2010 World Cup and The Environment

Like many fellow South Africans I am a soccer crazy man. I really love my sport and have been very sporty from a young age, having always played soccer. My teams are Bafana, Greece and Manchester United! When I heard that South Africa was the host for the 2010 Soccer World Cup i almost jumped through the roof! I could not wait to get my tickets and watch a match in my home city. I tried to get tickets twice in the draw but was super unlucky, now i have to drive past the staduim and know that i am not going to be going to see a match. All Cape Town matches were sold out within days. All I have is to hope that i am able to buy a ticket in the last minute sales in December.

I must say i am a bit worried about the World Cup though, we are spending billions on new stadia and infrastructure, but are we going to profit from it? Some Gurus say a new dawn will foster in growth and development in South Africa and that our world class cities will shine through. I am so so positive that we are going to do well! My concern is more what needs to be done in advertising the world cup to South Africans. Recently I have seen a little bun fight on TV, 1st we have the BP Castrol adverts that speak directly about the World Cup as sponsor then we have Engen who are not the sponsors but come across as true Nation Builders. I get goose bumps when I watch anyone of their "Africa Welcomes" you adverts. Congrads Engen on a campaign that appeals to South Africans.

The 2010 organizing committee should have launched a campaign that is Proudly South African that will help people get to know our country better to get ordinary South Africans to become brand ambassadors for our country. Only we can help build the country and make 2010 work. So it's about time we tell the world that we are one united South Africa. We need to greet the world with a smile and a "Sanibona" or "Welcome to South Africa", make conversations and help tourists on there way around South Africa.

The infrastructure development will bode us well however, that's if we have no black outs during the matches... Today I paid my Electricity bill and nearly fell over when it arrived yesterday, has anyone realized that we all of a sudden have had a massive increase in the rates? Yesterday's newspaper says that there will be another increase on the horizon. Wow are we being milked?! We are paying high electricity bills for the infrastructure development of companies, days after they release there annual reports with dividends to all the shareholders and directors, then they say "please the public pay us more cos we need to build more plants to generate power".

Has anyone heard of the Venus project? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWylckZ9G64
I would highly recommend everyone to watch this video and see that things dont need to be the way that they are now. The world IS self sustainable and is able to live off its own natural resources. Nobody needs to be poor, the world actually has enough! Technology has provided us with energy creating mechanisms that are 100% eco friendly. If you only do one thing I ask, its watch this video...yes its long and it will chow your bandwidth, but its worth it ;)

But people have been using eco friendly methods for generations around the globe. I'll use the Scandinavian countries as an eg. They build eco friendly homes that have inset doubled glazed windows that keep in the heat. Air ducts above the roof open and close to moderate the temperature so that it is not too hot or cold. They have solar panels that generate electricity that supplies the home and stores it for winter. A clever model is that extra electricity generated from the solar panels are fed back into the power grid allowing for small to medium enterprise to use it and pay the householder in return. What an amazing idea. In South Africa we have constant sunshine that this could bode well and help alleviate the electricity crisis.
In Germany buildings are built with double glazed glass to allow in as much light as possible so no lights needed in the day. All windows have solar panels that rotate with the setting of the sun to capture as much solar energy as possible this is stored in solar batteries for winter. Water in the buildings are even recycled and used to feed plants.

I was lucky enough to be given a guided tour of the BP Headquarters in Cape Town, a truly self sufficient building run on the Scandinavian model. The building is cooled through air vents and no air conditioning is used. What an amazing feat! We need to learn and implement. While visiting India i was amazed to find out that in the palaces, designers had fountains put into every bedroom, why because the cooling effect of the water was amazing. Condensation was used to cool the room. A modern day air con runs on the same methodology but uses valuable electricity. In Kenya people place copper pipes around all there ceilings and around the corners of their floors and pump water through it. The water moving through the pipes cools the room down.

Amazing what we can learn from our forefathers. The City of Cape Town has been a fore runner in getting Traffic lights powered by solar panels and some advertising companies light up there billboards with them at night. Great way to bring down costs. I, upon leaning about Solar panels and heating, was thrilled and thought now it's my time to put this into action. I called up a few companies and enquired about how I could use Solar Panels to electrify my home. I thought i was getting somewhere until i realized that it was exorbitant. I was advised that if i was building a new home that's the best time to get this done. So I, like you, will be paying an expensive Eskom bill for a long time to come...
But things can change.
And the only constant in life is change, after all.
I hope that when 2010 is here and its World Cup time, that I am Mr South Africa.
I know I will make this nation proud.