19: Extreme Heat and LEDs
India
A Climate Pollinator story by Sierra Ross Richer
Earth today is 1.1 degrees Celsius warmer than it was 150 years ago, NASA reports. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but where Emmanuel Mahendra lives in central India, the difference is enough to make one pause, literally.
“A lot of things have changed, not just temperature but human behavior also,” said Emmanuel, who works in the office for the Indian Mennonite Church conference in Dhamtari, Chhattisgarh. He has noticed that when it’s hot, people are more irritable, more aggressive and less likely to go out, including to church.
In Dhamtari, located in the tropical Chhattisgarh plain, temperatures during the summer months (March to May), reach 110 degrees Fahrenheit, sometimes 115.
“Even in the church,” Emmanuel said, “people are not interested in coming in the summertime, (and) not because people don’t want to come.”
The effects of heat on the human body are serious. High ambient temperatures put the body at risk for heat exhaustion and heat stroke. As a person’s core temperature rises, internal organs can fail, the brain suffer damage and the heart can stop.
Last summer, at least 90 people in India and Pakistan died in a heat wave that raised average temperatures by eight to 15 degrees Fahrenheit. The book The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells published in 2019, predicts that by 2050, 255,000 people will die each year from the effects of heat world wide.
What are Mennonite churches in India doing to slow the warming of the climate? Not as much as Emmanuel would like.
“I don’t see any churches responding to climate change actually,” he said. “We have to, but we don’t.”
The way Emmanuel sees it, every human should be working to reduce their impact on the earth. “We need to do our responsibility, like using less electricity,” he said.
Thanks to Emmanuel, those at the Mennonite Church in India conference office are doing just that, without knowing it.
A few months ago, Emmanuel replaced the office’s compact fluorescent light bulbs with LEDs.
“Nothing changed,” he said. “Even my boss doesn’t know that I changed it. (But) every single second, I save 20 watts.”
Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming published in 2017 ranks residential LED lighting as the 33rd most effective solution for lowering greenhouse gas emissions. LEDs use 90 percent less energy than incandescent light bulbs and 50 percent less than compact fluorescents. Used for 5 hours a day, they last for 27 years.
Emmanuel didn’t just make the switch at the office; his home uses 100 percent LEDs as well.
If you want people to take you seriously, he said, “You have to teach yourself first, and then teach other people.”
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