Text and Photos by Henrylito D. Tacio
“Climate is changing and will continue to do so. Currently, the impacts on many sectors are still unclear, but may become more pronounced as warming continues. So, we need to focus on understanding, adaptation, and preparation. We, Filipinos, should reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, but for the right reasons.” — Dr. Rosa Perez, a research fellow of the Manila Observatory
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In a 2007 article which appeared in Environment Matters, which is published by the World Bank, Maarten van Aalst wrote: “Climate change is no longer a long-term environmental issue. The first impacts are already with us, and bound to get worse. In terms of natural hazards, this includes increases in heat waves, floods, droughts, and in the intensity of tropical cyclones, as well as higher sea levels. Developing countries, and particularly the poorest people, are most affected.”
The Philippines is not exempted. Dr. Rodel D. Lasco, in his study, Addressing Climate Change through Science, pointed this out: “The Philippines is projected to be one of the most vulnerable countries to the impacts of future climate change. At the same time, it is one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world, mostly due to climate-related disasters.”
Dr. Lasco, who is a member of the National Academy of Science and Technology, further wrote: “More alarming still, climate is expected to exacerbate extreme events such as heavy precipitation and tropical cyclones.”
“There is no month in the Philippines which is free from typhoons,” says the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Service Administration (PAGASA), which issues weather advisories for tropical cyclones. “Each year, about 20 tropical cyclones enter our country.”
There is no notable increase in frequency of typhoons in the Philippines but the number of cyclones with maximum sustained winds of over 150 kilometers per hour and above increased. The following super typhoons come to mind: Sendong (international name: Washi) in 2011, Pablo (Bopha) in 2012, and Yolanda (Haiyan) in 2013.
“We are already witnessing an increase in the number of natural disasters, from around 200 annually in the period 1987-97 to about double that in the first seven years of the 21st century,” van Aalst wrote. “This rise is caused almost entirely by an increase in weather-related disasters.”
Van Aalst believed climate change brings an additional challenge, and “it is likely already a factor in the increase in disasters. He further said: “(Climate change) aggravates the intensity and frequency of many hazards, but it also creates surprises, such as hazards occurring in succession, or in places where they had never been experienced before.”
Unclear
For the average citizen, the climate change phenomenon is very vague. “People have personally felt the effects of climate change, and yet most of them have little understanding of it,” observed Mary Ann Lucille Sering, vice-chairperson of the Climate Change Commission.
Is it climate change or global warming? “Climate change is a better choice than the term global warming because it avoids the misleading implications: that all parts of the world are warming uniformly and that the only dangerous outcome of growing greenhouse gas emissions is higher temperatures,” clarifies Dr. Rosa T. Perez, a research fellow of the Manila Observatory.
“Warming is only the tipping point for a cascade of changes in the earth’s ecosystems,” she continues her explanation. “In addition, climate change better conveys the coexistence of human-made effects with natural climate variability, a more accurate, ‘state-of-the-science’ portrayal of the causes for the phenomenon.”
It was Dr. James E. Hansen of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration who first raised the problem of climate change. In 1988, he told an American Senate hearing that the greenhouse effect “is changing our climate now.”
The greenhouse effect is a natural warming process. According to Dr. Perez, carbon dioxide and certain other gases are always present in the atmosphere. These gases create a warming effect that has some similarity to the warming inside a greenhouse, hence the name “greenhouse effect.”
Robert James Bidinotto, writing for Reader’s Digest, explains the greenhouse effect in these words: “When sunlight warms the earth, certain gases in the lower atmosphere, acting like the glass in a greenhouse, trap some of the heat as it radiates back into space. These greenhouse gases warm our planet, making life possible. If they were more abundant, greenhouse gases might trap too much heat.”
Dr. Perez says that human activities that emit additional greenhouse gases to the atmosphere increase the amount of heat that gets absorbed before escaping to space, thus enhancing the greenhouse effect and amplifying the warming of the earth.
“Although the Earth’s climate has changed many times throughout its history, the rapid warming seen today cannot be explained by natural processes alone,” points out Dr. Perez, who has a PhD in Meteorology from the University of the Philippines.
Greenhouse gases
“Climate change is very simple,” noted Dr. Robert Watson, IPCC Chairman. “We are increasing emissions of greenhouse gases and thus their concentrations in the atmosphere are going up. As these concentrations increase, the temperature of the earth rises.”
Examples of greenhouse gases are: water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. There are also those man-made gases generated during industrial processes like sulfur hexaflouride, hydrofluorocarbons, and perfluorocarbons.
“Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems,” contends the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
“Climate change means much more than higher global temperatures,” pointed out Heherson Alvarez, former chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment. “It could result in a wide range of catastrophic consequences: rising sea levels threatening archipelagic states, low-lying coastal areas and fertile deltas; increased frequency of hurricanes, droughts and other extreme climate events; disturbance of ecosystems; greater aridity; and greater pressure on freshwater resources.”
The Philippines has already felt the impacts of climate change when it was hit by Yolanda in 2013. But it was just the beginning. As the Philippines has more than 7,000 islands, more people will be affected with sea level rise.
Senator Loren Legarda, Chair of the Senate Committee on Climate Change noted this when she issued this statement: “Several studies have already noted the high vulnerability of coastal communities in the Philippines to sea level rise. This is the challenge that we must address because this will affect millions of Filipinos living in coastal areas. The government should start relocating these communities to higher, safer places as we continue to strengthen climate change mitigation programs to help avert further rise of sea level.”
Health threat
Climate change is also a threat to human health. “Although there still is uncertainty about the magnitude of the global impact of climate change on human health, there is no question that negative local effects may be significant,” wrote Dr. Luis Eduardo Mejia Mejia in the World Bank annual report on environment.
Work performed by renowned universities, research groups and institutions revealed a four- to eightfold increase in malaria transmission in Pacific coastal areas during the El Niño phenomena of 1994-95 and 1998. “This increase in transmission during El Niño makes it possible to estimate the possible effects of this disease under a climate change scenario,” Dr. Mejia Mejia said.
Climate change is for real. People of this world should do something now before it’s too late. “You can blow up a balloon so far, and then it bursts; you can stretch a rubber-band so far, and then it snaps; you can bend a stick so far, and then it breaks. How much longer can the human population go on damaging the world’s natural systems before they break down altogether?” asked Prince Philip, who has been associated with environmental causes for many years.
The words of Christopher Flavin, of the Worldwatch Institute, come in handy. In his book, Slowing Global Warming, he wrote: “Global warming is an environmental threat unlike any the world has faced. While human activities during the past century have damaged a long list of natural systems, most of these problems are local or regional in scope and can be reversed in years or decades if sufficient effort is exerted.”
