Essay Outline

Research Question:

“Is Singapore government doing enough to address the issue of climate change?”

Introduction:

Problem: Climate change is the result of an increase in the average temperature and the rise in the sea level. Due to the increasing amount of greenhouse gases emitted due to human activities, the world is experiencing serious global warming which causes climate change in the world.

Solution: Singapore is playing a part to reduce the effects of climate change. Singapore’s NEA come up with several policies to tackle it.

Thesis Statement: Singapore government has come up with several policies to address the issue of climate change, but they are not sufficient.

Body:

Paragraph 1

Problem:

Climate change is a serious issue for Singapore. As Singapore is a small country with no natural resources, we are susceptible to changes. With climate change, it might lead to drastic weather change such as rainfall pattern, leading to floods and impacts on water resources. Due to the high amount of carbon dioxide emissions, from human activities such as burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil, and being a component of greenhouse gases, it had lead to a change in the climate.

Solution:

Singapore had switched from using fuel oil to using natural gas as the main fuel for electricity. The power sector is a major source of carbon dioxide emission, and with the use of natural gas, there will be a significant drop in the amount of carbon dioxide emitted.

Effectiveness:

It is effective to a certain extent. It is effective as natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel and it generates far less carbon dioxide as compared to oil or coal. However, it is not very effective as natural gas is a non-renewable resource, it will not be sustainable to use natural gas for a long period of time to generate electricity.

Paragraph 2

Solution:

Singapore has a policy to limit the number of vehicles in Singapore so to reduce carbon emissions from transportation and promoting of green vehicles.

Effectiveness:

It is not effective as even with the policies set to limit the number of vehicles in Singapore, such as the high Certificate of Entitlement (COE), Singaporeans still want to own their own cars. With the increase promotion to increase the usage of green vehicles in Singapore, these vehicles are still not popular. They are not popular as the cars are generally more expensive and Singaporeans have limited awareness of how these green vehicles work and are doubtful about it.

Paragraph 3

Solution:

Singapore is also promoting companies to be more energy-efficient since the industry sector of Singapore contributes about 54% of the total carbon dioxide emission.

Effectiveness:

It is effective to a certain extent. It is effective as companies want to be more energy efficient as it would allows them to be cost effective too and they are able to compete with other companies. However, some companies lacked the knowledge and ability to be energy efficient. As a result, not all companies can be cost efficient, and reducing carbon dioxide emission is only to a small extent.

Conclusion:

Even though Singapore’s carbon dioxide emission is only 0.2% of the world’s carbon emission, it is still important for Singapore to have measures to lower the carbon emission and lowering the effects of climate change. As climate change is not a problem that could be solved by one country, it requires different countries coming together to play a part in helping to address this global issue.

Reader Response (Final Draft)

In “Globalization of Culture Through the Media”, Kraidy (2002) discusses the different perspectives of the responsibility of mass media in the globalization of culture. Kraidy mentions that some argued the cultural imperialism theory, which refers to Western countries influencing the world with the media, was the initial driving force for globalization. After the Cold War, globalization theory evolved, and it is about different cultures coming together due to the mass media. Kraidy feels that the mass media intensifies the hybridization of different cultures that comes together through globalization.

I do agree with Kraidy from his point of view that the mass media intensifies the hybridization of different cultures that comes together through globalization. With the mass media, it intensifies this cultural hybridization we could now search for the recipes of the different traditional food from the different races, or even watch the different television programmes that are in Mandarin, Malay or Tamil. In addition, with globalization, people from around the world become more interconnected to one another. Mass media allows information to be transmitted from one place to another easily. It can be seen from the fact that we can now access to the news of other countries easily. This shows that mass media do helps to intensifies cultural hybridization even across the world.

I find that the hybridization of cultures is highly relevant to Singapore. Singapore does not have her own culture unlike countries like Japan or Korea, where they both have their own cultures that are unique to them. Singapore is a multiracial country. With the hybridization of cultures mainly from the Chinese, Malay, Indian and others, it gives Singapore a unique culture. In addition, Singapore culture was also influenced by the British, as they colonized Singapore in the past, Singapore had thus adopted English as the first language used. This shows that through cultural hybridization, Singapore’s unique culture was created.

However, I feel that Kraidy should give more examples of cultural hybridization in his article. He could talks about how mass media and cultural hybridization led on to the Korean popular music culture dominating the world today instead of only the American music culture in the past. This will gives a comparision of how cultural hybridization influenced the world with mass media.   

Reader Response (Draft 1)

In “Globalization of Culture Through the Media”, Kraidy (2002) discusses the different perspectives of the responsibility of mass media in the globalization of culture. Kraidy mentions that some argued the cultural imperialism theory, which refers to Western countries influencing the world with the media, was the initial driving force for globalization. After the Cold War, globalization theory evolved, and it is about different cultures coming together due to the mass media. Kraidy feels that the mass media intensifies the hybridization of different cultures that comes together through globalization.

I do agree with Kraidy from his point of view that the mass media intensifies the hybridization of different cultures that comes together through globalization. I find that this is highly relevant to Singapore. Singapore does not have her own culture unlike countries like Japan or Korea, where they both have their own cultures that are unique to them. Singapore is a multiracial country; we have different races living together in Singapore. With the hybridization of different cultures mainly from the Chinese, Malay, Indian and others, it gives Singapore a unique culture. In addition, Singapore culture was also influenced by the British, as they colonized Singapore in the past, Singapore had thus adopted English as the first language used. This shows that through cultural hybridization, Singapore’s unique culture was created.

With the mass media, it intensifies this cultural hybridization we could now search for the recipes of the different traditional food from the different races, or even watch the different television programmes that are in Chinese, Malay or Tamil. In addition, with globalization, people from around the world become more interconnected to one another. Mass media allows information to be transmitted from one place to another easily. Today, we can be informed with news of the United States, or other parts of the world with just a click away. This shows that mass media do helps to intensifies cultural hybridization even across the world.

However, I feel that Kraidy should give more examples of cultural hybridization in his article. He could talks about how mass media and cultural hybridization led on to the Korean popular music culture dominating the world today instead of only the American music culture in the past. This will gives a comparision of how cultural hybridization influenced the world with mass media.  

In conclusion, I feel that mass media further strengthen cultural hybridization today.

Globalization of Culture Through the Media (Summary)

In “Globalization of Culture Through the Media”, Kraidy (2002) discusses the different perspectives of the responsibility of mass media in the globalization of culture. Kraidy mentions that some argued the cultural imperialism theory, which refers to Western countries influencing the world with the media, was the initial driving force for globalization. After the Cold War, globalization theory evolved, and it is about different cultures coming together due to the mass media. Kraidy feels that the mass media creates a hybridization of different cultures through globalization.