Co2-hysteric Alvarez: My demon is bigger than your demon

Firecracker mentality upsets Alvarez - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

MANILA, Philippines—So you welcomed 2009 with a bang but in the eyes of environmentalists like Heherson Alvarez, there was one clear loser amid the New Year revelries Wednesday night—the environment.

Alvarez, the presidential adviser on global warming and climate change, on Thursday expressed dismay over the public’s general disregard for the environmental impact of using firecrackers each time the year came to a close.

He said much of the blame should be heaped on members of the middle class who came out with “big ones that exploded like bombs.” Unlike them, the poor were limited to small firecrackers and held back by the evening downpour, he said.

“We’re still very Oriental in our thinking that firecrackers drive away evil spirits,” he told the Philippine Daily Inquirer. “We are not aware that we are creating a new demon that will devour our very existence.”

Alvarez was referring to the serious problem of global warming among whose main contributors were carbon dioxide emissions.

When he was environment secretary in 2001, he said his agency recorded a 2,000-percent increase in carbon dioxide emission as a result of firecracker explosions during New Year celebrations in urban areas.
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The government, for instance, should expand its campaign against firecrackers beyond the idea of “protecting people from harming themselves.”

The campaign was apparent in advertisements showing gory images of body parts wounded in firecracker explosions. They were meant to discourage the public from using pyrotechnics by learning from others’ mistakes.

“The injuries are bigger and far more serious with global warming,” Alvarez said. “We’re threatening our way of life, our very civilization.”