Walk the talk

On 19 May I presented at a Climate Change Seminar, under the slogan ‘Walk the talk’. It was part of a three-day-long Articulate Africa Art and Book Fair, hosted by eThekwini Municipality’s Parks, Recreation and Culture Unit. The seminar was attended by around 60 learners from 6 schools, along with around 40 teachers and local stakeholders.

The learners proved that they already know a lot about climate change. They got top scores for quiz questions about what the greenhouse effect is about, about the causes and effects of climate change, and whether scientists agreed on what was going on. Impressive!

BUT, as we reflected before, knowledge does not automatically lead to action. Despite two centuries of climate science, and decades of international negotiations and agreements, government policies are still taking us to 3°C global warming or more. Yet the dangers even of current levels of warming (1.1°C) are clear, just read the news.

The climate crisis is much too serious to wait for governments to act, or to tell us what to do. Instead we, civil society, need to act of our own choice, and put pressure on government and industry to do the right thing. Democratic governments may not listen much to the science, but they do have to listen to the people. So let us ‘walk the talk’.

South Africa is the country with the 15th largest carbon footprint in the world. Climate change is not just someone else’s problem, but also ours. Page 6-7 in the booklet illustrates where all our country’s greenhouse gasses come from: 80% come from fossil fuels, about half of which goes to producing electricity from coal. To make a meaningful dent in our national carbon footprint, we need to reduce electricity consumption.

The residential electricity-related emissions can be very high, especially for appliances that are left running for many hours, such as air conditioners, heaters or geysers, and for those that involve heating.

The bar graph (on page 13 in the booklet) shows that electricity use in the home can generate many tons of carbon dioxide per year. How much is a ton?

In an interactive session, the learners at the seminar found out how to read and interpret a municipal electricity bill, and to calculate the electricity-related carbon footprint for a household.

Until renewable energy becomes a reality for all, we can respond to the climate crisis by reducing our electricity consumption. This also saves lots of money, given how electricity prices have sky-rocketed, and relieves the pressure on our struggling power grid. The checklist in the booklet shows many effective ways of reducing those kiloWatt-hours.

Let’s ‘walk the talk’ and save our planet!