One project involving college students in the mitigation of climate change effects was presented by the Greenpeace Organization at the 20th founding anniversary of the Foundation of the Philippine Environment.
This presentation of the project, in which a number of colleges and universities in Manila and Mindanao are now participating, was the best among the five FPE-supported projects reported at the meeting.
The primary objective of the project is to promote the use of local renewable resources to generate electricity, thereby, reduce imports of fossil fuels and the net emission of carbon dioxide.
Greenpeace reported that both the administrations and the students of the colleges and universities were enthusiastic about the project.
So far, student involvement in projects on climate change mitigation is limited to such activities as tree planting and environmental sanitation. These activities have been done almost as a matter of routine for some time, and in many cases, may not be effective in bringing home the consequences of climate change in the minds of students.
In contrast, novel approaches linking energy use and generation by humans, and carbon emissions resulting in atmospheric temperature changes and causing weather changes, as well as natural calamities that in turn cause human suffering are likely to excite the minds of students so that they find the issue of climate change challenging from the academic viewpoint.
The Greenpeace initiative bears watching. I am confident that it will generate successful subprojects that can be considered as small experiments that students themselves can report on before developmental and environmental forums.
Thus, the potential for research training is built into the conduct of these subprojects. The research aspect is important because the students must show by quantitative analyses that the project is sustainable, and does not result in net carbon dioxide emission.
One of the suggested projects is harnessing small mountain streams to generate electric power for use by small communities. This is ideal and certainly feasible in colleges and universities outside of large cities, provided technical help from the faculty and small initial funding for needed materials are available. The by-products of such a project are community-based reforestation, forest protection and water conservation.
The good thing about the approach is that environmental protection is combined with academic objectives to reduce dependence on fossil oils, harnessing our indigenous resources for energy needs and contributing to the world’s effort of preventing our earth from becoming too warm, and all other consequences of increasing temperatures.
