THE Church, particularly the Diocese of Marbel, is stepping up its campaign against the construction of a coal-fired power plant in Maasim, Sarangani.
The centerpiece of its opposition is the impact the power plant will give to the environmental and its effects to the health of residents in the village of the Kamanga and its immediate environ where the proposed plant will be constructed.
At this age of growing concern over global warming, the Church has every reason to be worried and to lead the campaign against technologies that contribute to harmful emissions, which in turn increase greenhouse gas deposits into the atmosphere.
But the Church may have gone beyond the line by ostracizing anybody who is supporting the project.
Some priests in the Diocese have gone to the level short of calling devil those who are behind the project as if this is a matter of good and evil.
Nothing wrong about being passionate about conviction, after all it is a personal as well as collective decision and a laudable crusade.
But by dichotomizing the issue as a bout between the good and the bad, the Church has painted itself into the corner that anything less than the stoppage of the proposed project is a triumph of Satan, if we may describe it as so.
Come to think of it, the Church may be also fostering ignorance by conjuring a doomsday scenario should the project pushes through.
The Church would be better off if it will explain what greenhouse gasses are and how they help and affect our blue planet.
Greenhouse gasses are essential to life and any living organism on earth. They protect us from excessive radiation due to direct sunlight and help the planet maintain its temperature. Without them, the earth will either be too cold or too hot to live in.
Excessive amount of them, on the flipside, will cause the earth’s temperature to rise and the melting of the icecaps in the Arctic and Antarctic regions.
According to estimates by scientists, some 750 gigatons of carbon dioxide, one of the greenhouse gasses, are hovering over the earth’s atmosphere.
It is growing by 5 gigatons a year due to human activity as a result of burning energy, cutting trees and natural decay. On the net side, the atmosphere is absorbing 3.4 gigatons of carbon dioxide more than it is releasing.
If the net gain is to be accumulated over time, it is estimated that atmospheric carbon will increase by 25 per cent in the next fifty years.
How much of that carbon dioxide emissions the atmosphere could still absorb to tolerable levels for living organism on earth, however, remains a critical point scientists from all over the world are still debating.
No doubt, burning energy – especially from fossil fuel – is one of the factors in the increase of atmospheric carbon.
This will further deteriorate if ecological balance cannot be maintained and the only way to mitigate the increase in volume of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is for the earth to grow more trees to absorb them.
But that is not the point in this argument. The essential and primordial concern is for the people to know – which the Church so far failed to provide – that human activity is critical in maintaining the ecological balance.
Suggesting renewable energy in place of energy generated by burning fossil fuel should also go beyond rhetoric and motherhood statement.
Lest the Church be accused of sloganeering, its spokespersons should also present empirical data and show the economics of generating electricity using renewable energies.
They should objectively educate the people that solar energy has not gone beyond household and small-scale commercial models - still far behind the desired industrial model.
For one, to generate one megawatt of electricity, today’s available solar technology will need 10 hectares of solar panels. That electricity generated from such a huge area is barely enough to light up some 50,000 20-watt fluorescent tubes.
They should also listen to facts that General Santos and, for that matter, Mindanao is outside the wind channel to allow commercial production of energy using such technology.
The closest that there is available in Central Mindanao are hydro-powered plant projects. But studies tend to conclude that the combined output that will be generated from all existing rivers in the region cannot exceed 60-megawatts unless dams will be constructed which will have greater impact on the environment and livelihood of the people. There is also no known geothermal source in the region.
Unless they could present facts back by empirical data, technical studies to include the financials and economics of generating power from these sources, the Church – including its allies – could fall short of arguments which will result into oversimplifying the issue and reducing it into a matter of who is telling the truth and who is lying.
Meantime, the Church and its allies should also address the looming power crisis that will likely affect the economy of the region within the next five years.
Building power plants is not like going to the supermarket and buying one from the shelves.
It entails detailed studies of the environment, technical design and financial consideration.
This is where the Church needs to arm themselves with better arguments.
They should also bear in mind that the state of the country’s power industry only reflects a failed government policy and misguided sense of priority.
Instead of castigating people who are addressing the country’s power problems, the Church should call on government to reassess its current policy of privatizing the power industry.
But then again, that would be another story.
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