By Stephen Chin
KUCHING — On 9 September 2023, 174 participants from the various parishes, religious and lay ministries of the Archdiocese of Kuching attended an awareness workshop on climatic crisis and mitigation organised by the Kuching Archdiocese Creation Justice Commission. The workshop was held at St Rose’s conference room at the ACCPC.
The workshop started with an opening Mass celebrated by Friar David Au, OFM with concelebrants Fr Galvin Ngumbang and Fr Davie Entalai at the Holy Family Chapel at the ACCPC. Friar David Au is also head of the Kuching Archdiocese Creation Justice Commission.
After the Mass, Friar David kicked off the workshop with a very heartfelt talk on climate change and creation justice in the context of Laudato Si. The talk inspired many and since then, the various creation justice ministries of the different parishes have begun in earnest various activities to engage the community into ecological conversion.
As the main thrust of PROTEC Year 4 is reducing fuel consumption, Timothy Marimuthu and Behui Ak Longe of Trienekens gave a rousing talk on how to reduce fuel consumption and in addition, how to get to and from work safely.
Ir. Ngu Piew Chu of Sarawak Energy Bhd then gave a very informative talk on LED, smart grid and digital utility and benefits to ecology. She informed how individual residential houses with electricity bill in excess of RM500 could consider the installation of solar power in our march towards the use of renewable energy.
Dr Margaret Chan, our co-ordinator of the Kuching Archdiocese CJC, then took the session, illustrating to us how to calculate the carbon footprint for each of the parishes. This is a very practical way to estimate what could be the key focus for each of the parishes to begin their activities towards ecological conversion.
Thank you to the speakers and the Kuching Archdiocese CJM team for organising this awareness workshop.
