. For instance, Singapore still has no large-scale recycling programmes for beverage cans (which are still tin, not aluminium) or newspapers. Styrofoam containers and non-biodegradable plastic bags are still the order of the day in shops and hawker centres. The country remains a throwaway society even though it tends to throw things into bins rather than onto the pavement.