by Ricky Jimenez
No, it’s not what you think, but what letter senders think in the Letters to the Editor, a section this writer puts a little time on, after reading of course the headline stories and the sports page. This is my way of keeping my ears on the public pulse, so to speak.
For opinions on topics like environment, sustainable development and health, my best sources are foreign magazines, which I find in abundance in Booksales, a store at a mall on McArthur highway, Matina, and which are sold at a big bargain, although they’re only a few months old. Let me cite some for this week’s topic: Sharing “Green” Thoughts.
Thus, letter sender Tony Edmunds, via email to NV (for New Vision, an American
Magazine on business) says “Environment has become a large part of national conversation and I’m glad to see you’ve chosen to cover it as well. It’s definitely important that our community play a part in decisions that affect our environment. Just reading your article (“Energizers”) how kids are suffering from asthma in Harlem (a suburb in New York City) is one clear reason that we should really be heavily involved with “going green”. I am sure that the effects of pollution are destructive on many, many communities of color throughout America. So, I thank you for embracing this topic so diligently and I implore everyone to get involved.”
In the Philippine context, this writer remembers the constant criticisms in the mainstream media not too long ago on the effects of air pollution on the brain development of school children in Metro Manila. While asthma cases have been on the rise, studies further showed that learning abilities and comprehension have been declining. This raging concern from parents, consumers and health authorities led to the introduction of the un-leaded gasoline in the market. (Lead, studies showed, stunted brain cell development.)
A letter sender, this time from Consort, Alberta (Canada), Dennis Douglas, in a letter to the editor of Mother Earth News (Kansas, USA) complained: “I’ve been reading Mother Earth News for as long as I have been able to read. I like the content and enjoy your magazine. However, since “green” has become a political movement, and those who I would term “communists or die-hard socialists” have taken the non-existent and scientifically disproved global warming crisis and used it to control us, I have started to skip articles and at times, the whole magazine. Please hear my plea. The political non-sense should be left out of my Mother Earth News.”
Locally, during a round table discussion on “Urban Planning and Disaster Mitigation” last September 16 sponsored by the International Visitor Program (IVP) Philippine Alumni Foundation, Davao Chapter and the US Embassy, an American professor was the resource person: Dr. Gavin Smith, executive director of the Center for the Study of Natural Hazards and Disasters. (IVP-Phils is an alumni organization of all Filipino participants in the US State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program). In attendance were IVP Davao guys like Nilo Claudio (batch 1981), chapter president; retired judge Jesus Quitain (batch 1987), former vice mayor Luis Bonguyan (batch1992), Tony Ajero (batch 1990), Edge Davao editor-in-chief, chapter vice president; Manuel Cayon (batch 2009), Business Mirror correspondent; Cesar Ledesma (batch 1986), consumer activist; Licelle Onggo (batch 2010), representing the Indigencous Peoples of Davao City; and this writer (batch 1993), from radio broadcast media, chapter secretary. There were local government officials from the city of Davao and the municipality of Santa Cruz present, too. Tony was open forum moderator and this writer the program emcee. In the spirit of free discussion on how to deal with natural hazards and disasters in the face of global warming from the point of view of urban planning, after several rounds of the question-and-answer routine, Tony dropped a bombshell, albeit humorously: “No one among my civic club members, including the two Americans in it, believe in climate change. But this is for another discussion.” Which is maybe why even the USA, said to be the biggest polluter in the world, has not yet signed the 1996 Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement for nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 5% by 2011.
“Green” thoughts, no matter where they come from, from the other said of the globe or right in our own backyard, remind everyone that we share a common home together – planet Earth, and the truth is, whether you agree or not, it is not as healthy as it used to be. (email me at rjrjrajimenez@gmail.com)
