Straight Talk about Climate Change

There is a wide consensus that climate change is the most pressing issue in our age. We see and experience the signs of climate change: the increased air temperature, the rising sea levels due to increased temperature in the oceans and the melting of the ice caps, the weird climatic patterns like the occurrence of flooding and occasional tornadoes in places where these did not occur before, and super-strong typhoons or hurricanes like the one we just had last year.

According to Mr. Jonathan Lucero of PAG-ASA, climate change is irreversible: we can only mitigate it but not stop it. The greenhouse gases pumped into the atmosphere such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, and sulfur dioxide have reached a critical level. There are two ways to deal with this inconvenient truth, as Al Gore termed it: one is by mitigation and the other is by adaptation. We can mitigate, lessen, or slow down the pace of climate change, but not fully stop it. We must therefore learn to adapt to the effects of climate change, that is, to increasing temperature, to intense typhoons, to weird climatic patterns.

Let us review a little what started it all. Human-induced global warming started with Industrial Revolution in 18th century in England, which spread to the United States and to other parts of Europe. With Industrial Revolution comes the invention of coal-powered, and later oil-powered, machines in factories and vehicles, which spewed a lot of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. With the unabated production of goods and products of all kinds in factories in these Western countries and later in countries in Asia, greenhouse gases in huge amounts continued to be spewed into the atmosphere, trapping the heat that comes from the sun, warming the earth at an alarming rate. Now, we rely on air conditioning to help us bear the heat, which further adds to the global warming problem due to the continued reliance on oil to generate electricity and the incremental use of energy.

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With the increasing number of vehicles that ply our streets and highways; the endless transport of people and goods by air, land, and sea; and with the unabated production of cars, electrical appliances and gadgets, and manufactured goods, there is no foreseen end to global warming. The consequences of global capitalism are now upon us; the results of uncaring and unthinking human action and behavior are our collective karma.

We can all help mitigate, or lessen, or slow down climate change by contributing our little ways and by joining campaigns to pressure industrialized countries to lessen and limit their carbon emissions considerably, in sufficient or effective amounts, not small amounts, because of the urgency of the situation. Let us sympathize with Yeb Sano, our climate commissioner, and let us join the campaigns of www.350.org, Green peace, Friends of the Earth, and our local citizens’ movements like AksyonKlimaPilipinas to do something before it is too late, before our major cities get inundated with sea water and the heat becomes unbearable for us all.

Christian evangelists would say that this world is disposable, that God will create a new heaven and a new earth, and we must rather work on our salvation and the salvation of other people. If it is true, then we also need to work on the matter of salvation of immortal souls, but this does not relieve us of the responsibility to respond to the urgent warning to mitigate climate change and adapt to it. I can’t help but be guilty every time I buy a plastic water bottle, which contributes to the use of petroleum and the garbage problem due to the adding up of non-biodegradable materials like plastic in the environment. Some practical recommendations that we can all follow is to bring our reusable bags every time we shop or buy something; to turn off unused lights and unplug unused appliances; to use water careful not to waste it; to carpool or use public transportation instead of owning and using private vehicles; and to bring our own water jugs to prevent buying of plastic water bottles.

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May we all feel the urgency of the call to mitigate and adapt to climate change, and not be like those people in the time of Noah who perished from the Great Flood when they continued their profligate ways, numbed by the activities and pleasures of this world. Disposable or not, we need to take care of our beautiful planet because it is one and only and it is in our hands to care for it, deeply grateful for its resources and bounty.