Polar caps melting; fish suffocating from plastic consumption; sea levels rising—these were just some of the problems tackled last November 19 at the Shell Companies in the Philippines Audio Visual Room, second floor of Velasco Hall. The event, entitled Climate Change: What Can We Do?, was hosted by the Science College Government in hopes of raising awareness on the aforementioned topics and generating discussions on how Lasallians can contribute toward alleviating Earth’s environmental crisis.
Featuring his insights and experiences working with youth organizations, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)-Philippines Representative Dino Calderon mentioned that his organization has collaborated with the Quezon City government in developing solutions that tackle and raise awareness on climate change, a phenomenon where Earth’s climate system experiences a change in its natural pattern caused by the passage of time or aggravated by external factors like human activities.
Yet, those ideas and solutions did not stem from non-government organizations and politicians. “We get the solutions from the youth,” he revealed, emphasizing the youth’s role in saving the environment.
After the 60 minutes
During the talk, Calderon shared a myriad of insights gleaned from being an advocate promoting climate awareness. He also discussed the “human footprint”—a measurement of humanity’s consumption of the planet’s natural resources—and how to reduce it.
Among such ways is through the yearly WWF-hosted event, Earth Hour. He explained that lights from gadgets, homes, and buildings would be turned off for an hour in hopes of reducing the emission of carbon and other harmful gases into the atmosphere, the accumulation of which causes further warming of the planet.
Although an activity that engages environmental awareness, Calderon questioned its overall effectivity in reducing “human footprint”. He admits, “Sa akin, hindi [siya effective].”
(For me, it is not [effective].)
“What is more important…is what we do after [those] 60 minutes,” he stressed. Despite people joining events such as Earth Hour, Calderon stated that many will just go back to their normal behaviors that may even contribute to the harming of the environment, citing scenarios such as frequently drinking from plastic cups and plastic straws—which greatly contribute to land and water pollution.
Once a ‘natural’ process
“Going up, reaching the skies, or digging down the Earth, humans are the major drivers of [the] rate of change—of physical change,” he lamented.
Calderon stated that climate change is supposed to be a “natural process” that takes millions of years to manifest. Yet, an external factor hastened that process beyond what initial research and scientists had predicted—and that external factor, he supposed, are humans themselves.
“That’s the natural process of climate change—may nag-eescape [into space], may naiiwan [in the planet’s atmosphere], just to keep the temperature optimum,” Calderon explained. He reasoned that the climate status right now is very different, stating that “carbon dioxide [produced] by burning fossil fuels” have created a “thicker blanket” surrounding the planet, which resulted in more heat trapped in the atmosphere.
(There are [gases] that escape [into space], while others are left [in the planet’s atmosphere].)
Putting stress on the increase of temperature and the ice caps melting, Calderon showed a timelapse of Philippine flood maps through Firetree.net, which also uses past trends to predict how high sea levels would rise in an area given a number of years. “The icecaps are already half [their size only] after a few years,” he warned, displaying research supporting his claim of glaciers losing much of their ice in only 40 years.
He weighed the implications and severity of actual landmasses being covered with water. Through the same site, he displayed the prediction for the Manila-Cavite Expressway, an area located near the coast. The data suggested that, while the sea level rise is currently at five meters, it would likely increase to nine meters by the year 2030, compared to the average height of a Filipino adult being 1.6 meters.
“Buti nalang taga-Quezon City ako,” he joked.
(It’s a good thing I’m from Quezon City.)
Inspiring action
Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg was a major player in climate advocacy and even “inspired action”, Calderon acknowledged. Through her advocacies and speeches, he observed that students around the world have followed Thunberg and started pushing for global climate action as well.
“Nag-str-strike sila para hindi para hindi pumasok, pero [dahil may gustong] sabihin,” Calderon praised.
(They go to strikes not to skip classes, but because they have something to say.)
In trying to set an example of living in a manner minimizing one’s human footprint, he shared that he hopes to inspire students to join initiatives such as the yearly Green Peace International Coastal Cleanup, wherein individuals pick up trash left along shores or carried by oceans in select areas.
Further, he noted that even the simple motion of properly throwing one’s own garbage already lessens the environmental burdens of the planet.
Yet even with such advocacies and activities, Calderon still theorized that the current generation has a “romantic notion” of the planet being “inherited” by them. “Actually, we are borrowing it from the next generation,” he clarified.
The WWF-Philippines representative stressed that the current generation has taken the planet’s resources for granted, implicating that it is the future generations who will lose out even more. Like Thunberg, Calderon strongly urges the youth to realize the current problem of the world and to put on a more conscious effort to act on said issues—in whatever capacity they can to counteract the consequences of human negligence.
