Speaker 3: Assistant Professor Daniel PS Goh

        Professor Daniel provided a refreshing sociological perspective with regards to the issue.

        A struggling environmentalist himself, Professor Goh feels that inadequate attention is placed on the well-being of the planet. Highlighting this point, he brought up the fact that the GDP of a country does not reflect the quality of the environment we live in.

        A delightful speaker with witty sarcasm, Professor Goh introduced the concept of the Happy Planet Index (HPI) to the audience. This index calculates how much we need to take from the planet in order to achieve long and happy lives. Statistics have shown that among Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore, we rank the lowest in terms of the HPI.

        The most interesting part of his talk was definitely the website he introduced to calculate an individual's ecological footprint.

        Now now, don't think of it as another crazy environmentalist site, it is actually a rather novel idea. The aim of the site is to calculate how many planet Earths are required to support our ostentatious way of life.

        Everyone ought to give this a shot to get a sense of the environmental degradation that we are leaving in our wake.

Speaker 4: Associate Professor Cecilia Lim Teck Neo

        Professor Lim attempted to add a philosophical perspective to the issue at hand and emphasized that global warming and climate change are ultimately a moral problem. Underlying this reasoning is the fact that human choices have led to this dire state.

        Though an interesting point of view, the talk was rather dry to put it politely and the audience was getting restless after four hours worth of sad facts and finger pointing. It was quite a relief when the floor was opened to questions.

        The Inter-disciplinary Forum was on the whole, a rather insightful event that managed to make the audience understand the gravity of the situation.

        However, though the lecture hall was packed, it dawned on me after the first talk that most of the audience comprised geography students since they were the only ones who were chuckling at the "insider" jokes.

        Enticing more environmental-idiots to such discussion forums is a difficult task but not an insurmountable one.

        The go-green effort has just begun creating waves in the community and curious-seekers will definitely jump on the bandwagon. Hinging on this, environmentalists could possibly seek to entice them with more light-hearted and entertaining events before progressing to a discussion forum that focused on such heavy-weight issues.

        Going green goes beyond carrying a canvas bag instead of a plastic bag for your groceries. Times are changing and so should our attitudes to our environment. HOOKED

Picture courtesy of:

www.orionsarm.com/worlds/Trees.jpg

http://www2.slac.stanford.edu/tip/2005/may6/trees-web.jpg

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