Lesson 3

Today’s lesson was about environmental sustainability and how world change has made it more and more difficult to do so. As usual, Prof Shahi started off with a video – “The Story of Stuff” with Annie Leonard. It was really interesting to watch as the entire waste handling process was magnified and scrutinized to show viewers what really happens to our ‘stuff’ behind the scenes. The video also made me realized that the world’s resources are being depleted so much more quickly than I imagined: Natural resources are exploited depleting them by 1/3 and undermining the planet’s ability for future people to live on. Another shocking fact that I learned through the video was that a whopping 80% of the planet’s original forests are gone – due to deforestation, or many other reasons to benefit humans or increase our standards of living. After watching this part of the video, I made a decision to put in more effort to “be green”, I will start with simple actions like not using disposable things especially those made of plastic, I will reduce paper waste by making sure I use up both sides of a plain piece of paper etc.

The video also showed how pregnant women who works at factories which uses toxic chemicals takes in all these chemicals and in turn their breast milk are intoxicated and it harms their children. 30% of the children in Congo also dropped out of school to extract metal in order to earn a living for themselves. This is really tragic as not only do these children not have an opportunity to go to school and be educated, they are left with no choice but to work at these factories, which causes them to be intoxicated and exploits their cheap labor.

Why are all these happening then? Leonard, in the video, blames it on consumerism, and the government, who instead of helping the people, encourages them to shop. Advertising and other media platforms also brainwashes consumers into thinking that there is a constant need to buy new stuff, as illustrated by Leonard’s thin heels and thick heels analogy. As people shop more, they throw out more old stuff and more waste is generated. Not only is toxic released when manufacturing stuff, they are created when waste is being incinerated, and one such example is dioxin, a toxic substance created when incineration releases the toxic in products.

We also had 2 guest speakers today and the first was Karishma Bhatnagar who shared with us on Industrial Plants - Moving towards Sustainable Development. Regarding her article, I felt that though the process of using water to cool down the industrial plants is a terrible and selfish act as it kills marine life and organisms, it is inevitable. This process is almost cost-free and convenient and as long as the government does not impose a ban or punishment on this action, it will continue on as companies are more concerned about business profits than conserving marine life and sustaining the environment.

Karishma also mentioned it has been debated over the past 40 years if being environmentally sustainable or being profitable is more important. In my opinion, I believe there is no debate at all. Most companies definitely see being profitable as being more crucial, and the “debate” is just a façade that they consider being environmentally sustainable as a choice, which in fact they just don’t care.

Daniel Poon, the second guest speaker, shared about Electronic Cigarettes, which is quite a topic of interest to me. Personally, I abhor the act of smoking. I feel that it is both stupid and selfish – smoking harms your own health, and more of the health of the people around you, family and friends whom you love, innocent people whom you don’t know. Why would anyone want to do that? Just for a sensation that keeps you high and makes you feel good, but at the same time reliant and addicted to a chemical? I feel strongly towards this issue and smoking is just an absolutely stupid activity to me.

Hence, even though electronic cigarettes supposedly do not harm the environment as much as normal cigarettes do as it only releases water vapor when being used, it is unknown what chemicals are inside the nicotine cloud in the electronic cigarette that could potentially poison the user. Also, as discussed by the class, there is the risk of young children misusing the electronic cigarette and becoming addicted to nicotine. Furthermore, as there is no smell released by the electronic cigarette, there is a lower chance that these children can be found smoking the electronic cigarette.

All in all, I disapprove of electronic cigarettes and I support the government’s ban on it. Aside from the fact that it releases water vapor instead of polluting the air with harmful gases, it is just like a normal cigarette as the user still inhales potentially harmful chemicals and causes addiction to nicotine.

Personally, I rate this lesson a 8/10, as the lesson brought out my interests in sustainable development and the 2 articles discussed by my classmates were also intriguing.