Keywords: Earth Hour / Litter / Climate Change Strategy / Energy / Traffic & Idling / Cycling
Earth Hour will be taking place this Saturday the 27th March. Each year communities are invited to switch off their lights for an hour from 8.30pm local time and w have encouraged Gibraltar to participate in this awareness campaign for many years. Of course, it’s not about switching off, is it, its about reviewing your lifestyle, the impact you and your family have on the planet and how you can improve this too. Importantly though governments and businesses are also reminded of the global challenges from resource depletion to climate change and need for real action.
So this Saturday – do your bit and encourage others to also participate in the switch off and any other project running that helps the environment.
A quick one on litter – with the better weather upon us, more people are enjoying the beaches but sadly a few refuse to use bins provided and leave all their garbage behind. This calls for more policing and deterrents- how else will litterers understand that such behaviour is just not acceptable! It is dirty, an eyesore, degrades the amenity for others, and threatens the natural environment too. So please, use the bins, or take it home – it’s not cool to litter. We shall be pressing for action under our CUTW Campaign.
We again call upon Government to please release their Climate Change Strategy – a roadmap to a cleaner and healthier environment as well as tackling our carbon impacts in all areas – We hope this will include shipping and bunkering responsible for the largest share of carbon emissions in Gibraltar by far. We understand this was to be published at the end of March.
Green energy is a major issue for global warming and Gibraltar is not exempt from the pressure to replace fossil fuels with renewable sources of energy. It is positive to see the rollout of solar capture throughout many parts of our community and the ESG hopes plans for further expansion will follow asap. Shore power for local businesses and visiting vessels has been announced but not yet in place. This would enable vessels to switch off at berth and connect to our electricity grid – it would cut down on noise and air pollution so we hope this will be prioritised as we continue to build housing estates ever closer to the port area.
A report has been circulating in social media over intolerable levels of noise produced at the Morrison’s Car park recently with running engines for refrigerated trailers. Should this repeat best advice is to report directly to the Environmental Agency charged with responsibility to tackle noise disturbance and nuisance to follow up and eliminate this problem. Call 200-70620 and email: admin@eag.gi .
Traffic and idling is a real bugbear for us. We would also like to see greater effort in reducing unnecessary vehicle use to allow more space and cleaner air for walking and cycling. Combined with the eventual departure of polluting 2 stroke bikes, second hand buses, out-dated commercial and construction vehicles off our streets and early introduction of green transport using clean fuels, we could really see major changes in air quality and our physical environment in beautiful Gibraltar.
Back to cycling we wanted to highlight and support an upcoming Cycle Awareness event taking place on Good Friday 2nd April. Details of the event led by the OTWO Magazine and Ebike can be found on Facebook and in the general media, as well as links on our website.
For more visit website: www.esg-gib.net
Thanks for listening.
