Professor Andrew Palmer, Benjamin K.Savacool and Professor Bala are invited to give a speech on topics related to global warming. After the lecture, I got a deeper understanding of the impact and causes of global warming, and what contributions can the global do in helping to reduce global warming.
Professor Palmer is from the Department of Civil Engineering, NUS and he has been working in the centre for offshore Research & Engineering. In his presentation, he talked about the increasing trend of emission of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This is due to the increasing coal consumption by countries such as China and USA and the developed countries reluctant to take action as they worry economy more than environmental issue. He also went to talk about the actions to be taken by individual, government and global as a whole. From his presentation, I learnt some new technology with the fight on global warming and that is to store CO2 in depleted oil or gas field. Another option is to store liquid CO2 in ocean by creating a membrane. Both options have its disadvantages as CO2 will diffuse into the ocean or field, making it acidic. Another knowledge that I have gained is that to inject sulphur the air or mirrors on atmosphere to shade the Earth but both required a huge amount of resources.
Benjamin is from the Science & Technology Studies and his job is to understand and influence how society shapes science and technology, and how in turn science and technology shape society and the environment. He presented 2 case studies on the Renewable Energy and Electric Vehicles. What give me a surprise is that before the 1920s, electric vehicles are in fact a more popular choice. The trend changes gradually and people preferred fuel vehicles due to challenges from the economic, political and technical. The conclusion is that no technology is self sustaining and it is part of social system. In order for new technology to be used, it must gain the support from the government and the people.
Professor Bala is from the Department of Environmental Engineering, NUS and his presentation is about the climate change and mitigation. In his presentation, he presented graphs on the rising trend temperature due to CO2 emission and pictures on how countries have been seriously affected by it such as drought and floods. There also a list of actions that an individual can do to combat global warming. An interesting fact in his presentation is that scientists are able to extract an ice core and studies on the amount of CO2 are trapped inside.
Generally as a future environment engineer, I feel that the today’s lecture has given me an extra knowledge on the current situation. Global warming is a long term issue and it requires the cooperation from all the countries to reduce the impact of global warming as it can disrupt the lifestyles and economy of the future generation.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Portfolio Task 2
Al Gore who starred in the documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ has made a tremendous effort by educating people on the current climate crisis. Mr Gore was an American Environmental Activist who served as the 45th Vice President of the United States. After watching the documentary, I just realize that countries need to work together and make an effort to protect the world or else we would face the consequences. The impact of global warming is a global issue and it already had resulted in countries suffering from Environmental and Ecological problems.
Our government has already started to take measures to fight global warming such as using less electricity, promoting using of less cars and take public transport. They also have increased the public awareness on the importance of 3R’s (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) through advertisement and education talks. I think that our government could further contribute to reduce the problem of global warming by implementing policies. They could come up with policy such as taxing on companies producing huge amount of CO2 emission. The cause of global warming is due to the emission of greenhouse gases which traps the sun rays and thus warming up the earth. Another policy is to provide incentives so that companies are willing to adopt on new technology such as carbon capture devices and power supply efficiency.
Although Singapore government has played its part, it will not make much impact as Asia only make up a small percentage of the global CO2 emission. From the documentary, it shows that United States are the major contributor for CO2 emission with 30% globally.
Special Interest Groups could follow the footstep of Al Gore who has travelled to hundreds of countries giving talks on global warming. They should speak up in community or write newspaper to join international effort to stop global warming. They could also educate the farmers on the seriousness of forest burning or plant lots of trees. As an individual, we should also play our parts by taking public transport and using power efficiency devices. A major step in the recent years is the Kyoto Protocol which was a joint effort of hundreds of countries to reduce CO2 emission.
Climate change is largely irreversible even if emission of CO2 is stop abruptly. It would take years for CO2 to disappear in the atmosphere so countries need to start working together and implement policy to reduce the emission. Save the world you live in or future generation would be affected.
Our government has already started to take measures to fight global warming such as using less electricity, promoting using of less cars and take public transport. They also have increased the public awareness on the importance of 3R’s (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) through advertisement and education talks. I think that our government could further contribute to reduce the problem of global warming by implementing policies. They could come up with policy such as taxing on companies producing huge amount of CO2 emission. The cause of global warming is due to the emission of greenhouse gases which traps the sun rays and thus warming up the earth. Another policy is to provide incentives so that companies are willing to adopt on new technology such as carbon capture devices and power supply efficiency.
Although Singapore government has played its part, it will not make much impact as Asia only make up a small percentage of the global CO2 emission. From the documentary, it shows that United States are the major contributor for CO2 emission with 30% globally.
Special Interest Groups could follow the footstep of Al Gore who has travelled to hundreds of countries giving talks on global warming. They should speak up in community or write newspaper to join international effort to stop global warming. They could also educate the farmers on the seriousness of forest burning or plant lots of trees. As an individual, we should also play our parts by taking public transport and using power efficiency devices. A major step in the recent years is the Kyoto Protocol which was a joint effort of hundreds of countries to reduce CO2 emission.
Climate change is largely irreversible even if emission of CO2 is stop abruptly. It would take years for CO2 to disappear in the atmosphere so countries need to start working together and implement policy to reduce the emission. Save the world you live in or future generation would be affected.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Portfolio Task 1
Engineers have made our daily life more efficient and enjoyable through innovation and technology in engineering such as electricity to the internet. In the past engineers are high wanted in the manufacturing sector. Time has changed and engineers are now employed in all sector such as healthcare and service sector due to the ever changing economy. All these achievements are made available due to the education provided. Under the influence of the government and the school, tertiary education has been evolving as it faces new challenges each year.
In Singapore context, the government has been injecting cash into some projects in order to drive the economy. The most recent case is the $60 million Seletar Aerospace Park and it creates a handful of jobs in the economy. The result is that people are rushing to take up engineering courses as it has a better prospect in the future. This increases the number of engineers stepping into the workforce each year.
Schools also reviewed their courses regularly and introduce new programs to meet the needs of the changing economy. For example, students in tertiary education are required to study few courses related to Business and Science. Now an engineer education is so flexible and diversified that many companies are accepting engineers in all sectors. Through its curriculum design and pedagogical approach, trains the mind to systematically analyze complex sets of information and to apply systems thinking in designing solutions. The introduction of internship or overseas exchange programme helps to broaden the thinking of future engineers as they are faced with challenges ahead such as global warming and depleting oil reserves.
In conclusion, the on-going training in the tertiary education is important to engineer as it can make one constantly ready for new challenges and engineers will continue to play an important role in contributing to the growth of all sectors.
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