PArty! July to December 2008

8/7/2019 PArty! July to December 2008

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for the recent drastic decline in the air quality in Hong Kong. SOOtiJ of the smog has been attrib-uted to ~ h i d e e ~ o n s , coa1buming power plants and factories within the region. The in-creased lerels of air pollutants subsequently led to an increase in acidity of rainfall in both Japanand South Korea. The increased prevalence and intensity of acid rain have a n ~ impactonlakes and forests.The regularity of ~ r d e r pollution issueswithinAsia has led experts to call for more regionalpacts to be enactedwithinAsia to tackle these problems.Setting e ~ o n limits on sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and other chemicals, which is whatu.s. and Europe are doing, may be usefulin controlling ~ r d e r pollution. Yet, while the implementation of regional pacts will go along way in resolving this transnational problem, obstacles other than bureaucratic inertia willhinder the legislation of such regional or international pacts. This is due to the fact that any gainby one country is likely to be made at the expense of another. In fact, there eren exists thepossibil-ity that such discussions in which countries only have their own interests at heartmayeren exacerbate strained ties b e ~ n nations.In certain cases, counter-accusations ~ r who is responsible for a certain act of pollution maymake matters eren more complicated. This is dearly delineated when Indonesia pointed out thatSingaporean and otherAsian inwsrors either have stakes, or own, the palm plantations routinelyblamed for some of the fires. lastly, eren if any amicable compromise among nations could be arr i ~ upon, some monitoring device has to be in place to ensure that what have been agreed onwillbe feasibly enforced. G ~ n the increasing ecological footprint that humans are making uponthe planet, decisions need to be made and actions executed before ~ r s i b l e and irreparabledamage is made to theEarth.

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un\1\dO n t ~ \ \ a n r

Is politiOi the solutionto environmental problems?By Bryan Hui ChitXiangBefore vve marvel at the latest technolo-gies and celebrate its potential contributions to-wards the economy, one should not ignore thecries made by environmentalists appealing forus to pause and think about the consequenceshuman activities ~ upon the environment.In fact, the rapid construction of factories willonly exacerbate environment pollution.Throughout history, the environment has constantly pa;ed challenges to man in the fonn ofgradual environmental change and natural disasters. Although Man has -vet to learn how tomitigate the effucts sufficiently or to fully o v e r ~ come these problems, he nevertheless createsna:rer challenges for us by inmluntarily (butnot unknowingly) speeding up the rate of environmental change. While it is undeniable thatadvancement in technology has brought aboutunprecedented i m p ~ m e n t s in standards ofliving for the masses, it has also resulted in serious environmental degradation. The questionthat one should ponder then \\Quld bewhetherit is justifiable for us to destroy the environmentin the pursuit of economic successes, and if so,to what extent? In this article, I will discuss why-

politics is theobvious andviable solution to problems caused by the environment and also discussthe limitations of politics in protecting the environment.

To understand why politics is the obvious sohltion to environmental problems, we must firstlyunderstand the main charncteristics of environmental pollution. As environmental problemsare usually widespread and not confined -withinnational boundaries, there are huge consequences to masses of people not responsible for theseproblems. Forinstance, the Chemobyldisaster in1986 led to radioactive plume spreading to extensive parts inRussia, Ukraine and Belarus, leadingto the resettlement of hundreds of thousands ofpeople. Transnational boundary problems suchas these can only be successfully solved throughcollaborations between countries. Environmen-tal problems bring out the important but looselyregarded notion of interdependency betweencountries as the solution often requires collectiveeffortby thevarious gO\emments.Depending on howpolitics is being played out, it

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could help or m)rsen the situation. In the ~ ofMyanmar, Cyclone Nargis caused greatdevastationto the people. As the Myanmar goremment strug-gled to cope with the rescue of her people, they re-fused p r o ~ i o n a l aid from other countries andNGOs. This lack of international cooperation wasto the detriment of the people of Myanmar as theywere deprnro of crucial help in the initial ~ r y stages. E\\!n though the Myanmar goremmenthad sub;equently made concessions under the Ulll-brella of ASFAN, critical time had been lost. Fromhere, it could be seen that politics could be used totackle problems caused by the environment butonly if it is p ~ outaccording to a tactful script.

The limitations of politics to tackle environmen-tal problems are both structural and ~ o l o g i c a l . Historically, the dimensions of politics ha\\! mainlyremlved around the state and the industry. Theramification of this is that environmental policiesoften take a backseat to economic issues. This isdue to the widespread fear that the implementa-tion of environmental policies will incuradditionalcosts to the industries, hence accounting for the im-mense resistance put forth by the industries.Though this structural barrier seems to be huge,the greatest hindrance to environmentally friendlypolicies lies in the mindset of the people.In Singapore, people generally do not assume "en-vironmental citizenship". This can be seen in howproenvironment campaigns are usually organizedby the goremment. The result of this topdown

effort is that Singaporeans are o&en fur frombeing convinced of the importance and needfor environmental conservation. Hence, thecitizenry rarely push for proenvironment poli-cies to be implemented In another way, it canalso be argued that with increasing urbanisa-tion, the effects of environmental degradationis less visible to the people and ~ a result, theyare unable to comprehend the extent to whichour environment has deteriorated. In addition,when one considers the substantial benefitsthat technology has best:cMOO upon us, there isincreased reluctance to accept the fact that \ \eare dealing significant damage to our environ-ment and a need to rethink our accepted vvaysof doing things. One needs to acknowledge thatthe problem of the hasty plunge into techno-logical and economic pursuit \\QuId result inthe implementation of painful measures whichhas significant economical ~ . It is this inabil-ity to convince people that the threatof the envi-ronment is real that has resulted in a slow prog-ress tovvards environmental conservation. Must\ \e feel the pain first before the cries can beheard?In conclusion, \ \e lta\e reached a crucial turn-ing point where \ \ e are compelled to chOU'le be-M:'en greater technological advances (which in-

\ U ~ environmental ~ ) and the heed to ad-dress the ~ of envirorunental degrada-tion which haW Decome i n ~ hard toignore. By recognisingand resolving the limita-tions ofpolitics, it is probable that environmen-tal conservation is realizable. Eml though it re-mains an uncertainty that politics is the sohrtion tDwards resolving environmental prob-lems, the consequences will be dire if m a n ~ a continues this reckless degradation of theronment.


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PArty! July to December 2008

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