Session 7!

It's all in our hands.

Brief Summary:

How we should achieve sustainability in the midst of using the resources available to us, considering that such resources are usually finite and are being used up at a rapid rate.

Interesting Observations and Ideas:

I found the quote that Prof brought up very intriguing – achieving sustainability by growing own resources. While it is always the easier way out of the problem to find alternative resources that are renewable by nature, growing our own resources brings new prospects to solving the problem of insufficient resources.

By finding ways to grow our own resources, we would be able to tailor the solution to fit the problem. This is as compared with the renewable resources available to us like harnessing energy from the wind, which is not a viable option for countries with little wind or little space to place the wind turbines.

On the other hand, I thought that sustainability could be achieved not only by growing but storing. This allows resources that may be considered as “wastages” of today to become “assets” of tomorrow.

For example, this storing idea can be applied to food for better preservation of food. There may be vaults that can store food at a specific temperature whereby the food is frozen to the extent that it does not rot. Then, when people require the food in the future, even 100 years down the road, they can take it out for consumption.

Key take-away points:

1. Helping one sector of the society indirectly benefits the rest of the country or world

From the video that we watched on how we can sustain increasingly fragile ecosystems, agricultural biotechnology is shown to be able to help farmers grow crops efficiently. A more salient point that I picked up from the video was that this may potentially (1) increases farmers’ pay, (2) increases feed for animals and (3) increases food for human population.

This made me feel that there is an increasing responsibility on the countries that have better economic powers to help the developing countries in various ways, for the collective progress forward of mankind. However, there is still responsibility on the developing countries to want to move forward, lest they would undo all the good done by the developed countries.

For example, the developed countries may provide developing countries with the means to properly dispose of harmful wastes – providing them with the equipment and know-how. This would reduce pollution of the globe in general, benefiting people from all over the world.

2. Greed makes the food distribution uneven

It’s all about the need not greed, and everyone will get food. Therefore I feel that finding ways to make more food lessens the problem of insufficient food but doesn’t solve the root problem – greed.

I feel that the problem of greed might be solved by technological means if the greed is not fuelled by human emotions. For example, lack of knowledge of daily consumption can be tracked using devices to weigh and keep note of each type of food. However, if greed is fuelled by human emotions like apathy to contribute to reducing food wastage, non-technological means like education may be a better way to solve the problem.

Issues for further discussion:

There was a fleeting point of food made in laboratories and I found that interesting. Is it possible to make cooked food directly in laboratories? (E.g. directly make a fried egg without the raw egg) Is it possible that most kitchens in the future will be laboratories? There are just so many possibilities!

Personal Ratings for Session:

9/10 – This session made me think about how the norm that we are used to may actually be harmful. Being used to it only makes us less willing to change – away from what we already have. However, it is crucial that we look at the bigger picture and understand that we have to change and there are feasible methods to make the change.