The People Are For Survival But The Leaders Are For Power
What an extremely complex world we are living right now. This beautiful blue planet is a mother to us all as its life is our life. But life on earth will soon end if our dear GAIA (Mother Earth) will continuously be sacrificed to the altar of greed and profit as it is a common knowledge that we cannot survive if we keep working against nature. Indeed, as pronounced by passionate environmentalists world-wide, “climate change is no longer an alarming possibility but a fearful reality.” Human society is indeed under urgent threat from Earth’s loss of natural life, the reason why tens of millions of young people are conducting protest rallies in different countries initiated by a young environmental activist named Greta Thunberg against the inaction of political leaders worldwide. The protesters have brought to the fore the painful truism that the contemporaneous development paradigm called Neo-Liberal Capitalism known as Corporate Globalization is the culprit. Such growth-at-all-cost economic system has enriched tremendously a few corporations now known as the “Masters of Mankind,” at the expense of billions of earthlings now facing unimaginable sufferings. In our country, glaring is the extractive and exploitative nature of our economy especially in the very rich but broken island of Mindanao where only a few oligarchs, cartel and conglomerates control the economy.
A team of scientists from the UN-sponsored Inter-governmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) found that “We could be setting in motion a mass extinction with little parallel in the history of the Earth. Without radical change, one million species are at risk of extinction in the next few decades, one in eight species on the planet.” The scientists mentioned the extractive, exploitative nature of the global economy as the root cause. The IPBES report found that “current methods of agriculture, deforestation and urbanization are crashing the planet’s ecology at a rate ten to hundreds of times faster than at any point in the last 10 million years.” This study puts in clear categorical term why our country has lost its very rich ecological resources which was once a paradise on earth, now transformed into hell. I heard this in the speeches of intellectual-activists in the US, i.e., Dr, Noam Chomsky and Dr. Howard Zinn who explained why “the Modern-Day American Imperialism has liberated the souls of some 600,000 Filipinos in 1898” when it conquered our country from Spanish colonial rule. We have to rectify what we have learned in our history. It is not true that only 100,000 were killed during that war but some 600,000 Filipinos which no less than US President Mckinly bragging that he was told by God in a dream to liberate the Filipinos, thus, he liberated the souls of some 600,000 of our ancestors. After the massive extraction of our natural wealth, the Modern-Day American Imperialism has made our country as MARKET, or dumping ground of finished products; and as TARGET through the establishment of military nuclear bases as the first line of defense when war erupts.
The “tipping point” has now been reached as our beloved GAIA Is now in the brink of falling into the precipice of ending life on earth, described by thousands of concerned environmentalists as “one minute before midnight.” We are now in the 24th year of the 21st century but we do not know whether we will reach the 22nd century which is just 76 years from now. But it seems no one seems to care especially our political leaders whose focus is just on the instant pursuit of wealth, fame and power. They continue fooling the people especially during this “big circus” called mid-term elections, even using highly-paid movie stars as entertainers, so engrossed on the trivialities and drama of life but never on how to address climate crisis and how to liberate the poor and the oppressed from hunger, poverty and gross social injustices. Please be informed that global warming is a worldwide catastrophe unprecedented in human history because we are pursuing growth for the sake of growth. We must now come together as one family of Mother Earth as no place on earth will remain untouched and no life unchanged. We are experiencing the greatest mass extinction of the past sixty-five million years. The only way to save GAIA is for all of us humans to have a strong determination to launch a revolution of compassion to initiate ethical action to stop GAIA’s accelerating drive toward its 6th extinction. It behooves upon all of us to wage our collective battle for survival, from climate despair to climate action. As emphatically and categorically declared by thousands of climate experts worldwide, these are the ways to rescue GAIA to avoid climate disasters:
First is the rapid withdrawal from the use of coal and fossil fuel. As explained by a business leader, philanthropist and amazing environmentalist named Bill Gates, “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 or down a bit from year to year, it is generally increasing. This is where we are today. Zero is what we need to aim for. To stop the warming and to avoid the worst effect of climate change and these effects will be very bad – humans need to stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. The reason we need to get to zero is simple. Greenhouse gases trap heat causing the average temperature of the earth to go up. The more gases the more the temperature to go up. And once greenhouse gases are in the atmosphere, they stay there for a long time, something like one-fifth of the carbon dioxide we emitted today will still be there in 10,000 years.” What are we doing to GAIA through massive emissions of the 52 billion greenhouse gases annually? Imagine a thick blanket enclosing the earth, that’s what we are doing to our beloved GAIA, thus, how can She survive and how can all life exist?
MAAWA PO TAYO SA LAHAT NABUBUHAY LALO NA SA MGA BILYONES NA HIRAP NA HIRAP NA. PERO PATULOY PA RIN ANG PAGLALAPSATANGAN SA KALIKASAN NG MGA SAKIM AT KA KONSABO ANG MGA NANGUNGULO LALO NA YANG BAGONG NAHALAL NA PANGULO NG AMERICA NA SI DONALD TRUMP NA ISANG BILYONARYO AT CLIMATE CHANGE DENIER.
How can we go to zero emission? Will the super-rich corporations called the Masters of Mankind allow us to do that when these masters are earning some 16 trillion dollars annually or ten million dollars every minute through the use of coal and fossil fuel? Such tremendous amount also goes to political leaders, to the mainstream media and even to religious groups to continue the Masters’ dominion over the earth. Isn’t it that no less than Pope Francis in His Encyclical LauDatuSi appealed to all to hear the cry of the trees, the birds and all flora and fauna that are now becoming extinct?
No way can we have zero emission especially in Mindanao because of the six coal-fired power plants that have been hideously established by the powerful oligarchs despite our strong protest three decades ago. We in the cooperative movement emphatically expressed our objection as we categorically declared then that burning coal is the leading cause of smog, acid rain and global warming. As expressed by the Union of Concerned scientists that, “In an average year, a typical coal plant generates 3,700,000 tons of carbon dioxide, the primary cause of global warming – as much carbon dioxides as cutting down 161 million of trees, 10,000 tons of sulfur oxide which causes acid rain that damages forest, lakes and buildings, and forms small airborne particles, which can cause chronic bronchitis, aggravated asthma and premature death; and so many toxic chemicals such as 225 pound of toxic chemicals which will cause cancer.” Well, that is what a typical coal plant can do, typical meaning just 100 megawatts. The six coal-fired power plants in Mindanao have a total megawatts of 2,167. This horrible painful truism should not be acceptable to the people of Mindanao. Let us forge oneness together to close these down as what passionate environmentalists are doing in other countries.
The second way to rescue GAIA is to go to RENEWABLE ENERGY. As explained by His Holiness Dalai Lama, “In 2035 the latest we must reach 100 percent renewable energy. This is no problem because the sun sends us 15,000 times more energy than we all at present consuming. This is environmentally friendly, forever and free. The solution is in the sky: think wind energy, hydropower, biomass and geothermal energy. What an incredible economic advantage of future ecological energy supply.”
The third way is the rapid entry into electric mobility, (whether e-bikes or electric cars) and a doubling of public transport.
The fourth is switching to organic farming. What we have done as Filipinos is the height of stupidity when we stop treating nature as like a “home” where our basic needs were provided for through sustenance and nature’s economy. We instead allowed the use of high yielding varieties (HYVs) tied-up to the heavy usage of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers through conventional agriculture. Why have we allowed the transformation of our choicest and blessed land into massive plantations of high value fruits to feed the consumerist lifestyle of the obese people in highly developed countries for these corporations to earn billions of dollars? Our consumer behavior is politics with a shopping cart. What is at stake finally is elementary: fertile soil, drinking water, clean air, a moderate climate and forests that are good for our souls, which are under stress, and store the excessive CO2.
The fifth is worldwide reforestation and the greening of the desert. This is properly elaborated by the Dalai Lama: “A study has recently shown that reforestation in USA, in Russia, China, Brazil and Canada could make-up for more than two thirds of man-made CO2 emissions.” That’s how important the trees are. That truism has again bothered us Filipinos as we have allowed a few powerful loggers to erase from the face of the earth some 17 million hectares of our dipterocarp forest in the last 100 years which have eradicated billions of flora and fauna which had been endemically living in the our forest ecosystem for billions of years. Don’t you know that the number of flora and fauna living then in the 5,000-ha. Mt. Kitanglad Range is far greater in number compared to those found in the one-billion-hectare continent of North America? SAYANG PO! ANG ATING PARAISO AY NAWALA AT NAPALITAN NG KARUMAL-DUMAL NA MGA PLANTASYON NA TUMAMBAK SA ATING MAHAL NA MINDANAO NA KATAKOT-TAKOT NA LASON NA PUMATAY SA ATING MGA ILOG, MGA DAGAT AT MGA WATERSHED. ANG BAYANG PARAISO AY NAGING IMPYERNO.
Our way of living, despite its considerable achievements, is indeed fatally flawed. We Filipinos many of whom are now in the mode of survival are victims of collective manner of thinking based on selfish desires of our political leaders for instant pursuit of wealth, fame and power. We must now realize that ecoogical catastrophes are the reflection of the humans’ combative and destructive ways of thinking. Even the mainstream media and religious groups who should have initiated the much-needed transformation should have followed the biblical pronouncement that the truth shall set us free but have instead buried us in the fallacies of life in cahoots with powers-that-be. Now that billions of humans are in survival mode shouting that “our house is on fire,” yet the mindset of all governments, all institutions, all universities, the mainstream media and religious groups is focused on the high veneration to the profit-motive and not on rescuing GAIA. Their focus is on how to maximize consumer goods and to maximize short-term profit and not on maximizing values. The recent series of super-typhoons such as Kristine, Leon, Marsi and now Nica that have already devastated lives and properties should serve as a wake-up call. PAKINGGAN PO NATIN ANG SIGAW NG PANAHON, NG INANG KALIKASAN AT NG PANGINOON! MAHALIN PO NATIN AT PAGLINGKORAN ANG ATING KAPWA AT KALIKASAN. IYAN PO TUNAY NA DIWA NG ATING BUHAY!
