Singapore the Nonexistent Nation

Dec 28 was the last youth service.

Anyway, the more I think about it, it didn't make any real sense to have a third youth service. It would only make sense if there was a different message, or repackaged for the youth. And the definition of youth is well, kinda irrelevant too. And its about the demographics too. There are simply less young people than before.

Anyway, I attended the service on december 28th, and I was glad I did, because Pastor Khong talked about something that struck me. He said something like, 'its a miracle that Singapore exists!' And he went on saying that Singapore has no reason to exist politically, economically, demographically, because of the limited size and population of Singapore. And he went on saying that it is God's miracle that Singapore exists and prospers.

That thought really struck me. And since I'm on this theme of the Singapore and the future, and thinking of writing something long about it, I thought that that words, Singapore, non-existent, miracle should somehow be together. So I thought something along the lines of, Singapore: Continuing the Miracle of the Non-Existent Nation.

I wonder if it might work. Still haven't even jot down a single word about all the futures that I want to write about it. But yeah. I guess all these conceptualisations are just a start. Its difficult to predict anything, especially for the future - goes that wise saying.

Hmm..

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Steven Chu is Obama's secretary of energy!

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America vs Singapore

While blogging last night, I had a realization about a fundamental difference between the outlook of America and Americans, and Singapore and Singaporeans. Here, America and Singapore refer to the government in power, and Americans, Singaporeans refer to the people respectively. 

I wrote something like this:

i think about why america is the hub of innovation, and i think i can come up with an answer, albeit tentatively. i think about the way americans always look to the future, daring to dream, and sweating it out to make that dream work. in singapore, we can't seem to be able to look at that future on the far horizon, and all that we seem to be able to do is to dwell on the present, to see and react to things as they are, not as what they could be. I think the attitude pervades a huge section of whatever we do - social policies, education policies. We prepare our kids for the future, but that future immediately becomes the present, and so what we have only been able to do is to give them the skills for a possible future, whether it might happen or not. What we should be doing, is to give kids the skills to pursue their future however they want it to be, because the future is NOT what the government think it might be.

So I'm thinking and thinking, and now I see that our perception of the future shapes our present, about what we do now, without ever thinking about the fact that our perceptions could be dead wrong. The future is an expectancy that we create, and it shouldn't be an expectation borne out. If everything were planned out, which things don't, then... it ain't called the future, ain't it?

I don't think this is my most coherent post, but I think I raised some valid questions, about the way we see our future, and how it shapes our policies, and the way we think. I think Americans have the highest number of future-fantasizers (serious ones) per capita. Or people who have the vision and the conviction to imagine a different future than what they've always had, and to work towards that... I think the day will come when people will go to university not thinking about what the future might be when they graduate, but rather, what the skills that the university will give them to CREATE THEIR OWN FUTURE.

Until we do that, that will be the day we stop making economic machines in the machinery of Singapore Inc, and that will be the day when the brain drain might actually reverse. 

After sleeing for about 6hrs and looking at these again, I am convinced that I am right. That one of the key difference between America and Singapore is that people in America bother to dream, are given the tools to dream, and given the tools to make their dreams come true. In Singapore, people also bother to dream, but they are not given the tools (encouragement, tacit or overt) to develop their dreams, and these dreams die in an environment that is covertly hostile to their dreams. Nor are Singaporeans given the tools to make their dreams come true. This I refer to the education system, that the education system is more like a dream-breaker, in moulding people to think in certain directions only, as opposed to helping the kids with their dreams, or their basic ideas. 

Looking back, if I was a purely pragmatic person, I wouldn't have come to USP. It is precisely because that I don't really think like 'normal' people that I choose USP. Oh wells. 

But somehow, we are given the tools to make the dreams come true. There are excellent entrepreneurial systems in place that allow people with good ideas to make money 0ut of them. But again, this system is kinda biased towards people with money-making ideas, and is... a kind of anti-emphasis with regards to the thousand other things that people want to do. I want to write for 'fun'. I wonder where the literary networks are. I guess a dance culture is a bit stronger due to popular influence, not to mention songs and songwriting. Those are more developed. But a thinking culture is hard to find in Singapore, and this is one thing that Singapore will have to be develoepd in order to become a truly world-class city full of world-class people, a people who dare to dream really big and act in their own way to get to the place where they want to be. 

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Innovate, Innovate!

Statements like the following one have been made so many times that it seems cliched: that innovation is going to be the key to success in this century.

Innovation has to become part of the DNA of any society or country in order for that particular society or country to be economically successful in the long run. In order words, innovation has to be part of the education curriculum, so that every generation of children that has gone through schooling will be ready to innovate solutions...

I don't know how else to put it - innovation is something that can never be overemphasized, and the same regarding the urgency, right here in Singapore. Are we adapting fast enough? Are we nurturing innovation?

Which brings us to the entire issue of the patterns of innovation, the factors that nurture innovation and things like that. Are we adapting our society for innovation? I think these are some of the questions that are keeping policy-makers up at night. Well, at least I hope they bother to think of these things. Because I think that the challenge to innovate is one of the most important and urgent problems, and a long term one at that, that Singapore will have to face in order to become successful as a global city.

And innovation will be closely tied to our education, society and culture... how we adapt them for this century...

maybe we could adapt more Montessori philosophies into primary school education for a start...

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an extension of 'Questions Never Answered' - the psyche of the NS to be

I thought about the content of Questions Never Answered, and I've come to realised how outdated I've become.

The generation of kids today haven't exactly watched Black Hawk Dawn or Saving Private Ryan. No for them, the images of war come in a far more visceral manner, and faster, and with greater interactivity. No, today, war for our younger kids mean Call of Duty 4, Company of Heroes, Gears of War, and other military-themed FPS games. They see the bullets, hear the gunfire, experience the chaos of war and battle, but all in a 32-inch flatscreen tv. War has become a game for them, but even the war that they experience is nothing compared to the actual circumstances of war. Game-war, is completely different from war as it is fought in physical reality. Real War is slower, infinitely times more messy - even though I haven't fought in a real war, but war from a console is definitely different from war as it is fought with real guns and bullets.

Ok. So we all know that console war is different from real war. So what's the deal? The point is that, from here on, there will be huge gulf between expectation and reality, and truth be told, not many people will accept it. Young men who have never had any real military experience save for the console would be in for a rude shock when they enter NS, and realise that military life isn't the point and shoot in the FPS games. And then, what you get - disillusionment, low morale...

For these young sheltered people... it will really mean something for them, who have already had high expectations of the military.

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writing project concretized

I'm beginning to have a clearer conception about this project that I want to do. It's about going around Singapore, and going to the places that we are familiar with, but I won't be writing about its history and heritage and all the usual stuff, but I want to write with an eye to the future, about its present and its future. So much has been written about their pasts that we might have forgotten to look at its future and its possibilities. Below are the places that I want to write about for this project...

-geylang
-chinatown
-civic district - clarke quay
-city hall, raffles place - CBD
-neighbourhood schools vs elite schools
-neighbourhoods - tampines, hougang, boon lay, my own
-places of worship - temples, churches, mosques...
-about the elderly, the youths, the kids, the working adults
-about tradition and the future
-about life as lived in Singapore
-about NS
-about the future of Singapore
-food culture
-shopping malls
-urban planning in general
-about education
-social equality

not sure what else, but that'll be all for now...

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Past acaedmic projects

I was looking at my older notebooks, and a past entry jumped out at me. It was something of a more academic nature, and it reflected my past interest in a lot of things.

I went to check out the modules offered at NUS, and was kinda underwhelmed at the things they offered. Arh well. As it turned out, the modules offered wheren't exactly what I had in mind, when matched against my academic interests. Arh well.

I thought civilisation studies would be about the overarching concepts about what defines a civilisation and the factors that made it so. Apparently, the people at NUS who created the module turned into case studies into specific civilisations...

I don't know. I looked again at the modules offered in the special term, and I'm underwhelmed again. Maybe now I'll just take like 2 modules or something, especially maybe that USP module on 'emerging global politics' which I hope it will be about what it says and not some specific case study once more, and something else, which I can't see yet.

Anyway, what inspired the post was this diagram that I drew of the ideas that were in my head, ideas that basically revolved around how the sciences and the humanities were connected. So there was this whole mess of lines and words...

Which brings me to my interest now. Trying to learn Java so I can make my own programme to illustrate this mental map in a digital sense, and being able to manipulate it, zoom into it, and see how ideas are connected to one another. And now I can't really learn Java due to some cock-up with my com, hope to get the problem fixed after I get my laptop.

Anyhow, there is an emerging connectedness between myriad branches of academic disciplines. Research into brain science is converging with ethics - the processes that are going on in our brains everytime we make an ethical judgement. Research in networks has led to breakthroughs in economics, neuroscience, ecology, among others. The academic world is abuzz with interdisciplinary talk.

I only hope NUS might be an epicenter of such buzz in Singapore...

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questions never answered

So here we were, young and fresh to the world still, having been sheltered from the outside world for almost 2 decades, and now the forces that be threw us all together on these island, all not knowing what lies ahead in our lives. The question still remains to be answered. Just what on earth were we doing on this Island?

Other fresh faces abound, some tired, some not caring the least, all of us only knowing that NS was just… something that had to be done. That if you were a Singaporean, that you needed to go through this NS in order to be properly called a Singaporean, especially a Singaporean man. So we were told, by our fathers, by our brothers, by our uncles, by our grandfathers who suffered untold suffering from the Japanese. And then a history lesson would follow about how small we were, how weak we are, that we need to own the land and the only to own what we you have is to protect it. Even after 2 years doing what seemed to be a little bit waste of my time, it somehow still triggers some pangs of patriotism. But then all of it just fades away after a night’s sleep.

Senior commanders would come and talk to us, about how we felt serving our nation. We are the Black Hawk Down generation, the Saving Private Ryan generation. I don’t a lot of us had watched films like, We were Soldiers by Mel Gibson about the Vietnam War… We had watched Jarhead, and we thought that Jarhead was the most realistic of films actually, because it represented what most of us felt and did during our time. We are trained to fight, but we never do. A taut string can’t stay taut for long. If a taut string remains taut long enough, it becomes slack and never taut again.

Feeling high on those images of war, it never occurred to us that people don’t become soldiers overnight, never occurred to us that it takes a special kind of person who is willing enough to take on the mental and physical punishment that soldierhood entails. Yet there we were, in the cinemas, taking it all in, as Eric Bana and Josh Hartnett went about their business in Mogadishu. Why didn’t we appreciate Jarhead more?

All of days there, in military camps or in the outfield, in the jungles, in the mud, never really quite answered our most burning questions in our hearts. Why NS? Why the commanders? Why here? Just what the heck am I doing here?

These questions were always with us, all the time. Yet, they were never really quite answered. In defence of this country? In defence for our family, for our loved ones? In defence for our way of life? Just what exactly was it we were defending?

‘In event of war, you will be here to protect the country and your loved ones’. That was the most common thing that we heard. Well, because you guys have been militarily trained, you guys will do really something useful here.

It makes sense for like 5 seconds, until you realise that in event of war, my parents would be trying to get on the ticket to Australia, China, Indonesia, Taiwan… anywhere but stay here. And once I know that they are safe, well, there’ll be nothing left for me to fight for but to scramble for that last transport to… anywhere but war zone.

What is Singapore to us? Is it anything at all? If what we have here can mean nothing, then NS would be for… nothing, ain’t it?

Why are we dissatisfied?

We are not satisfied simply because we can’t see beyond the lives that we live. We don’t have hope for our future in Singapore. It is not that we don’t have hope for the future of Singapore. Deep inside every one of us, we want to believe that things can be better, and that things WILL be better. Yet in all of us, there is still a longing that we can do something else, something greater than the things that we are doing today, something that will really define our existence in Singapore, as Singaporeans. And that is the key thing that is missing in this country.

We want our voice to matter, that as individual persons, we can make a difference – to belong to a community, for the happiness of the people around us in that community. We want to make our own meaning to our lives, not merely as economic machines constantly growing our GDP, but as real persons, not just as another face in a crowd, but as unique individuals, all of us. In other words, we want to be valued as persons, not as another cog in the Singapore machine. Until and unless we are valued as persons, the dissatisfaction will always remain, and Singaporeans, in their deepest of hearts, will always want to emigrate, and NS will always seem a waste of time.

While we serve National Service, are we serving for a machine, or are we really serving a Country of 4 million people?

Is this the country worth defending?

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the sea change in social innovation

The landscape of social change in Singapore has had a sea change compared with a decade ago. Today, opportunities abound for young people fiery with passion wanting to turn their ideas into reality.

The bulk of our youths may still be apathetic, but like Alexander Pope says, ‘Hope springs eternal from the human breast’. It is in the passion found in the hearts of our youth today that Singapore will rest her future hopes upon.

I was born just before the 1990’s. I no longer know exactly which letter of the alphabet denotes my generation. I only know that there were the baby-boomers after the war, then there were the yuppies in the 70-80’s, and then, generation Y, which could be me, but I sincerely don’t give a heck. Whatever my generation was, heck, I’m starting to feel old already. That’s what technology makes you feel. Can’t exactly grok FaceBook and all, but I guess its just me.

I’m not sure about my peers. They seem to be always many steps ahead of me when it comes to embracing technology. I guess I must have been one of the last dinosaurs walking around with a Sony Discman before I swapped it for an iPOD touch. Hang on, what? My friends are now grabbing for the iPOD classic? WTH! Meanwhile, all of them seem to be busy, occupied on their PSPs and Nintendo DS while talking about the specs for their games on their computers that I’ve barely heard before. And guess what? All of them have profiles on FaceBook and they all have more friends than me!

So the conclusion is, the generation that I belonged, I believe, is the most technologically integrated generation. And the second is that, I might just be the most backward among my generation here, but that’s something else.

Meanwhile, what we have today are I believe, the greatest tools for social innovation on the planet, the aforementioned, FaceBook, the Internet, the connectivity that we have today is simply astounding. And this is the hope that I have.

Yes, Singaporeans, young or old, might still be caught in the old materialistic rat race of many generations past. And it is still with us, no doubt about it. Yet at the same time, people today are more connected to each other than we’ve ever been. And that’s something to be excited about. That means that people with passion will find it easier to get connected, get together and think up some social innovation for the community.

I talk to my friends a bit, and in actual fact, many of them are really concerned about Singapore, about the communities they live in. Some of them live in Opposition wards, and this somehow becomes an identity to them that hey, they didn’t want to vote for PAP in the last General Election. Others seem to have gotten a little tired of living here and strongly desire to emigrate – yet they still want to live in safe, secure environment that Singapore has. A lot of my friends do have passion, it’s just that they haven’t found an avenue to express it, or just don’t feel that there are outlets. The thing that bugs them most is that, well, no one will listen to me, so, why should I care?

What we have here today is a tension among those born in this connected times. Maybe the grass does look greener, maybe it is greener, and maybe it really isn’t, on the other side. We live in Singapore, and just maybe, we may have taken its many wonderful aspects for granted. It’s such a shame, really, that it took an expatriate leaving in an HDB to tell us, Singaporeans about the wonderful aspects of living in Singapore. When Notes from a Small Island came out, my first impression was, how come a local wasn’t writing it?

I might not quite speak for my generation – they are an amazing bunch, and eventually, a few of them will become ministers some twenty years down the road, but we are one of the first few generations where so much has been shaken. We are no longer so much in sync with our parents but we are still connected to them. As there are bonds that tie us to our families, there are also forces there are making us more estranged from them. Not every baby-boomer from post-WW2 knows how to use the Internet. Not every parent understands the struggles that our generation will have to face, yet some of these parents ask their children not to be involved in the issues of our time. So that’s one thing that might still be holding back my peers from acting boldly.

Here’s how a conversation might go…

Mother : So, what’s your job about?

Child : Its about social change in Singapore, mum.

Mother : WHAT! Why aren’t you getting a proper job at the bank? 4 years accountancy for what?!

Child : Mum, I’m doing accounts for this social change organisation

Mother : And how much are you earning?

Child : Oh, two thousand per month

Mother : What! And all your friends are earning 5k a month!?!

…

And so it goes…

We are all familiar with the above, and I think that it has happened so many times that we know, in our own way, how the scene above would look like for ourselves. Despite all of these, hope remains. At no other time in Singapore’s history has there been so much opportunities, so much potential for all the young people slowly taking up the reins of leadership in society.

And what are we going to do with it?

The clarion call for my generation will not go unanswered. Bet on it.

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social entrepreneurship in singapore

The whole landscape of Singapore is changing, not just physically. Increasing, young Singaporeans are become quite discontent with the status quo. No, it is not that they are dissatisfied with the material state of things, but with the psychological state of things.

Materially, we possibly couldn’t have been better. Apple and Steve Jobs just made us salivate again with the ultra-thin MacBook Air, and already I think I can see eager fingers rushing to click on the ‘Buy Now’ button on the online Apple Store. I think I can also see the eager hands and the cheerful chirpings of Chinese New Year greetings from the young mouths of children as they receive their annual red packets from relatives. Not to mention the holiday some of us might just had riding on the big fat bonuses from last year.

I mean, hey, at the present, we should be happy people. Even on the whole, generally. The ugly side of race issues reared its head again just across the Causeway. Yet, things are just fine, here in Singapore.

Yet something has been going on for quite a while actually, and it has actually gained some degree of acceptance here in Singapore. Wait, that was an understatement. There has been already a wide degree of acceptance already. That’s social entrepreneurship actually.

For the uninformed, social entrepreneurship is really just making innovative solutions that meet a social need. It may or may not make money, but in this, fiscal profit is not the emphasis, but rather, the social profit. It seems that in Singapore, only things with some sort of profit motive become accepted.

Years ago, talking about social activism and social change in Singapore would immediately lead to raise eyebrows and the usual jokes about the ISA having spies in the midst of your table, who will immediately pounce upon you the moment you uttered ‘revolution’ and ‘PAP’ in the same sentence. That was the past, when social change and social activism were highly charged phrases that would be immediately connected to so-called subversive activities. Then, social activism only had political connotations. Look at where we are today.

Today, there is a whole range of activities that are available and are still related to social activism and social change, yet not having the same stigma. That’s the new phrase - ‘social entrepreneurship’. But this is not just a change of words. The whole landscape of social activism has been revitalised as a result. Whereas the discussions in the past usually centred on policies and politics, today, the discussions emphasizes around action, viability and sustainability. Social entrepreneurship has given new life to the social change and social activism. The latter two are now talked about not as abstract ideas but as basis for concrete action.

So what does this all mean? Sure, we will still have a dominant political party for the foreseeable future. Yes, a viable political opposition might eventually become more than just another choice on the balloting slip, but today, we are seeing the formation of a civil society that is growing rapidly and legitimately – not only from a political/national sense, but from a social sense as well, as more people become aware of the groups, their activities, and the real impact that they result in.

For the idealistic among us, I believe there is no better time than the present in Singapore to start figuring out ways to translate their ideas into action. What we’ll do now from here, I believe will make all the difference there is for the future of Singapore and her people.

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the idea that i've been having about singapore...

I guess I never really revealed the bigger picture that I've been having for a long time in my head. I talk about environmental change, social change, education, Singapore, external challenges and all, but I've always done it in bit pieces - every topic in isolation, without regard for its context with respect to many other things. A few days ago I had this epiphany that it would be simpler for my life and others, if I'd just tell them what is exactly on my mind. So here it is:

I am afraid for Singapore.

Now why am I afraid? Simply because of India and China. Their growth will be THE story of our time, of the 21st century. But what will it mean for Singapore? It means a loss of relevance in the world, the loss of relevance to China and India. What happens, around 2050, when China and India become fully developed? What will happen to Singapore?

What's happening now.

Singapore is trying to position itself as a point of entry into China's markets. That is losing its point, because investors can just stream into China directly, bypassing Singapore totally. We are exporting public administration to Chinese government officials - but in time, they will establish their very own Zhu Rong Ji Institute of Public Policy, so even LKYSPP will lose its shine. We are using exporting our developing model for their industries and economy as a whole, but in time, they won't need it, when they're done learning our lessons. They will eventually find their own way, and we'll be left in the dust of their development.

The only hope then is that we would have moved on in our development.

But how?

The only way to do that is to INNOVATE, and I cannot emphasize itself. We need an education system and a society that encourages innovation, and does it by the truckload.

My friend, Shaun, and I agree, that Singapore is really good at being efficient and sometimes, adaptable. Because we are small, we can push through with projects faster than almost any other country. That is something we need to keep. Our education system is superb at churning efficient people - and that's a good thing too. We are very good at doing the things TODAY, but we suck seriously at innovating.

The main point is, we need visionaries - people who can see beyond today's situations and anticipate what lies ahead in the future, and create innovations for tomorrow - not just incremental changes, but something radical, even game changing, something disruptive, like the Internet, the wheel, the iPod, and more...

And more importantly, we need to link visionaries with the efficient people that we have today. We need to be fast at what we do, and at the same time, to be able to innovate something completely new. We need a society that can nurture visionaries and match them with the suitable efficient people to create innovations that will keep Singapore just that little bit ahead. If we start now, we will enjoy another say, 20 years of growth, before China and India match up with us again. Until then, what?

Thats for the next generation to think, and we have to prepare them for that moment. Meanwhile, we have challenges like sustainable growth, urban planning, and all... SIngapore needs to seriously innovate, and come up with sustainable models for future growth - how do we retrofit our buildings to become eco-friendly, cradle-to-cradle style...

and an idea that can help make the innovative, dynamic society into reality...

and an IDEA CAFE!!! now that would be great! a place where people could talk freely about their ideas, get together and discuss them, and maybe even come up with something...

forgot to add that the Ideas Cafe will be different, because when people are discussing, they will decide whether they want people to just come in and contribute to a discussion... and then hopefully, this will allow different people to meet each other and come up with immense synergy they can take to... whatever their dreams take them...???

then we can set up a community, where people can continue their discussions online and further develop their ideas into full-blown projects of potential social change - all these for changing the social landscape of singapore into something really more dynamic than what i have here.

It does not need a new cafe, any cafe today can implement these things if they want to...

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brainwaves on 23rd janueary - adaptive software and... the NS reflection

Is it possible to have software harmonising with the hardware environment for better performance, without external inputs? Is such programming possible? Is it possible for all software in a computer to adapt, by themselves, with each other and with the hardware environment, to produce better performance for the user?

And something else. Today I felt resolved to write out the NS reflection and the meaning of living in Singapore. This is going to take a while, I'll be trying to write it as soon as possible, and have it out during uni time. Hope this time, things will work out well...

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after watching too many ted videos...

My 'TED' wish, is to set up a TED community in NUS. This community will come together to share ideas, about the things they are passionate about, and it'll be held like every month or so at some lecture theatre there. This thing will be entirely voluntary, the most difficult thing is to publicise this thing.

Anyway, here's something else - its slightly bigger and many more times more ambitious. My second 'TED' wish is to transform Singapore into a leading edge global city that does not merely want to catch up to other cities, but carve a place for itself in the world. Get what I mean? Its going to be about technological literacy, getting more tech companies to set up centres here, not just for marketing, but for research and all.

Here are some ideas - consolidate our education system - education should be more dynamic, not only restricted to schools, and teachers should not be limited to the classroom. Give our teachers more space to do their work. Who joins the teaching profession to do things other than teach? Schools should be seen as a public good. We should revise our ranking systems - seems to commercialise schools. Ranking system has become counter-productive. Schools emphasize ranking over the education of their students - which sucks for our kids. What we need may only be some indicators of areas schools are good at.

If the children of a village in Peru can all have laptops, why can't we do the same? OLPC!

Implement the open-source learning for teachers (from TED).

We cannot just mouth words like 'innovation' and 'creative'. Watching TED videos have seriously revitalised my belief in the power of innovate and create. but in order to do either, we must first open up ourselves to possibilities. I believe Singapore can be a cutting edge city. Do others believe? The world will move faster and faster....

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Singapore is Not Green Enough

I was walking along Orchard Road today, and I was surprised at the developments that are going on there already. Ion Orchard is being built, and some other construction projects are ongoing, so there's this sense of development, that yeah, things are moving, and hopefully, are being improved. In the past, I would have been excited at the developments. But like I said, that would have been in the past. Right now, I'm concerned about the environmental impact of all of these and I'm concerned about whether new sustainable technologies are being used, whether environmental considerations are being factored in the construction of these new projects. The thing now is that we are merely going after the aesthetics - that the building should JUST look nice. But here's the deal, looking nice ain't enough no more. We can't just keep putting concrete blocks arranged in some nice way. If Singapore really wants to be a leading global city, if it really wants to be a world-class city, then, it should take that Garden City concept, and push it to the next level - really becoming a Garden City, not just in terms of aesthetics, but in thinking and in outlook. The question today is, how do we continue our growth, and at the same time, how do we do it in a green fashion, that doesn't add to our ecological impact?

The technologies are all available today. We need only today to look at the TED presentations, and look, for example, at the innovative architectural designs established for 12 Chinese cities that are being built along ways that are designed to limit the impact to the environment. Gardens on rooftops, closed-loop cycling of waste products, using our sewage to feed methane-producing bacteria, using incentives to implement wider recycling schemes. If we can have dish out Baby Bonus, why we can't we dish out a Green Bonus? More importantly, we need to invest more in greentech, not just in terms of researching on alternative sources of energy, but how to make our daily lives more energy efficient in terms of usage. Every little bit will count.

Making Singapore the foremost green city in the world is only the beginning. We need to share this know-how with the region, with India, Indonesia, the rest of Asia, with the rest of the world. I hope I'm wrong, but I believe its already too late for climate change. I believe its now a matter of sustainability, of how we can survive and grow despite climate change, despite diminishing resources - all these without killing each other and ourselves. This is the foremost challenge for all of us - to survive the 21st Century.

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