Earth – the home of people and touted to be the “green planet” – has been warming since prehistoric times. But man’s tampering with the environment has made the temperature change faster.
While human activities during the past century have damaged a long list of nature systems, most of these problems are local or regional in scope and can be reversed in years or decades if sufficient effort is exerted,” wrote Christopher Flavin in his book, Slowing Global Warming: A Worldwide Strategy. “Changes to the earth’s atmosphere, on the other hand, are global and – for all practical purposes – irreversible not only in our lifetimes but in our children’s and grandchildren’s as well.”
Dr. James W. Hansen of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration first raised the problem of climate change. In 1988, he told a US Senate hearing that “the greenhouse effect is changing our climate now.”
In an article published by Reader’s Digest, author Robert James Bidinotto, explains greenhouse effect in this manner: “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, primarily water vapor and including carbon dioxide, methane and man-made chlorofluorocarbons, warm our planet, making life possible.
“If they were more abundant, greenhouse gases might trap too much heat. Venus, for example, has 60,000 times more carbon dioxide in its atmosphere than Earth, and its temperature averages above 800 degrees Fahrenheit. But if greenhouse gases were less plentiful or entirely absent, temperatures on Earth would be average below freezing.”
In recent years, concentrations of greenhouse gases have been steadily increasing. As a result, the world’s temperature surged considerably.
“The last median annual global record for cold was set in 1911, that is, the average temperature of the whole planet over a full year was lower than any year since temperatures were reliably recorded from the 1890s,” wrote Comboni missionary John Converset in an article which appeared in World Mission. “But global heat records are ever more numerous. Fifteen of the 16 warmest years on record have occurred in this 21st century. The last three years have all set new global heat records.”
There is no turning back when it comes to global warming. It is for real and it is happening right now. In 2008, during the 11th International Coral Reef Symposium held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Dr. Simon Donner of the University of British Columbia embarked on a metaphor for climate change.
“The climate is like this big ship. We are all on this big ship and the problem is once you hit the brakes it takes a long time for the ship to actually slow down and stop,” Dr. Donner told the participants.
“In our case the ship is the Titanic and we are going to hit the iceberg. It is going to be almost impossible for us not to hit the iceberg at this point. What we need to do is everything we can to put the brakes on, to slow the ship down and move the iceberg a little bit. The time for emission reductions isn’t so much now as it was 20 years ago.”
With over 7,500 islands and situated in the so-called Ring of Fire, the Philippines has to bear the brunt of climate change. The “Global Climate Risk Index 2015” listed the Philippines as the number one most affected country by climate change.
“This is in part to its geography,” wrote the EcoWatch in its website. “The Philippines is located in the western Pacific Ocean, surrounded by naturally warm waters that will likely get even warmer as average sea-surface temperature continues to rise.”
Food crisis
For one, more Filipinos will go hungry. “Despite the technological advances in the second half of the 20th century, agriculture remains to be one of the most vulnerable sectors to climate change,” notes Apple Jean C. Martin in a policy advocacy.
“Climate change is more disastrous to the agricultural industry of the Philippines and its neighboring countries than in other parts of the world,” warned Dr. David Street of the US Argonne National Laboratory.
According to agriculture scientist Julian Gonsalves, agriculture and climate change are closely linked. “The agriculture sector is expected to suffer the most serious impacts of climate change, and food security, nutrition and livelihoods will be affected if we don’t act soon,” he told SciDev.Net.
The Laguna-based International Rice Research Institute (IRR) said climate change can reduce rice yields. A study by the institute showed that rice plants could benefit from higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but an increase in temperature by up to 4 degrees Celsius would “nullify any yield increase.”
Rice is the staple food of Filipinos. “If we did not have rice, our deepest comfort food, we would probably feel less Filipino,” the late food columnist Doreen Fernandez once said. From 1980s to 1990s, a Filipino consumed an average of 92 kilograms. The consumption went up to 111 kilograms from 2008 to 2009. From 2009 to 2010, it even increased to 119 kilograms.
The World Bank report said that in 2010, the annual damage to agriculture from typhoons, droughts and floods has already reached P12 billion, equivalent to 3% of total agricultural production.
When it comes to agriculture, water is very important. But water resources are also vulnerable to climate change. “In a warmer world, we will need more water – to drink and to irrigate crops,” said the London-based Panos Institute.
“The link between water and food is strong,” says Lester R. Brown, president of Earth Policy Institute, based in Washington, D.C. “We drink, in one form or another, nearly 4 liters of water per day. But the food we consume each day requires at least 2,000 liters to produce, 500 times as much.”
This explains why 70% of all water use is for irrigation. An estimated 40 percent of agricultural products and 60% of the world’s grain are grown on irrigated land. “Agriculture is by far the biggest consumer of water worldwide,” IRRI said in a statement. For instance, to raise a ton of rice, a farmer needs a thousand gallons of water.
Empty nets
Rice and fish are the staple food of Filipinos. It is but alarming that fish caught from the oceans are also affected by the warming of the waters. A study released by the Worldwide Fund for Nature in 2015 considered climate change as “one of the main reasons for the decline of marine species in the last 30 years.”
“Climate change is already having a profound effect on life in the oceans,” the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says. “Marine species tend to be highly mobile, and many are moving quickly toward the poles to stay cool as average ocean temperature rise.”
In the Philippines, an estimated 10-15 per cent of the total fisheries come from coral reefs. About 80-90 per cent of the income of small island communities comes from fisheries. “Coral reef fish yields range from 20 to 25 metric tons per square kilometer per year for healthy reefs,” says Dr. Angel C. Alcala, former environment secretary.
More than 50 percent of the world’s coral reefs, including those in the Philippines, could die by 2050 because of bleaching caused by higher ocean surface temperatures, based on climate projections by international scientists. A new threat that will most likely cause havocs among coral reefs is ocean acidification, again as a result of climate change.
Less fish is bad news for Filipinos as they are among the world’s biggest fish consumers. After all, fish provides more than half of the protein requirement of the people. Each year, a Filipino consumes almost 30 kilograms of seafood.
“We still have enough fish now but with global warming we may have problems in the next five to ten years unless we do something about it,” warns Dr. Rafael D. Guerrero III, a fishery expert and an academician at the National Academy of Science and Technology.
Meanwhile, the climate change continues to wreak its havoc around the world. “Climate change is taking place before our eyes and will continue to do so as a result of the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which have risen constantly and again reached new records,” deplored Michel Jarraud, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization.
