TATAKalikasan Lesson in 12 Parts: Earth Day April 22, 2024: Theme EARTH VERSUS PLASTICS "Plastic rain is the new acid rain. Plastic dust is the new smog."

             Lesson on TATAKalikasan, Ateneo de Manila University

87.9 FM Radyo Katipunan, every Thursday) 11 to 12 a.m.

In celebration of Earth Day April 22, 2024.

Continuation of Sessions May 11 and June 1, 2023

SOME (Save Our Mother Earth)

EARTH VERSUS PLASTICS

Plastic Pollution on Land, Water and Air

Plastic rain is the new acid rain. Plastic dust is the new smog. Plastic continent is the new and eighth continent. Each year, Earth Day takes on a particular theme and the theme for 2024 is Planet vs. Plastics. According to the official Earth Day 2024 webpage, the organization is committed to helping to reduce global plastic production by 60% by 2040.

1. What is Plastic? How are plastics differentiated?
2. Nata Laminate as Plastic (and Leather) Substitute
3. Plastic rain is the new acid rain
4. The Case of the Goat that Ate Plastic
5 - 24 Ways of Building a "Children of Nature" Culture
6 - The Making of a Plastic Continent
7. We are Living in a Plastic World
8. Giant Plastic Straw Christmas Tree 

9. The 7 Different Types of Plastic

10.Let's Enhance Religious Practices Favorable to Health and Environment

11. Treaty of Nature and Man 

12. Neo-Renaissance: Scenarios of our children living in a Postmodern World

 Dr Abe V Rotor

Co-host with Fr JM Manzano SJ, & Prof Emoy Rodolfo, AdMU

Part 1 - What is plastic? 

How are plastics differentiated?

1. The first plastic was made by Alexander Parkes in 1862, after whom it was named: Parkesine. Actually it was an organic material derived from cellulose. Once heated, it could be molded, retaining its shape when cooled.

A world of plastics on wheels

Because of its high cost of production it was shelved until the later part of the 19th century when celluloid made a debut as replacement for ivory in making of billiard balls. To prevent the explosion of the highly volatile celluloid, camphor was added leading to the development of thermoplastics.

2. Soon, the first completely synthetic man-made plastic was formulated by a New York chemist, Leo Baekeland, hence the name Bakelite. This material does not burn, boil, melt, or dissolve under any commonly available acid or solvent. It also retains its shape. Bakelite could be added to almost any material, making the new substance more durable, light, heat-resistant and shatterproof. War machinery and automobile manufacturing made use of this new product to great advantage.

3. Other forms of plastics were then discovered. These include rayon (man-made silk), and cellophane (the first glass-clear, flexible and waterproof plastic). These materials have many uses today.

4. By 1920, the “plastic craze” spread out. Du Pont, one of the leaders of the industry developed nylon, replacing animal hair in toothbrushes. By 1940, the world saw the development of acrylic, polyethylene, and many more polymers, which replaced natural materials such as cotton, fiber, wood and steel.

5. DuPont later introduced Teflon, favored for lining cooking utensils for its acid and heat resistant while its non-stick properties make the utensils easy to clean.

6. Dow, another plastic manufacturer, on the other hand, came up with polyvinylidene chloride, better known as “Saran”, a perfect material for food packaging and storage.

7. Polyethylene, introduced in 1933, is currently the largest volume plastic in the world for making soda and milk bottles, grocery bags, and plastic food storage containers. This is the kind of plastic the goat ate and which made her sick. See Part 4 (below): The Case of the Goat that Ate Plastic.

8. There is virtually no end to the discovery of other forms of plastics. We have plastic putty developed by Velcro. This material is similar to rubber, but has a 25 percent higher rebound power. Its property of not being able to maintain a constant shape is compensated by its high flexibility, stretching many times its length without tearing. Initially, it was used in the manufacture of toys, but now many potential uses are seen.

A World Without Plastics?

Today’s world is incomprehensible without plastics. Plastics contribute to our health, safety and peace of mind. They are part of our dwellings, cars, toys, appliances, even body parts such as heart valves and prosthetics. There are countless uses in all aspects of our lives.

On the other hand, the biggest dilemma with plastics is its proper disposal. It has become a major waste handling challenge all over the world. While we see its virtually endless uses, we are also witness to its accumulation exacerbated by its inability to biodegrade. As a result, its rate of accumulation is alarmingly enhanced, creating an issue of concern to environmentalists, and citizens of the world.

Plastic Garbage

 

Plastic Flotilla 

In a field trip along the coast of Morong, Bataan, in the Philippines, my students from the UST College of Pharmacy were surprised to see plastic material strewn by waves along the shore. A cursory examination revealed the following materials:

1. Plastic sack which has replaced the jute or gummy sack

2. Nylon rope and filament, which have replaced Manila hemp and cotton threads. Filament is used for fish net.

3. Plastic simulated leather used in shoes, canvas and bags. There are other kinds of artificial leather.

4. Styropore for packing and containers, replacing banana leaves, straw and paper.

5. Foam mattresses, slippers and furniture. Natural sponge is now a rare commodity. Foam has replaced coconut coir and kapok.

6. Plastic bottles, jars and containers. Glass is still the best material when it comes to food storage.

7. Plastic sachets, bags and wrappers have largely taken over the use of paper and cardboard.

These plastic materials are familiar to us. We see them at home and on store shelves. They are evidences of our modern, throw-away culture.

Trapped Fish Fry in Plastic

While gathering the garbage to help clean up the shore, my students found trapped fish fry in plastic bags. Wanting to find out how this happened, we looked for clues. 

                                                         Trapped fish

The plastic bags, flushed down the river, or thrown by unscrupulous residents and promenades became homes for young, marine species. Since these materials are not edible seaweeds or seagrass, they become entrapments to the fry, causing their death through starvation and asphyxiation.

We have seen plastic materials stuck at the bottom of reefs preventing juvenile seaweeds from developing. Plastics also trap the polyps of corals, and microsopic zooplankton eliminating a major food source for marine life.

That evening, along the shores of Morong, we asked ourselves what each can do to rid the shores of plastics. While we reflected in silence, the tranquil waves washed ashore a plastic bottle.

Here are some things we can do with plastics.

1. Re-use plastic bags and bottles at home. Remember that plastics are durable. Be sure to clean them properly before using.

 

                                  

                                   Biodegradable and compostable plastics

2. Gather plastic bottles and unserviceable plastic wares for recycling. Arrange with cart pushers, or your nearest junk shop for their regular collection. Do not attempt to re-melt plastics. The process is not as simple as you think. Don’t burn to dispose them, either. Burning plastics emits smoke and fumes deleterious to health. Dioxin is the most poisonous man-made chemical. Dioxins are called persistent organic pollutants (POPs), meaning they take a long time to break down once they are in the environment. Dioxins are highly toxic and can cause cancer, reproductive and developmental problems, damage to the immune system, and can interfere with hormones.

3. Do not use plastic if you can help it. Use paper or glass containers. This is also advantageous to your health. Do not use plastic containers for soft drinks, vinegar, salt, patis, toyo. Strong solvents tend to chemically alter in the presence of plastics. Studies show that some plastics that are carcinogenic.

4. Keep plastic materials away from your bedroom. As plastics age, they emit gaseous substances which may cause allergy, asthma and other ailments when inhaled.

5. Patronize products that use non-plastic containers, wrappers, bags and utensils.

6. Be part of a community environmental project. Attend seminars and workshops that talk about the environment. Read about ecology; learn to be a leader in this area; know about re-cycling, values formation, and the like. Be an ecologist yourself.

Part 2 - Nata Laminate as Plastic (and Leather) Substitute

In search of natural plastic

Now, this one is for the Guinness Book of Records: Shoes made from nata de coco. At then St. Paul College QC, Dr. Anselmo S. Cabigan and his advisee the late Amparo Arambulo developed shoes made from nata laminate as her thesis. 

Author with Miss Amparo  Arambulo, Nata researcher.  This article  is dedicated in her honor. Photo taken at the former SPUQC Museum

 The laminate is actually compressed nata de coco, dried and layered into ply, then subjected to the usual tanning procedure. It is cut and made into shoe soles, actually worn by students quality test. Nata laminate is stronger than leather. It gives a good finish and it looks like leather.

In another research, nata was made into surgical thread. Since nata is a natural product (a capsule of the bacterium, Leuconostoc mesenteroides), it is soluble. It may be a good substitute for expensive commercial absorbable surgical threads.

 

Nata de Coco Delight

Nata laminate is also a potential substitute for special paper, such as sheepskin, and an exotic material in making wallets, bags and belts. Unlike plastic, nata laminate is biodegradable. It also offers to save endangered animals from being butchered for skin.

The case of the goat that ate plastic, and fish fry trapped in a plastic bag can spur us to develop a second generation of biodegradable plastics. This is the essence of good stewardship of this planet, for our own good, as well as for those who will follow us. ~

----------------------------

Part 3 - Plastic rain is the new acid rain.*

Plastic pollution is an urgent and global problem. Most of the environmental attention to date has been focused on household and packaging waste. But scientists have found that tiny fragments known as microplastics make up significant amounts of ocean plastic pollution. Scientists have recently been scrambling to find solutions to deal with our growing microplastics problem.  Microplastic debris found on Depoe Bay, Oregon in January 2020. Photo credit: Andrew Selsky/Associated Press. This time, they turned to tiny bacteria for help.

Microbiologists at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) devised a sustainable way to remove polluting microplastics from the environment.

Their partners in crime are bacteria called Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Capable of grouping microplastics floating around in wastewater, these microbe nets trap microplastics and sink them. The plastic blobs can then be disposed of or recycled.

Other research efforts include exploring different novel materials as filters to remove microplastics before they reach large water bodies. Nanocellulose structures are highly effective in capturing extremely small microparticles that our eyes can’t see.

Researchers at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland envision that these inexpensive components could be installed directly at the point of microplastic generation. This way, the pesky particles won’t be able to make it to important waterways, where removal would be many times tougher.

But wait… How are microplastics different from the ubiquitous plastic products we use daily?We have seen horrific posts related to plastic waste circulating the web. While these dangers are visible to the naked eye, some are left undetected until fairly recently – microplastics.

With sizes ranging from as small as one-tenth the width of human hair, to twice the size of fine beach sand, these microparticles are so small that they can be carried by the wind.

Recent studies highlight the seriousness of this issue. 1000 metric tons – easily the weight of 120 million plastic bottles – rained on protected areas across western US. 84% of microplastics originate from road sources, while the rest come from agricultural dusts and oceans.

Illustration of how microplastics get into the atmosphere. Photo credits: Janice Brahney/PNASThey come from anywhere you can imagine. These invisible threats come from a variety of sources, some very surprising.

Plastic materials (think your bags and bottles) left out in the environment disintegrate gradually into smaller and smaller pieces.

Even doing your laundry releases microplastics – tiny microfibres slough off your synthetic clothes and get flushed to wastewater treatment plants.

Researchers also accidentally discovered huge numbers of tiny microplastic specks in their plastic container while prepping their lunch.

Tyres driving over roads break down deposited plastic particles into finer microplastics, enabling them to be launched back into the atmosphere, just like how oceans recirculate microplastics.One-way ticket around the globe.

What’s even more disconcerting is that microplastics can be transported to distant and pristine locations such as Antarctica, despite being so far away from actual sources of microplastics.

This just shows that microplastics are already spiraling through Earth’s recirculation system. And because of their astounding chemical longevity, microplastics spend many years cycling through different circulatory systems such as air, land and sea, ultimately ending up somewhere far from where they came from.

You could be taking in a deep breath of “fresh” air at Joshua Tree National Park, while tiny flakes of acrylic polymer – that could have come from someone’s laundry in Japan – land imperceptibly on your nose.Effects on humans still unclear.Ingestion of microplastics by small creatures lead to blockages in their intestinal tract. The ingested plastics could move up the food chain, leading to a plastic accumulation in organisms at the top of the food chain, akin to heavy metal bio-accumulation.

Some sea creatures exposed to microplastics even displayed difficulties in growing, severely affecting their ability to survive.

You’re also likely to be eating microplastics every day without even noticing it.

Microplastics were revealed in the placentas of unborn babies just a couple of months ago, most probably shed when shaking up plastic baby bottles filled with hot baby formula.

Assuming that the microplastics would somehow hamper foetal growth and cause long-term damage to its immune system, the researchers have yet to determine their exact health impacts on the human body.

But it’s reasonable to assume that having tiny bits of plastic lodged in your lungs or in your unborn child are hardly good things. Eliminating microplastics requires global effort.An overall picture on the consequences of microplastics to us and the ecosystem in general is still unclear. But such repercussions are inescapable in the immediate future.

Returning to the pre-plastic era is unimaginable, unless we come up with materials as great as plastic, but not as environmentally upsetting.

Perhaps one of the most effective ways to end this microplastic scourge, aside from inventing innovative methods of removal, is to cut out single-use plastics.

Just like how we cast a dry spell on acid rain, we too, can put an end to this toxic microplastic cycle. ~

* By Mitchell Lim. Mitchell Lim is DUG's Scientific Content Architect. With a PhD in Chemical Engineering

Acknowledgement and thanks: The Daily DUG

Part 4 - The Case of the Goat that Ate Plastic

The goat was pregnant for too long and was 

getting thin, so the owner sent for the butcher.

Guess what we discovered?  The bloated stomach was stuffed with plastics – pieces of containers, wrapping materials and grocery bags. One cannot imagine why the animal devoured plastics instead of grass other than due to hunger. After all, goats are not choosy when it comes to food.  Outside the wide range of plant species they can eat, since they are omnivorous, they yearn for almost anything sweet, salty, oily or spicy.

Curiously, an inventory was made from the animal’s stomach. Found in it there were cellophane used for sweets like bocayo, peanut butter, and candies, thin plastic bags for retailing bagoong alamang, patis, toyo, cooking oil, ice drop and the like. The largest are grocery convenient bags for meats, fish, soft drinks, fruit juices and cooked food. Some of these materials still bear traces of the product trade names, indicating recent ingestion. Plastics earlier ingested were discolored, but nonetheless are undissolved and intact. As the stomach twists and turns, the larger plastic materials envelop the smaller ones, forming a mass stuck up in the rumen (or large first compartment of the stomach) like clothes in a overloaded washing machine. 

The stomach of ruminants is designed to store large amounts of food. The food is consumed rapidly with a minimum of chewing, before it is swallowed. This reduces grazing time while it enhances large intake. Then when the animal is resting, the raw ingesta is brought out for re-mastication. At this time, digestive enzymes are mixed in with food before final digestion.

The stomach muscles incessantly contracting and squeezing, in a process called peristalsis (successive waves of involuntary contraction along the walls of the intestine, forcing the contents onward). Digestive enzymes dissolve solid materials into pulp (chyme), which is a thick soup material which later goes to the small intestine. Here, the nutrients are assimilated by tiny and numerous, tiny finger-like protrusions called villi.  The remaining contents then move to the large intestines, where they are retained for a while before being excreted as feces.

  

Why does the stomach retain the plastic materials?

We know that goats and other ruminant animals like sheep, cattle, zebra and gazelle, have very efficient digestive systems. This is needed for them to subsist on more than just high-fiber food such as grass and roughage. Their chambered stomachs retain food much longer than man can, or fowls, and pigs. This explains why the excreta of ruminants yields well digested fiber.  This is not the case with the excreta of animals with simple digestive systems such as pigs.  Birds and chicken although they break down shells and stones in their gizzards, cannot fully digest cellulose. Perhaps the only creature, superior to ruminants in cellulose digestion, is the termite. Termites have living protozoa in their stomachs that break down wood cellulose even in its tough form, lignin. Without this symbiont, termites will certainly starve and die. There has been no known successful experiment, however, to determine whether termites can digest plastics.  

The implication is that no digestive enzyme, not even gastric acid, is powerful enough to break down the cellulose in plastics.  This is classical proof of the non-biodegradability of plastics.

The question is asked: Can’t ruminants eliminate unwanted materials in their digestive system either by regurgitation or excretion?  The answer is no. In the first place the movement of the stomach and its chambers (rumen, reticulum and omasum) are not governed by the central nervous system. The mechanism of rumination is involuntary. It is the coarseness of the feed that stimulates the walls of the rumen to contract so that the material is brought out for re-mastication. Animals, which feed on soft and non-fibrous diet like alfalfa, ruminate less than those that depend on roughage.

  

Plastics Camouflage Appetite

It is likely that the plastic materials line the surface of the rumen in a way that produces insufficient stimulation to expel the ingesta for re-mastication. Another effect is that the animal experiences false fullness, camouflaging true appetite. This means that because the animal is not hungry, it eats less, consequently, becoming malnourished. Thus, the goat that ate plastic was emaciated, yet had a bloated stomach.  Yet this does not discount the possibility of slow poisoning due to the slow disintegration of secondary metabolites.

       

The other reason why goats cannot eliminate the plastics through excretion is obvious. Unlike large livestock, their feces are dry and nodular (small and round-shaped), barely the size of coffee beans.

The first completely synthetic man-made plastic, Bakelite, does not burn, melt or dissolve under ordinary solvents. As an additive, it makes almost any material strong, durable and light.

_____________________________________________________________

Goat’s saliva is hot. Plants grazed by goats are likely to die.

Leo Carlo and his pet - a black goat - at home, San Vicente, Ilocos Sur

Other than direct injury, what is in the saliva of the goat that leads to the death of the plant that it feeds upon?

First of all, let’s study the eating habit of this herbivore. When feeding, it pulls and tears off at anything its teeth come in contact with. It prefers seedlings and succulent tissues. But when food is scarce it feeds on older leaves, stems and roots. Goats in town may even devour wrappers of sweets and kitchen refuse. There are cases ingested plastics can cause slow death to the animals.

I gave a pet kid to my youngest son when he was small. He would allow the animal to lick his fingers. I discovered tiny lacerations inflicted by the developing milk teeth of his pet. “Was it not painful?” I asked. Leo told me it was only after some time that he felt tingling sensation of pain. I believe that the saliva of a goat contains anesthesia, which could be the thing old people call “hot.” Is this the active principle that kills plants?

But plants have their ways of defending themselves, such as the presence of thorns (e.g., Mimosa or makahiya), high level of impregnated silica (e.g., Imperata cylindrica or cogon), and obnoxious odor or taste (e.g., Lantana or bangbangsit Ilk). There are plants that respond to injuries caused by the feeding of animals. They produce poison to discourage, if not kill, the voracious feeder.

This is a classical case. In the African Savannah a species of acacia is the favorite of browsing animals like the giraffe. When the acacia trees are threatened by overgrazing, they send signals like pheromones to warn each other, including the unaffected acacia trees, to produce higher level of tannic acid, similar to mimosin in ipil-ipil. This substance, other than being unpleasant to the taste, is extremely acrid and may cause discomfort to the feeder.

I had an experience at home when I was a farmhand which is quite similar to this case. Goats after the rice harvest are usually left stray in the field but now and then they trespass into backyards and gardens. I noticed our neighbor's goat coming over to browse on wild patani (Phaseolus lunatus). My dad simply didn't mind, to think that entire borders are covered with the viny plant. Then the goat stopped visiting us.

We went to our friendly neighbor and saw the goat, its stomach bloated as if it were in its last stage of pregnancy. Tata Melecio had to slaughter the animal. We found out that its stomach was stuffed with undigested patani leaves, and emitting the characteristic bean odor which I found in later years to be that of tannic acid.

Did the patani plant, like the acacia tree, produce "toxin" to defend itself from excessive feeding by the animal? If this is so, then nature extends to both plants and animals protective mechanisms through the production of chemical compounds that directly confront extreme threat - indeed an effective means of survival not only to the organism, more so, to the species.

But this does not adequately answer why plants bitten by goats are likely to die. I attribute this observation to the manner goats feed.  

Firstly, uprooted plants have little chance to recover especially in extreme dry season. 

Secondly, plants in general die when their biomass above the ground is severed, even if their roots remain intact. It is because the roots will subsequently starve for lack of manufactured food coming from the leaves.

Thirdly, goats prefer plants in the flowering and fruiting stages, thus depriving the plant from producing offspring, even those that reproduce vegetatively.

And lastly, in the absence of fresh feeds, goats forage on the dormant parts of plants in summer (aestivation), and in winter (hibernation), thus preventing the plants to re-emerge come growing season.

One thing I learned from that childhood experience of mine is that, raise goats in corral, or tether them securely while grazing in the field. Your plants may not have a second chance. So with your goats.~

Reference: Living with Folk Wisdom, AVRotor UST

Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio 738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday

Part 5 - 24 Ways of Building a "Children of Nature" Culture

 Young biologist studies a specimen. 

 

 Summer  workshops for kids.

 

Tree planting and home gardening 

1. Our children need to know the true meaning of biodiversity. Four attributes - richness in kind, population, interrelationship, dynamic stability (homeostasis)

Biodiversity per se does not guarantee sustainability unless integrated with functioning systems of nature.

2. Our children’s development must be holistic In all four stages: genetic, childhood, lifestyle – and fetal (in the womb). Sing, talk to your baby while in the womb.

3. Our children are at the front line and center of people’s revolution spreading worldwide.

Russian war on Ukraine is accelerating; there is no clear solution seen. Arab Spring is sweeping North Africa and the Middle East, so with the escalating unrest questioning the present world order. All over US the young are angry at economic inequity. Resurgence of instability is happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Gaza Strip, Sudan.  The Philippines wakes up to the greatest scandal in government in its history - Pork Barrel (PDAP) and Development Acceleration Program (DAP). 

4. Our children become new heroes – heroes for the environment, martyrs for Mother Earth. Heaven is in a regained Paradise on earth.

The coming of a universal faith, irrespective of denomination. To be saved is not by faith and promise. Heaven starts here on earth.

5. Let’s prepare our children to face the consequences of loss of privacy and secrecy, from personal to institutional transparency.

“You can no longer hide. There is no place you can remain with anonymity.” Wikileak unveiled classified information about the Iraq and Afghanistan war. Bank secrecy laws and safeguards are changing. Citizens have the right to know many hidden financial transactions.

6. Our children’s involvement in social media makes them actors and not mere spectators. They become involved, concerned with issues, local and far reaching.

There is need to strengthen Development Communication (DevComm) over conventional entertainment and reactionary media.

7. Our children will inherit our aging infrastructure. Aging Infrastructure pulls down the economy, increases risk to disaster, creates ghost cities and making life miserable.

A new field of biodiversity has been born in deserted towns, on the 38th Parallel between South and North Korea, in land mines areas, ghost towns, among deserted high rise buildings, in high radiation areas like in Chernobyl (Russia) and Fukushima (Japan).

8. Our children are deprived of natural beauty and bounty with shrinking wildlife, conversion of farms and pastures to settlements, and destruction of ecosystems.

“Canned Nature” (delata) have become pseudo Nature Centers. Gubat sa Siyudad, Fantasyland, Ocean Park, Disneyland

9. Our children, and succeeding generations are becoming more and more vulnerable to various infirmities – genetic, physiological, psychological, pathologic.

Computer Syndrome is now pandemic, and its toll is increasing worldwide. South Korea is the worst hit.

10. Our children’s learning through codification defeats logical thinking and creativity. Thus affect their reasoning power, judgment and decision, originality of thought and ideas.

More and more children are computer-dependent. They find simple equations and definitions difficult without electronic gadget.

11. Our children face the age of singularity whereby human and artificial intelligence are integrated. Robotics robs human of his rights and freedom – new realm of curtailment and suppression. (2045 – The Year Man Becomes Immortal – Time Magazine)

This is falsehood!

12. Our children find a world of archives - memories, reproductions, replicas – of a real world lost before their own time.

We are making fossils, biographies, dirges and laments, as if without sense of guilt.

13. Our children will realize that optimism will remain the mainstay of human evolution, rising above difficulties and trials. Hope is ingrained in the human brain that makes vision rosier than reality.

Anxiety, depression will continue to haunt, in fact accompany progress, but these all the more push optimism up and ahead.

14. Our children are overburdened by education. They need freedom to learn in their own sweet time and enjoy the bliss and adventure of childhood and adolescence.

E-learning is taking over much of the role of schools and universities. Open Universities, Distance Learning will dwarf classroom instruction. Beginning of a new University of Plato’s dream.

15. Our children will witness in their time the beginning of a post-capitalism order, environmental revolution, rise of growth centers and shift in economic dominance and order, more green technologies, and space exploration.

This is Renaissance in the new age.

16. Our children will continue looking for the missing links of science, history, religion, astronomy etc, among them the source of life itself and its link with the physical world.

Linking of disciplines, narrowing down the gaps of specializations, making of a new Man and culture.

17. Our children become more and more transient in domicile where work may require, and for personal reasons, and when given choice and opportunity in a global perspective, intermarriages notwithstanding.

“Citizen of the world” is a person without a specific country. He is therefore, "rootless," so to speak. Humans since creation are rooted politically, culturally – and principally, biologically.

18. Our children will have a family size of ideally 2 or 3 children, enabling them to achieve their goals and dreams in life. They will strengthen the middle class the prime mover of society.

A natural way of family planning and population planning, trend of industrialized countries.

19. Our children will clean the land, water and air we the generation before littered. They will heal the earth we defaced, damage. With generation gap closed, the task will be shared by all.

We must be good housekeepers of Mother Earth now.

20. Our children will be part of devolution of power, decentralization of authority, a new breed of more dedicated leaders.

Children hold the key to change. It’s the Little Prince that changed and saved the pilot in an ill-fated plane crash in Sahara.

21. Our children face acculturation and inter racial marriages. Mélange of races is on the rise – Eurasian, Afro-American, Afro-Asian, etc. – a homogenization process that reduces as a consequence natural gene pool.

Culturally and scientifically, this is dangerous. Homogenization leads to extinction of races and ultimately the species.

22. Our children will live simpler lives, going back to basics, preferring natural over artificial goods and services. In the long run they will be less wasteful than us.

There is always a hidden desire to escape when things get rough. This is instinct for survival either by detour or turning back.

23. Our children face the coming of the Horsemen of Apocalypse – consequence of human folly and frailty (nuclear, pollution, poverty). More than we grownups, they are more resilient to adapt to the test.

History tells us that this is true.

24. Postmodernism may do more harm than good for our children in a runaway technology and culture. They cannot and will not be able to keep with the pace and direction of change.

This is not true. “I am the master of my fate, I’m the captain of my soul.” And this is what we want our children to become – but only when they are CHILDREN OF NATURE. ~

* LESSON on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio

738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday

           Children's Field Trip to Nature's Wall Mural Paintings 

 - San Vicente Botanical Garden Series

In celebration of Earth Day April 22 2021

"Art is the greatest human expression of beauty, thoughts, feelings and spirituality that connect man and his Creator." avr

Wall Murals by Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature Center

San Vicente, Ilocos Sur

Off from their bikes near a mural of nature,

they sought in its shadow relief and rest,

in make-believe comfort from adventure,

in imagery though passing and brief.

Faithful to the sense of vision and imagination,

these murals are alive with happy children;

Wonder how long they last as the kids grow up,

as colors and memories fade 'til they're gone.

and the lesson lost with the sinking sun.

"One for all, and all for one, " cried the musketeers

of Alexandre Dumas classic novel;

who's the enemy today, who are the brave knights?

if ever the cry's still heard clear as a bell.

The bell that tolls for the dead in the battlefield,

victims of calamities and injustice;

Now a chime in the once beautiful landscape.

dirge for a natural world we will all miss.

A natural world reminiscent in murals

on the wall asking how long they shall last;

like a puzzle of the mirror on the wall,

and the bell for whom it tolls for none but us.

The rays of building archives cast over us

through the arts

as it has always been in the past;

yet this is not the rational of the arts,

which is the highest human expression

of beauty, thoughts and feelings

and spirituality 

that connect man and his Creator. ~

Part 6. The Making of a Plastic Continent

The main Plastic Vortex as big as the state of Texas - and growing - lies north of Hawaii off the coast of Canada and the US. "Islands" of plastics coalesce into the vortex. Dutch scientists propose to convert the floating debris into a livable environment. 

Satellite photo below shows ocean currents and gyres responsible in creating the vortex. Canada is directly affected as indicated in the North Pacific Gyre.

Another gyre in the North Atlantic is poised to form another Plastic Vortex along the east coast of the US and Canada. If this happens we might expect a graver consequence as plastic merges with seaweeds that comprise the huge Sargasso Sea. (See lowermost photos, from the Internet)

NOTE: There are other gyres, three in the south hemisphere, all potential spawning grounds of floating garbage.

Study the following photos (Internet).

 

  The 10 Rs of Waste Management

1. Refuse
2. Reduce
3. Reuse
4. Refill
5. Repair
6. Refit
7. Recycle
8. Repeat
9. Reform (our ways)
10. Revere (Reverence for Life)

How do these 10 Rs relate to these photographs? 

How do you apply them in your home and community?

Make a report for your school and organization.

 

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Join us to honor and celebrate our remarkable planet on this extraordinary day. Earth Day is a reminder of the importance of environmental conservation and sustainability, encouraging us to come together and take action for a healthier planet and brighter future.

Through various events, toolkits, and initiatives, we aim to raise awareness, inspire change, and foster a deeper connection with nature. Let's unite in our efforts to protect the Earth today and for generations to come. Together, we can make a meaningful impact and create a more sustainable world. (Internet)

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7 - We are Living in a Plastic World!

Ecology and Humanities

Verses and Photographs by Dr Abe V Rotor

   

Plastic Elephant, River Cruise at Disneyland HK 2017 Photo by the author.

It moves, it calls your attention, 

this virtual elephant. 

Oh, it's still fantasy in any name,

work of foolish savant. 

 

Hermit crab finds a home in a PVC elbow joint. (Internet) 

We ask, for whom the bell tolls?

Laughable though pitiful, 

a hermit crab in a  plastic home;

the bell tolls none but the fool. 

       

Potted plastic plants on the sidewalk, HK 2017 Photo by the author.

Warning! Don't touch the plants, 

(else you discover they are fake); 

make-believe to keep discipline

for peace-and-order's sake. 

A flower shop - but which is natural, which is plastic? (Internet)

Plastic flowers everywhere, how lovely can they get,

crowded in a shop they look cheap though;

Not the pet flower of the Little Prince in his planet,

among the stars the whole night through.  

The author's grandchildren, Markus and Mackie, trek on  Big Buddha 

Mountain, HK 2017. Photo by the author.

Playing hide a seek among the prop roots of the Buddha tree,

Perfect to hide, but where's the thrill,

on discovering it's all imitation, lifeless and still, 

of plastic, concrete and steel?. 

Plastic toys morgue (Internet)

Remnants of childhood's joy and mystery

now in a forgotten cemetery, 

So died the laughter, song and fantasy,

 of growing up fast to be free. 

  

Food in plastic moulds in a  Hongkong restaurant  

Pavlov's conditioned learning, 

a tool of consumerism; 

culinary art indeed deceiving,

 everything looks appetizing.

Our waste in the ocean is visible like the tip of an iceberg, 90 percent is down under. 

Hidden under the rug of the ocean.

plastic waste to be forgotten;

eons hence submerged and drifting 

and we call Nature our friend! 

Plastic wastes live for 2000 years, drift with the Gulf Stream, winnowed into

 a continent in the making, now the size of Texas. (Internet)

Land of plastics, ahoy there!

floating debris, lifeless and bare; 

when the good life is over, 

Alas! who would care?  ~

Part 8 - Giant Plastic Straw Christmas Tree

(before plastic straw was banned)

 

Call it Christmas Tree, call it tree of nativity and offering,
to a Messiah when the world seeks for peace and rest;
call it a tree of Conscientization* in shrouded light and truth,
in a modern world deluged with technology and progress.

Giant Christmas Tree made of soft drinks plastic straw - one for the Book of 

Guinness.  Photos taken by the author at a parish church plaza in Bulacan, circa 2010.

Call it waste turned beautiful by small and innocent hands
into a thousand-and-one stars on a pylon rising to the sky
what we grownups simply throw away and pollute the earth,
and the manufacturers reap profits while the young ones cry.

Call it Christmas Tree, call it tree of nativity and offering,
to a Messiah when the world seeks for peace and rest;
call it a tree of Conscientization* in shrouded light and truth,
in a modern world deluged with technology and progress. ~

 Acknowledgement: Internet illustrations 

Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid Dr Abe V Rotor and Ms Melly C Tenorio 738 DZRB AM, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday.

       Relate these events with the following:

1. Pope Francis Laudato Si (Praise Be), a call to save the Earth

2. Canada exporting trash to the Philippines

3. Earth Summits - review and prospects

4. Culture of Consumerism

5. Waste management models 

6. Autotoxicity - myth of fact?

7. Global Warming - Erratic Climate and Weather

8. Rising of the Sea Level - Global Flooding

9. Global Leadership challenge

10. Personal concern and action

Part 9 - The 7 Different Types of Plastic

The world is full of plastics. Whether you realize it or not, practically everything you see and use on a daily basis is entirely or partly plastic material. Your television, computer, car, house, refrigerator, and many other essential products utilize plastic materials to make your life easier and more straightforward. However, all plastics are not made alike. Manufacturers utilize a variety of different plastic materials and compounds that each possess unique properties.
Below is 7 of the most popular and commonly used plastics: Acrylic or Polymethyl

• Methacrylate (PMMA)
• Polycarbonate (PC)
• Polyethylene (PE)
• Polypropylene (PP)
• Polyethylene Terephthalate (PETE or PET)
• Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC)
• Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene (ABS)

Let’s take a look at each of these distinctive plastics in more detail.

1. Acrylic or Polymethyl Methacrylate (PMMA)

Well-known for its use in optical devices and products, acrylic is a transparent thermoplastic used as a lightweight, shatter-resistant alternative to glass. Acrylic is typically used in sheet form create products such as acrylic mirrors and acrylic plexiglass. The transparent plastic can be made colored and fluorescent, abrasion-resistant, bullet-resistant, UV-tolerant, non-glare, anti-static and many more. In addition to being than glass and polycarbonate sheeting, acrylic is seventeen times more impact resistant than glass, easier to handle and process, and has endless applications.

2. Polycarbonate (PC)

Tough, stable, and transparent, polycarbonate is an excellent engineering plastic that is as clear as glass and two hundred and fifty times stronger. Thirty times stronger than acrylic, clear polycarbonate sheets are also easily worked, molded, and thermo-formed or cold-formed. Although extremely strong and impact-resistant, polycarbonate plastic possesses inherent design flexibility. Unlike glass or acrylic, polycarbonate plastic sheets can be cut or cold-formed on site without pre-forming and fabrication. Polycarbonate plastic is in a wide variety of products including greenhouses, DVDs, sunglasses, police riot gear, and more.

3. Polyethylene (PE)

The most common plastic on earth, polyethylene can be manufactured in varying densities. Each different density of polyethylene gives the final plastic unique physical properties. As a result, polyethylene is in a wide variety of products.

Here are the four common polyethylene densities: Low-Density Polyethylene (LDPE)

This density of polyethylene is ductile and used to make products like shopping bags, plastic bags, clear food containers, disposable packaging, etc. Medium-Density Polyethylene (MDPE)

Possessing more polymer chains and, thus, greater density, MDPE is typically in gas pipes, shrink film, carrier bags, screw closures, and more. High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE)

More rigid than both LDPE and MDPE, HDPE plastic sheeting is in products such as plastic bottles, piping for water and sewer, snowboards, boats, and folding chairs. Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene (UHMWPE)

UHMWPE is not much denser than HDPE. Compared to HDPE, this polyethylene plastic much more abrasion resistant due to the extreme length of its polymer chains. Possessing high density and low friction properties, UHMWPE is in military body armor, hydraulic seals and bearings, biomaterial for hip, knee, and spine implants, and artificial ice skating rinks.

4. Polypropylene (PP)

This plastic material is a thermoplastic polymer and the world’s second-most widely produced synthetic plastic. Its widespread use and popularity are undoubted because polypropylene is one of the most flexible thermoplastics on the planet. Although PP is stronger than PE, it still retains flexibility. It will not crack under repeated stress. Durable, flexible, heat resistant, acid resistance, and cheap, polypropylene sheets are used to make laboratory equipment, automotive parts, medical devices, and food containers. Just to name a few.

5. Polyethylene Terephthalate (PETE or PET)

The most common thermoplastic resin of the polyester family, PET is the fourth-most produced synthetic plastic. Polyethylene Terephthalate has excellent chemical resistance to organic materials and water and is easily recyclable. It is practically shatterproof and possesses an impressive high strength to weight ratio. This plastic material is in fibers for clothing, containers for foods and liquid, glass fiber for engineering resins, carbon nanotubes, and many other products that we use on a daily basis.

6. Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC)

The third-most produced synthetic plastic polymer, PVC can be manufactured to possess rigid or flexible properties. It is well-known for its ability to blend with other materials. For example, expanded PVC sheets are a foamed polyvinyl chloride material that is ideal products like kiosks, store displays, and exhibits. The rigid form of PVC is commonly in construction materials, doors, windows, bottles, non-food packaging, and more. With the addition of plasticizers such as phthalates, the softer and more flexible form of PVC is in plumbing products, electrical cable insulation, clothing, medical tubing, and other similar products.

7. Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene (ABS)

Created by polymerizing styrene and acrylonitrile in the presence of polybutadiene, ABS is robust, flexible, glossy, highly processable, and impact resistant. It can be manufactured in a range of thicknesses from 200 microns to 5mm with a maximum width of 1600mm. With a relatively low manufacturing cost, ABS plastic sheeting is typically used in the automotive and refrigeration industries but is also in products such as boxes, gauges, protective headgear, luggage, and children’s toys. ~

10. Let's Enhance Religious Practices Favorable to Health and Environment (Former title: Save the Trees on Palm Sunday)

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature School on Blog

 with Fr JM Manzano, AdMU

Religious Practices' Effects to Health and Environment

It is time to review them in the light of health warnings and environmental concerns, particularly in these critical times of global warming and environmental degradation.  It is in line with the Holy Father's encyclical, Laudato Si'

Avoid wasteful candle offering.  It is harmful to health and environment.

1.Retreat and reflection is therapy, helps the mind, body and spirit release tension and do away with the effects of stress.

2. Abstinence conserves animal population especially during the lean months, conserving breeding stocks - like seeds (binhi) – in order to multiply in the next season.

3. The washing of feet is not only ritual, it is also sanitation, getting rid of germs and preventing their spread.

4. Dipping your fingers into the holy water bowl is now seldom practiced. Never wash your hands or face in it. 

5. Take communion on your palm, never with your tongue. Epidemic such as H1N1 (flu) and COVID-19 can be spread this way.

6. Holding hands in prayer is discouraged also for health and sanitation, keeping one's privacy in reverence, notwithstanding. 

7. Kissing icons is likewise discouraged for the same reason. Wiping holy objects with handkerchief will only pick up germs.

8. Paying last respect to the dead should be done with extreme care, especially if the cause of death is highly contagious like COVID-19, Ebola and SARS. Remember the tragic death of some religious sisters who contacted Ebola from their dead colleague?

9. Don't walk on your knees to the altar; kneeling in prayer is enough. Be kind to your knee tendon and kneecap; knee injury may incapacitate you permanently. "You re not growing younger," an elder advised me. Let's learn from athletes who retired early because of knee injury.

10. Removing shoes before entering a house of worship is an expression of respect and reverence, as well as for purposes of maintaining sanitation in the place. Any footwear carries dirt and germs, and may be teems with bacteria and fungi from long and intimate wear. This practice may not be as strict in Catholic churches as in Muslim mosques and Buddhist temples. Removing shoes in other places like prayer rooms, wakes, even homes, are becoming a popular practice.

11. Many religious ceremonies are without the use of incense**. Incense smoke and scent usually produce a pleasant and calming effect to the faithful. It is also an effective fumigant against flying and crawling insects. Its repellant effect helped keep down the spread of bubonic plague during the Middle Ages. The Plague bacillus, Yersinia pestis, which killed a third of the population in the known world is carried by flea (Xenopsylla cheopis) that resides in rats. Incense comes in various preparations and offerings, candle sticks among the most common. Burning candles have similar but lesser effects. To get rid of flies around food; one or two burning candles keep them at bay. Try it.

12. To some religions pork is banned. Pork is a carrier of known parasites such as tapeworm, hookworm, and Ascaris. It contributes to obesity, and related ailments. 

13. Ancient religions regard certain places, objects such as trees sacred, thus enhancing their conservation. Such worship was replaced by later religions, and modern living, thus losing their protection as a result.

14. On Palm Sunday trees are stripped off of their buds, leaves and stems. This is detrimental to the environment. Millions of pesos worth of coconut trees and other trees are destroyed. Endangered species such as the Cycad (Oliva), are pushed to the brink of extinction.

 

Bundles of palm fronds (young leaves of coconut and other palm trees). 

Lavish and wasteful observance of Palm Sunday, while Nature suffers and 

people lose their livelihood. 

The Christian world loses millions and millions worth of palm trees every Palm Sunday. Coconut-based economy is the worst hit - the source of many domestic and export products, and the foundation of people's livelihood. The coconut is the most important tree in maintaining the balance of tropical ecosystems.

• Don't use young (bud) leaves of coconut for palaspas. You will kill the tree.
• Conserve the Oliva or the Cycads (Cycas spp). They are "living fossils" which lived in the dinosaur era, and now endangered as species.   
• Don't strip the young leaves of buri and anahaw palms. They are now in the list of threatened species. The buri (Corypha elata) is the largest native palm species found in the Philippines, with trunks attaining a diameter of 1 meter, height of 20 meters, and with large fan-shaped leaves from which buri braids, raffia, and buntal hats are made.  
• Get only the mature leaves - never the young leaves or bud. Get only a frond or small leaf, or part of it. Don't be wasteful. 
• There's no need for each faithful to carry palaspas. One for a whole family is enough.
• Get substitute plants that are not ecologically endangered and economically threatened. (Examples: MacArthur's Palm, palmera, Areca or betel nut, bunga de Jolo, and from hundreds of non-palm plants from bamboo to ground orchid and fern. Use mature or older leaves - never the young leaves and buds.
• Seek advice from your community and religious leaders, and environmentalists.

 
Oliva or Cycas, a living fossil is now endangered. Buri palm 
(Corypha) is now classified as threatened species

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5 Benefits of Religious Practice for Your Health

1. It reduces the risk of death 

2. Lower rates of depression 

3. Religious experiences provide a cognitive framework for dealing with traumas 

4. Religiousness is better for mental health than sports among older people

5. It keeps young people away from alcohol and drugs 

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Review and Summary 

1. On Palm Sunday trees are stripped of their buds, leaves and stems. This is detrimental to the environment especially in summer when plants face tight water regime.

2. Fasting is cleansing, it helps the body stop the accumulation of unwanted substances such as cholesterol, and allows the body to eliminate toxic materials.

3. Retreat and reflection is therapy, helps the mind, body and spirit to release tension and do away with the effects of stress.
 
4. Abstinence conserves animal population especially during the lean months, conserving breeding stocks - like seeds (binhi) – in order to multiply in the next season. Abstinence protects us from infectious animal diseases such as anthrax.
 
5. To some religions pork is banned. Pork is a carrier of known parasites such as tapeworm, hookworm, and Ascaris. It is known to contribute to obesity and many ailments.

6. Ancient religions regard certain places and trees sacred, thus enhancing their conservation. Such worship was replaced by later religions, and modern living style, thus losing their protection. 

7. The washing of feet is not only ritual, it is also sanitation, getting rid of germs and preventing them to spread. 

8. Walking on knees, a form of penitence, usually along the aisle to reach the altar, is harmful to the knee joint and cap (patella).
 
9. Self inflicting of wounds imitating the scourging at the pillar, practiced by flagellants may lead to loss of blood, serious infection, and even death.
 
10. Communal holy water may become a breeding place of vermin and germs causing ailments and epidemic diseases.

11. Receive holy communion with the palm of your hand to lessen the possibility of disease transmission. 

12. Kissing or touching the dead is discouraged. Diseases like COVID-19, Ebola, SARS, MERS-CoV must be strictly quarantined.~

How do you classify the following practices? Add on to this list for livelier sharing with your family and church   

• Removing shoes and slippers before entering a temple of worship
• Viewing the bright sky and even the sun - to witness a miracle 
• Wearing robes and habits of holy persons
• Wearing veil when attending mass or any ritual inside the church
• Baptism by immersion in a pool or river
• Offering flowers at the altar, especially in the month of May
• Walking barefoot as penitence, usually under the sun on rough road..
• Actual crucifixion on Good Friday as "ultimate penitence"   
• Joining a huge religious assembly or procession such as the Black Nazarene. 
• Kissing icons for intercession or expression of reverence. ~

*Laudato Si' is an encyclical of Pope Francis published in May 2015. It focuses on care for the natural environment and all people, as well as broader questions of the relationship between God, humans, and the Earth. The encyclical's subtitle, “Care for Our Common Home,” reinforces these key themes.

** Burning incense can help boost creativity and flow state by clearing and stimulating the mind. Purify your space. Buddhist monks have been using incense to purify their atmosphere for thousands of years. Amazingly, one study showed that burning incense for an hour reduced the bacteria in the air by 94%!

NOTE: This article served as a yearly lesson for more than 30 years on the former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio as host, and the author as broadcast instructor.  738 DZRB AM, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday, linked with  Philippine Broadcasting Service (PBS) network, and this Blog avrotor.bloforgspot.com and Naturalism - the Eighth Sense

Acknowledgement: Internet, Radio Katipunan, Ateneo, UST,  San Vicente IS Parish

Replay on 87.9 fm Radyo Katipunan, February 23, 2023

11. Treaty of Nature and Man 

Dr Abe V Rotor,

Garbage City

"Man, being the superior organism, has not only won over his rivals - all organisms that constitute the biosphere. He has also assaulted Nature."

Frantic exploitation of natural resources through illegal logging operations, followed by slash-and-burn agriculture (kaingin), has brought havoc to the Philippines in the past century. The detrimental results are measured not only by the denudation of once productive forests and hillsides, but also destruction through erosion, flood, drought and even death.

An example of this kind of ruination brought about by abuse of nature is the tragedy in Ormoc City where floodwaters cascading down the denuded watershed, killed hundreds of residents and countless animals. It took ten years for the city to fully recover. Ironically, before the tragedy, Ormoc, from the air, looked like a little village similar to Shangrila, a perfect place for retirement.

Decline in Carrying Capacity

A land area designed by nature to sustain millions of people and countless other organisms, was touched by man and we are now paying the price for it. Man removed the vegetation, cut down trees for his shelter and crafts, and planted cereals and short-growing crops to get immediate returns. He hunted for food and fun, and in many ways, changed the natural contour and topography of the land.

Following years of plenty, however, nature reasserted itself. Water would run unchecked, carrying plant nutrients downhill. On its path are formed rills and gullies that slice through slopes, peeling off the topsoil and making the land unprofitable for agriculture. Since the plants cannot grow, animals gradually perish. Finally, the kaingero abandons the area, leaving it to the mercy of natural elements. It is possible that nature may rebuild itself, but will take years for affected areas to regain their productivity, and for the resident organisms once again attain their self-sustaining population levels.

There are 13.5 million square miles of desert area on earth, representing a third of the total land surface. This large proportion of land may be man-made as history and archeological findings reveal.

Lost Civilizations

Fifteen civilizations, once flourished in Western Sahara, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, the Sinai desert, Mesopotamia, and the deserts of Persia. All of these cultures perished when the people of the area through exploitation, forced nature to react. As a consequence, man was robbed of his only means of sustenance.

History tells us of man’s early abuse of nature in the Fertile Crescent where agriculture began some 3000 years ago. Man-made parallel canals joined the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers to irrigate the thirsty fertile valley. In the process, the balance of Nature was overturned when the natural drainage flow was disturbed. Because the treaty was violated, nature revenged. The canal civilization perished in the swamps that later formed. The sluggish water brought malaria and other diseases causing untold number of deaths and migration to the hinterlands. Among its victims was Alexander the Great.

Carthage had another story. Three wars hit Carthage, known as the Punic Wars. On the third one, the Romans plowed through the city, ending reign of this erstwhile mercantile power, and removing the threat to the Roman economy. After the conquest, the Romans pumped salt-water inland and flooded the fertile farms. Today, Carthage exists only in history and in imagination of whoever stands atop a hill overlooking what is now a vast desert.

Omar Khayyam, if alive today, cannot possibly compose verses as beautiful as the Rubaiyat as written in his own time. His birthplace, Nishapur, which up to the time of Genghis Khan, supported a population of 1.5 million people, can only sustain 15,000 people today. Archeologists have just unearthed the Forest of Guir where Hannibal marched with war elephants. The great unconquerable jungle of India grew from waterlogged lowland formed by unwise irrigation management.

It is hard to believe, but true that in the middle of the Sahara desert, 50 million acres of fossil soil are sleeping under layers of sand awaiting water. Surveyors found an underground stream called the Albienne Nappe that runs close to this deposit. Just as plans were laid to “revive” the dead soil by irrigation, the French tested their first atomic bomb. Due to contamination, it is no longer safe to continue on with the project.

The great Pyramids of Egypt could not have been constructed in the middle of an endless desert. The tributaries of the Nile once surrounded these centers of civilization. Jerusalem appears today as a small city on a barren land. It may have been a city with thick vegetation. This was true of Negev and Baghdad.

Need of a Conservation Program

For the Philippines, it is high time we lay out a long-range conservation program to insure the future of the country. This plan should protect the fertility of the fields, wealth of the forests and marine resources, in order to bring prosperity to the people. As of now, the country is being ripped apart by erosion and floods due to unscrupulous exploitation by loggers and kaingeros.

It is only through proper management and effective conservation, such as reforestation, pollution control, erosion control, limited logging, and proper land use, that we can insure the continuity of our race. All we have to do is to keep ourselves faithful to the treaty between nature and man. ~

* A reprint, lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School on Air) on 738 DZRB. 

12. Neo-Renaissance: 

Scenarios of our children living in a Postmodern World

Dr Abe V Rotor 

 Education is the most important tool of our children in a postmodern world

Key players to our children's future: Institutions and the Family

 The youth: full of energy and dreams, UST

1. Our children live in a Renaissance in the new age: post-capitalism order, environmental revolution, devolution of corporations, green technologies, cyberspace communication, and space exploration. Our children comprise a new breed of more dedicated leaders. They hold the key to change. They play the role of the little prince in Antoine de Saint-Exupery's novel The Little Prince, who saved the pilot whose plane crashed in the Sahara desert.

2. Our children will continue looking for the missing links of science, history, religion, astronomy etc., among them the source of life itself and its link with the physical world. 

This includes linking of disciplines, narrowing down the gaps of specializations, making of a new concept of Man and culture. 

3. Our children are at the front line and center of people’s revolution spreading worldwide. Arab Spring - Part 1 and 2 - is sweeping North Africa and the Middle East, so with the escalating unrest questioning the present world order. The young are angry at the inability of government and capitalism to narrow down economic inequity. Occupy Wall Stree! is the battle cry in the US. Greece, Italy, Spain, once world powers in their own time are undergoing a similar revolution.

4. Our children will live simpler lives, going back to basics, preferring natural over artificial goods and services.  In the long run they are less wasteful than we are today. They learn to face a hidden desire to escape when things get rough, an instinct for survival either by detour or turning back.  

5. Our children face the consequences of  loss of privacy and secrecy from personal to institutional transparency. “You can no longer hide. There is no place you can remain with comfortable anonymity.” But they adjust and find comfort and peace in their own way. 

6. Our children’s involvement in social media makes them actors and not mere spectators. They are involved, concerned with issues, local and world wide.  Development Communication rises above conventional entertainment and reactionary media.  They favor transparency to attain social justice an d more freedom. They learn from Wikileak which unveiled classified information about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  Bank secrecy laws and safeguards are changing.  Citizens claim their right to access to hidden financial transactions.

7. Our children inherit our aging infrastructure.  Aging Infrastructure pulls down the economy, increases risk to disaster, creates ghost cities and makes life miserable.

We have created artificial ecosystems in deserted towns, inside the 38th Parallel between the two Koreas, land mines areas, deserted high rise buildings, and now in radiation-affected areas of Chernobyl and Fukoshima. 

8. Our children are being deprived of natural beauty and bounty with the unabated  shrinking wildlife, conversion of farms and pastures into settlements, and destruction of natural habitats and ecosystems.  “Canned Nature” (delata) have become pseudo Nature Centers. Gubat sa Siyudad, Fantasyland, Ocean Park, Disneyland

9. Our children, and succeeding generations become more and more vulnerable to various infirmities – genetic,  physiological, psychological, pathologic. Computer Syndrome is now pandemic, and its toll is increasing worldwide, with South Korea, China, US, Japan, India leading the list. 

10. Our children’s learning process through codification defeats logical thinking and creativity, thus affecting their reasoning power, judgment and decision, originality of thought and ideas.  More and more children are computer-dependent. They find simple equations and definitions difficult without electronic gadget.

11. Our children face the age of singularity  whereby human and artificial intelligence are integrated.  Robotics robs human of his rights and freedom – new realm of curtailment and suppression. (2045 – The Year Man Becomes Immortal – Time Magazine).  This is falsehood!

12. Our children find a world of archives - memories, reproductions, replicas – of a real world lost before their own time. We are making fossils,  biographies, dirges and laments, with little sense of guilt.

13. Our children are overburdened by education.  They need freedom to learn in their own sweet time and enjoy the bliss and adventure of childhood and adolescence. E-learning is taking over much of the role of schools and universities.  Open Universities, Distance Learning will dwarf classroom instruction. This is a revival of the academy of Plato’s dream. 

14. Our children become more and more transient in domicile where work may  require, and for personal reasons, and when given the choice and opportunity in a global perspective, intermarriages notwithstanding. “Citizen of the world” is a person without a specific country.  He is therefore, rootless, baseless, transient. Humans since creation are rooted politically, culturally – and biologically most of ll.

15. Our children become new heroes – heroes for the environment, martyrs for Mother Earth. Heaven is in a regained Paradise on earth. A universal faith, irrespective of denomination, is shaping up fast.

16. Our children will clean the land, water and air we the generation before littered.  They will heal the earth we defaced, damage. With generation gap closed, the task will be shared by all. They learn to become good housekeepers of  Mother Earth. Our children know the meaning of biodiversity and its four attributes -  richness in kind,   population, interrelationship, and balance. Biodiversity  per se does not guarantee sustainability unless integrated with functioning systems of nature. 

17. Our children face acculturation and inter-racial marriages.  Melange of races is on the rise – Eurasian, Afro-American, Afro-Asian,  etc. – a homogenization process that reduces - if not pollutes - natural gene pools, as a consequence. Culturally and scientifically, this is dangerous.  Homogenization leads to extinction of races and ultimately the species. 

                                   Living close to Nature

18.   Our children will realize that optimism will remain the mainstay of human evolution, rising above difficulties and trials. Hope is ingrained in the human brain that makes vision rosier than reality. Anxiety and depression will continue to haunt, in fact accompany progress, but these all the more push optimism up and ahead.

19. Our children live in an era with race discrimination a thing of the past. Many favor living alone as a new norm. More and more join the nones - spirituality outside organized religions, 

20. Our children face the coming of the Horsemen of Apocalypse  – consequence of human folly and frailty (nuclear, pollution, poverty).  Finally, postmodernism may do more harm than good for our children in a runaway technology and culture. More than we grownups, they are more resilient to adapt to the test. This is true. “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”  And this is the philosophy that we wish our children to uphold. ~

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Living with Nature - School on Blog
Lesson on TATAKalikasan with Ateneo de Manila University 87.9 FM Radyo Katipunan

Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) DZRB 738 AM with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday [www.pbs.gov.ph]