How to Avoid Climate Disaster?
What will our planet look like in 2030 or six years from now? Traveling around in the last three months interacting with passionate environmentalists especially here In the United States, here are some glimpses on what’s happening now to Mother Earth. Rain forests are on fire as evidenced by the one-week wildfire in California, USA recently devasting some 76,000 acres of wildlife. The same is happening also in other parts of the globe. Icebergs are melting as every day, some 1,000 hectares of the 386-meterhigh iceberg are melting in the Arctic and the Antarctic also in the Himalayas (Third Pole) that is causing the elimination of agricultural lands in nearby countries i.e., Tibet, China, India, etc. causing hunger. Global warming means millions of climate refugees according to the World Bank, “about 100 to 140 million refugees will wander around our planet by the year 2030, looking for the nearest watering hole.” And the United Nations expects “more than 400 million climate refugees by 2050, if we do not stop global warming.” It is the analysis here in the United States that “the climate crisis will thus become a democracy crisis and a social crisis, even the threat of war. That is at stake.”
Indeed, mankind is losing control of the state of the earth as warned by environmentalists. But what should really is very troubling to us Filipinos is the warning of Glaciologists that “the ice today is melting three times as fast as they had feared only ten years ago. Which means that this century, the sea level is rising not by a few centimeters but by some meters. So, in any case, there will be more sea. This means, many parts of the world will become uninhabitable.” Remember what the then US Vice President Al Gore who is also a well-known environmentalist reported in the ‘90s that the sea level in the next 50 years will rise by 16 meter-high and only 3,000 islands in the Philippines will be above water. We were so worried then. But today we must even worry more because according to Glaciologists “to expect a rise of the sea level up to seventy meters, should the entire Greenland melt.” This means, in our country, the 7,100 islands will perish from the face of the earth, oh my God, that warning should be known by all of us Filipinos so that we can join hands together to act now to save Gaia or we will all perish!
Indeed, what a crazy world we live-in now? We are now in the state of survival as “our house is now burning” yet no one seems to care. How do we then avoid climate disaster? What are the solutions we have and the breakthroughs we need? May I share what Bill Gate, a technologist, business leader and a philanthropist said, “There are two numbers you need to know about climate change. The first is 52 billion. The other is zero. Fifty-two billion is how many tons of greenhouse gases the world typically adds to the atmosphere every year. Although the figure may go up and down a bit from year to year, it is generally increasing. That is where we are today. Zero is what we need to aim for. To stop the warming and avoid the worst effects of climate change – and those effects will be very bad – humans need to stop adding greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere.”
This sound very difficult and seems impossible as humanity is so engrossed in unbridled materialism and consumerism, now grossly suffering in collective insanity under the Regime of One Percent of some 1,000 super-rich corporations. Such would mean a change of lifestyle, a change of the ways of life, to stop the fallacies of life and religion, the stoppage of the massive outpourings of lies by the profit-driven mainstream media and politicians whose intention is just for self-aggrandizement. How can we stop the reign of the Regime of One Percent described as the “Masters of Mankind,” the “Masters of the Universe,” and the “Architects of Government Policies,” who have buried humanity giving high veneration to the profit-motive that has already captured the mindset of all governments, all institutions, all universities and even of religious groups. For these “Masters,” war is the “health of the nation,” of the Modern-Day American imperialism, even consigning humanity into the “doomsday clock” of “one minute before midnight” (extinction).
Indeed, from 50 billion to zero seems impossible. Why? Don’t you know that every year these “Masters” are earning 16 trillion dollars annually from the use of coal and fossil fuel? This means earning 10 million dollars every minute the reason why in 2018, a fifteen-year-old Greta Thunberg addressed world leaders, speaking with a moral clarity of an entire generation sentenced to a desperate future:
“OUR CIIVILIZATION IS BEING SACRIFICED FOR THE OPPORTUNITY OF A VERY SMALL NUMBER OF PEOPLE TO CONTINUE MAKING ENORMOUS AMOUNTS OF MONEY. OUR BIOSPHERE IS BEING SACRIFICED SO THAT RICH PEOPLE IN RICH COUNTRIES CAN LIVE IN LUXURY. IT IS THE SUFFERING OF THE MANY WHICH PAY FOR THE LUXURIES OF THE FEW. WE CANNOT SOLVE A CRISIS WITHOUT TREATING IT AS A CRISIS. WE NEED TO KEEP THE FOSSIL FUELS IN THE GROUND, AND WE NEED TO FOCUS ON EQUITY. AND IF SOLUTIONS WITHIN THE SYSTEM ARE SO IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND, MAYBE WE SHOULD CHANGE THE SYSTEM ITSELF. YOU HAVE IGNORED US IN THE PAST AND YOU WILL IGNORE US AGAIN. WE HAVE RUN OUT OF EXCUSE AND WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME. WE HAVE COME HERE TO LET YOU KNOW THAT CHANGE IS COMING, WHETHER YOU LKE IT OR NOT. THE REAL POWER BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE.” Since this speech, tens of millions of people of all ages in 183 countries around the world have joined her climate strike. It is in this context that we Filipinos should join the call to support the green new deal. NO NEW FOSSIL FUEL EXTRACTDION. PHASE OUT EXISTING FOSSIL FUELS WITH JUST TRANSITION TO CLEAN RENEWABLE ENERGY. NO TO COAL-FIRED POWER PLANTS!
That call has also become imperative to close down the six coal-fired power plants here in different regions of Mindanao which are already banned in other countries as “coal burning power plants are making people sick and shortening their lives. Burning coal is the leading cause of smog, acid rain and global warming,” the Union of Concerned Scientists said. That “in an average year, typical coal plant generates 3,700,000 tons of carbon dioxide, the primary human cause of global warming as much carbon dioxide as cutting down 161 million of trees, 10,000 tons of sulfur dioxide which cause acid rain that damages forest, lakes and buildings, and forms small air borne particles that can penetrate deep into lungs and 500 tons of small airborne particles which can cause chronic bronchitis, aggravated asthma and premature death; and so many toxic chemicals such as 225 pound arsenic which can cause cancer.”
Well, that is what a typical coal plant can do, typical meaning just around 100 megawatts. The six coal fired power plants that have been established in Mindanao have a total megawatts of 2,167. The painful truism should not be acceptable to the people of Mindanao but were established hideously, thus no protest. This time, let us come together to protect Mindanao. Other countries have banned the entry or the establishment of coal-fired power plants, and if there is any, it Is closed down. We in Mindanao should close down the six-coal fired power plants even if these are owned by powerful oligarchs in cohort with powers-that-be, if we have to stop the environmental crisis and to protect the health of the people. The oligarchs or cartel may be powerful but as what Greta Thunberg said, REAL POWER BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE! ELPUEBLO UNIDO, NO MAS SERA VINCIDO (The people united can never be defeated!)
Wake-up all who are victims of the fallacies of life! We are being bombarded by garbage of knowledge spawned by a materialistic, consumerist and diabolic lifestyle that is sacrificing Mother Earth and the people to the altar of greed and profit. We must realize now we are all living in oneness with all creation and everything is inter-connected in consciousness be it one manifested in a flower or in a distant star, each one, be human, animal, plant, rock or planet has its reason for being and when one becomes “spiritus luminous” only then will that being be conscious of this truism, buried in the darkness and mud of the “ego.”
For those who are amassing so much at the expense of the poor and the environment in a land where vested interest and corruption reign supreme, please be mindful that when Darwin theorized that in the selection of species on the “survival of the fittest,” the word “fittest” means not the most aggressive or the strongest. By “fittest,” it means the most caring the most loving. Thus, we must come together with love in our heart to save GAIA, a mother to us all,. Like children, we are dependent on Her, Her life is our life.
