BPI volunteers clean beach for Climate Impact Day

THE ailing environment suffers in countless ways, from the deforestation of the land, destructive fishing of the seas, mismanagement of solid waste, to the volumes of toxins released into the air.

The Bank of the Philippine Islands Dumaguete Cluster employees, under its BPI Bayan Volunteeerism Project, decided to step out of its comfort zone and offer a day of voluntary service to the environment.

Every Saturday since August 2011, the BPI family, together with partners from the Focolare Movement, Century Security and Protective Agency, Silliman University Institute of Environmental and Marine Sciences and the officials and residents of barangay Bantayan, trooped to Silliman Beach to clean the area of plastics and other solid waste and to prepare for Climate Impact Day on May 5.

Climate Impact Day is an internationally coordinated advocacy day addressing the negative impact of too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a by-product of fossil fuel burning released into the atmosphere from vehicles, factories and other machines. This is creating a heat trapping blanket around the earth keeping heat close to the earth and unable to break out beyond the atmosphere.  Scientists call this the Greenhouse effect, which causes the global warming.

The advocacy of the Climate Impact Day is to engage the whole world in doing something to bring the CO2 level to 350 parts per milliion or below, which is defined by scientists as the safe threshold which the earth is sustainable.  CO2 in the atmosphere is presently at an alarming 392 PPM.

The BPI Bayan Volunteerism Project is gathering discarded plastics and other solid waste for proper disposal not only to beautify the area but also prevent more CO2 emission in the atmosphere when these plastics are burned.

It is  also clearing an area at the north end of the beach for the planting of 350 mangrove trees that will contribute to the absorbing of CO2 from the atmosphere.