Tan Yu Ting 301

“It’s worth remembering that it is often the small steps, not the giant leaps, that bring about the most lasting change.” – Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. What small steps can you take to help tackle the climate crisis? 

This planet is fragile, living in the in-between of life and strife; wraith and scythe. And we knew that every misconception and act of condescension felt like ripping tendons. It is just good at hiding it.

We should’ve done something, anything, but in the end, we might have to do the burying.

Ambient water would douse the flames, we assumed, but its body was edged with valleys and ridges, and the fire burnt all our bridges, dispersing the luminescent embers to faraway lands and engulfing even the (1)sand.

We could do something instead of mourning; pouring our hearts out to save a planet that’s scorching.

Small steps like eating locally sourced and seasonal foods, reducing meat consumption, and minimizing food waste can lower greenhouse gas emissions associated with food production and transportation while promoting sustainable agricultural practices.

Our sacrifices may suffice, if we do away with the vices.

Rising temperatures need to be dealt with carefully, and we should see to it that every spark is snuffed out. For that, we need to approach this strategically.

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The current economy is consumerist, which refers to the population’s intense obsession with acquiring unnecessary goods such as jewellery, cars, and houses. This mindset leads to excessive waste, polluting the environment and depleting natural resources. Advertisers manipulate our wants into needs, and algorithms recommend similar items to splurge on, making it difficult to reduce consumption.

How do we curb something instinctive, even addictive? Doing things impulsively refers to acting without conscious thought. To counteract this, we need to make a list, buy what we need, and leave. It may be hard at first, but with a little patience and a little kindness, we can curb our shopaholic behaviour and practice leading a minimalist lifestyle, which refers to living with fewer possessions and distractions, allowing us to focus on the things that matter most.

Having said this, doing away with private vehicles could prove both practical and cost-effective. Viable alternatives include public transportation, carpooling, and biking, which can reduce traffic congestion, pollution, and expenses associated with vehicle ownership. Additionally, encouraging activities like walking and cycling not only boosts physical well-being but also fosters stronger community bonds and decreases our dependence on fossil fuels. Shifting away from private vehicles supports sustainability efforts, bringing long-term benefits for people and the planet alike.

Despite this, there are things that we cannot do without. Food is an integral part of Singaporean culture, evident in the long queues at hawker centres and (2)restaurants like Saizeriya. However, eating out releases triple the amount of carbon dioxide compared to home-cooked meals, due to energy consumption from ingredient transportation, cooking, and refrigeration. Thus, I recommend prioritizing locally sourced produce for home cooking.

Group meals should not be limited to the seclusion of annual festivities such as Chinese New Year. Cooking for multiple people at one go ultimately saves the time, oil, and gas of doing so several times individually. For example, neighbours can cook large batches of (3)fried bee hoon to share with the community. Every meal cooked with love, every bus that might swerve, and every list that serves will bring us closer to a world where our actions align with our values.

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After setting the tattered and creaky bucket aside, we try to use our boots to uproot the firewood lying around, scattered and bound to the ground. Some pack them passionately, others stack them haphazardly.

Haze rolls over the cliffs, dust clogs our pores, dying sparks still persist, and uphill comes a roar. The clay underfoot starts to shake as giant metal dragonflies form weak ties with our wood, lifting the lumber into the thunder.

Footnotes:

(1)Excerpt: TPI2k was the most influential topographic variable across all study areas where fire edge samples were associated with high absolute TPI2k (i.e., valley bottoms or ridge tops), and core samples with low values (flat or mid-slope areas) (Fig. 5). Topographic roughness was low to moderately influential in SBW and FCW but with opposing coefficients compared to GAL (Fig. 4, Table S2). Areas with lower roughness (e.g., shallow slopes) were associated with fire edges in SBW and FCW, whereas in GAL, higher roughness (e.g., from natural fire breaks, creeks, cool or mesic aspects) was linked with fire boundaries.

Some studies suggest that people who cook more often, rather than get take-out, have an overall healthier diet. These studies also show that restaurant meals typically contain higher amounts of sodium, saturated fat, total fat, and overall calories than home-cooked meals.

(2)One source claims that a restaurant meal emits more than 3.5times the amount of CO2e of a home cooked meal and a big part of that is due to the energy consumption. (20 Mar 2022)

The American Carbon Foodprint: Understandingcyour food’s impact on climate change,” by Mathew Kling, and Ian Hough (2010).

(3)Bee hoon refers to rice vermicelli/rice noodles and is commonly used in Singapore and Malaysia.

As an estimate, on a per month basis, it might be about SGD 400 for petrol, SGD 300 for parking charges and toll fees, and SGD 100 for maintenance. This should be a fairly conservative estimate. With rising costs, we can expect these expenses to go up further in the future.

Why our attention spans are shrinking

We would shadow people with stopwatches for every single activity they did. We would record the start time and the stop time. So you're on a screen where you're working in a Word doc, as soon as you get to that screen, we click start time, and as soon as you turn away and check your email, we click stop time for the Word document, start time for the email. But fortunately, sophisticated computer logging methods were developed, and so of course we switched to those. So back in 2004, we found the average attention span on any screen to be two and a half minutes on average. Throughout the years it became shorter. So around 2012 we found it to be 75 seconds.

This is with logging techniques. This is an average. And then in the last five, six years, we found it to average about 47 seconds, and others have replicated this result within a few seconds. So it seems to be quite robust. Now, another way to think about this result is the median. The median means the midpoint of observations. The median is 40 seconds. And what this means is that half of all the measurements that we found were 40 seconds or less of people's attention spans. Now obviously because we're talking about averages and medians, sometimes people do spend longer, but quite a good bit of the time, their attention spans are much shorter and with an average coming to 47 seconds.