Chicken rice is widely considered as Singapore’s national dish – yet ironically, the ingredients do not come from Singapore.

In this talk given at the Sustainability Forum organised by the North West Community Development Council on 25 March 2023, The Circle for Human Sustainability's President, Catherine Loke, deconstructs Singapore's favourite dish to trace the energy trail and how a six-continent just-in-time global supply chain evolved over the last two centuries. She presents some facts on what lies ahead as we deal with the converging challenges of climate change, and energy and resource decline, and shares her thoughts on how the city can be adapted and what everyone can do now to lay the foundation for food security and resilience in Singapore.

Key moments:

00:48  Chicken Rice ingredients
02:44  Deconstructing Chicken Rice
12:46  Why did the chicken cross the Pacific Ocean
13:31  Chicken Production globally
14:30  E nergy consumption over the last 200 years
17:50  Reliance on oil
20:54  Plastic packaging
22:14  9 planetary boundaries
25:38  Nitrous oxide
26:24  Methane
27:16  Energy and Resource decline
27:25  Peak oil
29:49  Copper
32:08  Simplify
32:32  Permaculture
33:06  Permaculture Chickens
36:59  Permaculture in Singapore
39:28  Permaculture and planetary boundaries
42:40  The Circle for Human Sustainability
44:34  A Balanced Economic System
47:49  Composting
50:07  Conclusion

 

Read the write-up in the North West Cohesion, May 2023 edition.