I’m no longer in my usual sit spot, as the semester has ended, and I’m traveling in Taipei at the moment. The city is integrated with nature in a much different way than Singapore. I notice sacred spaces like temples having many more natural areas such as waterfalls or fish ponds, but the overall city is very urban with not too many green spaces. On the way into Taipei though, the landscape was more rural and therefore nature stuck out more. There were vast rolling hills covered in trees, which could never exist in Singapore in that form simply due to the space constraints, even if it may have once had similar terrain (which is also there in neighboring Malaysia).

 

Still, even before I left, I didn’t notice too much difference in my sit spot on campus in Singapore. Since Singapore is so close to the equator, there are no real big seasonal changes. In a way I feel I’ve changed much more than this little spot, and the thing that’s changed the most is all the memories I now have tied to it.

 

Also, since Singapore is so small the local legislation and the national legislation are one and the same. So, I instead decided to take a look at what’s being done in terms of broader ASEAN rulings on climate change. ASEAN is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and their rulings here are especially important as Southeast Asia is one of the areas most affected by climate change, and extremely disproportionately, as there are, compared to the rest of the world, no huge contributors from this area. Some of the areas where they focus related to climate change are regarding protecting biodiversity (specifically coral reefs and mangroves, which Southeast Asia is critical for), food security, natural disaster management and renewable ways of growth. Singapore is already a leader in this area though, and through continuing to uphold renewable goals as well as contributing to broader ASEAN climate change goals, I feel like some progress can be made.