Home ›› 26 Jul 2022 ›› Opinion
According to the United Nations, about one-third of the world’s food is misused mainly due to waste. On the other hand, using energy-saving lamps will save about 120 billion US dollars a year. This amount of money can be used to burn fewer fossil fuels. But in the same way, if the trend of luxury continues, by 2050, three more worlds like today will be needed to meet the needs of the world’s nearly 9 billion people. At the same time, the current inequality between the rich and the poor will take the form of an epidemic at the hands of capitalism.
There is no substitute for soil, water, air, and food to sustain human life. Even if all the other benefits of life are lost in a natural disaster, people can regain their ability to turn their lives around as long as the above-mentioned elements are present. So, we have to be economical in using natural resources to sustain our existence. We want to imitate developed countries in everything. But the time has come to question whether we are pushing our society and culture further down by imitating the various aspects of the collapsed family life in the developed world instead of the things that can be improved by imitating.
We should imitate the things that will help us to stand tall as a developed nation. There are certain days for car washing in Australia economically using water. That means the car cannot be washed any day you want. If you want to cut down trees again, it is possible to cut down trees only after getting permission from the government.
In Bangladesh though, there may be some rules everywhere but that rule is being broken every moment. We are suffering from complacency by breaking the rules, but we do not want to think that the whole nation is slowly sinking into a deep crisis. We often say with pride that irregularities are the rule for us. But have we thought about the extent of the far-reaching damage? If we want to keep our beloved homeland intact, prosperous, and livable, we need to be economical in using our life-sustaining resources. We will use life-sustaining accessories as much as needed. Certainly not in a way that leads to waste. In Germany, there are also fines for wasting food in restaurants. Germany is one of the most industrialized countries in the world. Many people think that German citizens live a very luxurious life. They do not even consider food an asset to society. Many people in the world lack resources.
So, they also have no right to waste resources in the country, this is their statement.
There is little opportunity to waste in India either. When you travel to the country you will see Indians setting examples of frugality. It is a habit of their daily life to calculate while spending on everything. If you work with any Chinese, you will see how frugal the Chinese are. They never spend all the money of their salary, but save some of it for the future. The three nations mentioned here have solidified their position among the most influential nations in the world.
The frugal person never gets into financial trouble in his personal life. He always leads his life by living an orderly life. The biggest thing is that he doesn’t need anyone else’s hand to run his own life. But unaccounted for people are more likely to get into financial trouble and focus on their illicit source of income to spend out of account. So, we should try to strengthen, consolidate and enrich our country, nation, and society by using their examples. In this country with a huge population, if we do not save every natural resource, then natural resources like water and gas will soon run out. If we look at the economic use of any resource with respect, then our country will be prosperous and we will have a corruption-free society. Because the lack of coordination between want and power makes people corrupt.
There is no doubt that the power generation and supply situation in the country has become fragile. To handle the situation, load shedding must be carried out for several hours throughout the country, including the capital Dhaka. For now, there is no option but to accept load shedding. But the distribution of this embarrassment must be ‘based on fairness’. In the current situation, there is no alternative to energy-saving measures.
As we have seen, at the end of the review meeting held at the Prime Minister’s Office on the power and gas situation in the country, several energy-saving decisions have been announced, including the stoppage of ostentatious lighting. Now the biggest challenge will be to implement the decision of saving. Efficient use of electricity is essential. Turning off unnecessary electric lights or turning off electric fans and air conditioners will save a lot more electricity. There is a lot of fuel ‘consumption’ in the public transport sector. Caution is also important in this regard.
Remember, the main cause of the ongoing power crisis is not the production and transmission system. Similar is the situation with the supply of gas and oil. Power officials say at least 300 million cubic feet of gas are currently being supplied. As a result, power generation capacity is not being utilized. And the crisis in Ukraine is at the root of the gas supply crisis. LNG or liquefied natural gas is not available in the open market due to the increase in the price of fuel including gas in the world market. Meanwhile, production at domestic gas sources has been declining before. At one time the country was said to be ‘floating on gas’, but gas production has been declining over the past few years. Even a few years ago, daily gas production was 2.8 billion cubic feet. In recent times, it has come down to 240 crore cubic feet. There is no promising news about the amount of gas reserve. Petro Bangla itself says that the country’s gas reserves are 35.70 trillion cubic feet or TCF. Of this, 15 TCF gas has already been extracted.
Apart from government facilities, transport and industry, citizens need to contribute toward saving electricity. We often think that by keeping a bulb burning unnecessarily, not much is being wasted. But in this country of nearly 170 million people, if even one electric lamp per household is lit unnecessarily, it could be equal to the total electricity consumption of many small countries. How citizens unnecessarily use electric household technology, including fans and air conditioners, is often wasteful. The time has come to think long-term about how the main raw material for power generation, gas, is burned indiscriminately in private cars.
In a developing country like Bangladesh, renewable energy should supplement gas, oil, and coal-based electricity. Renewable sources should also be looked at to make electrification sustainable.
Above all else, the most important thing right now is to focus on saving.
Due to a lack of fuel, electricity cannot be produced despite having production capacity. After the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, the global energy sector, especially oil and gas, has been shocked by the turmoil all over the world. Along with oil, the price of liquefied natural gas skyrocketed. It is understood that as an alternative to Russian oil and gas, the West is trying to deal with its shortage by buying gas at high prices. In this case, compared to many other countries in the world, Westerners have that ability a little more. Still, the fear remains about how much the situation can be handled in the coming winter. Billions of people around the world are suffering due to the high cost of energy, especially the marginalized people. On the other hand, fossil fuel exporting countries and companies are flourishing again.
For quite some time now, the fear of economic recession, on the one hand, and rampant inflation on the other, seems to be slowly coming true. Sri Lanka and Pakistan have been in turmoil for quite some time, the government has changed, but the extent to which the situation is changing is questionable. Analysts say that economic recession and inflation caused by the coronavirus pandemic and war have also played a role in the discomfort in public life. One of the ideas behind Western sanctions against Russia was that the economic recession would cause the Russian people to turn against Vladimir Putin’s regime. Needless to say, there will be many more in this queue, although it has not yet been seen in Russia. Due to various reasons, foreign exchange reserves are decreasing rapidly in our country as well. Just as the government may be responsible for this, the economic situation arising in the present war situation is equally relevant.
The balance of the natural environment has been destroyed due to unbridled consumerism in the world for quite some time now. At the same time, the current economic structure of excessive production and consumption is concentrating wealth on a certain group of people around the world, while at the same time contributing to the widening of the disparity between the rich and the poor.
The writer is a researcher and columnist. He can be reached at hiren.bnnrc@gmail.com
