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  Straits Times 7 Aug 07
Green future: Why MM is not optimistic
By Lynn Lee

A PESSIMISTIC Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said he could not predict what would impact regional growth in 50 years given the damage now taking place to the global environment.

Asked about what he thought could stonewall Asia's growth in the years ahead, he reflected on the issue of climate change.

The changes that have been set in motion, he told his 180-strong audience at The Arts House yesterday, 'have already changed the balance between what the planet can bear, and what the human beings want from the world'.

'So global warming is one big enormous problem that we end up with,' he said, pointing to out-of-whack weather patterns that have spawned droughts, hurricanes and typhoons, and led to glaciers melting.

Reflecting on concerns about global warming that he had highlighted in April, he asked: 'Will we have the wisdom and ability to prevent this degradation of the environment?

'I have very serious reservations, because I don't see any government telling its people to consume less...less travel, less food, eat more vegetables, don't eat more protein. That's not the way the world is going.'

But he told the questioner, Mr Edmund Lim of the National Institute of Education, that Singapore was going to do well in the next 10 years because the country had positioned itself well.

But that is provided nothing happens between China and the United States over Taiwan, or issues like protectionism and tariffs - that could impact countries like Singapore.

'The prosperity you see in Singapore is the result of maximising our potential in this globalised environment. We make ourselves relevant and useful to the world,' he explained.
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