Seen and heard this week
Seen and heard this week is a weekly column highlighting thought leadership from the NUS community
In an opinion piece in The Conversation on 18 April, Associate Professor Jolene Lin, Director of the Asia-Pacific Centre for Environmental Law at NUS and her collaborator from Western Sydney University said that the global shipping sector, which is responsible for 2.5 per cent of greenhouse emissions worldwide, committing to a historic agreement of a 50 per cent reduction in these emissions by 2050 was cause for celebration. It would become mandatory for ships to become more energy-efficient and rely on cleaner forms of energy such as solar and wind power. Challenges lie ahead though, as some nations — such as those which were more at risk from rising sea levels — wanted a more ambitious target while other countries expressed strong disagreement.
Mr Mike Hou, a prospective PhD candidate and Assistant Professor Jia Lile from NUS Psychology suggested in a Channel NewsAsia commentary on 21 April that a rebranding of foreign domestic workers (FDWs) could prevent the stereotypes surrounding migrant workers from marginalising them and sustaining their current inequality. One method through which this can be achieved is through redesigning the domestic service industry, allowing FDWs to become a professional labour source. For this to take place, training would be needed to provide them with the necessary skillsets to carry out their work.
On 22 April, Dr Chris Tsoi Tung, Consultant Psychiatrist at NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine shared his knowledge on depression in the elderly in a Channel NewsAsia article. He said that it is common for elderly with dementia to exhibit depressive features, and vice versa and added that for seniors who have been married for a long time, losing their spouse can be devastating and they tend to find it more difficult to cope with the loneliness compared to someone younger. Sharing that he is now attending to more cases of depressed elderly, Dr Tsoi thinks that this increase is merely the tip of the iceberg as depression is a taboo topic here. However, Dr Tsoi also believes that depression in elderly may not be inevitable as they can use their own experience to help themselves.
Read more about the NUS community in the news.
