Increasing the population.

The Singapore's government policy to increase the population will result in more economic activities. However, it does not necessarily lead to the well-being of the environment.

To respond to the population challenge that Singapore faces, one of the key policy that the government implemented other than the incentives given to encourage couples to have more babies, is to welcome foreign talents to churn the economy and to naturalise them as citizens.

However, the prospect of a more densely-populated Singapore would have to require proper planning. With the increase in population, Singapore might not be able to cope with the increasing needs of the increasing population.

With the increase in population, there would be a higher demand for housing. This would be an additional stress on the land-scarce city as more houses are needed to house the increase population. This could possibly threaten the physical environment as more natural surroundings have to be cleared to give way for man-made infrastructures.

With a larger population, not only are more resources being used, more waste and sewage are produced as an increase in the population leads to an increase in consumption of goods and services. Hence, more waste is being produced. Faced with a rapid increase in waste, Singapore might have difficulty in finding suitable places to dispose them especially due to the limitation in land space. This could possibly leads to illegal dumping and thus cause land pollution which is undesirable. In addition, sewage produced by household such as detergents are non-biodegradable. Hence, they cannot be easily broken down into harmless substances which would result in them remaining in the water and cause water pollution. All these pollutions are very harmful to the environment and should be avoided at all cost.

However, in the long run, an increasing population will actually be an advantage as the phenomenon of having an ageing population would not surface. It is predicted that by 2030, 20% of Singaporean will be over the age of 65. With an ageing population, the burden on the working population will increase. As with a shrinking population, fewer people will be in the workforce and hence, each working people will have to pay more taxes to fund the building of more infrastructures. There will also be fewer able people to lead and serve the country resulting in an unproductive and inefficient workforce which in turn affects the country's economy. Hence, there is an urgent need to increase the population to prevent such situation from happening.

In a nut shell, I believe that increasing the population has its fair share of both positive and adverse impacts on the human and physical environment. It is up to one to weight which one is actually more important to them– to drive the economy to greater heights with increasing population or to protect the environment. I believe that we would be able to reach an equilibrium stage where we could actually increase the population and at the same time protect the environment from further destruction. This could be achieved when we increase the population in moderation and with careful planning. Thus, I believe the Singapore’s government policy on increasing the population could actually have more of a positive impact on the environment if careful planning and measures are taken.

My Blogging Buddy was Boon Woei=)