My home’s solar panels don’t start generating until 8am every morning. A nearby high-rise building to the east of my home obstructs the rays from the rising sun, preventing my house’s roof-mounted solar panels from generating electricity.
The same happens at 4pm when another high-rise to the southwest blocks the sun. My home, therefore, only effectively harvests eight (8) hours of solar energy, assuming it had been sunny all day.
Environmental activists argue that climate change is the biggest threat to planet Earth.
I disagree.
I believe that the bigger threat is pollution.
There are different kinds of pollution. Air pollution, water pollution, land pollution, noise pollution, thermal pollution, and sky pollution.
The buildings that obstruct my home’s solar energy generation contribute to sky pollution. They not only block sunlight, but they also take away the view of the sky.
There was a time when I could set up a telescope on my house’s front yard at night and look at stars, planets, comets, meteorites, & nebulae. Now, no more. The high-rise buildings’ lights have drowned out the dark sky, and I’d be lucky if I could catch a decent glimpse of any heavenly object. It doesn’t help that numerous airplanes and satellites populate the night sky. The dark sky is no longer dark.
It also doesn’t help that air pollution blurs the sky many days in a year. Fine, that clouds come natural at certain times of the year but smog from factories and motor vehicles distorts the horizon every morning through evening.
And air pollution together with water and land pollution stinks, on top of making it hard to breathe. I pity the people who live near landfills, harbours, and creeks, which are the dumping grounds of trash.
I live in Manila and the sad realities of air, water, & land pollution are compounded by the noise of urban life. Cars honk, motorcycles rev without mufflers, stereo amplifiers blare, and people talk & sing loudly.
While climate change may be a concern for some nations, pollution in my opinion is the immediate problem, at least at where I live and for those with similar circumstances.
The irony is that it’s much more straightforward to mitigate pollution than it is to combat climate change. An effective fix for water pollution, for example, is to invest in sewage treatment plants. Incinerators would be an answer to reducing trash; of course, they’d have to have filters to avoid air-polluting particulates. Local law enforcement could manage the dins of noisy motorists & inconsiderate party animals.
And if city halls could just not issue building permits to high-rise developers at residential neighbourhoods, that would be a big help to prevent any more decrease of whatever’s left of the sky.
It is too bad that much damage had already been done and is irreversible. I think I’ll neither get a view of a clear horizon, a dark sky to see the stars, nor twelve (12) hours of sunshine & blue sky ever again.
Some people say I should just travel to places if I want to experience un-polluted vistas. But that’s not the point, is it? Pollution is an urgent threat but not an unsolvable problem. And unlike climate change, there are things people could do to alleviate it, if not solve it.
It’s futile, however, to salvage what is already lost.
Goodbye, sky.
Ellery's Essays 