BELIZE CITY, Thurs. May 30, 2024
The great grandparents of this current generation knew what it was like to not have a well-lit city or town, or village, as many are today in these modern times. And so those old timers appreciated the blessing of electricity, and were thus careful not to waste it. “Turn off the light!” was often a nagging reminder by gramps, to which the youngsters would sulk and mumble, “What’s the big deal with a little light bulb?”
In times of plenty, when the hydro dam is full and cheap electricity is abundant from CFE in Mexico, we had little to worry about for a number of years. But now, with a fast-growing population and booming tourism, and a massive heat wave brought on by global warming, suddenly Belizeans are facing the scourge of the dreaded power outages, or “blackouts” as we first referred to it. And it is a real inconvenience, especially when the heat is unbearable and everyone wants to be near a fan when indoors.
What’s one light bulb? It may be like nothing in the big picture; but if 400,000 Belizeans in 111,000 households put our hands and hearts together and join in this emergency effort over the next two weeks, as requested by our energy supplier, BEL, our “people power” could save the day by cutting the energy demands on our electricity system, and thus avoid the need for any, or very minimum power outages – blackouts over the next two weeks, when other systems can come into play, or mother nature begins to release her life giving waters to flood our rivers and the dams again.
Let’s all go to sleep an hour earlier! Let’s turn off every light fixture we are not using; or every fan we do not need. CONSERVATION of electric power is what we need right now. And “PEOPLE POWER” can get it done, if we ALL ACT TOGETHER, every home and every household, like brother Marcus said, “ONE GOD, ONE AIM, ONE DESTINY!”
Together we can do it, Belizeans! Starting tonight.