Making ‘dumsor’ a positive turning point
‘Dumsor’ is fast creating its own cultural dynamic; no surprises there. It would be strange if such a massive change maker did not leave its own lasting impressions.
Advertisement
Saying this reminds me about how water shortage left a lasting impression on a couple I know.
They lived in a community where water flowed once a week, on Wednesday nights after midnight when the whole household woke up to fill their tanks, barrels and even bottles with the precious liquid.
They moved away from that community to settle at a more water-rich area where they built their own water reservoir in addition to the flow from Ghana Water.
Yet for several years, the couple continued to suffer a form of psychological insomnia every Wednesday night despite there being no need to fill water tanks and other receptacles. They would wake up at exactly midnight on Wednesdays no matter how deeply they were asleep.
What kind of psychological scars will remain even long after this dreadful ‘dumsor’ ends, as one must hope will happen sooner than later? Already, many people say they suffer from bouts of anxiety arising from not knowing when their lights go off and on.
I recently conducted an unofficial poll among some friends and colleagues and the consensus was that the anxiety due to lack of accurate information is perhaps greater than enduring the darkness and the heat that come on ‘DUM’ nights.
Personally, the signal of ‘DUM’ comes by way of an electric pole standing about three-quarters of a mile away from my home. For some reason, the lamp on that pole is kept on 24 hours every day unless there is power outage. My heart sinks every time I get close to the light pole which has become a bearer of bad news in my mind.
Other effects of ‘dumsor’ include the bad air we are breathing in as a result of thousands of generators spewing noxious gases into the atmosphere. At a time of heightened awareness about the environment, especially of the carbon footprints left by human damage to the ozone layer, it is a pity that Ghana must be polluting the earth’s atmosphere in this way.
However, the more grievous effect of ‘dumsor’ is on energy use itself. One would suppose that we would all use power sensibly since it is a scarce commodity.
The impression I get from talking to friends and colleagues appears to point in the opposite direction. Instead of conserving power, most of us drench ourselves in the stuff as if there was no tomorrow.
The reason for this behaviour is a psychological response which can create a negative sub-culture. Why and how is this happening?
Let me deal with the “how” and the “why” will deal with itself. Although electricity is an invisible commodity, its effect can be felt all around us in the same way as its absence can also be felt acutely.
When the power is restored, people rush to do everything they imagine they will need until the power disappears. For example, I have heard people say they iron clothes they may not need for weeks and some even warm ovens hours before they actually use them.
The most bizarre practice is the cooling of rooms by air-conditions even when there is nobody in the room. This is rather more widespread than one might suppose and the idea behind it is to get the room a bit cooler before the impending ‘DUM’.
While such eccentric behaviour makes some sense at the moment, it is the possibility of these behaviour patterns becoming entrenched that must worry us. Many years ago, I used to travel frequently to Nigeria where I stayed on the beautiful and affluent Victoria Island in Lagos.
The result of power shortage added to an abundance of cash is at least one huge generator in every home, and when they were turned on around 6 p.m. , the earth shook while rivulets of spent oil snaked across the grass underfoot.
Putting on generators at dusk even when they were not needed has become part of the culture of the beautiful island.
Despite what appears to be a negative culture developing from our encounter with ‘dumsor’, it is possible to reverse some of the practices taking hold and prevent them from becoming entrenched behaviour even when ‘dumsor’ ends.
The government talks about the need to conserve energy but has not done much to promote such behaviour. Even worse, there is no evidence of the Energy Commission or any of the owners of ‘dumsor’ conducting any studies about how we as a nation might be affected by this ongoing load shedding.
Some countries are able to turn adversity to advantage and we can yet do same with ‘dumsor’. It is possible to use the ‘dumsor’ to start a real serious campaign of conservation which will endure even when normal service resumes.
If the government is serious about conservation, this must be the time to mount a major push for it because the nation is anxious for ‘dumsor’ to end and most people are likely to follow any script that promises good results. So why is this thing not being turned into a positive episode?
Another thing the government and its relevant agencies can do is to sell the idea of alternative power sources. I heard an official of the Energy Commission talking about the need to use more power from solar and wind, but it did not sound as if the journey from theory to practice would be undertaken anytime soon.
This is a pity because the current situation is the perfect setting to persuade people to think about alternative sources. Ghana should be a prime candidate for solar energy use at the moment.
We have wall-to-wall sunshine most of the year and even during the coldest time of the year our average temperature is in the mid-20s; yet our combined alternative renewable energy is said to account for less than two per cent of our electricity generation.
By way of contrast, Germany now has solar accounting for more than 50 per cent of its electricity generation. We often blame the high cost of solar panels and initial installation for the virtual absence of solar energy in a country drenched in sunlight.
While the high cost is a factor, the main reason appears to be the absence of any real policy and enabling one at that. Don’t get me wrong, on paper we have plans; big plans and working on even bigger ones.
In practice, we are working on it! If we worked harder, we could turn ‘dumsor’ into a positive episode in the same way we could turn waste into treasure worth its weight in gold.
