For 28 long years now, we’ve been celebrating April 22 as Earth Day since 1990 with much fanfare, but it seems like we keep on repeating the same media-hyped events like the Earth Day concert jam on April 29 at the Quezon City Memorial Circle, but neglecting efforts at research and technology-based genuine solutions to environmental issues, particularly on air pollution, which chokes Planet Earth and kills thousands a year.
Ersatz environmentalism? There is nothing wrong with having media events like “Carless Day,” “Greening and Tree Planting,” “Coastal and Estero Cleanup drives” of getting rid of plastic and other floating debris, “Earth Day rock concerts,” etc., or the global Earth Hour mania of switching off lights and electricity for one hour, once a year.
These highly hyped events are laudable, if they are culminations of yearlong activities of hard work, but if they become the be-all-end-all of environmental activity done once a year, with the rest of the 364 days almost doing nothing, then they become a form of ersatz environmentalism. More so, if we keep on doing the same thing over and over, without assessing if they really make any difference.
Seminars and information educational campaigns are always packed repeatedly, with environmental awareness-raising reminders.
Unfortunately, they only fall on deaf ears owing to the lack of specific programs to address systematically these environmental problems through synchronized combination of interventions from social organizations, research support focusing on solutions, policy and program support through carrot and stick regulations, and incentives to instill the discipline and develop habits, technology packages, financing support, community participation, information and education campaigns, including media involvement.
Adept, deep but still deaf? The total advocacy-disconnection and policy-dysfunction are more real among transport drivers, who are often more adept and deeply understand more transport problems, but deliberately don’t heed government diktats owing to absence of solutions and weak implementation details.
Drivers complain they are fed up with the advocacy on the health impact of emissions, claiming, “so what if our emissions cause health problems, but what can we do if no one is teaching us solutions anyway.” And no amount of penalties and frequency of apprehensions will reduce their emissions.
As they need to drive for subsistence with their jeepneys operating 14 hours a day, drivers can be caught theoretically several times a day with escalating fines to a maximum one-year suspension penalty plus P6,000. In the absence of an educational program on solutions to choose from, they have “come across” and have institutionalized a compromising system, allowing drivers to operate at a cost, while circumventing laws.
And yet Section 46 of the Clean Air Act requires that apart from penalties on smoke-belching vehicles, drivers and operators must undergo seminars on emissions reduction. Section 11 even mandates the government to make available all the information on maintenance systems, technologies, etc. on pollution prevention, but this is not done as Section 15 on Pollution Research has not also been funded and implemented.
Clean air be given priority. Among all environmental issues like solid wastes, wastewater, hazardous wastes, soil erosion, forest, coral reef and mangrove destruction, clean air must be given more importance mainly because of the fact that while “one cannot survive without food beyond two months, without water beyond seven days, one can’t survive without air beyond 10 minutes.”
Among all environmental issues, air pollution is the worst, as its impact on health alone costs $2.8 billion as of 2013, while deaths soared to 57,403 for the same year, says World Bank and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Mortality figures may even be 50 percent higher if we include deaths by respiratory diseases like bronchitis, emphysema, pneumonia, etc., but which are also aggravated by air pollution.
Although directly caused by respiratory diseases, the contributory effects of emissions cannot be denied. World Bank’s Enviroment Monitor in 2002 cited a study, saying jeepney drivers recorded the highest chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases at 32.5 percent, and pulmonary tuberculosis at 17.5 percent. Men are more vulnerable because they smoke more, but the correlation with vehicle emissions is undeniable as street children recorded the second-highest incidence.
As we approach 19 years of the Clean Air Act by June, emission levels may have worsened with more vehicles on the road sharing 93 percent of total air pollution in Metro Manila, and partly because of no massive technological intervention while smokestack factories have moved out to the countryside.
If clean air is more important and mobile sources now share the bulk of air pollution, logically more resources and programs be spent on finding solutions to vehicle emissions.
Penalties aren’t fine, education is. Increasing penalties or the frequency of road apprehensions will not reduce emissions. Not even a total change of vehicle or engine, which is the main component of transport modernization, will prevent emissions, because even brand-new engines will start smoke-belching shortly after. More so with jeepneys subjected to passenger overloads and 14-hour operations.
And no single technology will do the trick as emissions are caused by multiple factors like poor fuel, poor fuel-air ratio, poor lubrication, old engine design, etc. But education and providing informed choices for transport are better guarantees.
Maintenance is key. Educational seminars provide theory and knowledge, but are also useless, unless put to practice through actual periodic maintenance. As public transport is overstressed with 14 hours running time and it is vulnerable to maintenance downtimes, which can affect amortization payments of the transport-modernization program.
Along with modernization, the government must implement a maintenance policy and program, which are lacking as provided under Section 21 of the Clean Air Act, which can mean establishing maintenance service centers per modernized transport group to prevent maintenance breakdowns, assure amortization payments and provide additional livelihood to partly absorb the financial burden of modernization.
E-mail: mikealunan@yahoo.com.