For weeks now, we have watched with horror how landslides of huge geologic proportions have north and south of the country, precisely in Itogon, Benguet and in Naga City, Cebu, snuffing human lives like no other in recent memory. Hapless communities suddenly emerged, even as rescue workers strived hard to recover victims underneath the rubble. Itogon became a household tragedy in the aftermath of Ompong’s devastating visit, followed a week later by Naga. The landslides were not just run-of-the-mill incidents that indicated how porous human life has become, so vulnerable when mountain soil gets loosened from too much water, soil that would have held on had forest cover — trees, most of all — been there.
Two weeks since Ondoy, Itogon’s travails seem unabated. Recovery has turned southside and got transformed into retrieval, simply because no signs of life had been detected. Even as retrievers continued work, there appears no coherent plan just what ought to be done and why. Clearly, the landslide was simply an environmental occurrence just waiting to happen.
We are now told that as early as 2010, government geologists have long alerted the vulnerable site as an unmistakable danger zone, but appeared helpless in doing what ought to have been done, which is to prohibit any human settlement in the area. Alerting, that’s what the government can only do, given the fact that the mining company that had been extracting mineral resources has suspended operations, leaving the site vulnerable to unauthorized mining. Local officials have also washed hands, asserting in all pomposity that livelihood couldn’t just be blocked, as it mattered much to poverty-stricken small-scale miners.
We are now told that the stricken areas would be off limits to any further mining activities, legal or otherwise. But, it appears that it wouldn’t be so after all. Minahang Bayan sites would be put in place, meaning mining in however regulated form and shape would still be allowed. Mama mia, just what is in store is as dim as a sun that had set, a neither here or there situation. This merely indicates how wishy-washy government’s attitude towards mining is, regardless of the time-tested tragedies the activity has been causing all over this hapless, helpless nation of ours.
By all means, let’s balance off environmental and economic concerns. Are we spending a good part of government money to regenerate our mountains that mining activities have so brazenly abused these many, many years? If as early as 2010 the Itogon stricken sites have become vulnerable to mountain soil instability, why have not engineering intervening technology been applied, why have not reforesting efforts been done, why have not the on-surface portals leading into tunnels been permanently shut down? If as early as then, the local officials have been accordingly informed, why have the small miners been encouraged to take up alternative livelihood generating activities, enough for them to abandon the glitter of gold and be out of harm’s way?
Bless us for God’s mercy, not many of us may be feeling the landslide experience of those nearest the sites. Sure, we may be thousands of miles away to be front and center of so catastrophic an experience. We may be beyond that in terms of being there, but in more ways than one, we know how a tragedy grows in us, simply because we’ve been through it.
Lest we forget, it’s really all about climate change. Sadly, we’re just not doing enough to abate human suffering as a result of weather aberrations that cause flooding, landslides, life and property lost in unimaginable proportions. About the closest thing we can relate with this tragedy are the super storms that have hit successively in the 90s right in our midst, just following the killer-quake of July 16, 1990. In the wake of the super storms that developed from the Atlantic Ocean, it’s always best to get ourselves prepared should similar weather extremities occur in our midst, from the Pacific Ocean which has bred much of the typhoons that have come our way, themselves huge and consequential. To get there, we begin somewhere.
As starters, we are told by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, joined in by the American Meteorological Society, that 2016 stood out as the hottest ever in modern times, publicly stating that “last year’s record heat resulted from the combined influence of long-term global warming and a strong El Nino early in that year.” Trends consistent with a warming planet had been detected from several benchmarks that broke records set the previous year — land and ocean temperatures, sea level and greenhouse gas concentrations.
The horrendous heat levels last year should be a source of global concern. Scientists have recently determined that the Atlantic Ocean-bred hurricanes came about as a result of global warming. Greenhouse gasses, accumulating in the Earth’s atmosphere, are said to be definitely causing temperatures to rise, which in turn results from the melting of our polar icecaps, the increased carbon dioxide in our seas, and the massive bleaching of sea corals.
Over the coming years, sea levels are expected to rise even more due to melting ice. Major cities along coastlines will be submerged, island nations will go under, as climate patterns alter drastically from year to year, the severe weather disturbances experienced in the Caribbean a proof positive that the last one is more severe than the one preceding.
This much we are candidly told: mankind seems to be unrelenting in its reliance on fossil fuels for global energy use. Climate change disbelievers led by the usual greedy hotheads remain mired in self-denials. Greenhouse gases continue to be polluting the atmosphere in unprecedented levels — unchecked and without remorse, despite global recognition and agreements. Third, these gases envelope like a blanket to capture heat around our planet.
Clearly, all the major greenhouse gases that drive warming up — all the carbon dioxide (CO2), all the methane and nitrous oxide — are rising to new unparalleled lights. We are now told that atmospheric CO2 concentration has reached 402.9 parts per million (ppm), surpassing the level of 400 ppm for the first time in modern annals and ice core records dating back as far as 800,000 years.
Land and sea temperatures are now at new record-breaking levels, as evidenced by melting glaciers and ocean-swelling polar ice caps. In 2016, the global average sea level was 3.25 inches or 82 millimeters higher than the 1993 average, rising for six straight years, with the highest recorded in the western Pacific and Indian Oceans.
In troubled times, we definitely are, regardless where we are — whether out there in places whiplashed by the Atlantic Ocean or out here by the Pacific Ocean. The oceans will continue to be heating up, because global pollution goes on unabated, because economic activities continue to cause global warming, because our effort has been globally without much significance, because we’d rather react than pro-act, until the next tragedy.
One thing stands out that needs to be instilled in the hearts and minds of leaders and people. If we don’t take care of nature, it won’t take care of us, all of us. If we don’t work to manage our future, knowing what it holds for us by our inaction, singly and collectively, nobody else will. Even our inheritors will never forgive us for surrendering that future in the hands of those who refuse to see, feel and experience what has become too obvious: we either live and survive as one in the only planetary home that’s Earth, or perish as one in palpably catastrophic if separate ways.
Doing the only right thing in our lifetime — that’s what we ought to be doing now, not later, now not soon. Because it’s the biggest right thing we can do.
