Public urged to join tomorrow’s Earth Hour

CEBU, Philippines - Department of Environment and Natural Resources-7 is urging the public to join the millions around the world in marking another Earth Hour by switching off the lights for one hour tomorrow in support of a global campaign to combat climate change.

Isabelo Montejo, DENR-7 executive director, said that the crushing devastation wrought by super typhoon Yolanda is a reminder us that climate change is a serious issue.

“We have to join hands together in making our planet worth living to our future generations,” said Montejo.

Dubbed as the single, largest, symbolic mass participation event in the world, Earth Hour is held every last Saturday of March upon the initiative of the Washington-based environmental group World Wildlife Fund for Nature. 

Within one hour, the public are encouraged to turn off all their lights including appliances tomorrow starting at 8:30 to 9:30 p.m.

The Philippines has consistently registered the most number of participating towns and cities, earning the distinction as an “Earth Hour Hero Country” since it first joined the event in 2009.

This year, the country was chosen as one of the beneficiaries of the first ever “Earth Hour Blue,” an international crowd-funding and crowd-sourcing effort initiated by the WWF that aims to provide bancas for Yolanda victims.

Under the project, coastal communities affected by the super typhoon would be provided with resources to build new and efficient non-motorized boats with fiberglass-reinforced plastic hulls.

The construction of the first 60 boats is expected to be completed by mid-April.

“This is a manifestation of solidarity in lessening our carbon footprint particularly in electrical consumption for an hour or more than 60 minutes,” Montejo added.

Carbon footprint refers to the totality of the impact or effect of all activities done by an organization, group or individual on the environment.  It covers all greenhouse gases that each individual or organization may emit in the atmosphere as a result of its activities.

Likewise, Montejo cited a measure of lowering the use of energy by changing light bulbs to compact fluorescent light instead of incandescent bulbs as CFLs use up 75 percent less electricity and last up to 13 times longer.

The Cebu City government has already expressed its willingness to join the activity. This is the sixth time that the City of Cebu will be joining the Earth Hour.

A program will be held at the Northwing Parking area of SM City Cebu wherein there will be lighting of at least 60 lamps, ceremonial switch off and games.

The Visayan Electric Company reported  in the past Earth Hours a decrease in power consumption from at least 2.77 megawatts to 13.25 megawatts maximum within their franchise area, which is from Liloan to San Fernando.

Councilor Nida Cabrera of the committee on environment said, the low turnout in 2011 and 2012 is due to the lack of information dissemination. Now, they are coordinating with the different establishments, government officials in promoting the activity.

 â€œMao ni atoang kampanya karon. Dili lang ni karon lang. Ang kampanya sad nato magpadayon to be environmentally sustainable. Dili lang ni karong Sabado, dili lang ni one hour, i-continue ni nato ang kampanya,” she added.

This activity started in 2007 in Sydney Australia when 2.2 million people and at least 2,000 businesses in the said country switched off their lights for one hour. On the following year, around 35 countries became part of the event and keep on increasing every year.  (FREEMAN)