Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Parched tracts of formerly verdant rice fields. Dead fish floating in once
pristine waters. Flashfloods plaguing lowlands. Lungs helplessly breathing the
poisonous air. Sound like lines taken from an apocalyptic poem. But this is no
poem. This is no stuff from film reels. This is what global warming brings to my
country, my town and community. Uncaring hearts from far-away lands of
opulence might find these things trivial, but for a nation of poor farmers and
fishermen, all these boil down to two things: death or survival. The ill effects of
global warming caused by an unprecedented and continuous soar of the world’s
greenhouse gas emission are taking their toll on the once paradise-like land
called earth. Global warming has made life less and less tenable and
sustainable. Basic necessities such as food, potable water and clean air are
becoming less and less abundant.
every summer is the norm. Moreover, older people in our community have
become more vulnerable to heat strokes and high blood pressures which in turn
breed cardiovascular diseases.
Lesser irrigation means lesser rice fields which in turn mean lesser food in
the table. Already, our country had become a huge importer of rice (from being
once an exporter). One needs only to look at the formerly verdant rice fields
turned parched lands to realize how global warming affects a poor agricultural
country like ours. Due to lesser agricultural productivity, more people in my
community have abandoned farming. Without any strong industries to absorb
unemployed farmers, and in the midst of a global financial crisis, many people in
my homeland are going jobless, hopeless and foodless.
Our folks have from time to time engaged in rituals, dances, prayers to ask
the high heavens for rain and hope for our troubled land. Our people believes
that with more rain, there would be more chances of good harvests. But, sadly,
as a Salvadoran priest in the movie “Voces Inocentes” remarked, “Today
brothers, it is not enough to pray.”
3 of 8
Deluge of death
As a citizen of a tropical archipelago, I am fortunate to have mountainous
islands of rice fields and vegetable plots as my home town’s surroundings. Ours
then is a town of farmers and fishermen. Just like farmers, fishermen in our area
depend much on nature for their daily “business.”
Dwindling fish populations have been worsened by the “deoxygenation” of
much of our lakes, rivers and seas. This process describes the phenomenon
brought by global warming to the world’s waters, in which, extremely high
temperatures decrease oxygen levels in bodies of waters such as lakes, rivers
and seas primarily through limiting the growth of organisms that produce oxygen.
As a result of this “deoxygenation,” reports of “fish kills,” of seasonal avalanches
of dead big and small fish floating in once pristine waters have become more
common. Death has come even to the life-giving waters of our homeland. On the
economic side, lesser fish supply means higher prices. Together with rice (whose
price has also increased due to constricted supply), fish provides our citizens
with a nutritious yet cheap staple food. It seems that we’ll be singing “those were
the days” again.
Year after year, we are plagued with literally rising water levels. When I
was a child, floods occur only when rains fall for weeks, non-stop. Nowadays,
just a day of incessant rain will let loose the seemingly voracious flashfloods. As
4 of 8
a result, funds of our local government are often used up for relocating residents
each time a big flood comes and provide them temporary shelter and food.
Everyone in our town fears that as the experts predict, our town would be
inhabitable in 10 years time due to the rising sea levels.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, as in the good old days of the once unexploited
beauty of the earth.
“Yes we can,” says US President Barack Obama. I dare add, “Yes, the
world can, the youth can and we will...” Talks about our capability to halt global
warming are obsolete. There’s no question about it: the world can halt global
warming. It’s just a matter of choosing the right methods of combating this
problem and trying to reverse its ill effects.
the cue by producing more green jobs in tandem with companies that have
began the green revolution. Green rooftop makers, wind mill technicians, solar
panel designers, sustainability engineers, tree planters, energy managers, urban
gardeners, “there are many to call, many that must come,” says an old Ent leader
in “The Lord of the Rings.”
Indeed, many more green jobs are still waiting out there to be discovered,
jobs that will make humankind nature’s friend and sustainable steward instead of
the enemy and exploitative master that it is today. As among the world’s most
creative species, the young peoples of the world would be in a good position to
provide an impetus to the over-all endeavor to create green jobs.
With these things in mind, let a paraphrase of the social critic Karl Marx
resound all throughout the land, declaring: “Young peoples of the world, unite, for
you have nothing to lose but a dying world and everything to gain in a
resurrected earth.”
nation of poor farmers and fishermen, all these boil down to two things: death or
survival.
Global warming has made life less tenable and sustainable in our
community and elsewhere. Basic necessities such as food, potable water and
clean air have become less abundant. Urgent action is needed to halt and try to
reverse global warming if the world is to survive. As future heirs of what will be
left of the earth in the years to come, young peoples of the world must lead and
initiate a great leap towards a planet resurrected from its imminent death.
The key to succeed in this noble endeavor lies to “going back to the
basics.” This will halt the march of global warming’s ugly cabal of disasters: living
simply so that the world may simply live as in the good old days of the once
unexploited beauty of the earth. Instead of entirely discarding civilization’s
modern gifts, the youth can tap humankind’s advances in technology to possibly
reverse the damage done by the destructive forces of global warming.