Because You don’t Live Alone On this Planet

The city where i am studying. (Photo source: http://poskotanews.com/)

I'm studying in a city near the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta. Here we get electricity continuously for 24 hours. I could watch television all day, charging for mobile phone and computer anytime, hair drying, heating water, and turning on air conditioner. For long time I didn’t care about how much power consumption for those ectivities. I often let the television and lights in my room was turning on while I went to college. Another my bad behavior was I constantly let my microwave and computer on stand-by mode.

All i’ve written above changed after I visited my hometown in holiday a few months ago. Since birth I’ve lived on an island called Mendol located between two large provinces in my country. Although my hometown is an island, but there is no white sand and blue ocean there. You just find muddy and murky sea. When you arrive at the port of Mendol and then down its road, you'll see how simple our life there.

Satellite map of Mendol Island

Our island's port (Photo taken by me)

The main road surrounds the island

Indigenous children of the island

On this island we only have a medium diesel generator that illuminates several villages in the administrative center of the island for 12 hours per day. Other villages have no power at all except generator sets owned by each house. Generator set is just turned four hours each day. For many households who can’t afford to buy a generator set, so they can’t get the electricity throughout the day except lighting from lamp axis with kerosene fuel at the night. There is no water heater, air conditioner, hair dryer, and of course there is no appliances could they let in stand-by mode.

I could compare my island with big cities I’ve visited. Both are like two lives in two different planets. Out there peoples consume million watts of energy per second, while people here just cunsume a little. How can peoples consume energy with greedy while in the other parts of earth there are peoples who don’t have access for energy? Is that fair?

It has made me realize that everything I did in the city was a selfishness. I didn’t aware that I live on the same planet with seven billion peoples who also need energy and there are about 1.3 billion peoples worldwide don’t have access to electricity. When I read World Environment Day’s theme this year, 'Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume with Care', I spontaneously agreed. The energy consumers must have awareness to consume energy with care. We can start by stopping the simple things that have unwittingly been a waste of energy like don’t use stand-by mode when it isn’t really needed. Studies in Europe have estimated that stand-by power accounts for as much as 7 to 13% of residential electricity consumption. It would be better if every household monitore their power consumption. For example, in the United Kingdom, every household will be able to request a small portable device that can be carried around, showing how much electricity is being used in the home at any time. Such ‘real-time monitors’ will show how power consumption changes as appliances are turned on and off or unplugged, and how much power is being consumed when everything is off. This can help consumers develop household behavior that reduces power consumption and electricity bills.

 

Reducing stand-by power (Photo source: http://wordpress.mrreid.org)

It isn’t easy to change mindset of peoples who feel free to consume energy as long as they can pay become thinking consume energy efficiently although they could pay more. But at least we can do the simple thing like reducing stand-by power. This is one simple step we have to do before we step into another bigger concern. Remembering that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. If a simple thing we can’t do then how can we do a greater thing?

Reference: Sustainable Consumption and Production, Promoting Climate Friendly Household Consumption Patterns by United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.