South Africa has proclaimed April 22 2009 as a public holiday. While Earth Day is celebrated on April 22 each year in many countries, South Africa has taken the lead in making the day a public holiday.
Few South Africans are aware of this fact. To them, April 22 is simply the date of the next South African general elections. Even the country’s president is unaware the the elections were proclaimed on Earth Day.
Earth day has been celebrated since 1970 when it was initiated to help spread awareness of ecological issues. The latest of these issues is global warming and the ecological footprint that each country and even each individual places on the environment.
South Africa scores poorly in terms of its environmental footprint. It is one of the world’s largest polluters. Although South Africa has a climate that is ideally suited to solar power generation, the electricity supplier is sinking its money into building more and more coal powered power stations. Its initiatives into solar, wind and wave power are merely fringe investments rather than being at the forefront of solving South Africa’s power requirements.
A giant solar powered turbine generator is being built in California. It is based on an Israeli model built in the Negev. Thousands of tiny mirrors relect the suns rays onto an element producing enourmous heat that powers steam driven turbines.
The technology is available, but South Africa would rather go it alone.
Environmental issues take a sad last place in most South African minds. More important are the issues of poverty, education and crime. But South Africa has already been hit by the effects of global warming.
When will the country wake up to the serious environmental issues rather than paying lip service to them?
Perhaps celebrating Earth Day would be a start.
6 responses so far ↓
1 Anrie // Apr 22, 2009 at 5:43 am
It is election day in South-Africa to day and has nothing to do with Earth Day. We use to have a tree plant day in August-Sept. Much Better time for such a day in SA.
2 Steam Turbines // Nov 16, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Unfortunately, most people never take the long view, and can’t even see past making a fast buck.
3 Kathy - Telaviv Hotels // Dec 4, 2009 at 5:18 am
hope earth day will be implemented =)
Kathy - Telaviv Hotels’s last blog post..Test Post
4 Oliver Starky // Apr 22, 2010 at 4:12 pm
This is a bunch of lies! when I read this article I was suddenly aware of how misleading, offensive and irrelevant this is. Today is our national elections day. South Africa is one of the few countries in the world with a small carbon footprint. As you clearly do not know, we have yearly “tree planting’” days and do as much as we can.. YES our country is totally corrupt and our president is a fool, but as for the schools and communities there are a lot of pride to be shown in terms of recycling etc. we are hosting the Fifa world cup 2010 and the environment is the last thing on the developers minds right now, although most of our stores have joined a campaign and are now using only recycled material. Three of the stadiums were built with eco friendly material keeping in mind that it could only be done to the seating. PLEASE PRAY FOR SOUTH AFRICA AND THE BOERE.
5
barrym
// Apr 22, 2010 at 6:23 pm
Oliver, you didn’t notice the date - this post was from a year ago & was clearly tongue in cheek.
Of course I am aware of arbor day, our national parks and so on.
As for our carbon footprint, it is very high. Eskom is planning to make it even higher with a new coal burning power station.
As you point out, we are finally becoming very environmentally aware and have built some of the world’s best stadiums for the FIFA World Cup.
6 kusadasi hotels // Jun 14, 2010 at 12:48 am
We stayed in kusadasi carizma hotel and it was one of the best holiday of my life..We will meet again as soon as possible!. thanks for all.
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