Week 3 Tutorial 2: Global Warming

How can policies of your government either contribute or help to reduce the problem of global warming?

Global warming is defined as the increase of the average temperature on Earth. As the Earth gets hotter, disasters like hurricanes, droughts and floods becomes more frequent. In the Singapore context, we have yet to face any natural disaster as stated, reason being the geographical location that Singapore is located in. This is not an excuse for Singapore to neglect the consequences that is happening around the world as global warming will definitely affect all of us; economically and emotionally. However, there may come a day when Singapore would be flooded too if everyone refuses to play their part to help save Gaia.

Before we delve deeper into the policies that Singapore had made for global warming, we should take note that we only complied to the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty intended to bring countries together to reduce global warming, only in April 2006.

Based on the National Environmental Agency of Singapore, with credits to its website, it has made 2 polices relevant to global warming; energy conservation and pollution control.
Energy conservation is one approach to reduce energy consumption. Less energy usage means less dependence on the fossil fuels that create greenhouse gases which contributes to global warming. This policy has made its way into schools and home; thru mass advertisement, road shows and pamphlets to educate people on how to conserve energy within their own homes. More efficient and less wastage of energy usage are ways to conserve energy; buying environmentally friendly appliances that are energy-efficient are the tools required to cut back on energy usage.

Under energy conservation, we should take note on the efforts that Singapore had initiated in the early 1990’s with regards to “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle” that is still being practiced by everyone. By following the 3 R’s, we can help to reduce the carbon dioxide emission, a greenhouse gas.

With pollution control, comes a need to reduce the air pollution emitted from vehicles and industrial areas in Singapore. Enforcing a limit on how much greenhouse gases that vehicles and industry can emit is an action required to make people comply with the need to help reduce global warming. Mainly with vehicles, Singapore being a small country has to limit its on-road vehicles, to keep the roads jam-free and indirectly reducing the gas emissions from vehicles. Singapore has a complex and efficient transportation system; bus services and mass rapid transit transportation, are fast and ‘clean’ ways to travel in Singapore.

Everyone have to play a part in saving our planet Earth, though it may not concern us today, future generations of people would be affected by what we have done and we cannot be so selfish as to let them suffer for our mistakes.

With references from:
http://environment.about.com/
Singapore Environment Polices
http://www.gov.sg/pol_env.htm
Singapore National Energy Policy Report
http://www.scribd.com/doc/11329434/Singapores-National-Energy-Policy-Report-2008

Week 2 Tutorial 1: Engineers Today

How does an engineer’s training help them to systematically analyze complex information and apply a holistic approach in designing solutions?

Engineers today are not only highly sought after by manufacturing but even service sectors. A significant index showing that today’s engineers being cultivated is of a higher caliber than to those in the other fields of concentration.

Other than textbook based learning, institutes today makes it a must for engineering students to be involved in project and design based modules. Even junior colleges are moving in this direction with project work being implemented as a major requirement for their graduation. What makes engineers so appreciated in the workforce is due to this type of learning and thought processing that they are taught and put through within these modules. Even textbook based modules now have mini projects that are graded towards their final marks thus showing the increasing approval of problem solving based learning.

What makes such learning different is the process that the students have to approach in acquiring the answer. There would never be a single solution to the problem which makes it a worthwhile experience to students solving it. Garnering their knowledge to brainstorm ideas in the initial phase, problem solving and debugging of errors faced while implementing their ideas and all the way to the final fine-tuning of their device/program is what the module is trying to accomplish. Not only does the student gain a sense of accomplishment but passively, he would be preparing himself for what he will be doing frequently in the future when he joins the workforce.

The knowledge and experience the engineer gains during his/her education plays only a small part of what he/her might face in the future. The exposure while working is where they will meet with real life problems that occasionally lead to a dead end and is where an engineer’s real training starts.