Summary of group discussions

Group 1: Potential and usage in transportation of biodiesel. Biodiesel is a green and renewable energy that made from crops such as soya bean.

The supporting side went into details to explain that biodiesel is a non-petroleum-based diesel fuel that is made from crops. It can provide the equivalent energy power to run engines when the normal gasoline or diesel fuel is mixed with 20 per cent of biodiesel. With using biodiesel, the emission of carbon dioxide can be efficiently reduced compared to normal diesel fuel.
However, opponents said that the normal fuel may not be replace by biodiesel in cold countries because of biodiesel’s higher freezing point which will clog engines if the temperature is lower than its freezing point.

Another concern is that the farm and crops economy would be affected by replacing diesel fuel by biodiesel because the profit of growing crops such as soya bean will be increased exponentially as higher demand of biodiesel. So opponents pointed out that will cause imbalanced crop economy. But supporting side suggested that the problem can be solved by government to control the amount of crops that farmers grow.

Therefore, it will be encouraged to replace diesel fuel by biodiesel in future to mitigate climate change if the problems mentioned by opponents are solved.

Group 2 discussed about whether Singapore should adopt green chemistry or not. They focused on biodegradable plastic that is made from biomass such as corn and beans.

The advantages of biodegradable plastic given by supporting side is that they are renewable and safe as well as more efficient manufacturing and better waste conversion compared to normal plastic widely used in our daily life now.

The concern of opposite side are whether it toxic to human and will cause the price of plastic in Singapore going to very high because the cost of biodegradable technology is very high.
So whether to adopt biodegradable plastic in Singapore is depends on government or economy statement of Singapore.

Group 3 discussed about genetic engineering. It provides chance for human to alter ourselves but it’s also opposed by religious groups, ethnical and activists. So the topic of discussion was whether genetic engineering should be allowed.

Genetic engineering can give a chance to parents to get the baby with their expectations such as gender and characters. However, opponents said pre-deciding baby’s gender will cause sex imbalance all over the world which will result in decreasing of born rate if couple prefer having male over female.

The supporting side also pointed out that applying genetic engineering will be able to optimize gene of babies to help parents to obtain athletically stronger baby who will be more resistance to diseases. But it will be unfair to normal people if both normal people and optimized people are participating in sports competition.

In opinion, genetic engineering can make our beautiful, smart or stronger, but do we really know who we are.