While El Niño has started to scorch our country’s lands right now, and the likelihood of La Niña to follow, climate extremes of climate change are becoming more and more relevant in our own context
Climate change is a phenomenon that most of us don’t take seriously.
It’s regarded as a concern for first-world countries because most of the time we read or watch about it in the context of those places.
The attributions often used are greenhouse gases, melting glaciers, smoke emitted from highly industrialized complexes, and other images and phrases that we normally associate with countries far from us.
Majority of the case, realities like family economic status, also preoccupy us with matters that are more immediate.
There’s a reality that all of us must once and for all accept.
We may not be among those countries said to contribute to climate change, but we are among those severely affected by its impact.
In recent years, we experienced severe typhoons and overly heated dry seasons.
These are forms of climate extremes, the way climate change is manifesting itself in our midst. These are real occurrences and are a clear picture of what climate change does.
Landslides, massive flooding, droughts, all wreak havoc to lives and livelihoods.
These are the more familiar attributions for us to fully understand climate change.
The scientific explanations and terminologies normally used to teach and advocate climate change concerns are alienating to the general public. Not to mention, the tendency to dilute the urgency of climate change.
We are always “rolling with the blows” and on “move on” modes in dealing with these climate change-induced events.
We suffer and endure the tragedies and simply build again.
Sadly, that’s how it is for us when it comes to climate change matters. It’s all about reacting to these realities.
Alarmingly, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration published some studies articulating that climate change triggers more landslides.
Cycles of extreme heat and water contribute to the weakening of soil integrity.
No wonder, we’ve seen landslides happening in slopes with enough trees.
Such imagery conflicts with the idea of what we were conditioned with—that more trees hold soil to avoid erosions and even landslides.
In the recent landslide in Barangay Masara, Maco, Davao de Oro, what I saw were pictures of the landslide plowed through lush trees.
That’s something that we must not ignore.
Recent landslides in different parts of our country seem to manifest NASA’s published report on study findings.
Roy J. Cabonegro of Makakalikasan Party said in a recent radio interview that in Mindanao, a region that has become vulnerable to torrential rains and landslides caused by the extreme changes in weather patterns, only Bukidnon province has an existing Local Climate Change Action Plan.
This is a primary requirement to determine the amount of resources needed to mitigate the impact of climate change and its climate extreme manifestations.
While El Niño has started to scorch our country’s lands right now, and the likelihood of La Niña to follow, climate extremes of climate change are becoming more and more relevant in our own context.
And right about in time for an upcoming campaign season and election next year.
I strongly agree with Cabonegro’s statement: ”It is time for a GREEN GOVERNMENT in the country.
“No other socio-economic-political and ideological alternative is more logical and necessary in these times than the GREENS.”
Lives and livelihoods are at stake.
Constituents need leadership and stewardship that will sincerely make “impact damage mitigation of the unstoppable new normal” an agenda.