Pinoy Kasi : Sun, wind, feet
Michael Tan opinion@inquirer.com.ph
Inquirer News Service
"THIS is ridiculous," my American friend declared, "it's colder in here than in the States."
She had flown in with visions of basking out in the sun in shorts and sandals, and instead was bundled up in a sweater and blazer as we made our rounds of conferences and symposia in hotels and meetings in hotels.
I've asked several hotel administrators why they set their thermostats so low and they say that guests from colder countries want it that way. But I've had quite a few friends from the States and Europe who complained that our hotels were much too cold. I've seen this myself, room thermostats set at 15 degrees!
And then there are our offices, both private and government, where the thermostats are also kept at Arctic levels. Here, some of my friends think it's our colonial mentality at work. Air-conditioning mimics the West, allowing us to bring out our suits and jackets and pretend we are in America.
I'm bringing this matter of freezing offices and hotels because with world oil prices spiraling, we're once again hearing government calls to conserve energy. But it's all reactive -- we worry only when oil prices go up, and then return to our old profligate ways soon as oil prices drop a bit.
Class discrimination
The energy conservation program is heavily flawed for two reasons. First, the conservation measures themselves are stopgap and are probably not going to result in major reductions in consumption. Second, we don't have a serious long-term plan for alternative energy sources so we can move away from this crippling dependency on oil.
Let's look at the stopgap measures, which are glaring in the way they discriminate in favor of the rich. Note how they are geared mainly to call on the poor and the middle class to cut down on consumption, while leaving the rich -- who are the heaviest consumers in the first place -- untouched. We are told to iron less and turn off the lights, but no one says anything about the air conditioning in hotels and offices.
Or look at the plans to create bike and pedestrian lanes. Don't get me wrong -- the proposal is an excellent one, and is long overdue -- but the poor and the middle class have been walking and biking and taking public transportation even without those lanes. If and when those lanes are constructed, I doubt that the rich are about to leave their cars at home and bike or walk.
I'd be more inclined to encourage people to use more of the light rail transits but people will not use them unless they live close to a station, or can use their cars and park near one of the stations. I have to commend the Shangri-La mall managers for opening their parking to the public as early as 6 a.m. The parking fee is steep but I use it because it spares me the ordeal of battling jeepney and bus drivers whose brains have been fried by lead and "shabu" ["crack"].
I know mid-level executives and university professors who regularly use the light rail and there are many more who will be willing to shift if the rides are made more convenient and safe and if you have secure park-and-ride facilities. But other than Shangri-La, I'm not sure there are light rail stations where you have secured parking.
Sun and wind
Let's get to long-term plans for alternative energy sources. Since Ferdinand Marcos' time, every president has talked about developing geothermal, solar, wind sources but we're moving too slowly on these cleaner alternatives while, ironically, moving quickly on coal, which is polluting.
There's been much publicity about mostly foreign-funded pilot projects like a "barangay" [village] in Nueva Vizcaya province where households are run on solar energy, or about wind farms in the northern region of Ilocos. But I read these press releases with envy -- if indeed these are viable, why aren't the technologies more widely promoted? My house uses solar panels for water heating and I've been very happy with the technology but Solarhart, the company that sold me the panels, has not been able to provide more than water heating, not even for a few light bulbs or a laptop. They say the technology isn't cost-effective yet.
I've checked the Internet and found suppliers in the States and in Australia but the kits are bulky -- and a bit expensive. Nevertheless, if a local company were to decide to import these panels, and if government could give tax breaks, I suspect there will be more people going solar, at least as a backup energy source. Even the water heating panels were on the high end. I was willing to spend the money only in the interest of environmental conservation.
I just feel we're not doing enough to make more options available. Last year, one of our government officials made a big fuss about using one of those hybrid cars, which allows switching between gasoline and electric power. Those cars have been available in the States and in Europe for several years now, but no one wants to distribute them here. Instead, we have all these suppliers pushing hard to get people to buy those gas-guzzling SUVs.
And what about biomass fuel alternatives to gasoline? Brazil has a good program converting sugar cane into ethanol, which is used by their public utility vehicles. I keep reading about similar "experiments" in the Philippines, but we can't seem to move into wide-scale application.
Healthy patriotism
In the long run, we need to develop a major shift in our culture around the use of energy. For starters, we need to question existing architectural norms that produce homes and offices with gargantuan energy demands in terms of air conditioning and artificial light. I'm amazed, for example, at how difficult it is to get hotels along Roxas Boulevard to provide function rooms with views of Manila Bay; instead, they put you in windowless dungeons that are dark -- and freezing.
We have to question the status attached to the use of cars, and the way men try to outdo each other to get the most environmentally destructive models. Conversely, we look down on the most efficient forms of energy conservation: our feet, whether for walking or converted into pedal power for bikes. Even the poor have picked up an aversion to walking: short distances require tricycles, so it's not surprising that tricycle-driving is probably now the No. 1 occupation for Filipino men. The motorized tricycles, incidentally, do contribute to pollution.
Energy conservation means glamorizing the alternatives: sun, wind, biomass fuels, as well as bikes and walking. Let's not get too preachy here. There are ways of promoting biking and walking as economical and healthy fun. Conserving energy makes sense, and really spells out a healthy patriotism.
