Every year on a specified day towards the end of March, individuals, communities, and businesses from all over the world participate in the Earth Hour, by turning off the lights for one hour to symbolize their commitment to reducing carbon dioxide emissions and saving the planet. Today, this movement has been participated in by in around 7,000 cities, towns and provinces across 187 countries.
In this movement, the Philippines has been a very active participant, which is a testimony to our commitment towards helping save the planet in any way that we can. In fact, our country ranks number 1 in terms of participation in this event, with 10-15 million joining in and turning off their lights every year.
If you remember the fact that our country is one of the most badly hit by the effects of climate change through strong typhoons, it sounds reasonable that we Filipinos join such movements. But how do we really help our planet by turning off our lights?
Global Warming and Climate Change
The main problem that our planet is facing today is climate change. If this continues, climate-related extremes can become more and more common. These include wildfires, typhoons and cyclones, floods, droughts, heatwaves, and many more. However, aside from all of these, climate change also indirectly puts many ecosystems and places all around the world at risk by negatively impacting agriculture, forestry, fisheries, health care, tourism, real estate and many more aspects of our lives.
Cause of Global Warming
Since the industrial revolution way back in 1760, we have become more and more dependent on burning fossil fuels for energy. Factories have utilized machinery that requires fossil fuels for energy to make the manufacturing process more efficient. We have also developed cars and other forms of public transportation that also run on fossil fuels. And more importantly, we have relied on fossil fuels to generate the electricity that we need in our everyday lives.
Burning fossil fuels, which releases carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, is the main cause of global warming. This is because carbon dioxide is a type of greenhouse gas. When in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide traps heat that should be reflected back into space in the same way that a greenhouse traps heat and prevents it from coming out of a greenhouse. Its effect adds up over time, heating our planet and altering its weather and climate patterns.
How We Can Help
The sad truth is that turning our lights off for one hour yearly won’t probably do much in helping reduce carbon dioxide emissions. But this is not to say that movements such as the Earth Hour are useless in helping this cause. These movements don’t really aim to drastically reduce our carbon dioxide emissions but to raise awareness and tell everyone that we can help in fighting this battle in our own little ways.
There are a lot of little ways that we can do to contribute in fighting this battle, aside from participating in the Earth Hour. You can start by reducing your home’s energy consumption by turning off your appliances when not in use and avoiding the use of appliances when not really necessary. Aside from this, you can also switch to more energy-efficient appliances. Even though these are just small steps, every kilowatt-hour of energy that we can save is very important and will go a long way.
You Can Do More
However, if you are really committed in this cause, you can do a lot more. And this is by having a solar energy system for your home. With a solar energy system, you are able to produce energy for your own electricity consumption, which then allows you to save much more energy. The good news is that a solar energy system can also act as an investment, as the monthly savings that it will give you will add up. Eventually, it will have paid for itself with these monthly savings.
If you want to know how much you can save up from your monthly electric bills through a solar energy system, please do not hesitate to contact us immediately. Together, let us help make the Philippines a solar-powered nation, and the world a better place!
Engr. Jet Andal has 6 years of experience in the design and installation of residential, commercial and utility-scale solar PV systems. Together, and with the use of solar energy, let us help make the world a better place. You can click here to read all of our other blogs. For aspiring solar PV engineers, you can also check out his Solar PV Engineering Ebook on Amazon on this link.