How green is green?

Green City? Garden City? City in a garden? You have probably heard of these terms being used to describe Singapore, with the last one being the latest vision set out by the National Parks Board. BUT, is Singapore really that green? Well, apparently not. In a study jointly conducted by NUS and the University of Adelaide in 2010, titled “Evaluating the Relative Environmental Impact of Countries” (http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0010440), Singapore was actually ranked the worst environmental offender in 179 countries!

Unbelievable? Look at the table of rankings here:

(Source: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0010440)

The study looked at various environmental indicators such as natural forest loss, habitat conversion, marine captures, fertilizer use, water pollution, carbon emissions and species threat. Singapore came up tops in proportional environmental impact, which measures the above indicators proportional to land size.

Sadly, while we have worked so hard to green our land over the years, we have destroyed much of our natural biodiversity in the process of rapid urbanization. Undeniably, given the limited land space we have in Singapore, there is definitely a dilemma between creating spaces that we have the ability to control and preserving spaces we have little option over.

This is not to deny the efforts of our forefathers and landscapers though; they have indeed done a great job in greening our landscape. But this begs the question: would we rather have replaced, carefully manicured landscapes, or appreciate them in their natural wonder? For me, I would very much prefer natural habitats and landscapes, despite little control over what we have, because it would allow us to seek out the unknown, and lose ourselves in the majestic beauty of nature. Alas, what’s done cannot be undone, so what we could do is to preserve our existing landscape, be they natural or otherwise, so that we do not lose any more of our precious living things.