DID YOU sweat like heck these last few weeks? Yeah, I got a didn’t-ask-for-it sauna session during each walk to the supermarket. The sweat and stickiness are only going to get worse next year and the years after that if we don’t do anything. That’s according to the experts who did the National Climate Change Study.
How much worse? By 2040, we’ll look back these days as chilly, carefree ones, comparatively. And kids, seniors and anyone with a chronic health condition had better take care — too much heat makes people sick.
Is this the part you tell me to turn off the lights when I’m not in the room? That helps, yes. On a larger scale, it’s about finding long-lasting ways for Singaporeans to stay cool while the world heats up. This is what keeps Senior Minister of State for Sustainability and the Environment Amy Khor busy.
What’s exactly she done for the heat? SMS Khor’s got decades of experience in environmental policy. She taps on this when mobilising tech enterprises to reduce e-waste and green their supply chains, as well as when she worked on GreenGov.sg and its action plan for a sustainable Singapore public sector. Efforts like this mean a smaller carbon footprint, which directly means less hot days for you.
I still need aircon, leh. Yeah. Super hard to do without it when we’re just one degree north of the Equator. Air conditioning consumes a lot of power (so do fridges) and makes the carbon footprint bigger though.
But that means… Yup. Real snake-eating-its-own-tail situation we’ve got here. So energy efficiency for Singapore is one of SMS Khor’s longstanding projects. SMS Khor also announced in April $300 Climate Vouchers for every single HDB household to buy energy-efficient home appliances. Seriously, this is a great chance to save your wallet and the environment at the same time.
What does SMS Khor say about her cause? “We can take steps to reduce heat emissions by taking public transport, and using less air-conditioning and more energy-efficient electrical appliances. As a community, we can look out more for one another and co-create solutions such as setting up community cool spaces, to beat the heat together.”
Right, let’s work to cool things down.
