The beauty about living in Singapore is that you can walk anywhere. The roads and footpaths are safe, clean, and leads you to where you want to go. I think it is a blessing that we as Singaporeans sometimes take for granted. In other big cities, roads can sometimes be dangerous to walk on. You might trip over an uneven path, or come across a robber.

It's really kinda amazing when you think about where your two feet can bring you. As long as you just keep walking, you will reach your destination eventually.

For shorter commutes, try walking instead of driving or taking the bus. Walking more often has led me to discover places near my neighbourhood that I never noticed before. For example, I never realised that there was an Udders (woohoo, icecream!) outlet just opposite my block, until I walked past it en route to a shopping mall *cough* I mean, a park.

Move over, plaid shirts and Ray-Ban wayfarers, the latest must-have hipster accessory is the bicycle.

No longer just a form of transport for old men going to the market, the bike is making a comeback as the choice of wheels for youths.

One of the hippest cities in the world, Copenhagen, Denmark (picture on left) has 36% of the population commuting to work or school by cycling everyday. In fact, more people commute by bicycle in Copenhagen than bike commuters in the whole United States. The Danish government makes it easy for citizens to be eco-friendly by ensuring that there are bicycle lanes along all the roads in Copenhagen.

There are heaps of benefits to using a bicycle as a main form of transport.

1. Bikes use ZERO FUEL and ZERO ELECTRICITY. Everything is powered by the energy of your legs. That means zero carbon emissions! Cycling 10km to work saves 1.3 tonnes of greenhouse gases emissions per year.
2. Free parking. Park your bike for free almost anywhere. What parking tickets? Most MRT stations and bus interchanges also have a designated area for cyclists to chain their bikes.
3. Get your daily cardio in as you commute to work or school. Pretty soon you will have legs comparable to Blake Lively's.
4. It's cheap. Everyone knows owning a car in Singapore is extremely expensive. The COE, fuel costs, maintenance... Bikes, on the other hand, is fuss-free and you hardly have to ever fork out additional costs.

There's no reason why Singapore cannot follow in Denmark's footsteps in making Singapore a cyclist-friendly and subsequently, environmentally-friendly city. Not to mention, Singapore is a very small city - it is not impossible to cycle from place to place.

Cycling is a great alternative to driving a car or even taking public transport. All it takes are a bike, a road, and a will to cycle on.

I don't know about you, but one of the often-heard lamentations among my friends and I is the wish for a car. Among youths, driving a car is not just for the sake of convenience (although it is very convenient indeed), but it is also for the sake of status. Owning a car shows that you are affluent and mature. But we often fail to look at the flip side of owning or driving a car. That is of course, the environmental impact.

There are currently 700 million cars in the world. This figure is predicted to grow to 1 billion by 2020. And the projected world oil consumption by 2020 is an astounding 870,000,000,000 gallons per year. Phew, that's a lot of zeros. But wait, that's not all. If people continue to collect cars at this rate, the total carbon emissions from cars by 2020 would be 13,764,000,000,000 lbs. These numbers seem really scary, right?

Be honest with yourself. Are cars really that necessary? In tiny Singapore, our public transport system is considered one of the world's best. With bus stops everywhere and MRT stations in the vicinity wherever you are (even in the most 'ulu' part of Singapore), cars are, quite frankly, redundant. Not to mention, it takes a crazy amount of money to drive a car here in Singapore. Our money can be put to greater use, such as saving up a house.

Maybe some are unwilling to squeeze in with the rush hour crowd on public transport. There are tactics to avoid the rush hour, such as requesting to work unconventional hours like 11AM - 7PM, or strategically planning your journey to board the train or bus when it's less crowded.

Saving the environment takes a price. It may not be in financial sense, but it takes sacrifice. Ultimately, we have to question ourselves: is my temporary comfort more important than the environment (and subsequently, the home of the next generation)?