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Climate Crisis: Is the Greta effect enough?
Within a span of a year, Greta Thunberg’s weekly lone ranger act of skipping school to stage a climate strike outside the Swedish parliament has spread globally into what is known as the Fridays for Future movement. Despite being at the tender age of 16 and diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, Greta’s display of her commitment…
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Thoughts en route to Tetouan
A roundabout in Morocco, 15 km away from the Spanish occupied territory of Sebta. Take-aways/observations: 1. Spain apparently tries to attract its citizens to settle in Sebta with higher paying jobs. 2. Interesting to see Border security on patrol, looking out for asylum seekers trying to cross in to Spain. 3. Surreal to see Fnideq’s…
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Refusing a Culture of Convenient Consumption
Some thoughts on #consumption trends in #Singapore. Written for the Association of Muslim Professionals’ monthly magazine. Timely given the fact that #EarthOvershootDay was last week. (Singapore’s Earth Overshoot Day was apparently in April, hence suggesting that the country is consuming more than the global average!). Online version of the article can be read here.
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Environmental Awareness: Alternative Strategies Beyond Symbolism
Beyond symbolic “feel good” environmental activities, there is much to learn and build on crises and traditional/cultural practices In this piece, I argued that what is lacking from existing environmental awareness campaigns, is the sustained experiential awareness of resource scarcity. In the case of Singapore, given the fact that majority of residents start from a…
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Food Fights over Food Rights
“Global food price shocks have demonstrated the urgent need to effectively address food insecurity in Southeast Asia – both at the national and regional level” This think-piece goes beyond issues of supply and demand of food, and provides greater insight to the role of Human Security in understanding the issue of food security in a…
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Climate action on a concrete island
“The over-reliance on the government for solutions, however, reflects what some have termed as the nanny-state syndrome: due to years of strong state intervention and action, people have become apathetic and expect the government to address all problems.” Read more about addressing climate change in Singapore in this article in Asia Dialogue, the online magazine…
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Pandemic measures during the Hajj
In a think piece “Ensuring Good Health During the Hajj in a Time of the H1N1 Pandemic”, I – together with researchers at the RSIS Centre for NTS Studies – commented on the progress and prospects of H1N1 pandemic mitigation efforts in Saudi Arabia leading up to the annual Hajj pilgrimage in 2009. The piece…
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Raising environmental awareness amongst Muslims
On 13 May 2011, I was featured in Singapore’s Malay Newspaper – Berita Harian – for my research and advocacy work on faith-based environmentalism. In the interview, I noted how countries in the Muslim World largely fall into at least one of three categories in relation to climate change. Victims of climate change: Countries such…