On Terra Firma, Everyone Matters

Tomorrow, April 22, is Earth Day. And last night I happened to chance upon the ABC special program on Planet Earth 2007 hosted by Diane Sawyer, co-host of the Good Morning America (GMA) that I used to watch every morning before I left for work, but before we moved. Now I have to leave my premises before GMA goes to air in order to get my D to school in time. Yet another change in my old routine.

Coming back to Planet Earth 2007, there was a symbolic “Lights Out” moment, from Eiffel Tower in Paris, to a bridge in Sydney, Australia, and the ABC Studio in New York. The “black out” is a clarion call to all of us to save energy, the generation of which consumes a disproportionately large chunk of our non-renewable resource base, in addition to spewing out global warming inducing greenhouse gases in the process.

Some of us may not realize the profound reach of the message of “Think Globally, Act Locally”, resigned to the position that a person’s act of energy conservation would not “even cause a dent” in the grand scheme of things. But that’s where we are wrong. The mighty ocean is replenished by every single drop of rainfall. All of us matter, and what we do does contribute to the collective good of the Earth, the one we know dearly as the Blue Planet, as seen below [thanks to Peng Leong who emailed me the pps file from which this image appearing on the first slide is taken. The only source I could find is on the last slide, Translation to English and edited MSW 2007. Thanks, guys, whoever and wherever you are, for the beautiful message].


Diane mentioned in the show that if divided equally, each of us gets about 4 acres of land on earth. So what we do to upkeep this land, to preserve this land, and to enhance this land, matters to our posterity.

So incorporate the lights out into your daily routine, both in your own home and in the office. Off the light when you’re the last one to leave the office at the end of the day. Switch to non-incandescent light bulbs (hint: fluorescent light or even Light Emitting Diodes (LED), but the latter would be some time in the making). They may cost a bit more initially, but over their lifetime, the energy (and cost) saving is beyond doubt.

If you want some hard figures on the superiority of fluorescent over the incandescent variety that dated back to Edison’s days, it so happened that in between this blog my wife called me to lunch. After lunch, it was my wife’s turn to check for the latest on the Internet and I had to settle for the printed, but one-day-late news of the St. Petersburg Time (yet another change occasioned by my moving. We used to read the Tampa Tribune).

And under the HOMES section, the St. Pete Times featured an article entitled ‘go for a swirl” by Mary Beth Breckenridge of the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal where she laid bare “the whole twisted tale”. The protagonist is none other than the compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) [and I have just the one in my home as shown to the right], outshining (pardon the pun!) its incandescent counterpart as backed by the following facts excerpted from her article, those italicized being verbatim quotes:

• CFLs typically use ¼ to 1/3 the electricity and last 6 to 10 times as long (about 5 years).

• CFLs are more expensive: e.g., $3.00 versus $0.25 a piece, typically for a 60-watt light bulb. [But the increased initial capital outlay is offset by the replacement incandescent bulbs required over the lifetime of a CFL. So the energy saving is about $6 a year, per CFL. Imagine that a typical house has 50 or more light bulbs, multiply by the number of households, you do the math].

• The federal government says that if every U.S. household changed one incandescent light bulb to an Energy Star CFL, enough electricity would be saved to light 2.5 million homes, and the reduction in greenhouse gas emission would equal the amount produced by almost 800,000 cars.

• Because CFLs last longer, fewer (CFL) bulbs need to be manufactured. That saves additional resources.

• Because CFLs burn cooler than incandescents, the risk of fire or scorched lampshades is reduced.

• Compact fluorescents also let you put brighter bulbs into your fixtures because CFLs produce more light per watt than incandescent bulbs.

So make the switch today, and do your part for a green earth.

The other resource the show dwelt on is water where it pointed out that the greatest water consumption occurs during bathing, flushing toilet, and even brushing our teeth in the morning, under running water. In this respect, Singapore has set a very good example. I remember years past that country has implemented the partial flush system (a short pull as opposed to a long pull that leads to a full flush of the toilet facility). Since then the country has added recycled water for non-potable use (car wash, lawn watering, etc.), even reclaimed water for potable use. The country also boasts one of the lowest, if not the lowest (this distinction may belong to Israel), rate of non-revenue water where leakages through the reticulation system account for the majority.

So, refrain from using running water to wash, to bath, and go for a double flush cistern system.

The show also spotlighted the wanton use of plastic, for packaging, during grocery shopping, and just about anything that needs to be wrapped. It was stated that only 3% of the plastic that we use is recycled, and it’s common knowledge that plastic would last more (or much more) than a human lifetime under natural decomposition.

Remedies? Use cloth bags for grocery shopping. And for other instances, recycle plastic. In a nutshell, follow the 3Rs: reduce, reuse, and recycle.