wild places | wild happenings | wild news
make a difference for our wild places

home | links | search the site
  all articles latest | past | articles by topics | search wildnews
wild news on wildsingapore
  Today Online 7 Jul 07
Do we need an Al Gore here?
Eco ambassador has to raise awareness as well as initiate action
Sheralyn Tay sheralyn@mediacorp.com.sg

THE search for Singapore's very own "green face" was going nowhere. A number of names were thrown up, but they all turned out to be the usual suspects.

They include Professor Tommy Koh, Singapore's favourite diplomat (perhaps too much of a diplomat to champion a cause that is crying out for radical solutions?); Mr Howard Shaw (perhaps too close to the green cause to be accepted by the unconverted?); and Mr Wilson Ang (perhaps just too green?)

Then somebody wondered aloud: Do we really need a green ambassador — a la Mr Al Gore — in the first place?

Sure, Mr Gore has done for climate change what YouTube did for home video, making the somewhat esoteric topic into something more accessible and digestible to the masses — and to a certain extent, has helped make the world sit up and take notice.

But having a poster boy or girl for the environment to increase public concern over Mother Earth's many problems is just the first step.

What is even more crucial is "to take the next step of changing environmental behaviour", said Dr Chang Chew Hung, assistant professor at the National Institute of Education's Humanities and Social Studies Education Academic Group.

And this is the trickier part — even for the likes of Mr Gore.

Dr Bradley Freeman, media professor at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, said that while messages influence attitudes, they may not lead to change.

One of his former colleagues wrote recently about how the turnout for Mr Gore's climate change presentation at the University of Oklahoma surpassed that for talks by former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Yet, months on, there were still no visible changes in the way the campus used resources like paper and power.

"It gets back to the levels of message impact: Awareness, attitude, behaviour," said Dr Bradley.

In Dr Chang's view, it boils down to less talk, more action, more specifically, action plans, as they give people an avenue for meaningful action.

One example is the current campaign to quell dengue fever. "If all the authorities did was to raise awareness about the dengue fever epidemic without providing an effective suggested action plan (the 10-minute check around the house plan), then the campaign would not have worked," he said.

And while a green ambassador must both raise awareness and initiate action, this must be done on multiple levels of engagement, said Dr Chang.

Governments and the non-government organisations, including environmental leaders, will play the main roles in initiating green policies at home, and negotiating these issues at the international stage, he noted.

So, even if Singapore were to have a green ambassador, he or she will not be able to do much unless people — that's you and I, folks — also make the commitment.

As anyone who has been following the climate issue will tell you, this is possibly the biggest stumbling block — linking our actions to what's going on in an environmentally problematic world.

It's easy to think that one extra plastic bag or a degree lower on the thermostat is insignificant. But multiply that blasι attitude by millions and you get a mountain of a problem.

Saturday's Live Earth concerts aim to confront and raise awareness of climate change.

But as The Observer noted: "It takes more than listening to music on a Saturday afternoon. This problem needs personal action, commitment and deep understanding."
links
Related articles on Singapore: general environmental issues
about the site | email ria
  News articles are reproduced for non-profit educational purposes.
 

website©ria tan 2003 www.wildsingapore.com