The views looking out over the bay are amazing. It still looks like one massive construction site at the moment but you can see the promise of a new tomorrow out on the Bay – the Gardens by the Bay taking shape, new structures forming in the sand, the three towers of Marina Bay Sands dominating.

Yet all I could think about was – what if a tsunami on the scale of that which shook Japan last Friday hit?Well, for one thing, about half of Singapore would be gone. 

I asked my lunch companion the question and he agreed, “Yes, we’d be gone.”

It was a sobering thought to start lunch but these are sobering times.

What’s unfolding in Japan is a disaster beyond our imagination – like a horror movie, filled with suspense and twists and turns. Only thing is, this is not made in Hollywood, this is real life, real people, real tragedy on a global scale.This impacts everyone. Anyone who has friends in Japan. Any company which has employees in Japan. Any travel company which has travellers and guests in Japan. Any company that relies on Japan for business year-round – my lunch companion said, “We can pretty much write Japan off as a market this year.” 

Hotel groups have sent out messages to the media. Accor Asia Pacific, which operates nine hotels throughout Japan, advised that “only minor damage has been inflicted on the buildings as a result of last week’s devastating earthquake”.

“All hotels are operational and have been focused on accommodating guests and employees that were unable to depart due to significant transport disruptions and ongoing limitations.”

Cancellation fees are currently being waived by Accor and other travel providers.

Companies with employees in Japan are offering assistance to get them out. Some are opening up their personal homes to friends in need. 

A global village of real friends united in crisis – this is good to see.

But as I watch the buildings going up in Singapore, I hope this physical shift in the world will also result in a mental shift in our thinking about the relationship between us and Earth.

I worry about more countries wanting to build nuclear power facilities. Even as disaster-prepared Japan is supposed to be, it’s been proven that there are simply things beyond our control. We may think we are clever but Nature proves us wrong each time.

I worry about Malaysia now wanting to build a rare earth mine in Kuantan on the east coast. This will be the world’s largest refinery for rare earth metals – the first rare earth ore-processing plant to be built outside China in nearly three decades.

The idea is to “break China’s chokehold on the strategic metals crucial to products as diverse as Apple’s iPhone, Toyota’s Prius and Boeing’s smart bombs”, said this article, which added, “For Malaysia and the world’s most advanced technology companies, the plant is a gamble that the processing can be done safely enough to make the local environmental risks worth the promised global rewards.”

What I read makes me tremble in fear. The thing is, “refining rare earth ore usually leaves thousands of tons of low-level radioactive waste behind”.

And the article continues, “So the world has largely left the dirty work to Chinese refineries – processing factories that are barely regulated and, in some cases, illegally operated, and have created vast toxic waste sites.

“But other countries’ wariness has meant that China now mines and refines at least 95 per cent of the global supply of rare earths.”

Malaysia’s East Coast, land of beautiful sandy beaches, where I spent many happy youthful days, now home to a rare earth mine. How did we come to this?

I worry too about Laos wanting to build a large dam across the Mekong River at Xayaburi which “is not just raising serious concerns about its potential environmental impact, but also creating some tension between Laos and Vietnam”, says reports.

I know I shouldn’t worry about such things because they are beyond my control and I should only focus on things I can influence – hey, I read the Seven Effective Habits book too – but I guess I can’t help myself.

As for the things I can influence, well, perhaps it’s time to start thinking, do I really need to buy another gadget that needs rare earth materials to be mined in my country, next door to where I live? And do I really need to use more power than I need so that countries like Laos have to keep building dams to export electricity when their own people have limited access to such luxuries? 

Time for more than thought, me thinks.