Simple Ways to Save Energy

Now that we are in a midst of an energy crisis, here are some tips to use fuel and electricity efficiently so as not only to save money, but the environment as well.

Cooking

• Only heat the amount of water you need.
  
• Use boiled water immediately rather than leaving it and then reboiling.
  
• Put well-fitting lids on pans.
  
• Keep heat on the base of the saucepan, do not let flames lick the sides of the pan.
  

Fridges and Freezers

• Door seals should be able to grip a piece of paper tightly.
  
• Keep your fridge temperature at 2 to 3°C and freezer at -15°C. Check the fridge is not near a cooker or any other heat sources.
  
• Defrost your fridge and freezer regularly.
  
• Use old newspaper to fill gaps in the freezer when you are not storing much food - this improves efficiency.
  

Appliances

• Turn televisions and other appliances off. Leaving appliances on standby still uses energy.
  
• Energy efficient light bulbs are more expensive than standard bulbs but they will last up to 10 times longer which conserves significant energy. They are most effective when used for lights that are left switched on for long periods of time
  
• If possible, buy the most energy efficient products possible. Ask retailers and manufacturers for information

These little things, when done more often, will save large amounts of energy. By following these simple suggestions, we are doing our own parts in the call to save the environment. Spread the news so that more people will take actions to save the environment.

Community-based Forest Management

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has been encouraging local communities to preserve forest parks. Community-based forest management is a key to the rehabilitation and regeneration of what is left to our forests.

Studies show that only 4% of the country’s forests are intact. Some of the most depleted forests are Oriental Mindoro, Cebu and Batangas.

Forests, rainforests in particular, are abundant with thousands of plant species. They are the most structurally-complex and diverse of land ecosystems, with the greatest number of species. In the global setting, rainforests only cover 6% of Earth’s surface. Tropical rainforests produce 40% of earth’s oxygen. Hence, the continuing depletion of forests would yield to the dwindling supply of the air we breathe.

Forest depletion is a product of human activity. Among the causes of depletion are deforestation, slash and burn and road constructions.

Reforestation is the primary answer to forest depletion. One of the strategies of the DENR is the planting of past growing trees such as acacia and gmelina. These trees can regenerate forests within a year.

Let us take part in preserving our forests by joining tree-planting activities. Moreover, let us start in our own homes. Why don’t we try planting seeds in our yards and see how these tiny little seeds would grow into beautiful plants.

Tree-planting by the seashore

The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) will be launching a nationwide mangrove and watershed tree-planting program on May 26 themed “Puno Ko, Sagip-Buhay Mo.”

The mangrove and watershed rehabilitation program, which will be undertaken in 17 key coastal and watershed communities across the country, is the first of this grandeur to be attempted by the Bureau with the involvement of multi-sectoral participants including local government units (LGUs), non-government agencies (NGAs) and non-government organizations (NGOs).

The threat of climate change has seriously affected coastal communities. Fisherfolks are complaining of minimal catch in addition to muddy odor and flavor. Planting of trees in coastal and watershed areas would help in protecting the shoreline from the destructive effects of soil erosion due to prolonged rainfall.

Let us take time to coordinate with our respective local BFAR offices for information about the tree-planting activity. Let us do our part in saving Mother Nature.

Oil-free Bibliography

I came across this article from the May 12, 2008 issue of The Philippine Star entitled Let us invest in alternative energy and agriculture by Wilson Lee Flores in his column Bull Market, Bull Sheet.

It was indeed a very interesting read and I was delighted to know some books that tackle the threats of oil supply decrease and the importance and necessity of finding alternative sources of energy.

With global oil prices rising exponentially, it is quite necessary for the government and the private sector to invest in alternative sources of energy such as nuclear power plants, geothermal, solar, hydrogen, wind, hydroelectric and other sources of energy.

In a book by Dr. James Canton entitled The Extreme Future: The Top Trends That Will Reshape The World In The Next 20 Years (as quoted in Flores’ article) Dr. Canton wrote: “The era of cheap oil is over. Alternative energy, though promising is not ready to promote adequate supply. We need to invest quickly in new energy sources. We need to learn to conserve energy. Energy is a national security issue.” A top Saudi official of the government oil firm Aramco told Dr. Canton in a 2004 meeting in Paris that oil would run out in about 25 to 30 years.

Another book cited by Flores, Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert’s Peak by geologist and Princeton University Professor Kenneth Deffeyes asked the world for an era wherein oil supply is about to run out. He urges investments in other sources of energy and enumerated some energy conservation tips such as riding cars less often, turning off light when not needed, using less aircon and heating, installing exhaust fans and building bike rack instead of car garage.

Last of the three book cited in Flores’ article entitled Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil by David Goodstein directs the world to “find a way to live without fossil fuels “through “courageous, visionary leadership” to find alternatives.

Now that I am a law student I hope that when I have time to spare and more importantly, money to spare, I will buy these books and take time reading those. For the mean time, I am more than content reading Mr. Flores’ articles.

I wish I could feature more of Mr. Flores’s and other writers’ articles about the environment in this blog in the coming days. Environmental sustainability is everybody’s concern and we should all act to save Mother Nature.

Environmental activists probe polluting garbage dump in Laguna Lake

Greenpeace Water Patrol activists last week investigated a dump site in Angono, Rizal which has taken over the banks of Laguna Lake, and called on the government for the strict enforcement of waste laws to protect the country’s threatened freshwater sources.

Environmental activists procured sample water from the vicinity as part of their investigation and also put a signpost nearby saying, "Our trash. Our water. Protect our water sources." to remind the public that the waste they are throwing eventually ends up in sources of our daily usage of water.

Although this problem seems to be a gargantuan one, we can help lessen environmental degradation by simply practicing responsible waste management such as waste segregation and composting of organic wastes. We, ourselves, can be part of the solution to the problem of garbage and water pollution.

The Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA) said last December 2007 that dumpsites in four municipalities, namely Paete and Biñan, Laguna, and Angono and Taytay, Rizal are located near to Laguna Lake’s shores. Although the LLDA has asked the concerned local government units to implement the Ecological Waste Management Act of 2000 (RA 9003) the dumps continue to pollute the lake. toxic leachate from the said garbage dumps are expected to ooze into the lake for years to come, even after the dumps are successfully closed.The dumps in Angono and Taytay, in particular, occupy the lake's waters in obvious disobedience of the Clean Water Act of 2004 (RA 9275), and RA 9003. The Angono dumpsite was supposedly declared closed by Mayor Aurora Villamayor last January 2008, but investigations encountered garbage trucks delivering fresh garbage to the site just a week ago. The Taytay dumpsite, on the other hand, is still fully operational.Laguna Lake, also known as Laguna de Bay, is the country's largest lake, and the 2nd largest freshwater basin in Southeast Asia. It is being eyed as a possible source of potable water for Metro Manila. However, according to the LLDA, the lake is in danger of dying in five years if no steps are taken to improve its fast deteriorating water quality.

Reference: Baconguis, Beau. Greenpeace Water Patrol investigates polluting garbage dump in Laguna Lake. April 21, 2008

Environment: A Major Source of Corruption

This article was originally published by the Center for People Empowerment in Govenrnace (CenPEG) for their Issue Analysis No. 7 Series of 2008.

The higher the level of corruption in a country, the greater the destruction of the environment.

Environment: A major source of corruption

The higher the level of corruption in a country, the greater the destruction of the environment; likewise, the lower the level of environmental sustainability. This correlation comes not from an NGO or an anti-corruption watchdog but from the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Davos annual meeting of political and corporate leaders from all over the world.

The linkage between environment and corruption is ringing alarm bells not only in the WEF but in other multilateral organizations as well. This may not necessarily out of their concern for the environment, however, but because the funds granted many developing countries including the Philippines to combat corruption have yielded no promising results, worse, are embezzled through corruption itself.

There is another correlation: Developing countries that are highly dependent on extractive industries, such as mining, logging, and the export of resources, show the highest levels of corruption. The WEF, along with Transparency International (TI), Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC), and other institutions see the Philippines as the second most corrupt country in the world and the first in Asia today.

Previously ranked as one of a few countries with the most diverse ecosystems, the Philippines is now facing an environment crisis. Only 17 percent of its forest cover is left and 50 of its 421 major river systems are biologically dead. Mining and other extractive industries threaten farm life, coastal and marine resources, access to water, and spawn epidemics and pollution of all types. Foreign mining firms have, since the 1970s, plundered as much as $30 billion worth of mineral resources from the Philippines. Moreover, some $2 billion is lost to environmental degradation every year.

The environment sector is a major source of corruption as well as political patronage. The plunder of natural wealth has been the material base of oligarchic politics that promotes and practices corruption. It is where the most coveted resources are, and it is where the money is. The mineral wealth alone that remains untapped is worth $840 billion; the first phase of the Arroyo administration's minerals policy was expected to generate $10 billion in investments.

Teeming with corruption

The large-scale exploitation and extraction of the country's natural wealth especially timber and mineral resources teems with corruption involving bureaucrats, powerful politicians and their cronies, on the one hand, and transnational corporations and their local partners, on the other. The maze and levels of corruption begin with the TNCs themselves – in their ¬countries business gives legitimacy to bribery.

In the United States, for instance, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) does not prohibit bribing foreign officials through facilitating or expediting payment "the purpose of which is to expedite or secure the performance of a routine governmental action." On the other hand, the OECD's 1997 Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions ("OECD Convention") makes acceptable "grease payments," "speed money," "facilitating payments," or "expediting payments" that are made to ensure the timely delivery of goods and services, such as permits and licenses.

In Canada, the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act makes even more explicit about "grease" payments as legal if these are made to expedite or secure the performance by a foreign public official of any routine act that is part of the foreign public official's duties or functions, including the issuance of a permit, license, visas, and work permits.

As a result, foreign firms including mining TNCs offer bribes and allot revenues for grease money sometimes bigger than the normal 22 percent that Filipino business firms normally earmark to get government projects approved. Many TNCs whose mining operations have been banned or restricted in other countries because of pollution are willing to shell out bribe money in the Philippines allowing them to invest in mining exploration, extraction, and exportation while evading tight environment evaluation, monitoring, or even litigation. Awash with trillions of dollars in surplus capital, China's corporations including ZTE-NBN are willing to offer as much as one-third of their investment capital to corner mining, telecommunications, road development and other major projects. These projects damage the environment, demolish communities, and make the people bear more tax burdens to compensate for losses in enterprises that do not benefit them at all.

The profit objectives of business in extracting billions worth of environment resources are facilitated through the enactment of laws and onerous treaties, the issuance of policies, transactions, permits, designation of areas for operation, sham environment assessments, and other papers. This bureaucratic and policy-making process involves all layers of government including the chief executive, Congress, and even members of the judiciary.

Legal mechanisms

Thus legal mechanisms are used to legitimize and process the plunder of natural resources. But it is the invisible hand of corruption wielded by the powers-that-be which makes this development aggression more expeditious. It is this same hand that protects profitable ventures, beneficiaries of corruption, and the wanton destruction of the environment at the expense of communities, their livelihood and property, and their future. Corruption makes environment laws unenforceable and violators to get away with their crimes. It also makes accountability toothless.

A case in point: When the Supreme Court ruled in December 2004 that the Mining Act was unconstitutional, the bureaucracy's top honchos flexed their muscle to support the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines' and the TNCs' lobby to have the ruling reversed. Millions of dollars were reportedly spent for this campaign. In less than a month, the high court did an about face. A jubilant House Speaker Jose de Venecia boasted before international mining investors in London in June 2005: "We mounted a strong campaign to get the Supreme Court to reverse itself. It was a difficult task to get 15 proud men and women of the Supreme Court to reverse themselves. But we succeeded." Corruption is the secret agency that makes environmental destruction possible topped by civilian deaths, epidemics, and calamities. It has led to the depletion of the country's natural resources ranging from deforestation, slope destabilization, soil erosion, desertification, water resource degradation, defertilization, crop damages, siltation, alteration of terrain and sea-bottom topography, increased water turbidity and air pollution. It continues to threaten the country's food security.Given the current propensity to reward corrupt officials while whistleblowers along with anti-corruption watchdogs are intimidated, corruption in the environment sector is here to stay and is sure to worsen. Horrifying will be day when the whole country degrades into a desert and the only life remaining is the social cockroaches – the corrupt oligarchs and crony capitalists.

Corruption breeds in a government dominated by oligarchs who craft development policies motivated by private gain and corporate greed. And yet environment constitutes public wealth and it is just for the people to make an assertion of this basic principle. In the short term, pending legislative bills that uphold transparency in government transactions such as the right to public information should be supported. Independent and impartial investigations of corruption cases and environmental plunder should take their course. In the long term, the campaign for environment conservation and the defense of patrimony should be linked to the overall struggle for land, against corruption, and toward democratic governance.

Reference:
Bobby Tuazon

Director, Policy Study, Publication and Advocacy (PSPA)

Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG)

TelFax +63-2 9299526;

E-mail: cenpeg.info@gmail.com; info@cenpeg.org

http://www.cenpeg.org/

Environmental Sustainability and Rice Shortage

The issue of shortage in rice is indeed a very pressing issue these days. Many say that it can be attributed to the hoarding of some unscrupulous businessmen. Economists and agriculturists are exhausting all their resources to attend to this particular issue.

One aspect left in abeyance is the issue of environmental sustainability and how it affects rice production. For my very first entry, I would like to tackle the issue of environmental neglect and elevate the discussion on how it affects many Filipinos. Environmental neglect does not only affect the physical well-being of Filipinos, it also manifests how this neglect could lead to a very serious problem - the shortage in the staple food of Filipinos.

Many farmlands are now being converted to industrial lands. Not only that industrialization contributes most to polluting the environment, it also lessens the land the may be used to plant rice hence, shortage in rice production.

I was asked by a famous law professor from the law school whose business is to teach law in the grand manner whether it is better to stop industrialization and mentioned that industrialization yields to more profit. I conceded that industrialization is necessary but we should rechannel resources in alleviating environmental conditions as well. He then asked, "What about trade? Haven't you heard of comparative advantage?" I replied that trade and comparative advantage have no bearing in this issue for all the countries who are exporting rice are suffering from shortage as well and are attending to their domestic needs first. What is the point of having too much purchsing power if we do not have the products to cast our peso votes to.

Mother Nature provides everything for us - shelter, food, clothing. It is our utmost responsibility as stewards of the environment to care for Mother Nature. Our neglect of the environment had led to the destruction of our shelters. Now, it is leading to the shortage of our food. Let us act now.