Typhoon Ondoy

The recent devastation to property and life brought about by Typhoon Ondoy (international name Typhoon Ketsana) and Typhoon Pepeng (international name Typhoon Parma) is just among the many evidences to substantiate that climate change is a phenomenon that is taking place… now.

The photos and videos of those affected by these recent typhoons were tremendously shocking. One cannot help but think that this is truly the wrath of Mother Nature. But why? We can only blame ourselves for not taking care of the beautiful planet that was given to us. Human activities contribute a lot to climate change; it’s a price we are paying for modernization and industrialization.

Typhoon Pepeng

To point out some, we can see that more and more forested areas are converted to agricultural lands to produce food for the growing population, if not, they are transformed to the development of residential properties to give land to the homeless. As a result, there are damming of rivers and ground water is siphoned to counterpart the need of the agricultural fields and the growing population. With that, fossil fuel is used in order to draw water and electricity. .. And the cycle continues.

The burning of fossil fuel causes the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2), which is incidentally the gas responsible for climate change together with the other “greenhouse” gases.

When will we learn? In order to bring the climate change to a standstill, we need significantly reduce the greenhouse gas emissions not only in our country but globally.

As an individual we can help in our own little, start with your family. We can do our share by doing the 3 R’s of environment conservation.
Reduce the amount of waste you produce.
Reuse old items — use cloth plastic bags, reusable containers, donate to the unfortunate.
Recycle : recycle and buy recycled products to support recycling.
We should not lose hope and do the best we could to help Mother Earth for our children and the next generation. If we stop, we might as well tell our kids that their children will not have a planet to live in.

So act and do your share now!

**Typhoon Ondoy photo is courtesy of danmacarandang
**Typhoon Pepeng photo is courtesy of Ed Gumban of PhilStar