Rankings, rankings...

As I was researching for last week’s blog post, I discovered insights about how politics and media come into play regarding environmental issues, so I thought it’ll be good to share about it this week! I guess environmental issues are truly multi-faceted and as BES students, what better topic to share than about the interdisciplinary nature of these issues?

Remember how Singapore was ranked the worst environmental offender in 179 countries in a study? Well, the Singapore government sure did not take that well. In fact, the study was heavily criticised by the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources for being unfair due to Singapore’s limited land size. The authors of the paper, though, stood by it, saying that data do not lie.

Look at the headlines of this newspaper article published in The Straits Times!

(Source: http://newshub.nus.edu.sg/news/1005/PDF/ENVIRONMENTAL-st-14may-pB1.pdf)

While I did further research, I found another article on Google, also published in The Straits Times. This article was about Singapore coming in 4th in the 2014 Environmental Performance Index. But the first result that came out in Google was not the website of The Straits Times; rather, it was that of the Embassy of the Republic of Singapore in Cairo (under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs)!

Here’s a screenshot of the webpage:

 

(Source: http://www.mfa.gov.sg/content/mfa/overseasmission/cairo/press_statements_speeches/embassy-news-and-press-releases/2014/201401/press_20140128.html)

Both were research papers; both were rankings – yet they were treated with a vast difference. Why so?

Environmental issues are indeed not as simple as they seem, especially when factors such as politics and the economy come into play. When the country is portrayed unfavourably in rankings, the reaction of the government to such data is markedly different from when it is the opposite. Why the huge discrepancy in reaction, to pretty much the same thing – data and rankings? Perhaps because of the increasing representation of environmental issues on the media, data can no longer be treated simply as such. Political and economic ramifications deem it necessary for various parties, particularly the government, to influence public perception so as to reduce unfavourable outcomes.

This leaves me wondering – why can’t we recognise and accept these purportedly “unfavourable” data and work towards improving ourselves, instead of remaining in denial? To me, tackling public perceptions rather than problems in the environment itself is simply a stop-gap measure; there simply cannot be any progress if we choose to remain in denial of the presence of problems. Yet, I do acknowledge that it is perhaps too naïve to believe in the simplicity of the matter when there are so many more factors at play with regard to the environment than can be covered within a short blog post.

Issues related to the environment are never easy to tackle. Perhaps, then, it is up to us, the future generation, to address these problems. I find it apt to end this post with a famous quote from Mahatma Ghandi: “Be the change you want to see in the world”. I believe we have a great role to play in the future of our country, and even in the future of our mother Earth.