Every day can be an energy saving day!

Last week, the Isles of Scilly held a world first community effort to save energy. Over a 24-hour period - on Energy Saving Day (E-Day) - the island’s residents switched off all non-essential electrical items in homes, schools and workplaces, and took live online measurements of the results. By the close of play at midnight, the islanders had achieved a 2.9% reduction on energy use, compared to the rest of the UK. And this only by being more mindful.

With the news that energy bills are set to rise by 60% this winter, events such as this show how small changes made collectively can make a big difference to our energy use and energy bills. If the whole country had switched off non essential items on that same day, there would have been an equivalent drop in the national electricity bill by £3m! About the same daily capacity as one large power station.

For me what was also interesting, was the 2-day mini-Earth Summit that was held in the run up to the event. This mini summit brought together islanders from across the world to speak about their experiences of climate change. These island nations have become a canary in our carbon coalmine, an early warning system for sea level rise, as well as for issues such as biodiversity.

On the Saturday, Ursula Rakova from Papua New Guinea’s Carteret Islands, spoke of her community’s plight as the first refugees from climate change, and her plan to relocate the Carteret community. The Carteret Islanders have already lost land due to sea level rises and are no longer able to grow crops to feed themselves. They often wake up to find sharks in their back gardens! For many millions of people, the devastation caused by changing seasonal patterns, sea level rise and unpredictable weather are already a daily and present danger.

If you still see climate change as a problem bound up in the future, or something we need to worry about for the sake of our grandchildren, take note of what’s happening in other nations, as Ursula says:

For you it is a matter of lifestyle, but for us it is a matter of life and death. If we do not move we are going to be drowned.

If you need further persuading, then watch Ursula’s moving talk about her experiences of climate change on the Carteret Islands.

Image courtesy Wikipedia

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This entry was written by Nigel and posted on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 6:24 pm and filed under Cool things, going going gone, Co2 emissions, Carbon footprints, Climate change. Bookmark the permalink. You can follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment, or trackback from your own site.

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