Today is another red letter day for environmentalists across the globe. March 28 is the last Saturday of March, time for Earth Hour, an event that started in Sydney, Australia in 2007.
Thanks to an active campaign by Filipino environment groups, the Philippines has joined a host of countries in turning off lights from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. local time as a show of solidarity in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, a primary cause of global warming and climate change.
Yes, the megawatts of energy saved in one hour of darkness can be easily offset by the huge power consumption of factories, plants and households.
It may seem a puny attempt to conserve energy, but the message behind it, the need to help the Earth heal and sustain life, bears repeating.
What enterprise or household doesn’t rely on electricity to keep going?
Even “green” cars are being built to run on electricity in order to reduce pollution and global warming.
With all the devices at one’s disposal, it would be difficult for a lot of people to imagine going back to the old days of using gas lamps instead of flicking on a wall switch , or return to riding horses rather than cars.
Thankfully, we don’t have to look too far back or rely too much on the present energy mix of gasoline and fossil fuels that continually damage the ozone layer.
There have been efforts by First World countries to develop clean energy. First there was cold fusion in 1989 but further experiments were unable to perfect the technology and resources needed to achieve that state, which would allow the production of substantial energy at room temperature rather than the millions of degrees usually created in nuclear plants.
Ongoing experiments in cold fusion are now referred to as “low energy nuclear reactions” because scientists now consider it as existing only within the realm of science fiction—feasible perhaps, but not in the foreseeable future.
But green energy advocates need not go far for cheap, available energy sources.
Water is one, so long as they are preserved as well as wind and geothermal can be harnessed to provide households and industries the power they need to maintain the standards of modern living they are accustomed to.
But along with tapping renewable energy sources comes the responsibility of curbing and conserving these sources to ensure a sustainable life for future generations.