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Festivals - Coachella

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After 2 consecutive years of being cancelled, Coachella, one of the most anticipated music festivals in the U.S., finally returns this year and will be held in April from the 15th to 17th and 22nd to 24th. With big names like Harry Styles, Doja Cat and Billie Eilish, tickets are confirmed to sell out. Recently, Coachella (along with other large-scale music festivals) have been getting criticism from environmentalists due to its massive pollutive effects. The Coachella organising committee is aware of this and has dedicated a page to sustainability covering a range of the efforts undertaken to ensure eco-friendliness and mitigate negative environmental consequences. There are also reminders for festival-goers to reduce carbon footprint by ride-sharing and to minimise waste whenever possible. According to a paper by Larasti (2019), some of these efforts have indeed been successful in mitigating the environmental impacts generated. However, the carbon footprint generated from travelling
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Festivals - Holi

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Holi 2022 celebration in India.  Source: National Today Holi, also known as the Festival of Colours, is a religious Spring festival celebrated by Hindus. This year, Holi falls on the 18th of March. Although celebrated a little differently according to cultural practices, the more common ways of celebrating are by lighting bonfires and throwing water and powder paints of various colours to commemorate love, spring and new life (BBC, 2022). Holi is also celebrated in Singapore, and the biggest scale event is organised by Rang De Holi every year, where people get to throw rainbow-coloured powders in an open field. But this event is celebrated on an even larger scale in India and Nepal due to its historical and cultural significance. As with all events and festivities however, this celebration has also drawn the attention of environmentalists for its toxic effects on humans and ecosystems. Taking a look at a research paper by Gardner and Lal (2012), the impacts of Holi celebrations are fou
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Easter Time!

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 As we officially enter into April, I immediately think of Easter. A few days ago, I noticed that supermarkets have started selling Easter-related goods such as chocolate eggs, plastic eggs, paint sets and confetti. Easter is celebrated by a handful of people in Singapore, and egg painting is often seen as a fun activity for younger children. However, seeing as there is a large amount of consumption associated with this holiday, I am interested in finding out what environmental footprint it leaves behind, if any. Apparently, this article by Independent reveals that excess egg packaging and chocolate production for Easter is problematic and has been heavily criticised by environmentalists. Similar to Valentine's day (which I wrote about earlier), this holiday promotes consumerist behaviour which becomes particularly problematic when there is excessive waste generated.  Easter eggs (plastic and chocolate) and their packaging are contributing significantly to the problem of plastic p
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Impacts of Nuclear Weapons Tests

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A test-firing of a missile in North Korea in January 2022. Source: REUTERS Last week, the North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un guided the testing of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) Hwasong-17. This launch reportedly flew higher and for a longer time than previous missile tests, landed in Japan's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and was largely condemned by the G7 leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, during their summit on 24th March (Smith & Shin, 2022). While this is devastating news, nuclear weapons testing is by no means unfamiliar to us. We can already expect some level of consequences to either the environment or humankind. The United Nations terms nuclear testing as the 'cruellest' environmental injustice due to its many lasting effects including radioactive nuclear waste causing lethal health impacts (United Nations, 2020).  Specific to North Korea, their missile testings have already significantly impacted
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Earth Hour (2) - Measuring Significance

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On the topic of Earth Hour, I've always been curious to know how significantly the 1 hour of lights-out contributes to the environment, i.e. how much of a difference Earth Hour actually makes to the consumption of electricity. A study done by Olexsak and Meier in 2014 sought to investigate exactly this. They analysed and evaluated energy-saving behaviour in 10 countries, namely Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Ireland, Sweden, United States and Canada. 274 measurements of observed changes in electricity demand from Earth Hour activities were conducted for 6 years, from 2007 to 2012. The results were as shown below:  Table of recorded Earth Hour demand changes in various countries.  Source: Olexsak & Meier (2014) The negative values in the table represent an increase in electricity demand. On average, they found that electricity consumption across 10 countries during the 1 hour fell by 4.0%. On the extreme ends, Canada achieved the highest
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Earth Hour - Addressing the Issues with Big Corporations

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 Earth Hour is perhaps one of the biggest environmental awareness movements around the world, with it taking place on the last Saturday of March every year since its beginning in 2007. The participation of certain monuments in this activity has certainly helped promote conversation about this event. This video below provides a quick recap of what went down this year on the 26th of March and shows some of the biggest landmarks turning off their lights for this year's Earth Hour.  Source: WION (2022) Although it's a relief to know that big cities are still actively participating in this, many of the commenters under this video expressed scepticism regarding the effectiveness of this movement. For example, one comment by user 'NG' reads:  "This is just western capitalism ideas to show themselves being good but what is [the] use of such 1 hr in a year drama when they [are] responsible for more than 60% of the problem" This comment alludes to the dissatisfaction w
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At Its Breaking Point - Antarctica Ice Shelf Collapse

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 After years of thinning and surface heating as a result of global warming, the 1,200 km2 Conger Ice Shelf in East Antarctica finally collapsed. This happened on the 15th of March, following extreme increases in temperature of as high as 40 degrees C above the normal seasonal warm temperatures (Lu, 2022). Satellite images from MODIS and Landsat below reveal the extent of damage on the ice shelf which occurred within a timeframe of only 2 months.  Image on the left shows Conger ice shelf in February 2022; Image on the right shows state of the ice shelf in March 2022. Source: Catherine Colello Walker on Twitter NASA scientist Catherine Colello Walker stated that the Conger ice shelf has been shrinking since the mid-2000s but it was only this year that there were noticeable and drastic changes to the surface area. Increasing temperatures and extreme heat, termed the March Heatwave, leading to surface melting were quoted to be one of the factors driving this collapse, which is similar to w
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