Hey everyone,

 

This is a continuation of last week’s post, as I was inspired to find out how my investigations differed from other research about environmental perceptions.

 

Firstly, let’s talk demographics. As I read other research materials, I realised that women were more likely than men to care more about climate change. I would think that this is because men generally hold higher positions in the socioeconomic ladder and therefore, they are more likely to care more about economic growth (which oftentimes occurs on a different direction from environmentalism). Also, studies have shown that women are affected by climate change disproportionately more than men.

 

Age of the people also matter, as younger people are more likely to be more concerned about climate change than older people (71% of those people aged 18-29 compared to 50% of those aged 50 and above). Why is this so? Is it because younger people think that they will face the brunt of the effects from environmental issues and older people don’t think that the problems will affect them? This study shows this. However, older people are gradually becoming more aware of these issues.

 

Education is another factor that plays a big part in the results. More educated people were more likely to be more conscious and care more about environmental issues, as they are taught about the importance of environmental responsibility and their role in this problem. However, that is not to say that less educated people are oblivious to environmental problems, as these people could be the populations that are directly impacted by environmental issues eg. farmers whose main income source is agriculture and such populations are shown to exhibit high levels of awareness towards environmental issues.

 

Connections between race and environmental problems have been found, with people of color being treated unfairly and given polluted land in the US. I don’t think that race is a defining factor of environmental awareness in Singapore’s terms, as I believe that in Singapore everyone is equally shielded from the impacts of climate change although this study does possibly show the existence and effects of racism here. What do you think?

 

My short ‘study’ didn’t take into account gender, age, race and education levels. It would’ve been more interesting if I had done that and compared my results to the researchers’.

 

 

Next, let’s look at the methods of questioning. This study includes questions which ask if the respondents personally do anything to help the environment (lifestyle choices) and even asked what they do to help the environment as an open-ended question. As mentioned in my previous post, does awareness translate to action? That was one aspect my findings failed to cover which is unfortunate. It would’ve been cool to investigate the links between age, gender, education, race, awareness and action. The lack of open-ended questions in my questionnaire does leave out an endless list of possible responses which could have shown a completely different finding.

 

All that digging gave me new insight into critically analysing data. What other factors impact environmental perceptions? Let me know. Next up, back to the topic of glaciers!

 

Clive

Hey everyone, it’s good to see you all again!

 

As mentioned in my previous post, I realised that a few of the people I spoke to were oblivious to the importance of glaciers. Therefore, I decided to do a quick investigation to find out what peoples’ perceptions of various environmental issues were! I made a google form and sent them to various groups of people. They were my peers from different courses of study (none from BES), as well as family members and my dad’s colleagues who were unaware of this blog. Here’s a quick breakdown from the 42 respondents.

84.6% of people listed the urgency of our environmental problems as urgent (4-5 on a scale of 1-5)

 

Individually, I listed 6 different environmental issues. Namely

1. Plastic pollution in oceans
2. Air pollution
3. Glacial melting
4. Land degradation
5. Loss of biodiversity
6. Overconsumption of non-renewable energy.

I asked for participants to rate their thoughts on the urgency of each issue and this is what I found: For the percentage of people rating the urgency of each issue as urgent –

However, what’s interesting was the response I received when participants were told to rank the aforementioned issues by their perceptions of the urgency/importance of these issues on a scale of 1 to 6 (with 1 being the most urgent and 6 being least urgent).

I took the average ranking of each issue and this is what I got:

Plastic pollution – 2.17

Air pollution – 2.24

Glacial melting – 2.71

Overconsumption of non-renewable energy – 2.88

Land degradation – 2.93

Loss of biodiversity – 3.17

 

This was contrary to what I expected, as from my conversations with people around me, I had expected the awareness around glacial melting to be lower. However, it seems from my findings that glacial melting has the most people (57.1%) listing it as being very urgent.

 

Despite that, people still ranked plastic pollution in seas and air pollution above glacial melting when it came to urgency/importance! This makes me think that the distinction between peoples’ perspectives of the different environmental issues becomes clearer when people are made to compare them in this manner. Of course, these results are not representative of the general population as the sample size is tiny, but it does give us some interesting insight.

 

In Singapore, where we are not physically close to the problem of melting glaciers, I had expected less awareness of the issue. Media coverage of environmental issues has also been found to be lacking here, where a study has found that the reporting of scientists’ and activists’ opinions is significantly lower in Singapore than in other countries due to The Straits Times drawing information mostly from official sources. However, in this day and age of social media where information is easily accessible and so abundant, perhaps such information can transcend the physical and societal boundaries that such problems used to face in the past.

 

My findings showed that people are aware of the different environmental issues, but does this awareness translate to action? That is an aspect that I find problematic to quantify as it encompasses many factors. I think that the different environmental issues are part of a gargantuan problem, and sadly, fixing one requires fixing everything.

 

In my next post, I shall explore the importance of glaciers to wildlife. See you!

Clive

Hello everyone, I hope all has been good for you! The weather in Singapore has been cool lately due to the monsoon, but typically it is so much warmer. If you’re someone who loves cooler weather like me, imagine this – What if we woke up with a giant glacier right in the vicinity? That would be like waking up in this Norwegian cabin! How magnificent (and how cool) would that be?

 

In my previous post, I briefly mentioned how glaciers are essential to human lives. I will elaborate on their importance today.

Glacier runoff (water from melting glaciers) brings up water levels during warmer months (in drought) and is less when the weather is cooler. The runoff provides drinking water and irrigation. During cooler periods, the glaciers melt more slowly, and snow is able to accumulate. This is seen in regions like the Indo-Gangetic plain, where 129 million farmers are reliant on glacier runoff for agriculture during drier periods.

Therefore, glaciers are a renewable source of water. Imagine having an automatically refilling tray of ice to quench your thirst!

 

Despite this, glaciers have limits. What happens when the rate of melting is faster than the rate of snow accumulation? Such is the case with the Greenland Ice Sheet, where it is found to be adding the most to sea level rise.

As with glaciers in Alaska – where degrees of melting that would normally take centuries happen within months.

This breath-taking video from National Geographic showcases that very vividly.

This puts countries like China and Indonesia at risk, where much of their population resides in coastal areas. Singapore’s sea levels have risen 14cm since 50 years ago, and this will only accelerate!

Increased rate of melting for glaciers will increase glacier runoff at first. After a period of time, the volume of runoff will decrease, and this will lead to lack of water resources. This can be seen in the very well demonstrated case of 2 towns in Northern India – Stongde and Kumik. Stongde has experienced a greater supply of water from melting glaciers, while Kumik’s water supply has stopped completely, leaving farmers distraught.

 

Over the past week, the topic of glaciers has come up several times in my conversations with my friends and family. What I have realized is that not much about glaciers is known to them despite their significance.

Next week, I shall investigate and tell everyone more about my findings! Stay safe.

Regards,

Clive

Hello, my name is Clive. I am a first-year student from the Bachelor of Environmental Studies program in the National University of Singapore (NUS).

Living in Singapore, we have the luxury of being in close proximity to beaches and the sea. Thus, I have spent many mornings and evenings strolling along the beach with my family (afternoons are too hot), exploring the marine life when the tide recedes. Here are some photos from a visit to Pasir Ris beach last December.

While at the beach, my family decided to do a clean-up, both as a form of education for my younger siblings and to do something for the environment. As I was picking through the sand for rubbish, I felt saddened at the sheer volume of trash on our beaches. This was on a microscopic scale compared to the vast expanse of the environmental problem we have.

Within an hour, my family had run out of bags to store the trash in.

 

Experiences like these push me to question the environmental impact our actions have. What other problems are we causing to our environment? How do these actions affect us and the world around us? As familiar as I am with Singapore’s beaches, I still have a lot to learn about the world’s environmental crisis. As I thought about my theme for this blog, I wanted to explore a world far separated from my bubble in Singapore. Therefore, I decided that I should learn more about glaciers and share my knowledge with everyone!

 

 

Glaciers are structures of ice made from fallen snow, compacted after a long period of time. Glaciers are an essential part of ecosystems and human society. Glacier runoff support rivers and many human activities like agriculture, acting as a significant water source for many. But glaciers are melting fast. Ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are melting at 6 times the rate as compared to 30 years ago. Keeping at this rate, sea levels will rise between 0.29m and 1.1m by 2100. Water scarcity will be an even greater problem as well.

During the course of my learning, I aim to share my discoveries with everyone, and find out exactly how important glaciers are to the Earth. This will be a blog about Ice and Us. Stay with me to learn more in the following weeks!