Ostriches in our Midst

Ostriches are well known in popular myth for sticking their heads in the sand to avoid reality. It would appear that our government leaders are doing the same trying to avoid the reality that our little red dot has only so much capacity for development and growth.

It is yet another indication of the disconnect our government/civil servants have with reality. In their pursuit of 'holistic' solutions to our problems, they have gotten confused and are proposing hole-in-the-ground solutions.

Floods in Orchard Road? Dig a hole in the ground as a retention pond. Running out of land to build housing? Feasibility studies of building housing underground is being carried out. We are told that JTC is looking at a plan for an underground science ciy to be built in caverns excavated under Kent Ridge Park.

The underground science park is supposed to house R&D and data center facilities. Data centers are notorious for their huge energy requirements not only to run their computer servers, but also for cooling systems to remove the heat generated. Companies like Google are building some of their data centers in colder polar regions to save on heating costs and the geniuses in our government want to build one underground?

I had thought that it was just a cover story for the intention to build a secret underground nuclear energy facility under Kent Ridge, but since the nuclear energy option is off the table at least for now, it would appear the cover story is being given more serious consideration. Are our current above ground business parks so fully occupied that we need to build one underground? I would suggest building less shopping malls (or repurpose existing ones) if the need is really so great.

The government has also commissioned a study to build an underground landfill to hold 40 years of rubbish! I'm guessing that our minister of environment Dr Vivian Balakrishnan has been unsuccessful in negotiations with our neighbouring countries to take our trash after our Pulau Semakau landfill reaches full capacity.

Dr Vivian has kept out of the population debates. He appears to think it doesn't concern his ministry. But a larger population generates more rubbish and if we keep increasing our population, we are going to fill up the landfill at Pulau Semakau even quicker. It has everything to do with his ministry and building underground silos to store our rubbish is NOT a solution.

The obvious solution which will solve ALL our problems is to reduce the size of our population to a level such that our requirements on living space, water, food and energy needs can be sustainably met without resorting to stop gap can kicking temporary and completely insane 'solutions' such as these hole-in-the-ground ideas.