Singapore Unfiltered: Is Singapore getting too hot or is it just you?

Best of, let's talk Singapore. No filters, no holding back. Singapore unfiltered with Singapore speaks its mind. Only on Money FM 89.3. ♪ You said it's getting hard to hear ♪ ♪ So hard to take on my phone ♪ ♪ You're close ♪ ♪ I am getting so hard ♪ ♪ I will take my love ♪ We're all getting so hot, but don't take off your clothes right now. No two professors would take the song literally. Don't take your clothes off professors, please. Keep them on. This is a family show. Keep them on. Don't take our song choices literally. Stop laughing Audrey. This is a serious show. Right. Singapore unfiltered. Simple question. Why are Singaporeans melting? We're like the green witch in the Wizard of Oz. We are melting. Her name is Alphabet, but okay, let's keep going. That's right. Someone's seen wicked. Is the little red dot becoming too hot for us and why? Yes. We've got the best guys. The top guys in Singapore to talk about this now. Joining us in the studio, Winston Chow, PhD, Lee Kong Chan, Professor of Urban Climate Singapore Management University, and Co-Chair of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changed. I think your designation needs to be a little bit longer. It's too pretty. Too short. Too pretty. I heard the earlier segment and you said that was the longest. Yeah. You're winning. I'm winning. Wonderful. Which that is now winning longest title on Buddy FM Award. Professor Dal Barker is beside him and he's the director of the Centre for Climate Research Singapore. Not too long. Yeah. Short and sweet. Thank you. Professor Barker, if I have a very short designation, thank you. Yes. So we want to get into it right now. We have been seeing such hot, hot climates recently, not just in Singapore but everywhere. And we kind of want to know where all of this heat is coming from. Let's start with Dale. Yeah, thanks for having me, by the way. But it's full disclosure. I'm on my second shirt today already. But thankfully I changed it. I didn't change it in the, you know, I was only coming over from Seren Goon. Yeah. And I've changed my shirt once already. It's not just about that temperature, right? It's the humidity. It's the humidity, right? I really hear me, right? So I think we'll talk about that a bit. Yeah, I, I, I, I, if I want to go, you want to talk about the statistics, you want to talk about the globe, you want to talk about right here on the street. We can talk about all of that stuff, but Singapore's unique, right? This city, one degree from the equator, there's nowhere else, nowhere else like on Earth, right? So we have specific issues here and specific challenges and we've got to deal with them ourselves, right? So yeah, local temperatures, we're a city. We're going to talk about that one. Winston's an expert on that kind of stuff. My stuff is more about predicting the weather and looking at climate change on the next 20 years, 50 years. So we can talk about now. We can talk about the last 10 years, last 10 years, six out of the 10 last 10 years are in the hot storm record. Yeah. It's clearly changing. You know, every day we see records being broken around the world. You talked about the 50 degree temperatures in other parts of the world. Every week you see it on the news, right? A new record being broken. What's going on? Well, we can talk a lot about that. You don't think you got enough time to talk about it all. But we have a story about it. Number one, talk back radio show in Singapore. We cover the meatiest issues. All right, Winston, how sweaty listeners want to know why are they sweating so much now? I've been here 30 years. It's never been as hot as this. Indeed, it hasn't been as hot and it's going to get worse. I'm afraid they'll can tell you a bit more about what the future looks like. But why is it hot? So why is it so hot now? Two reasons. One, it's the fact that we've gone from a rainforest natural environment to an urban environment rapidly over the past 50 years. When you replace all your trees, and all your coastal mangroves with concrete and asphalt, you tend to trap more heat during the day and you release it during the night. And on top of that is all the air conditioning. You bring the heat indoors, put it outdoors. You've got all the cars, buses and trucks on the road that burns your petrol and diesel. You add more heat into the nearer where pedestrians can feel it. So be up the perception of it feeling hotter. It matches with the reality of what we measure with the city. But on top of that, there's also climate change. So 30 plus years ago, the average temperature of Singapore was a tick under 27 degrees Celsius. Wait, really? Yes. Audrey, I tell this story to students. They don't believe it. Winston, you'll remember, when I was a teacher in Singapore, I would have my lunch in orchard roads, some are set area, and I would have a shirt and a tie, and I would eat chicken curry for lunch, 1 pm. And you're fine. And I did not sweat. There is no way on earth I could do that today, Winston. So let's get back to 27 degrees then. What is it now? Now is a tick over 28. So you think feast by more than 1.1.2 degrees Celsius over the 30 year period. And you're absolutely right. It's getting really uncomfortable. Now, growing up as a kid, I think I would call on the old weather hotline, 5 4 2 7 7 8 for those who remember that. Wow. You should get a job here, my friend. You build off that number better than I do, Martin. That's the fun thing. And the maximum temperatures used to be about 33, 34 Celsius. Back when you could wear a shirt and tie and eat your chicken curry. Now we're seeing 35, sometimes 36 Celsius on, and that causes all the issues of school kids feeling the sweat, sweating their way through two classes. Construction workers also suffering a really hot environment outdoors when they're building our city and paving our roads. But is there something specific? I don't know if this is a question for either of you or both of you about this year. Because the air conditioning is a perennial problem. Forest. We'll talk about that later. You know, the removal of forests in Singapore. But this year particularly, is that down to El Nino? It is partly due to El Nino, but I'll let Diel talk about that first and then they'll jump in. Yeah. I think right now it's probably not actually. Okay. So I think if you look at what we're looking at the next month and next two, the next six months. And El Nino is something that builds up in the oceans over a period of months. So in the news this morning, I was reading the news this morning. So what they do is they monitor the temperatures into Pacific. And they can see that the temperatures are actually going up quite rapidly. But officially, we're not an El Nino yet. So what's happening now is not El Nino. So it's more about the the match. And I think in this part of the world, one of the reasons why it makes my job so tricky. Is the weather is influenced by so many different things. Yeah. So many different timescales. It's influenced by, you know, with the time of year, obviously. You know, we have, we don't have winter and spring summer, right? But we do have monsoon. So if the winds blow in through the northeast, as it was a couple of months ago, that's going to bring more rain and it's going to have an impact six months later. It's going to come from the opposite direction of south. And it's going to, so those kind of seasonal things and also day to day, of course, is a particular cloud coming over. You know, often the difference between a blue sky and a cloud is half a degree difference over a runway. Wow. You just think how hard it will be to predict the daily weather, even the next few hours ahead. Yeah. If we talk about butterflies, wings and chaos, right? It's chaotic. It's absolute chaos the weather in this part of the world, which is for me, I love it because it's a challenge. It's a busy. I like a challenge. I've been able to try and predict that stuff and we do. We do. We can predict it. But this part of the world compared to where we're from, nail originally, UK. It's a piece of cake there, frankly. No, don't quote. No, I might UK old bosses aren't listening, but this part of the world, really challenging. But it's about the variability and it's about as Winston says, it's about the way we've developed Singapore. You get the sun beaten down and it heats up the buildings or as a new bus route comes through, you feel the blast at the part of the bus. There's so many things that affect how we feel and it's not just about the temperature, right? It's about the humidity. It's about the amount of sun. And it's about the wind. If there's no wind, we feel a lot worse, right? Well, we're going to think about all of those things as well. What are our listeners think? How are you dealing with the hot weather? What's up? 8885-0893. I just got goose bumps because while Professor Dale was saying it's not El Nino yet, Winston malved the words to me. It's going to get worse. Oh, no. I'll say that again, folks. What you're experiencing now on the 15th of May is nothing to what it's going to feel like once El Nino kicks in, Winston, take us through that journey. So our local weather and the region as well, by the way, so I just came back from Bangkok yesterday and it is also quite brutal there. Despite the rain, once the rain goes away, it's the same like here in Singapore, the humidity plus heat makes it really bad. Was it 52 degrees? No, not in Bangkok. Okay. Further up north. But in the case of El Nino, we're going to be, there's a good likelihood it's going to be a strong one. There have been terms like Godzilla, El Nino or Super- Oh my goodness, that sounds great. I just remind our listeners what El Nino is, what it does and how it affects our weather. Briefly, it's where excess heat or energy is shifted across the Pacific Ocean and whatever, what happens is that when an El Nino occurs, this part of the world in Southeast Asia, typically gets hotter and drier and when it kicks in typically around summer months or so, so around June, July, August, that's when the temperature goes up a little bit. The fear is that El Nino this time around and it's rather periodic and irregular every two to seven years. This time around, it will be larger than the one that we faced in 2015, where we had the big haze incidents as well. So as I said, it's not just affecting Singapore but the region. When you get hotter and drier conditions, parts of Indonesia, Sumatra and Borneo and Kalimantan, they get prone to fire hazards and when that happens, we know when fire burns there, the haze gets to be a factor as well. Yeah. So as I said, it can get worse. I think people are increasingly worried about this whole situation. Daily life already feels like it's going to be a lot of work. feels very uncomfortable for many. So the night's feel warmer, the heat lingers longer. It's so humid. So are we looking at a temporary climate phase, or is this gonna be becoming Singapore's new normal? We keep thinking, is it gonna get better, right? You brought up what temperatures were like 10 years ago, 20 years ago? Is it ever gonna be better? Or is this just how it's gonna be? And it can only get worse from here. - Great question. - Hi. - You first. - Yeah, so I mean, you know, we remain positive, right? Never say never, is it ever gonna come down? Never say never. But we know it's gonna get worse in the next 10, 20, 40 years. Some scary statistics and some of the recent studies that my team has done at the Centre for Clummer Research. So we talk about the number of hot days, really hot days, high heat stress days, where the sorts of things where the military has to stop. The school, you know, these kids have to come in, they can't play outside anymore. Constructions work as have to stop, right? Around the moment, it's about 10, 15 days a year. It's 10 or 15 days a year, it's not, it's 5% or so. That's not too bad, right? So in the next 30, 40, 50, 60 years, depending on, and this is a big, big if, right? I'll, what big question? What we humans, as a, as a start, are gonna do about it in terms of green-ass gas. We don't know that, that's the biggest uncertainty. The biggest uncertainty is what humans are gonna do. We have no clue what humans are gonna do, right? But in terms of if they do this or the other, we can sort of see what's gonna change in the future. And some of the scary predictions are, those high heat stress days, if we just carry on as normal, that won't be 15 days a year. That'll be 320 days a year. So imagine, imagine if every month apart from one, your kids couldn't play outside, or the military couldn't exercise, or the construct, I mean, to me, that's like, well, Singapore, the country sees this defunction because, no one can go outside unless you're wearing big spacesuits with, you know, water cooling in you, you just can't compete. So that's gonna get a lot worse. So, and the heat in these later studies, it used to be at sea of a rise. Now, heat is the number one topic. And this is the year of climate adaptation. You may have heard about that from the ministry. And a lot of this talk that we have, and Winston's talking about, is about the heat. It's about the heat. But it's gonna get worse. The hope, of course, is that, as a global, we can do something about it. And locally, and this is where we talk a lot in Singapore, actually compared to someone like Thailand or Africa, we can do something about it in terms of adapting Singapore. You can't do much about adapting. You can't put like overhead panels all over the Sahara. But in terms of Singapore, relatively small, we can do things about it. Increase more shade, change the buildings, do those kind of things. So, it's hopeful in two ways. One, Singapore can actually really try and do something about this locally. At the same time, we're not responsible for all the greenhouse gases that are emitted in the world. It's tiny, 0.1, 0.2 fraction. So we can influence globally, but we have to get on with it in Singapore, right? And there are things we can do about it, and I think that's something it took about. That's the positive. -Fully agree with what Dale says. But apart from all the other issues that he mentioned, one critical local issue to consider is that we're not getting any younger. We're also dealing with an aging longevity society. Dale talked about construction workers, the military, school kids getting affected by heat, but let's not forget, we are going to also have a pretty aged society that is physiologically susceptible to extreme heat issues, comorbidities with strokes, with heart attacks, are going to be a problem. At home, I've got aged in laws, and a mom is well to look out for. You can't force them to turn on the aircon and stay indoors all day. It's a tradeoff between protecting them from the heat stress, but also making sure they have an active lifestyle at that stage of life. -Yes. -So there are other factors that are brought into play that can complicate this heat situation. -That's a great point, Winston. We want to hear from you, our listeners. How is the heat affecting you? If you've got elderly parents or young kids, how are they struggling with it at school, at home? I was at the Hocka Centre yesterday in Senkung. It was awful, and I just felt so bad for the Hocka workers. -Yes. -I felt first world problems. Just to sit and eat was an uncomfortable experience. And to Winston's point, you know, I saw these elderly folks beside me, constantly wiping themselves with the hangar chief. We know there have been fatalities with heat ways for the elder folks in Europe, in Southeast Asia. And it could come to us as well. WhatsApp, 888-550-893. One thing I noticed recently, I don't know if you talked about the HDB flat situation, but I noticed in my apartment recently, it's warmer inside than out. So there was recent evidence I saw nearly half of over 400 HDB flats that were actually warmer indoors than outdoors. You're supposed to go indoors for respite from the heat, not to get hotter. Why is that happening? And is there anything we can do about it? The heat island is one thing. I mentioned about the concrete, just trapping in heat and making indoor environments warmer than outdoors. Also to Dale's point that he brought about earlier, the humidity and the wind issue. If you want to make your indoor environment more comfortable, less susceptible to heat stress, then it has to be ways of either mechanically or by design allowing more wind flow to enter HDB a state's public estate or high-rise condominiums. That can play a big role in reducing that heat exposure that we all face. But you're right, Neil. It's kind of a conundrum, right? In trying to cram so many people into a small island space, what's the best way to do so? And what are the trade-offs that you have to make sure that by design or by using air conditioning or by fans? Yes. You can try to make sure that you don't have that bad outcome of heat stress and heat related mortality and mobility issues arising. So speaking of air conditioners and fans, we do have a listener Derek chiming in here. Good morning, Derek, who sent in a picture of Sony's new wearable air conditioner, which is like this small, OK? And he says schools and SAF should issue this for everyone. Now, this doesn't sound like a bad idea to me. I would love to walk around with an air con. But like you pointed out, Dale, it is a cyclical issue, right? Because it gets hot. We all turn on the air con. We all try to use technology and electricity to help solve the problem, which could actually make the problem worse. So do you think this is a viable solution? Absolutely. It's a great-- I mean, we're going to have to adopt. If it's 300 days a week, you can't go out. You've got to wear something like that together, right? It's the only way the construction will-- or the military. And I know the military around the world developing their next generation uniforms, and they have a little water going around it. So they can go themselves down. So this is the kind that people are working on this stuff. Because you're going to be seeing this stuff in-- Wow. --if not now, next 10 years, 20 years, on construction sites, with soldiers wherever it is, it's going to happen. And I think the other point I want to make here is that I moved here from the UK. And we all have to adapt our lifestyles. It's not just about what's happening around the buildings and around the country and around the world. So I came here and I used to run a lot, right? And I-- if I got really, really hot, I would slow down because it was too hot. And here, I do the opposite. Oh, I used to run in the afternoon. I don't run in the afternoon anymore. I run first thing in the morning. And if I-- if I'm getting really hot, I run faster. I run faster because I get a breeze. And it's over quicker. And if it's really hot, I won't even bother with the bike. I won't even bother with running. I'll get on a bike instead. Now you're Singaporean. And then-- And then-- And then you're Singaporean problem is blooming traffic lights. Yes, but every time you stop, you feel like a slug in salt. You know what? It is like ooze. So I think we adjust our lifestyle. And things like our health, looking after our health more, heat effects, bigger people more. I was talked to my kids about penguins. What's that got to do with Singapore? Well, I used to say, why do the big penguins live in Antarctica? And why do the small ones live in the tropics? And the reason is, because if you're really small, you can cope with the heat. You can release the heat if you're-- you can't live in a cold place, though, because you'd freeze the death. It's the same here. Bigger people, because our surface area-- if we get bigger, we can't release the heat. So at the bigger we get, the more obese we get, it's a clarion called to actually stay fit. Because the small and the light you are, they actually can cope better in heat. So you know, hundreds of things literally that we can do individually or as a society and whatever. I'm just glad you said the militaries working on these water cooling uniforms. Because when you said fan, I imagined the SAF guys with these anti-fans. You know, you can't go to war with an anti-fan, you know, gun, weapon, fan. That's not how it works. You can't invade until we've got our portable fans. With us in the studio, Winston Chow, PhD, lead conchan professor of urban climate Singapore management university, co-chair of the intergovernmental panel on climate change, owner of the longest designation, and professor Dale Barker, director of the center for climate research, Singapore, short, succinct. That's how we like it, Dr. Lee. Very nice. That's how we make it shorter. Yes, just director. Just director. OK. All right, let's get back into the conversation. So we said earlier, it's only going to get hotter. Here's the question we have coming in from. Let me get this. I think it was Victor. Thank you, Victor. It says, hi, guys. Can someone please tell me how the world will combat climate change when it's a long list? Many still travel overseas for holidays, despite newer aircrafts fitted with more efficient engines. Flying is still highly polluting. There's no EV aircrafts. Number two, people still have this innate habit of buying things we do not need with money we don't have to impress people we don't. No, climate change is tolerated, but still not taken seriously enough by people to make personal sacrifices. And this is a great one. Number three, AI is a hot business and getting hotter. That's a great, great point, Victor. The carbon footprint of data centers, we know is off the charts. So let's deal with that. Dale, maybe you coming first. There's a lot of issues there. Basically human hypocrisy. Let's go through them all. Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, we're a climate scientist. We use computers, right? Are we part of the solution or are we part of the problem? So I think you need to look at it. Absolutely. You know, there's a lot of stuff that depends on fossil fuels that releases loads of CO2. You look at where it's coming from. We talked about the transport there. Absolutely. But do we want to stop flying? Do we want to just stay where we are in our houses? I don't think we do. So in terms of transport, for example, again, we absolutely ramp this up, but the use of biofuels or things like hydrogen or EVs. I mean, there's a lot of investment in hydrogen technology. The future is hydrogen cars. They produce water. They don't produce CO2. What an amazing change that would be if we could all be driving around EVs. That's great. No, see it. All the batteries. Where do you put them? That's the pollution in a different way, right? So every every upside has a downside. But hydrogen, to me, in terms of transport, could be planes. It could be cars is a real positive for the future. You talked about the AI and again, we use computers too. We have a real problem in this part of the world. The other parts of the world can really rely on renewable energy. The wind doesn't blow very strong here. We all know that. We can't use the wind turbines. It's other parts of the world. Computers completely run on renewable energy. So what we need in terms of the energy, not transport, the energy is to maybe have a regional grid. To bring the electricity down from where it rains and other hydroplants and it's windier, can we use that electricity? I don't have to worry about CO2 emissions from my climate science then, right? So computers, AI is, and that's the big one, right? And the data centers are absolutely huge. But if we can build them, as we're doing with these much smaller computers of these days, in parts of the world where they can run off the solar or the wind, even nuclear discuss, then you know, we can, there are different ways of producing electricity. And absolutely, we should be ramping up energy grids on new forms of technology. And that's happening. That's the hope here. It's happening. Is it happening fast enough? No. But this is where we're the innovators, right? This is where Singapore is doing a fantastic job, actually. And there's so much potential here for Singapore to do even more in this direction. So that's the hope. That's the positive to take care of this. Okay. Winston, back to you. The three key points from Victor to paraphrase. Too much travel, buying stuff. We don't need excessive consumption and AI. Those are the three human hypocritical things, your thoughts. My thoughts are that don't think it's just a personal or societal sort of issue that gilds people into changing behaviors or what. We need to hold certain industrial sectors, commercial sectors and governments accountable for that. It's one thing that you can stop all your travel. You can live like a hermit. You can go or fans or just look into shades or a cycle to work, you know, bearing in mind the cost of cycling in Singapore, which is rather dangerous. But if commercial, some commercial entities, some industries don't have that push either by governments or by consumers to switch their ways to move towards more, to move towards renewable energy sources, to move towards low, pollutive ways of transport, then we're fighting a battle by ourselves. The way to get this done is to have that push, have that desire to translate what you do on a personal basis into messaging to governments, to businesses, to other people and say, look, this is something that you, I can't do alone, you can't do alone, let's work on this together. Yeah. Well, speaking of fighting battles for ourselves, we do have our listener James chiming in. Most people have aircon in Singapore, he says. And we are so used to it that using fans is just not going to cut it anymore. And I think that we have become products of, we know what we're used to, it's very hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube, right? And we know that the government's go 25 campaign encourages aircon use at 25 degrees. From a science perspective, what actually works best in a Singapore flat? What are the most effective and realistic things? People can actually do it home to reduce heat. Can I quickly jump in? It's one thing to say your thermostat should be 25 Celsius and have fans to try and aid with thermal comfort. But you also need to have the similar change related to Dale's experience of walking here or coming here from Sarangun. Don't wear suits enthize in the office. Why are we following certain cultural norms? I'm wearing a batting shirt in the studio right now. I tell my lab, I tell people, look, this is silly, we can't just wear a three-piece suit to the office just to show off, tell people we're formal. We need to adapt accordingly. So, wearing, well, we don't have to take off our clothes like in the song that comes with our segments, but be sensible. Wear something appropriate for the climate. That's another step. So, I go to some schools, many schools, international schools, local schools. I say kids wearing hoodies, because the air conditioning in the classroom is too high. Do your point just adapt to your climate? I was going to comment on that because I went into the cinema a couple of weeks ago. The cinema is the only place in Singapore I wear two layers of clothing. I might get myself in trouble here, but why? I mean, and shopping malls too. You feel a blast to call it. I know there's marketing psychology to get people in, but my word. I mean, you're talking about maybe people using a fan at home, but what can we do about, you know, can we like turn it up a few degrees in the cinema so I can go back to one short sleeve shirt? My wife sits next to me with a blanket. I love it. There's the only place. So, you know, I think there's, it's about the broadest of sites. It's not just about homes, right? Yeah, yeah, that's true. And, you know, we were talking about this song by Katy Perry, "Your Hot" and "Your Cold." And it's true. I think Singaporeans say inside one weather, outside one weather, this is a real reality. And I've seen people carrying their hoodies around and then popping it on, taking it off when they go to the hawker center. And Rao Shan has his hoodie right there, you see? And it could be our national anthem, couldn't it? Your hopper, your coffee. It could be our national anthem. The hypocrisy, I agree with these guys completely. Yeah. Step into a shopping mall. It's an ice box. You step into a cinema. It's an ice box. There's no need for it to be that cold at all. We're joined with Winston Child, the Lee Kong Chan Professor of Urban Climate. That'll do. Thank you. And, uh, it'll serve Professor Dal Barker, the Director of Center for Climate Research, Singapore. Now, Winston, I spoke to my friends in the nature community last night. Not very happy. We can pay lip service to air conditioning, turn it down one degree, do this, do that. Turn on fans. No aircon. Deforestation is still happening. We're still removing secondary rain forests. The forests around Sungei Sarengun are next to build a town that is going to be bigger than Woodlands. Are we just moving our deck chairs around on the Titanic if we're not serious about deforestation? What do your thoughts? I think, well, this goes to what we've discussed before when we focus so much on technology as a way to deal with the heat. But let's not forget there are nature-based solutions. You have so much greenery that does a fantastic job of cooling the ambient environment from evaporation. My kids know that. And also by shading, shading people. We've all experienced that when we walk outdoors in an orchard road or along the sides of our, in Kartong and Jujet, where I go to quite frequently. The big, ang Sangha trees does a fantastic job in keeping the pedestrian level cool. And you're right. I mean, there is that sort of issue or trade-off where if you take away all of Singapore's green spaces, you're going to have a problem of making the heat island condition worse and warming temperatures accordingly. But I am sensitive to the trade-offs in terms of people. I mean, my students who say, "Where are we going to get our houses or where can we develop HDBs and public housing?" And there is that unfortunate trade-off that we have to deal with. How do we find a balance between keeping our important green spaces around versus how do you account for significant part of our community wanting to have housing spaces? And I'm glad I'm not making that decision. But we have to be part of that discussion with the policy makers to decide, what's that fair balance of green spaces to keep our environment cool versus keeping our communities housed? Yeah. Well, I do have a question for the two of you as well. There's also been a very interesting psychological shift happening among younger people. And surveys globally show that younger generations are often far more concerned about the climate and climate change and extreme heat than older generations. But at the same time, many also describe feeling very overwhelmed. Even helpless. This is beyond my control. We need all of the governments. It's much bigger than you and I. And they feel helpless about the scale of the problem. So from your perspective, how do we prevent this kind of climate anxiety into turning into hopelessness? Sometimes you're like, well, we're too far gone now. What can I do? I'm just going to turn on the aircon and make myself more comfortable. What do you say to these young people? I think it's a great point. I've got three sons and we have the same conversation on a weekly basis. What can I do? I'm hopeless. I can do anything. And I think the first thing that we need to do as a society is help them to live in a world where they can actually think and do things about this. If they feel helpless, that's the mental health. It's the given and the options. And having them inside on their computer games, frankly, playing around because it's too hot outside is sending it way in the wrong direction. If the result is too hot outside, they come inside. We need to create the facilities encourage our kids to be outside to play with each other. Yes. And that's going to be more of a problem if it gets hotter, but if we can build the outside environment where they want to go outside, they can free their minds. And we don't want them to stop traveling. We want to keep find ways where they can do that in a sustainable way. It'll be terrible if everybody stayed at home, right? And the kids, especially. Now, at the schools, get them out of the classroom and give them home-- at the end of the day, we're going to last a few more years. It's going to be their world. And they know that. They know that. And they see what's happened. And it's not their fault. And they think, well, it's not my fault, which is a bad thing. And what can I do about it? The future is in their hands. So we have to teach them, give them the tools, educate them. So they can have a positive and positive outlook on the future Singapore. That is absolutely right. My students also face a lot of-- or they tell me about their climate anxieties. And one way to resolve that or to cope with that is firstly talk about it, build a community, and go work, play, engage with that set community in the way that Dale was talking about. But for those of us who have Dale and myself, who know the context of climate change and urbanization and all that, talking in public for like this, educating, trying to make sure people know what is at stake and what can be done about it is another thing. And for those of us who have the resources and capacity to influence decision makers, like what I do in my other job with the IPCC, guilty as charge. I travel way too much. But when I speak with governmental officials from different countries and inform them about, this is what's at stake for climate impacts. And this is what you can do about it. You can see the penny drop in their mind. They say, hey, I am not alone in this. There are options that we can implement in my country or other countries. And we can work together to try and get us out of this mess that we are currently in right now. Let's finish on that. One tip from both of you. It's a Friday morning, upbeat note. One thing that our listeners can do each and every day to try to make their world a little bit cooler and better. That was a lot of balls and lots of heavy balls. It's over folks. It's over. Nothing. It's over. There's nothing we can do. I think it's not over. There are things that can be done. The simple thing is just bring the climate disruption and there's the climate crisis issues to dinner tables, to just talk to people about it. Make it a central conversation. And there is hope when people are stirred to action. And I've been seeing signs about that drop my career as a climate scientist. Things are coming to a head. And there is hope that can happen. Will Winston-style my line now? I was just going to say as well, talk about it. I mean, some of the talk to your friends, talk to your children, talk to your bosses, talk to your government, talk about this stuff. Some of the most inspiring questions that make me think in a different way, come from school kids. Right, it's not for my colleagues at work. Talk to me. You tell me what to do. I don't want to tell you. You tell me, give me your ideas. So I need to be open to other people's ideas. And I think that's at the end of the day for all of this stuff, not just heat, life, right? Talk to each other, communicate. And let's share these ideas and make a better world. Terrific upbeat note to finish our climate conversation with Winston, Charles, and Professor Dale Barker. Thank you so much for joining us today. For more conversations and podcasts, visit MoneyFM893.SG.