AS SEEN ON TV
2 Degrees Celsius or we all die
Watching the movie 2012 and attending a climate change forum all on the same week got me fixated on the end of the world, and how the Philippines would actually fare in any Extinction Level Event or apocalyptic destruction i.e. killer quake, killer flood, killer meteor. We’re pretty much a small cluster of islands so if a major tsunami hits or if the numerous faults below and around our small country would act up, the Philippines will be wiped out of the globe in minutes. We might all be dead without even knowing what hit us.
Hollywood has depicted the destruction of mega cities like Los Angeles or New York one too many times in doomsday movies. The ruin of Tokyo, London or Rome is also featured in many end of the world films.
But there’s not much destruction details on the Philippines except that the film 2012 showed a map of Southeast Asia being engulfed by rising sea waters. Death should be faster for any third world archipelago which unfortunately provides people little cover in case Mother Nature wages war.
But even in the absence of anything apocalyptical like a meteorite the size of Texas falling off the skies, a great flood inundating the Himalayas or a killer quake that swallows multitudes into a burning abyss, the Philippines will still be on a road to slow and painful demise, with climate change which is now a living reality.
Climate change a.k.a. global warming is a dreadful killer (using the least special effects than doomsday movies would have it) but can annihilate nations just as potently because it slowly brings death to the people one devastation at a time.
The Manila Observatory has been doing serious work on climate change in the Philippines since the 1990’s. While global warming has been tackled globally in recent years, the Manila Observatory’s research focuses more on how it will affect the Philippines.
Here are some global warming scenarios for this great country of ours:
- 1. Average temperature will rise by 2.75 degrees in the Philippines by 2050. This will mean a hotter climate will dry up rivers which is the main water source of households.
- 2. The Philippines will have longer dry periods while wet season shall be characterized by saturated heavy rains. Typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng were omens of rains to come and the floods they bring. Destruction in highly urbanized areas will be severe as dense, impoverished populations may not be able to cope with calamity.
- 3. Typhoons crossing the country from the Pacific will batter the Visayas islands. Prolonged effects of El Nino and La Nina will also damage crops consequently affecting food supply. There will be more floods in the Visayan islands.
- 4. Mindanao will bear the brunt of climate change. Rising temperature will result in droughts and destruction of agricultural and marine resources. The worst case scenario: Mindanao becomes unlivable. Mindanao depends on bodies of water not just for potable water supply but for power generation itself. Add to that the unresolved political conflicts— Mindanao is definitely a dying paradise.
- 5. Luzon which is the seat of the nation’s capital will experience more devastating floods. The sheer number of residents in the area will be calamitous, while the government cannot (and will never be able to) do anything to stop Ondoy from happening all over again.
Manila Observatory’s Toni Yulo-Loyzaga says the world is in a period of great cataclysmic change hence it is important that government, the private sector and policy makers take climate change into consideration when crafting or implementing laws, allocating funds for relief and rehabilitation, and relocating residents living in hazardous areas.
This is the same sentiment pushed by environmentalists in Copenhagen this week. One of the contentious issues taken up so far is global inaction in addressing climate change. Aside from urging developed countries to cut down on emissions, something which China and the US have not agreed to do totally, richer nations also need six billion Euros to help poorer countries like the Philippines adapt to climate change. Yet no one seems to want to foot the bill.
The International Panel on Climate Change is now calling on global leaders to limit global warming to at least 2 degrees Celsius. I honestly don’t know how the world is going to achieve that when countries show no decisive action in fighting global warming, while developed countries refuse to cut down on emissions and reduce profits from industrialization.
Besides global warming is really irreversible and unstoppable.
It is just unfortunate that we are a poor, small country. If the end of the world were a movie, the Philippines is just a secondary character which gets killed off before the ending.
