Chapter 7:Land Supply (Responses to limited land supply)

I moved on to the ways in which we can increase land supply or to solve land supply problems.

They are:

1)Increasing price of land

2)Increasing supply of land

3)Conserving land.

1) INCREASING PRICE OF LAND

For increasing price of land, the concept that surrounds this is price mechanism and is about the demand and supply graph as shown below:

Second way is to increase supply of land and related to Chapter 4 on Agriculture where you learnt people clear the forest for land for settlement and agricultural purposes.

So two ways were demolishing old buildings and deforestation. The video below showed about deforestation in Brazil, at the Amazon rainforest and I told you to think about the negative effects that it brings besides being able to increase supply of land and that forests around the world are carbon sinks. Look at the video for re-cap and look at why deforestation is so rampant in Brazil, link it back to the concept of demand and supply too.

Possible impacts of deforestation:

1)Loss of biodiversity

2)Habitat degradation

3)Modified global climate (emission of CO2)

4)Social impact (indigenous people)

2) INCREASING SUPPLY OF LAND

Below was the video i showed about how Dubai is increasing their supply of land largely for tourism purposes.

Below are the satellite images that showed the growth of the islands of Dubai

Jan 1973-Barely much settlements seen

August 1990-Transport networks and settlements sighted

Oct 2006-Increase in settlement and transport networks and the growth of the Dubai islands

Images credited to : http://kuusanmaki.com/blog/?p=21

Chapter 7:Land Supply (Reasons for Land Constraint)

Hi guys,

For the past week, I started the lesson on land supply by using the newspaper game and had each of you represent as particular landuse (

be it for housing, settlement, factories etc) and you guys had to STRATEGIZE and plan how you could accommodate as much people as possible on the folded newspaper (which represented 30% of the Earth surface made up of land) w

ithout stepping out of it.

I told you all as you relate back the the topic, land supply is limited and there is a need for people to strategize on how to best use the piece of land as there is not only limited land supply, there is also a rising demand of it due to mainly the increasing population growth of the world.

The important concept that reflects about land constraint is this: CARRYING CAPACITY.

Carrying Capacity is the maximum number of people an area can support comfortably

without straining its supply of resources for future use.

The Generation of change starts from YOU.

The video below is the the conclusion video I showed you boys in class for the chapter on Managing the Changing Environment. And after the video I challenged you boys to be the Generation of Change where you will be problem solvers and Earth savers and to REVERSE what our forefathers have done the environment in which we are experiencing the impacts and effects now.

It's not too late yet, don't wait till its too late.

You still have at least 40 more years to live and in order to have a better future on Mother Earth, I challenge you to lead an environmentally friendly life through small steps that will help in conserving the environment for a better future for yourself and the next generations to come.

Start small.

Start now.

Start with yourself.

don't be part of the Lost Generation...

Nursing home says children hardly visit parents to avoid paying fees (Singapore)

The article below is about the problem of an aged population in Singapore where seemingly and increasingly more Singaporeans are abandoning their parents and not visiting them due to the fees need to paid to look after them. I do hope that in the future, your generation will not do the same and that each and everyone of you will appreciate your parents and look after them after they grow old.

Channel NewsAsia - Tuesday, August 25

SINGAPORE: Abandoning parents may not be common but it is becoming an emerging issue in Singapore

Five per cent of the elderly at Bright Hill Evergreen Home have not seen their children for some time. The home said the children do not visit so as to avoid paying ward fees.

Ninety per cent of some 140 elderly in the home have children who are unable to support them.

Staff at the nursing home said the children would cite reasons such as being busy with work, being ill or that they are having family problems.

The staff added that the elderly who have not seen their children in a long time are prone to depression, and most refuse treatment.

The home said they usually turn to counselling and games to help the elderly keep their minds off their children.

One elderly at the home said: "My children do not come over to visit me, they never came once."

Tang Yip Chong, head nurse, Bright Hill Evergreen Home, said: "The family normally has to pay (the ward fees) for a long time for the parents to stay in the home. (There is a) burden on them (the children), so after some time, they come (less often) to visit the patients so they can more or less escape paying the ward fees."

— CNA/yt

Story of Stuff (Animated)

Below is a 20 minutes plus long video about the "Story about Stuff", it is really a good animation and video show that links up the whole story about how human change the earth (through industrialization and extracting resources from the Earth), how the developed countries(in this case, the context is USA) kind of exploit the developing countries and most importantly, our human actions affecting the earth.

A good wrap up and summary on Chapter 6: Managing our changing environment.

Enjoy!

Chapter 6: Managing Our Changing Environment

Hi guys, today in class I talked about how we humans have been changing BOTH the physical and human environments to meet our needs. I also reminded us that as we take the resources out of the Earth with a unprecedented rate, we are in a danger zone of having the Earth's natural resources running low for our future generations (your future children) and also when we take from the Earth, we are also damaging the Earth through the processes and the by-products that we generate to create the goods and produce that we consume.

Below are the videos I showed in class today, look through them again as a re-cap about the kind and amount of waste we throw and how some cannot even be broke down, remember glass? In Singapore, being an affluent society, we are a "throw-away society/country" and the amount of unwarranted waste is great, so do think about what as an individual, can you do to play a part in conserving our Earth....recycling is not the convenient green solution that we should head towards. Instead, we should really be reducing our own consumption of goods and products that are not really needed by us to live, but are only wants.

GARBAGE CRISIS

CASE STUDY: NAPLES (ITALY) GARBAGE PROBLEMS

The video below is about Naples of Italy and how the huge amount of garbage have caused trouble to not only the locals (poisoning of vegetable produce,poisoned water supply due to the leakages in landfills, foul smells of rubbish thrown on the streets) but is also as a result of a regional effect (the mafia bringing in rubbish from outside Naples and illegally dumping it in Naples) and even international (of the processed food, mozzarella cheese which they export out)

So in studying this chapter and the following chapters, we need to not only think about the inter-relationships between humans and the environment (where we are actually inter-dependent, what happens at the far end of the Earth can eventually affect us), we need to think about the impacts of our human actions in the three spatial scale: local, national/regional and global/international.

The video below is about the fast fashion that is happening around the world especially in developed countries such as the USA or UK where high end fashion design threads are made readily available to the mass market and made affordable now, thus feeding to the growing problem of a Throw-away society. With fashion made to be easily accessed and disposed, the amount of waste generated by it is an on high. The video below shows the ways in curbing the waste created by fashion. So the next time you buy your Chinese New Year clothes, negotiate with your mother to not buy clothes in red which you will not get to wear so often but in tradition with Chinese New Year, buy clothes that will last you throughout the year and something that you will wear.

The link here shows you a video on how to handle e-waste, another big contributor to waste where electronic appliances phase out at a very fast rate, resulting in the massive e-waste created.

Click here!

URBAN FARM: High tech Farming in the Urban City

Below is a video on high tech farming in the urban city, specifically on the rooftop on buildings. Look at how technology play a big part in ensuring the growth of the vegetable produce. The whole urban farm is really self sustainable and mechanics behind is like nature, following the laws of the ecosystem. It's really a brilliant idea to use roof top space to have a high tech garden.

Do you think it is viable for Singapore's HDB flats' rooftops? A consideration HDB or other construction developers should have don't you think so?

Chapter 4: Plantation Agriculture and High Tech farming

Below are the videos that were shown in class about Plantation agriculture and high tech farming. Do see them as a re-cap on the chapters.



As you re-cap on the video, remember on what I said about the impact on the environment that comes with Plantation agriculture,which is related to the next few chapters that we are going to go through which is about "Managing our Environment"



The video above is about hydroponics done in the United States and below is about High-tech farming in Israel (on animal produce: milk).

Earth in animates satellite imagery and spatial data..

Below is a video about Earth in satellite imagery and all..interesting video...enjoy!