reflection

1. Tiffany Grace Cheng Uy CN # 60<br />Immaculate Conception Academy Dr. Lagunzad<br />The Song of Life<br />Helen Keller once said that “the most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched; they must be felt with the heart.”* To take our world at face value is to belittle the true wonder that it is. What’s amazing about it isn’t what colorful creatures you see, but the song behind it, the rhythm of life that everything on Earth dances to.<br />The interplay of prey and predator in feeding relationships. An organism’s dependence and at the same time, influence on his environment. The growth and development of nature along with its accompanying limits. Everything is in balance; and it is this harmony of our world and everything in it, that never ceases to amaze me. <br />In Ecology, that harmony is observed within the levels of biological organization formed: from single organisms, that group into populations, and furthermore into communities with other kinds of organisms, until an ecosystem is formed- all driven by organisms’ need for reproductive success and survival. Any of these organisms makes his own exchange with the physic-chemical environment, adapting and harmonizing with his surroundings, but at the same time, making exchanges with each other. They “eat or become eaten”, enabling the energy to flow through the system. Moreover, the diversity of organisms, such as producers, consumers and decomposers, allow the performance of different processes that enable the nutrients from what they eat to be cycled. Likewise, changes in nature will occur in quantity and quality, but all changes are still self-regulating. All of this mean one thing: that our world has an innate mechanism that preserves the balance, the rhythm that ensures life.<br />However, like the rising action in a drama, this delicate balance that sustains and maintains life on Earth is slowly being destroyed- and the culprit is greenhouse gases. These gases like CO2, methane and nitrous oxide naturally occur in the atmosphere to envelop the globe and keep the destructive UV rays from penetrating into the Earth, but the rapid increase of these greenhouse gases has instead worked to trap infrared waves in, causing a phenomenon called global warming.<br />Global warming, as its name suggests, is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans. In the Philippines, global warming manifests itself in the sprouting up of numerous environmental problems. One is the El Nino events becoming more and more rampant. In normal air cycles, the heating of the surface of the water causes expansion of gases, that are less dense and rise up, thus creating a low pressure area below. This mass of less dense gases travels upward and sideward. At some point, rising hotter gases from the tropics will meet with the rising colder gases of the temperate areas or the poles. The warm front will then be cooled by the cold front, get more dense, sink, and enter the low pressure area once again, beginning a cycle. However, the global warming of even the poles has made the cold front warmer. Thus, when the warm front from the tropics meets the air front from the poles, no more mass exists to cool the air. It then penetrates through and deposits water at the poles or temperate areas, and what returns to the low pressure zone of the tropics is only dry air. This is why, El Nino or very dry season with its droughts is now happening annually in the country, affecting rice and corn production. Next, while summer brings El Nino, rainy seasons bring the most devastating storms. Tropical Storm Ketsana and Pepeng were very unusual storms brought about by the changing climate. Rains like these often cause tragic landslides and loss of crops. Also, the sea level rise endangers the Filipinos most due to the 18<br />% of our population living in low-lying coastal zones. <br />I’ve listened to Al Gore in the ever-famous “Inconvenient Truth” infinity times, and believed that everything was due to man causing the increase in the CO2 through the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and use of aerosols. But today’s class offered another twist to the story: the Milankovitch Cycle. Instead of Al Gore’s booming assertion that global warming is almost entirely man-made, this theory suggests that a major part of the Earth’s warming is already beyond the hands of the human race. He theorized that changes in tilt of the Earth defined changes in season, creating a 100,000- year Ice Age cycle. A change in tilt means that summers are hotter and winters are colder in some hemispheres, and all the heat is in the natural process of the Earth of melting the ice.<br />At first, I felt appalled at the deception with which I have been living. “So, we didn’t cause this whole problem?,” resounded the voice inside my head. For so long have I been taught about the reality of the world: that those at fault are the ones who pay. To me, it seemed as if making humans pay the costs for a global warming they didn’t even fully cause was now unfair, unjustified, even wrong. <br />And then: bam! Returning to my senses, I realized that this is not a blame game. It’s not about pinpointing who caused what or when or who did it more. No. It’s not about that at all, for even if it was all the tilt’s fault, what can the tilt do about it now? The real question should be: who can do something about it? –and the answer is pretty clear. Us.<br />We humans are the ones who inhabit and benefit from the Earth’s gifts and fruits. We consume resources and also influence the environment we live in. At this point, we’re the only living beings capable of making big changes and altering our world! We are the ones who have the most agency to act- and that alone justifies our responsibility. I felt ashamed for even thinking otherwise. In fact, though human activities may not have caused this entire mess, they surely contribute to it. The fact remains that our activities produce tons of CO2 and pollution. Maybe greenhouse gases didn’t cause the entire shebam, but it’s surely speeding it up! If reducing our CO2 can minimize the damage even a little, then it’s already worth all our effort.<br />We have to wake up. What’s so dangerous about this phenomenon is that its present costs are invisible. Though we will experience disasters too, the heaviest consequences will be faced by none other than the following generations- our children, our future. They are the ones who will bear the consequences of ignorant and insensitive forefathers. They are the ones who will suffer. The worst damage still waits upon the future, and it’s so easy to just turn a blind eye to it. <br />Time is running out; we need to act now. I believe that for most of us, awareness is no longer a problem. The environmental crisis is an issue almost everyone is informed about, yet no drastic changes have been made. This is because the hardest part always lies in the second step: action. For me, the mentality that “little acts are enough to make a big change” is over-rated and very misunderstood. You picking up a piece of paper is a small act that will help the environment; however, it’s useless if it ends there- if it doesn’t translate to you making use of it as scratch paper, using other picked-up scratch papers as real papers, and then influencing your friends to do the same and so on. What I’m trying to say is not that little acts don’t matter, rather that little acts will only matter if they translate to bigger acts. We have to start being realistic about the problem and conscious of our wide potential to solve it. Little acts are not the limits to how much we can contribute.<br />Today, I saw that with an increase of 6 m in sea level, the entire San Juan would become submerged. My school, my house, my community would be nothing but Atlantis- and our municipality is not doing anything about it. In fact, during San Juan day, people still do the ritual of squirting water at passers-by in honor of St. John the Baptist, our patron saint. I realized then that I had to start with myself. In my own home, I waste electricity, water and sometimes, food. There are easy things I can do to conserve those resources, such as use of light-saving bulbs, turning off the computer when not in use, staying in the same room with my family to save on aircon. More than that though, I must reach out to others. Since I live in a complex of townhouses, my neighbors are really easy to talk to. I plan to make those tsismis into enviro-mis, where we could advice each other how to cut down on fossil fuels. How I buy products also reflects what ideals I promote. Shopping may become a bit more hassle, but buying eco-friendly goods, like cloth bags instead of plastic bags in the grocery, will make a big change. Basically, I want to start imbibing care for the environment into my lifestyle. Of course, that includes influencing others too, but I believe in the power of 2- that even if I am able to influence just 2 people, those 2 can influence other 2 and so on. Eventually, so many people will end up having an eco-friendly lifestyle as well!<br />Of course, nobody knows for sure what destiny has in store for us. If the Milankovitch Cycle is true, then no matter how much CO2 we eradicate, we will still face the maximum heating point, but at least we can make time to prepare. If San Juan does become submerged, immediate needs and safety routes will have been immediately planned out. Evacuation must be done towards inner high ground. Moreover, this serves as a basis for better future choices. Where I want to buy a house or set up a factory in the future will definitely be in a higher area and not within the 12 m- danger zone. It’s a good thing Ondoy triggered an alert. There has been stimulus asking for the review of the NDCC (National Disaster Coordinating Center) especially in its ability to plan precautionary and response measures to natural hazards. Hopefully, changes will be made soon and safety can be prioritized. I have informed my family about these issues, and I hope that we can spread the information to more as well.<br />This is not the end, rather it is a beginning. I still believe in our humanity, and I know that one day, man will learn to dance to the rhythm of life once again.<br />* ThinkExist.com Quotations. “World quotes”. ThinkExist.com Quotations Online 1 Mar. 2010. 18 Apr. 2010 <http://thinkexist.com/quotations/world/2.html> <br />