Author: Mark Mak

So previously, I shared about urban sprawling, the occurrence where city dwellers seep out and start building homes in urban or sub-urban areas. Today’s headline: urban flooding. So what is it? If u guessed the converse of urban sprawling, you are… wrong.    ‘A’ for effort, but an overall ‘F’.        Just like my Physics class.         OK, I digress. More intuitively, it is simply the flooding of cities due to various causes, such as increased surface runoff of rainwater or lack of a proper drainage system.

Usually, the soil would absorb and allow water to flow through, however with the paving of roads and hard, impermeable ground for buildings, rainwater do not seep through the soil, but runoff the ground, onto lower elevation. (cite here) What results is firstly, a huge heap of water gushing through, hopefully the drainage system, of the city, and secondly the gradual drying up of the groundwater below the layers of tar, leading to possible imbalances of the water table and even land sinking. (cite here)

Environmentally this is dreadful. From a completely human point of view, this is also bad news. In the event where the rainwater floods overflow into sewage pipes, we get a massive stink, a re-enactment of the Great Stink in 1858, and disease. All these I feel is inevitable. Many point to bad urban planning as the chief culprit, only exacerbated by flash floods and prolonged heavy rainfall. (cite here) Nothing wrong in my opinion. However, we shouldn’t put the blame to the early town planners. In this world where time strictly flows (pun unintended) in one direction, trial and error is possibly the only way we can affirm the feasibility of an idea. We shouldn’t put down these pioneers and only focus on the bad, but acknowledge that without them, modern day expertise would not be possible.

On the other end of the spectrum, should we instead forsake our city lifestyle to preserve the balance and stasis that has lasted millions of years? Maybe, and maybe not. I won’t know. We can only try, and only years down the road, will I have an answer. Will we go backwards by going forward, and forwards by going backward? Or even more backwards just going backward? In any case for now, I will choose to act in the most rational manner: solving the problem at hand, learning from past mistakes, and most importantly, choosing the most sustainable option for the future.

^^ twist

 

References

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If you’re dancing and jingling, doing the 10 minute mozzie wipeout right now, I apologize for the misleading title. If you’re not, here’s a #throwback to the fairly successful campaign of the NEA.

While quirky dance moves, and cheesy lyrics may not be the best way to engage youths, it is definitely a very family-friendly PG13 approach to appeal to the masses. Or shall I say annoy. Or whatever floats your boat.

Coming to the main point of this blog post, I decided to pen down and share this interesting issue after reading this article.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/mosquitoes-are-deadly-so-why-not-kill-them-all-1472827158

As the title suggests, eradicate all mosquitoes since they’re causing so many problems to humans. Like dengue, malaria, zika, itch and many more. Frankly, that sounds so egocentric. Ewww. So we destroy an entire species just because they serve no benefit to us? What about for the other animals? Like insect eating carnivores? Or the many fish which feeds on mosquito larvae? What most people don’t understand is that all biological relationships are intertwined closely with one another.

Fortunately the article also explains why we shouldn’t and cannot do just that. I’m afraid, however, that just like how the mozzie wipeout jingle perforated the masses, this incorrect notion of kill-them-all may be falsely inscribed onto the mainstream minds. Thus I feel the media should disallow such click-baiting headlines to be published, be it mosquitoes, environment or anything else. Mainstream media has great influence, and I feel they should use their power for the good, especially for environment, where ignorance of the severity of our actions have prevented greater measures from being put in place. (cite here) Only with the public enlightenment can we push for stronger measures to protect and preserve, and advocate what is sustainable. As people in the know, we have the duty to educate and tell those in the dark that they’re stepping off a cliff.

Coming full circle, now, let’s still not forget to do the 10 minute mozzie wipeout, as the Zika virus currently is really rampant, picking up speed in our lovely island Singapore. But don’t worry, we still have a looong way to go before the 10 minute jingle can possibly wipe out all mosquitoes in the world.

I guess ever since young, I have always been bemused. A quick introduction:

Human behaviour, human reaction, psychology. These intriguing humans have always piqued my interest. They love to look for loopholes, take advantage, and waste time, money, resource on unnecessary ‘red tape‘ to solve the problems they create. Think lawyers, traffic police, politicians. Having always been a proponent of the perfect world, call me idealistic or dreamy, I pine for a perfect utopia where things function.

For a more succinct math reference which everyone loves:  A perfect world exists at the most optimal solution, not the Nash equilibrium.

 

Our world now I feel is akin to wobbling coin, been knocked off its vertical perch, tumbling around.

One very fascinating behaviour I read about recently is the onset of Urban Sprawling. In a nutshell, contrary to common sense, people from rich and populated cities basically roam out to the less populated country side or urban areas. So the city essentially expands, or more accurately, diffuses outwards.

Reasons for such atypical behaviour are, just to name a few (Conserve-Energy-Future, 2013):

• People in cities are getting richer, allowing them greater flexibility to pick and choose (e.g. preference for more pristine environments, availability of more convenient transportation)
• Lower taxes in more rural land (chiefly property price & tax)
• Overpopulation in the city
• Avoid noise and crime

 

Aberrant behaviour as illustrated. They fight to get in the city, and when they do, they yearn to get out, creating a host of problems. What problems? You may ask. Many, but I’d delve into the more concerning environmental impacts for this one.

Firstly, by virtue of living further away from the workplace, most commuters (I assume boldly) would choose to burn fuel instead of fat to get to work on time. With a less-than-sterling public transportation system in urban areas, cars will proliferate, and carbon footprints go through the roof.

Secondly, the drinking water may be polluted by the “increasing the amount of surface runoff”, contaminating rivers. (Frumkin, 2004)

Thirdly and most importantly, barging into these areas will cause a detriment to its wildlife and of course, also deforestation and its subsequent snowball effects. (Frumkin, 2004) This, in my opinion, is a struggle. Everything has its opportunity costs. In order to satisfy a human want, something has to be given up, and that something may mean the world to few, but worth less than a penny to others.

 

There is a perfect solution to this, I believe, but just like my aspirations, it will not work out. A tumbling coin cannot become erect. Where human greed and evil has perforated, selfish interests will always be put first, be it economically or otherwise. For now we can only try and compromise, give in and maybe hopefully one day we come to a state of agreement, where with rational knowledge of other’s thinking, each party settles in the best of their interest . Just like how in game theory they call it: The best response.

 

 

References
1) Conserve-Energy-Future. (2013). Causes and Effects of Urban Sprawl – Conserve Energy Future. [online] Available at: http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/causes-and-effects-of-urban-sprawl.php [Accessed 24 Aug. 2016].

2) Resnik, D. (2010). Urban Sprawl, Smart Growth, and Deliberative Democracy. American Journal of Public Health, [online] 100(10), p.1852. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2936977/ [Accessed 24 Aug. 2016].

3) Frumkin H, Frank L, Jackson R. Urban Sprawl and Public Health. Washington, DC: Island Press; 2004

It’s now been an hour, and I suspect I may have contracted spontaneous hyperthyroidism.

Rapid & irregular heartbeat? Check.     Hand tremors? Check.     Mood swings? Check.     Trouble sleeping? Check.     Weight loss? Check.      Actually… no. If I had lost any more weight around the waist I’d probably look something like this:

Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing considering how many models want this figure. Coupled with those lustrous locks(see above) and that killer smile(see above) maybe I could just be the next big thing in a few years, though  more probably I’d be locked up in a musky history museum in a few million years with a dangling tag that reads “Obtuse Homo Sapien weeded out through natural selection“.

Of course that all depends if there will still be museums in a million years considering the rapid technological advancement trend these days we have but hey! there WON’T be museums in a million years because *gasps* WE WON’T LAST A MILLION YEARS at the rate we are perverting mother earth.

Yes, tragic. So while we still can, I sincerely hope we can salvage these highlights of life, and I hope this blog would not only bring joy into your tepid life, but hopefully convince you to hop on with us, rational human beings, and to take off that myopic brain-cloak. Meanwhile I’m thoroughly enjoying the Rio 2016 olympics and due to the time-zone difference there has been a bit of a problem with sleep cycles which resulted in those racoon-eyes as depicted in the portrait above. Yes, I have very small eyes. Till then.

Evening minions, the sky has turned dark and that’s also when flatworms start to thrive. Not that I have any affection for worms, it’s just that flatworms are… flat.

I was just joking. Flatworms are pretty gross creatures, they attack your nervous system and cause you strange symptoms like epilepsy and pus.

So a quick introduction about myself, I’m tonight and you can call me Mark Mak. This blog, “overstepping our ma(r)k” is going to be centred around my joy and interest, cities and the environment. This blog would include posts ranging mostly from city problems, issues pertaining to masses of humans and also anything about humans and our behaviour that inspire me.

Recently I have come across these pens, “made from tetra pack beverage cartons”. Wow, these are so great that I can’t bear to rip open and use. It’s probably still sitting in my pencil case right about now you’re reading this. Hi there. Lovely. Just like you, lovely audience. Thank you.

That is it for today, more will be released soon, keep a lookout! See you soon.

^^