Lesson on TATAKalikasan, Ateneo de Manila University 87.9 FM Radyo Katipunan, every Thursday, 11 to 12 a.m., August 15, 2024
The Rights of Nature in Today's Environmental Revolution
Let us stop making Nature as property but a living entity.
Rights of Nature is the recognition and honoring that Nature has rights. It is the recognition that our ecosystems – including trees, oceans, animals, mountains – have rights just as human beings have rights. - Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature
Dr Abe V Rotor
Co-Host with Fr JM Manzano SJ and Prof Emoy Rodolfo, AdMU
Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN)
Members are a diverse network of scientists, attorneys, economists, indigenous leaders, authors, spiritual leaders, business leaders, politicians, actors, homemakers, students, activists: people from all walks of life who are looking to transform our human relationship with our planet. (Internet)
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What are the Rights of Nature?
Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN)
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What are the Rights of Nature?
Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN)
Rights of Nature is the recognition and honoring that Nature has rights.
Rights of Nature is about balancing what is good for human beings against what is good for other species, what is good for the planet as a world. It is the holistic recognition that all life, all ecosystems on our planet are deeply intertwined.
Rather than treating nature as property under the law, rights of nature acknowledges that nature in all its life forms has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles.
And we – the people – have the legal authority and responsibility to enforce these rights on behalf of ecosystems. The ecosystem itself can be named as the injured party, with its own legal standing rights, in cases alleging rights violations.
For indigenous cultures around the world, recognizing rights of nature is consistent with their traditions of living in harmony with nature. All life, including human life, are deeply connected. Decisions and values are based on what is good for the whole.
Nonetheless, for millennia, legal systems around the world have treated land and nature as “property”. Laws and contracts are written to protect the property rights of individuals, corporations, and other legal entities. As such, environmental protection laws legalize environmental harm by regulating how much pollution or destruction of nature can occur within the law. Under such law, nature and all of its non-human elements have no standing.
By recognizing rights of nature in its constitution, Ecuador – and a growing number of communities in the United States – are basing their environmental protection systems on the premise that nature has inalienable rights, just as humans do. This premise is a radical but natural departure from the assumption that nature is property under the law.
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
Rights of Nature is about balancing what is good for human beings against what is good for other species, what is good for the planet as a world. It is the holistic recognition that all life, all ecosystems on our planet are deeply intertwined.
Rather than treating nature as property under the law, rights of nature acknowledges that nature in all its life forms has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles.
And we – the people – have the legal authority and responsibility to enforce these rights on behalf of ecosystems. The ecosystem itself can be named as the injured party, with its own legal standing rights, in cases alleging rights violations.
For indigenous cultures around the world, recognizing rights of nature is consistent with their traditions of living in harmony with nature. All life, including human life, are deeply connected. Decisions and values are based on what is good for the whole.
Nonetheless, for millennia, legal systems around the world have treated land and nature as “property”. Laws and contracts are written to protect the property rights of individuals, corporations, and other legal entities. As such, environmental protection laws legalize environmental harm by regulating how much pollution or destruction of nature can occur within the law. Under such law, nature and all of its non-human elements have no standing.
By recognizing rights of nature in its constitution, Ecuador – and a growing number of communities in the United States – are basing their environmental protection systems on the premise that nature has inalienable rights, just as humans do. This premise is a radical but natural departure from the assumption that nature is property under the law.
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
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Part 1 - Treaty of Nature and Man
Part 2 - Bioethics and Environment
Part 2 - Bioethics and Environment
Part 3 - Heroes for Mother Earth
Part 4 - Three Philosophies on Today's Environmental Revolution
Part 5 - Tragedy of the Commons
Part 6 - The Dog that Found a Home
Part 7 - Nature Crucified in two poems
Part 8.- Natural and Planned Obsolescence (Self-administered test)
Part 9 - Cellphone Radiation is Bad to Your Health
Part 10 - Let us save the Earth our only ship in space
ANNEX - Candy L. Hidalgo, Program Guest
Part 1 - Treaty of Nature and Man*
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.
Part 2 -
Environmental revolution has actually started with the age of industrialization, and it will take a very long time and a very complex process to be able to settle it. Environmental revolution does not pit man against nature, as it had been since the dawn of mankind. It is not the conventional revolution of society where man is pitted against man, or nation against nation for political reasons. It is not religious war. It is not a war of ideologies.
For the first time we humans must work together to preserve nature for the very survival of our species, and for the sake of saving Mother Earth, our only home and spaceship which carries all of us in our journey into the perilous unknown universe. It is a war we cannot afford to lose because it also spells the survival of the whole living world.
Let me state the some environmental concerns related to the topic of Dr. Tai’s paper, and relate them with current situations, understanding and outlook.
There are conflicting views of change.
Scientific knowledge and government policies often disagree and run into conflict at each other. Economics and ecology, though they share a common root word and foundation, are strange bedfellows, so to speak.
Yet these entities support common goals geared toward change. Change has to be viewed more than the measures of GNP, ROI, currency exchange rate, balance of trade, and the like, and should not only be confined to Human Development Indices, such as literacy rate, mortality rate and population density.
While these are considered immediate parameters mainly to benefit man and his society, certain questions on sustainability and environmental preservation are left unanswered. How do we ensure future generations. We feel more and more wary about the term progress. We ask ourselves what is “progress without conscience?” And whose development? What is the relationship between progress with posterity?
I remember the late Dr. Dioscorro Umali, national scientist, who addressed the graduating class of UP Diliman in 1992 with this moving statement, “Be the heroes we never were.” The essence of his speech is that the previous - and especially the present generation - have left little for the next generations to inherit. “We have not only abused the bounties of Nature,” he said, “we have destroyed her as well. The hero concept of Dr. Umali revolutionizes traditional and conventional definition of a hero. He is more than a nationalist, an economist, or an ideologist as we know, but a hero for Mother Earth, borrowing the term of Time Magazine.
-------------------------
Today, rather than defending himself against nature, man realized, he needed to defend nature against himself. - AV Rotor, Light from the Old Arch
--------------------------
Who are heroes for Mother Earth?
Environmental movements have roots traced to ancient cultures as can be gleamed from our own centuries old Ifugao Rice Terraces. Throughout history as civilizations grew and spread the environment became a sacrificial lamb. Such euphoric phrases “all roads leading to Rome,” “the beauty that glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was Rome,” “the sun never sets on English soil,” and the eight wonders of the world may reflect man’s ultimate achievements, yet all these were ephemeral in the mist of time in man’s dreams. In the end, it was nature that took them from the hands of man. The loss of natural environments has lead to the decline of civilizations and their subsequent demise.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Revival of environmental awareness came at the heels of the Renaissance. In the 12th century St. Francis of Assisi brought a new concept of devotion. Brother Sun, Sister Moon, and all the creatures on Earth our friends, laid down the foundation of naturalism in the Christian church reviving much of the Aristotelian naturalism. It is fitting that St. Francis of Assisi is regarded as the father of ecology.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Time Magazine came up with a list of heroes for Planet Earth, among them are naturalist philosophers or conservationist philosophers are Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and Rachel Carson.
• Ralph Waldo Emerson claimed that “behind nature, throughout nature, spirit is present.”
• Henry David Thoreau spoke of the side of “truth in nature and wilderness over the deceits of civilization.”
• Muir believed that “wilderness mirrors divinity, nourishes humanity, and vivifies the spirit.”
• Leopold was behind the development of policies in wilderness and game management. “Wilderness is the raw material out of which man has hammered the artifact called civilization.”
• Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, which dramatized the potential dangers of pesticides to food,
wildlife, and humans causing wide spread damage to the ecosystem.
• Chico Mendes was a front liner in environmental conservation. He lost his life defending the concept of “extractive reserves” to conserve the Brazilian Rainforest that provided livelihood of the people against the conversion of the forest into ranches and plantations.
Other heroes of planet Earth cited by Time include
• Barbara Ward, author of Only One Earth which shaped the UN environmental conference.
• Ernest Schumacher who did not believe in endless growth, mega-companies and endless consumption, author of Small is Beautiful, a best seller since the sixties.
• Jacques-Yves Cousteau, oceanographer who espoused the need to arrest the declining health of the oceans.
. In the Philippines, Macli-ing, a staunch protector of ancestral lands in Kalinga-Apayao from the encroachment of the mammoth Upper Chico River dam, was gunned down allegedly to silence him. All aver the world there are the likes of Macli-ing, like Chico Mendes, and Ken Saro-Wiwa, a leader from the Ogoni tribe in Nigeria, and many more who, we may compare to the Unknown Soldier, but this time a soldier in defense of Mother Nature.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We must be prudent in endorsing people for their contributions to the environment until parameters are clearly set, and that we should allow time to make the final judgment. A case in point is DDT, the miracle pesticide against malaria in the forties and fifties. For this the discoverer received the Nobel Award. But in the following years it was discovered that DDT is a poison that persists in the food chain, making it harmful to living organisms and deleterious to human health. AVR
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People have varying opinions when defining Environmental Philosophy.
There are those who believe that nature shall serve humanity. On the other hand there are those who believe that humanity shall serve nature. And there are those who say, it is “something in between”.
Nature, growth, and progress are concepts that we all use, but which we seldom define either in discussion or to ourselves. We speak about environmental ethics, environmental philosophy, eco-philosophy, and so on, but what do we put into these concepts? We seldom make them explicit or draw conclusions from them. “Trying to answer these philosophical questions does not, of course, in itself solve any environmental problems,” say ecologists Enger and Smith, “but on the other hand it is questionable whether we can solve these problems without discussing them on a philosophical level.”
It is then important to view environmental philosophy with ethics and morals. Ethics is a branch of philosophy that seeks to define fundamentally what is right and what is wrong, regardless of cultural differences. Morals differ somewhat from ethics because morals reflects the predominant feelings of a culture about ethical issues.
How do we illustrate this? A student of mine asked me this question, “Is it a sin to cut a tree?” This question touches ethics and morals, above social and economic considerations. It also pertains to legislation, such as whether we should advocate total log ban or selective logging. It even boils down to analyzing a syndrome known as “tragedy of the commons.” Let us analyze it this way.
a. The naturalistic concept that trees are the source of life is losing its essence as communities grow, and as people tend to move and live in urban places. It is a concept that is being taken for granted even as people become learned. Yet since evolutionary time plants have been providing the basic needs of man – food, clothing, shelter, medicine and energy. The harvesting of plants and their products has been part of human sustenance, as such they must be used properly. This ethnic view was also the basis of early agriculture. It is the key to a sustainable relationship between man and nature that lasted for eons of time.
b. Like Gold Rush, new lands became the target of economic exploitation, as the frontiers were pushed to the limit. New lands were placed under agriculture, which included our own Mindanao. Accessibility to forests and the wildlife became more and more feasible. Original forests were replaced with ranches, and plantations. Economics was the name of the game. In spurred the second green revolution, and agriculture dominated the trade and industry of the world. It eroded the ethnic relationship between man and nature. Beliefs about the tree spirit, forest deities (Maria Makiling), and nature worships have become mere superstitions and legends relegated to books and comics.
c. The final blow followed – industrialization. It is not only food that preoccupied man. Want over need incessantly drives man to convert lands into golf courses, human settlements, industrial sites, and all kinds of infrastructures. Imagine how easy, and how short a time it takes to destroy a whole forest which nature built for hundreds if not thousands of years, with giant machines of today. It is said that by the time we finish reading a paragraph of average length, three hectares of forest shall have been destroyed.
d. Post-modernism – a paradox of living tomorrow as we grope at the forefront of progressive innovation which usually means “violating traditional norms or ideas in all fields if human concern,” quoting Dr. Florentino Hornedo. “The human being who has abandoned his essence, nature and origin has also given up purpose and aim of existence. Life then becomes a “free play” of what forces may come which construct existence. Neither is there personhood or self to be ethically responsible for one’s action.”
I use this statement to raise questions of accountability of our actions, individually or by group. A businessman who is armed with a franchise to cut down a forest is understood to have accepted the attendant responsibility stipulated in the contract, which may include provisions in selective logging and replanting. But these are far from sufficient in providing the vital safety net of protecting the community and the environment.
I go back to the question, “Is it a sin to cut a tree?” This time the concept of the action has far reaching consequences based on the above-mentioned premises. I would return the question with reference to actual incidents.
• Who is responsible for the Ormoc City (Southern Leyte) tragedy caused by mudslide from a logged watershed? In this incident hundreds of residents were killed and millions of pesos were lost.
• The tragedy was repeated ten years after but on a lesser scale. As the perpetrators in the first tragedy have remained scot-free, so with those in the second tragedy.
• Five years have passed since the Real, Quezon, landslide that was similarly caused by massive illegal logging. What actions have government and society done?
• The Marinduque case of poisoning rivers and coastlines with mine tailings, which as a result, continue to destroy the ecosystem and deprive thousands of fisher folks from their livelihood. To date after twenty years the issue remains unsolved.
• Deserts continue to expand as a result of human activities. So with siltation of rivers and lake, shortening their usefulness and life span.
• Our Pantabangan dam, Ambuklao dam, and Binga dam, are heavily silted as a result of cutting down trees on their watershed. It is indeed a waste.
• All over the world we find similar cases: the shrinking of the Aral Sea in Russia, desertification, and marginalization of farmlands.
• The worst result in the endangerment of natural habitats and species, leading to irreversible loss of ecosystems and biodiversity.
All these lead us to re-examine our values. It challenges to look deeper into a paradigm of salvation through the regard we have on our environment.
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There are few frontiers of production left today. We have virtually pushed back the sea and leveled off the mountain. Prime lands have all been taken, swamps have been drained, and even deserts are being reclaimed. But as we continue to explore the marginal edges of these frontiers the more we are confronted with high cost of production that is levied on the consumer, and more importantly, the danger of destroying the fragile environment. AVR
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Ecological Paradigm (Why is Mother Earth complaining?)
The prolificacy of the human species sans war and pestilence, plus growing affluence of our society led to a population explosion which doubled in less than fifty years. We are now over six billion. This paradigm, master and subject have joined hands to exploit the earth’s finite resources. Our best economists may not be good housekeepers of Nature. While the aim is directed at the Good Life, they have unwittingly reduced the very foundation of that good life – the productivity and beauty of Mother Earth.
Ecological paradigm endorses an ecocentric approach where all forms of life and non-life are important to human life. Spirituality points out to a unitive force: the sacredness of everything. God’s divinity flows in everything. There is inte1gration in the universe. And we are part of that integration, exceedingly small as we are, notwithstanding.
Under ecological paradigm of salvation, the man responsible in the destruction of the environment leading to loss of lives and properties should be held accountable for it. Salvation does not come easy in this particular case, because he is not only responsible for the actual loss, but in healing nature back to health, so to speak. He cannot just get away with his ill-gotten wealth, he has to use it – among other resources - to amend his wrong doings.
Business versus Environment.
The environment and the economy need not be viewed as opposites. It is possible to have a healthy environment and a healthy economy at the same time. More and more businesses have begun adopting this concept as a business philosophy. People behind business organizations are becoming more aware of the ethical decisions they face, and their responsibility for their consequences.
A multi-national corporation, responding to the provisions of GRI (Global Reporting Initiative), CERES (Coalition of Environmental Responsible Economies), UNEP (United Nations Environmental Program), came up with the following thrusts:
• Restore and preserve the environment
• Reduce waste and pollution
• Education of the public on environmental conservation
• Work with government for sound and responsible environmental program
• Assess impact of business on the environment and communities.
More and more businesses are looking at this model with favor.
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Industrialization and urbanization are akin to each other. Industrial growth spurred the building of cities all over the world. Today there are as many people living in cities as those living the rural places. A mega-city like Tokyo has a population of 15 million people. We are 10 million in Metro Manila. Cities are fragile environments. Cities are more prone to epidemics such as the bubonic plague that killed one-third of the population of Europe. Now we are confronted with HIV-AID, SARs, meningo cochcimia – and the dreaded Avian flu which hovers as the next human pandemic disease. AVR
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Antarctica, World Park.
One of the few places on earth unexploited by humans is Antarctica. Not now, not until recently. With the Antarctic Treaty of 1991 declares that “Antarctica shall be open to all nations to conduct scientific or other peaceful activities there,” seven countries have already laid overlapping claims on the continent, which comprises one-tenth of the world’s total land area. Thousands of tourists are now visiting Antarctica every year. Scientific research is economically motivated, such as oil exploration, with geopolitical or military objectives in mind. Earlier – in the 1970s New Zealand proposed designating an Antarctica World Park, making it an international wilderness area. On the ecological point of view, Antarctica is fragile with simple and short food chains that support few organisms such as the penguin, whales, shrimp-like krill. Any slight disturbance is likely to upset the delicate balance. We have already caused the growing hole of the ozone layer above Antarctica through unabated release of CFCs , and fossil-fuel combustion worldwide.
Would humanity be better served by developing the natural resources of Antarctica than turning it into a world park and preserve its ecological balance? We also ask the same question to areas similar to Antarctica, such as the pristine wildlife of Canada, Greenland, the Yukon Territories, the unexplored islands of the Pacific, and main Amazon Basin.
Kyoto Protocol on Greenhouse Gases.
On December 10, 1997, 160 nations reached agreement in Kyoto, Japan, to limit emission of CO2 and other gases in order to arrest Greenhouse Effect threatening the whole world. But not all countries, signed the treaty, among them the US and Australia. Actually the Kyoto Protocol is not new. In 1992, some 170 countries ratified a similar treaty reducing emission of gases to the level of 1990 by 2000, but this did not yield the desired result.
Ecology and Stock Exchange.
In 2000, Earth Sanctuaries was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, making it the world’s first conservation company to go public. We know that conservation efforts have been conventionally under foundations and government projects. But this time this intriguing approach to conserving the environment has raised as lot of questions. Does the market place really have a role in habitat preservation? Is this approach really conserving natural ecosystem or just creating large zoos? Would we rather save and give our children good education that helps rescue an endangered animal? Indeed the conflict between maximizing profits and conservation raises ethical issues.
Ecology advertising.
In the supermarket we find tags, organically grown, environment-friendly, eco-safe, environmentally safe, children-safe, ozone-friend, and so on. But are these claims true? Consider the following:
• Look for the three-phase symbol of recycling – three interacting arrows to form a triangle.
• When buying a refrigerator or air-conditioner get the one that is Freon-free, ozone friendly. Be sure the purchase is covered by company guarantee.
• Producers of food claimed to be safe, such as organically grown, must be able to show a reliable track record. It is good to trace the source of food that we eat, from beginning with production to processing, and ultimately to the dining table.
• Even materials claimed to be biodegradable, photo-degradable, and the like, may not be readily converted into safe materials. As a general rule, save money from “over-packaged” commodities, and you save the environment as well. Don’t be misled by package advertising, how attractive it may appear.
*Environmental Ethics: Human Life and the Environment, December 5-7, 2005
Bioethics and Environment
International Congress on Bioethics - A Reaction
Dr Abe V Rotor
Macli-ing, a staunch protector of ancestral lands in Kalinga-Apayao; award on river conservation, a tribute.
It is a special privilege to be a member of the panel of reactors in this international congress on bioethics. I am specially honored to react on the paper presented by a distinguished expert, Dr. Michael (Cheng-tak) Tai, a topic which deals with the greatest revolution that has ever gripped the world - a revolution which has no boundaries – physical, political, religious, cultural and economic – Environmental Revolution.
Environmental revolution has actually started with the age of industrialization, and it will take a very long time and a very complex process to be able to settle it. Environmental revolution does not pit man against nature, as it had been since the dawn of mankind. It is not the conventional revolution of society where man is pitted against man, or nation against nation for political reasons. It is not religious war. It is not a war of ideologies.
For the first time we humans must work together to preserve nature for the very survival of our species, and for the sake of saving Mother Earth, our only home and spaceship which carries all of us in our journey into the perilous unknown universe. It is a war we cannot afford to lose because it also spells the survival of the whole living world.
Let me state the some environmental concerns related to the topic of Dr. Tai’s paper, and relate them with current situations, understanding and outlook.
There are conflicting views of change.
Scientific knowledge and government policies often disagree and run into conflict at each other. Economics and ecology, though they share a common root word and foundation, are strange bedfellows, so to speak.
Yet these entities support common goals geared toward change. Change has to be viewed more than the measures of GNP, ROI, currency exchange rate, balance of trade, and the like, and should not only be confined to Human Development Indices, such as literacy rate, mortality rate and population density.
While these are considered immediate parameters mainly to benefit man and his society, certain questions on sustainability and environmental preservation are left unanswered. How do we ensure future generations. We feel more and more wary about the term progress. We ask ourselves what is “progress without conscience?” And whose development? What is the relationship between progress with posterity?
I remember the late Dr. Dioscorro Umali, national scientist, who addressed the graduating class of UP Diliman in 1992 with this moving statement, “Be the heroes we never were.” The essence of his speech is that the previous - and especially the present generation - have left little for the next generations to inherit. “We have not only abused the bounties of Nature,” he said, “we have destroyed her as well. The hero concept of Dr. Umali revolutionizes traditional and conventional definition of a hero. He is more than a nationalist, an economist, or an ideologist as we know, but a hero for Mother Earth, borrowing the term of Time Magazine.
-------------------------
Today, rather than defending himself against nature, man realized, he needed to defend nature against himself. - AV Rotor, Light from the Old Arch
--------------------------
Who are heroes for Mother Earth?
Environmental movements have roots traced to ancient cultures as can be gleamed from our own centuries old Ifugao Rice Terraces. Throughout history as civilizations grew and spread the environment became a sacrificial lamb. Such euphoric phrases “all roads leading to Rome,” “the beauty that glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was Rome,” “the sun never sets on English soil,” and the eight wonders of the world may reflect man’s ultimate achievements, yet all these were ephemeral in the mist of time in man’s dreams. In the end, it was nature that took them from the hands of man. The loss of natural environments has lead to the decline of civilizations and their subsequent demise.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Revival of environmental awareness came at the heels of the Renaissance. In the 12th century St. Francis of Assisi brought a new concept of devotion. Brother Sun, Sister Moon, and all the creatures on Earth our friends, laid down the foundation of naturalism in the Christian church reviving much of the Aristotelian naturalism. It is fitting that St. Francis of Assisi is regarded as the father of ecology.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Time Magazine came up with a list of heroes for Planet Earth, among them are naturalist philosophers or conservationist philosophers are Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and Rachel Carson.
• Ralph Waldo Emerson claimed that “behind nature, throughout nature, spirit is present.”
• Henry David Thoreau spoke of the side of “truth in nature and wilderness over the deceits of civilization.”• Muir believed that “wilderness mirrors divinity, nourishes humanity, and vivifies the spirit.”
• Leopold was behind the development of policies in wilderness and game management. “Wilderness is the raw material out of which man has hammered the artifact called civilization.”
• Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, which dramatized the potential dangers of pesticides to food,wildlife, and humans causing wide spread damage to the ecosystem.
• Chico Mendes was a front liner in environmental conservation. He lost his life defending the concept of “extractive reserves” to conserve the Brazilian Rainforest that provided livelihood of the people against the conversion of the forest into ranches and plantations.
Other heroes of planet Earth cited by Time include
• Barbara Ward, author of Only One Earth which shaped the UN environmental conference.
• Ernest Schumacher who did not believe in endless growth, mega-companies and endless consumption, author of Small is Beautiful, a best seller since the sixties.
• Jacques-Yves Cousteau, oceanographer who espoused the need to arrest the declining health of the oceans.
. In the Philippines, Macli-ing, a staunch protector of ancestral lands in Kalinga-Apayao from the encroachment of the mammoth Upper Chico River dam, was gunned down allegedly to silence him. All aver the world there are the likes of Macli-ing, like Chico Mendes, and Ken Saro-Wiwa, a leader from the Ogoni tribe in Nigeria, and many more who, we may compare to the Unknown Soldier, but this time a soldier in defense of Mother Nature.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We must be prudent in endorsing people for their contributions to the environment until parameters are clearly set, and that we should allow time to make the final judgment. A case in point is DDT, the miracle pesticide against malaria in the forties and fifties. For this the discoverer received the Nobel Award. But in the following years it was discovered that DDT is a poison that persists in the food chain, making it harmful to living organisms and deleterious to human health. AVR
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
People have varying opinions when defining Environmental Philosophy.
There are those who believe that nature shall serve humanity. On the other hand there are those who believe that humanity shall serve nature. And there are those who say, it is “something in between”.
Nature, growth, and progress are concepts that we all use, but which we seldom define either in discussion or to ourselves. We speak about environmental ethics, environmental philosophy, eco-philosophy, and so on, but what do we put into these concepts? We seldom make them explicit or draw conclusions from them. “Trying to answer these philosophical questions does not, of course, in itself solve any environmental problems,” say ecologists Enger and Smith, “but on the other hand it is questionable whether we can solve these problems without discussing them on a philosophical level.”
It is then important to view environmental philosophy with ethics and morals. Ethics is a branch of philosophy that seeks to define fundamentally what is right and what is wrong, regardless of cultural differences. Morals differ somewhat from ethics because morals reflects the predominant feelings of a culture about ethical issues.
How do we illustrate this? A student of mine asked me this question, “Is it a sin to cut a tree?” This question touches ethics and morals, above social and economic considerations. It also pertains to legislation, such as whether we should advocate total log ban or selective logging. It even boils down to analyzing a syndrome known as “tragedy of the commons.” Let us analyze it this way.
a. The naturalistic concept that trees are the source of life is losing its essence as communities grow, and as people tend to move and live in urban places. It is a concept that is being taken for granted even as people become learned. Yet since evolutionary time plants have been providing the basic needs of man – food, clothing, shelter, medicine and energy. The harvesting of plants and their products has been part of human sustenance, as such they must be used properly. This ethnic view was also the basis of early agriculture. It is the key to a sustainable relationship between man and nature that lasted for eons of time.
b. Like Gold Rush, new lands became the target of economic exploitation, as the frontiers were pushed to the limit. New lands were placed under agriculture, which included our own Mindanao. Accessibility to forests and the wildlife became more and more feasible. Original forests were replaced with ranches, and plantations. Economics was the name of the game. In spurred the second green revolution, and agriculture dominated the trade and industry of the world. It eroded the ethnic relationship between man and nature. Beliefs about the tree spirit, forest deities (Maria Makiling), and nature worships have become mere superstitions and legends relegated to books and comics.
c. The final blow followed – industrialization. It is not only food that preoccupied man. Want over need incessantly drives man to convert lands into golf courses, human settlements, industrial sites, and all kinds of infrastructures. Imagine how easy, and how short a time it takes to destroy a whole forest which nature built for hundreds if not thousands of years, with giant machines of today. It is said that by the time we finish reading a paragraph of average length, three hectares of forest shall have been destroyed.
d. Post-modernism – a paradox of living tomorrow as we grope at the forefront of progressive innovation which usually means “violating traditional norms or ideas in all fields if human concern,” quoting Dr. Florentino Hornedo. “The human being who has abandoned his essence, nature and origin has also given up purpose and aim of existence. Life then becomes a “free play” of what forces may come which construct existence. Neither is there personhood or self to be ethically responsible for one’s action.”
I use this statement to raise questions of accountability of our actions, individually or by group. A businessman who is armed with a franchise to cut down a forest is understood to have accepted the attendant responsibility stipulated in the contract, which may include provisions in selective logging and replanting. But these are far from sufficient in providing the vital safety net of protecting the community and the environment.
I go back to the question, “Is it a sin to cut a tree?” This time the concept of the action has far reaching consequences based on the above-mentioned premises. I would return the question with reference to actual incidents.
• Who is responsible for the Ormoc City (Southern Leyte) tragedy caused by mudslide from a logged watershed? In this incident hundreds of residents were killed and millions of pesos were lost.
• The tragedy was repeated ten years after but on a lesser scale. As the perpetrators in the first tragedy have remained scot-free, so with those in the second tragedy.
• Five years have passed since the Real, Quezon, landslide that was similarly caused by massive illegal logging. What actions have government and society done?
• The Marinduque case of poisoning rivers and coastlines with mine tailings, which as a result, continue to destroy the ecosystem and deprive thousands of fisher folks from their livelihood. To date after twenty years the issue remains unsolved.
• Deserts continue to expand as a result of human activities. So with siltation of rivers and lake, shortening their usefulness and life span.
• Our Pantabangan dam, Ambuklao dam, and Binga dam, are heavily silted as a result of cutting down trees on their watershed. It is indeed a waste.
• All over the world we find similar cases: the shrinking of the Aral Sea in Russia, desertification, and marginalization of farmlands.
• The worst result in the endangerment of natural habitats and species, leading to irreversible loss of ecosystems and biodiversity.
All these lead us to re-examine our values. It challenges to look deeper into a paradigm of salvation through the regard we have on our environment.
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There are few frontiers of production left today. We have virtually pushed back the sea and leveled off the mountain. Prime lands have all been taken, swamps have been drained, and even deserts are being reclaimed. But as we continue to explore the marginal edges of these frontiers the more we are confronted with high cost of production that is levied on the consumer, and more importantly, the danger of destroying the fragile environment. AVR
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Ecological Paradigm (Why is Mother Earth complaining?)
The prolificacy of the human species sans war and pestilence, plus growing affluence of our society led to a population explosion which doubled in less than fifty years. We are now over six billion. This paradigm, master and subject have joined hands to exploit the earth’s finite resources. Our best economists may not be good housekeepers of Nature. While the aim is directed at the Good Life, they have unwittingly reduced the very foundation of that good life – the productivity and beauty of Mother Earth.
Ecological paradigm endorses an ecocentric approach where all forms of life and non-life are important to human life. Spirituality points out to a unitive force: the sacredness of everything. God’s divinity flows in everything. There is inte1gration in the universe. And we are part of that integration, exceedingly small as we are, notwithstanding.
Under ecological paradigm of salvation, the man responsible in the destruction of the environment leading to loss of lives and properties should be held accountable for it. Salvation does not come easy in this particular case, because he is not only responsible for the actual loss, but in healing nature back to health, so to speak. He cannot just get away with his ill-gotten wealth, he has to use it – among other resources - to amend his wrong doings.
Business versus Environment.
The environment and the economy need not be viewed as opposites. It is possible to have a healthy environment and a healthy economy at the same time. More and more businesses have begun adopting this concept as a business philosophy. People behind business organizations are becoming more aware of the ethical decisions they face, and their responsibility for their consequences.
A multi-national corporation, responding to the provisions of GRI (Global Reporting Initiative), CERES (Coalition of Environmental Responsible Economies), UNEP (United Nations Environmental Program), came up with the following thrusts:
• Restore and preserve the environment
• Reduce waste and pollution
• Education of the public on environmental conservation
• Work with government for sound and responsible environmental program
• Assess impact of business on the environment and communities.
More and more businesses are looking at this model with favor.
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Industrialization and urbanization are akin to each other. Industrial growth spurred the building of cities all over the world. Today there are as many people living in cities as those living the rural places. A mega-city like Tokyo has a population of 15 million people. We are 10 million in Metro Manila. Cities are fragile environments. Cities are more prone to epidemics such as the bubonic plague that killed one-third of the population of Europe. Now we are confronted with HIV-AID, SARs, meningo cochcimia – and the dreaded Avian flu which hovers as the next human pandemic disease. AVR
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Antarctica, World Park.
One of the few places on earth unexploited by humans is Antarctica. Not now, not until recently. With the Antarctic Treaty of 1991 declares that “Antarctica shall be open to all nations to conduct scientific or other peaceful activities there,” seven countries have already laid overlapping claims on the continent, which comprises one-tenth of the world’s total land area. Thousands of tourists are now visiting Antarctica every year. Scientific research is economically motivated, such as oil exploration, with geopolitical or military objectives in mind. Earlier – in the 1970s New Zealand proposed designating an Antarctica World Park, making it an international wilderness area. On the ecological point of view, Antarctica is fragile with simple and short food chains that support few organisms such as the penguin, whales, shrimp-like krill. Any slight disturbance is likely to upset the delicate balance. We have already caused the growing hole of the ozone layer above Antarctica through unabated release of CFCs , and fossil-fuel combustion worldwide.
Would humanity be better served by developing the natural resources of Antarctica than turning it into a world park and preserve its ecological balance? We also ask the same question to areas similar to Antarctica, such as the pristine wildlife of Canada, Greenland, the Yukon Territories, the unexplored islands of the Pacific, and main Amazon Basin.
Kyoto Protocol on Greenhouse Gases.
On December 10, 1997, 160 nations reached agreement in Kyoto, Japan, to limit emission of CO2 and other gases in order to arrest Greenhouse Effect threatening the whole world. But not all countries, signed the treaty, among them the US and Australia. Actually the Kyoto Protocol is not new. In 1992, some 170 countries ratified a similar treaty reducing emission of gases to the level of 1990 by 2000, but this did not yield the desired result.
Ecology and Stock Exchange.
In 2000, Earth Sanctuaries was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, making it the world’s first conservation company to go public. We know that conservation efforts have been conventionally under foundations and government projects. But this time this intriguing approach to conserving the environment has raised as lot of questions. Does the market place really have a role in habitat preservation? Is this approach really conserving natural ecosystem or just creating large zoos? Would we rather save and give our children good education that helps rescue an endangered animal? Indeed the conflict between maximizing profits and conservation raises ethical issues.
Ecology advertising.
In the supermarket we find tags, organically grown, environment-friendly, eco-safe, environmentally safe, children-safe, ozone-friend, and so on. But are these claims true? Consider the following:
• Look for the three-phase symbol of recycling – three interacting arrows to form a triangle.
• When buying a refrigerator or air-conditioner get the one that is Freon-free, ozone friendly. Be sure the purchase is covered by company guarantee.
• Producers of food claimed to be safe, such as organically grown, must be able to show a reliable track record. It is good to trace the source of food that we eat, from beginning with production to processing, and ultimately to the dining table.
• Even materials claimed to be biodegradable, photo-degradable, and the like, may not be readily converted into safe materials. As a general rule, save money from “over-packaged” commodities, and you save the environment as well. Don’t be misled by package advertising, how attractive it may appear.
*Environmental Ethics: Human Life and the Environment, December 5-7, 2005
**Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday
References
Rotor AV (2004) The Living with Nature Handbook, UST 207 pp
Rotor AV (2001) Light from the Old Arch, UST, 215 pp
Enger ED and BF Smith (1992) Environmental Science: A Study on Interrelationship, McGraw NY 486 pp
Scherff JS et al (1991) The Mother Earth Handbook: What you need to know and do – at home, in your community, and through your church – to help heal our planet now, Continuum 320 pp
Rotor AV (2001) Light from the Old Arch, UST, 215 pp
Enger ED and BF Smith (1992) Environmental Science: A Study on Interrelationship, McGraw NY 486 pp
Scherff JS et al (1991) The Mother Earth Handbook: What you need to know and do – at home, in your community, and through your church – to help heal our planet now, Continuum 320 pp
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Protecting Mother Earth Conference on August 1-4, 2024,
The Banking on Climate Chaos report remains the most comprehensive analysis of the top 60 banks by asset size financing of fossil fuel companies. Lending & underwriting totals for the top 60 banks globally. Covers 4228 companies with fossil fuel business.
Fossil fuel financing from the world’s 60 largest banks has reached nearly $6.9 trillion in the eight years since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, with $705 billion in 2023 alone.
- Honoring human rights mitigates climate risk. Banks must integrate these two risk monitoring structures.
- We’re at a critical moment for our climate. Every dollar spent on fossil fuels is a dollar too much.
- Big banks have committed over $6.9 TRILLION to fossil fuels in the past 8 years, including $3.3 trillion to the companies behind coal, oil, and gas expansion around the world.
- These banks are equally responsible for climate chaos as the companies they support.
- Any fossil fuel expansion is not compliant to keep planetary warming below 1.5 degrees.
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Part 3 - Heroes for Mother Earth
Today, rather than defending himself against nature,
man has realized that he needed to defend nature against himself.
Dr Abe V Rotor
Man throughout evolution struggled to survive the harsh environment. This reminds us of the gargantuan task of building of the Panama and Suez canals where man was pitted against wilderness. Remember the days of the pioneers, the travails of Albert Schweitzer in penetrating the heart of Africa. Three thousand years ago, Alexander the Great died of malaria on the banks of Tigris-Euphrates rivers.
Endangered Earth in acrylic by the author
Then in the past century man began to dominate nature and soon attempted to overrun the planet. It was a 360 degrees turn. Today, rather than defending himself against nature, he has realized that he needed to defend nature against himself.
This is the beginning of a new environmental movement. Leaders of this movement are acclaimed protectors of our home – our only home, Planet Earth. They are regarded as the new breed of heroes. Now, who are these heroes? As we go through these names and analyze their contributions we hope to be able to understand this new concept of heroism.
Theodore Roosevelt, often referred to as Teddy or TR, was an American statesman, author, explorer, soldier, naturalist, and reformer who served as the 26th President of the United States, from 1901 to 1909.
- Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) was the first president to make conservation as a national policy.
- Ernest Schumacher (1911-1977) did not believe in endless growth, mega-companies and endless consumption, His book Small is Beautiful became a best seller.
Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher was an internationally influential economic thinker, statistician and economist in Britain, serving as Chief Economic Advisor to the UK National Coal Board for two decades.
- Barbara Ward (1914-1981) is the author of Only One Earth which shaped the UN environmental conference.
- E.O. Wilson (1929- ) PHOTO below, founded sociobiology in the 70s, saying that such human behavior as sexuality, aggression and altruism had a genetic basis. Recently he articulated the importance of bio-diversity in keeping the Earth healthy.
Edward Osborne "E. O." Wilson FMLS is an American biologist, researcher, theorist, naturalist and author. His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants, on which he is considered to be the world's leading expert.
- Paul Crutzen (1933- ), F. Sherwood Rowland (1927- ) and Mario Molina (1943- ) showed that man-made chemicals, the major culprit chloro-fluoro-carbons or CFC, destroys the ozone layer. The 1987 Montreal Protocol phased out CFC. Nobel prizes were given to the three scientists.
- Jacques-Yves Cousteau (1910-1995? ) Oceanographer and showman, espoused the need to arrest the declining health of the oceans.
- Rachel Carson (1009-1964) Mother of modern environmentalism, wrote Silent Spring documenting the deadly carnage of wrought by pesticides.
Rachel Louise Carson was an American marine biologist and conservationist whose book Silent Spring and other writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement.
- Aldo Leopold (1887-1948) advocated the total protection of certain wilderness areas, established the land ethic which is summed up, “anything that harms an ecosystem is ethically and aesthetically wrong.”
- Barry Commoner (1917- ) Paul Revere in ecology, one of the first scientist to worry about the deteriorating environment, organized the eco-based Citizens’ Party ticket which paved a new political movement.
- Barry Commoner was an American biologist, college professor, and politician. He was a leading ecologist and among the founders of the modern environmental movement.
- Wangari Maathai (1940- ) activist, organized the Green Belt Movement against reckless development in Kenya, stopped construction of a 69-storey office tower in a vital public space.
- Wangari Muta Maathai was a Kenyan environmental and political activist. She was educated in the United States at Mount St. Scholastica and the University of Pittsburgh, as well as the University of Nairobi in Kenya.
- Robert Hunter (1941- ) and Paul Watson (1950- ) pioneers of Greenpeace, then founder a more radical eco-organization, Sea Shepherd Conservation, and latest, Greenspeak and Frankenfood which are against genetically modified foods.
- Medha Patkar (1954- ) activist, forced WB to withdraw support Sardar Sarovar Dam along India’s Narmada River, saving half a million villagers from being displaced.
- Chico Mendes (1944-1988) Brazil environmental conscience, formed human barriers whenever chain saws and bulldozers threatened the rainforest, cut down by ranchers’ bullets.
Among the philosophers, Henry David Thoreau is known for his discourse on human liberty and survival in “Walden Pond” which still stirs imagination on how one man can live alone in the wilderness yet retains his rationality.
When Mac-liing was gunned down by unknown assailants for openly protesting the government’s Upper Chico River dam project his image was that of a rebel rather than one who was fighting for the preservation of the ancestral lands of the Kalingas. Thousands of hectares were to disappear under water when the dam is completed, a case similar to Pantabangan dam which forever submerged a whole town, vast farmlands and forests.Philippine national hero Jose Rizal as a student
We have our own national hero Dr. Jose Rizal as an environmentalist in exile at Dapitan, and a naturalist even when he was a boy.
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4 Ramon Magsaysay Awardees for the Environment
The Ramon Magsaysay Award is in recognition of greatness of spirit shown in service to the peoples of Asia. Since 1958 the Award has been given to more than 270 individuals and organizations in 22 Asian countries and territories.
Yu Xiaogang - Chinese. For fusing social science knowledge with a deep sense of social justice, in assisting dam-affected communities in China to shape the development projects that impact their natural environment and their lives.
Antonio Oposa Jr. PHOTO, right - Filipino. For his pathbreaking and passionate crusade to engage Filipinos in acts of enlightened citizenship that maximize the power of law to protect and nurture the environment for themselves, their children, and generations still to come.
Ma Jun - Chinese. For harnessing the technology and power of information to address China's water crisis, and mobilizing pragmatic, multisectoral, and collaborative efforts to ensure sustainable benefits for China's environment and society.
Ka Hsaw Wa - Burmese. For dauntlessly pursuing nonviolent yet effective channels of redress, exposure, and education for the defense of human rights, the environment, and democracy in Burma.
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Part 4 - Three Philosophies on Today's Environmental Revolution
According to Andre Gorz the ecology struggle not as an end in itself but as essential part of the large struggle against capitalism and techno fascism. He champions a civil society shifting power from the State and political parties to local community and the web of social relations that individuals establish amongst themselves. The State’s role is to encourage self-management among the citizens. He envisions a Utopian future where “the citizens can do more for less,” and the development of a rich, all-round personality.
----------André Gorz was the Theorist Who Predicted the Revolt Against Meaningless Work. The COVID-19 pandemic led millions of people to question their meaningless jobs. French socialist thinker André Gorz anticipated this shift, sketching out a vision of a new civilization that would free us from the constraints of work. (Willy Gianinazzi)
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Definitely, while we need a revolution to save our environment, any means that is contrary to peace and unity, is definitely unacceptable. And we would not adhere to the rule of force or violence just to be able to succeed.
It is said, that revolution starts in a small corner. It could start in each of us.
Definitely, while we need a revolution to save our environment, any means that is contrary to peace and unity, is definitely unacceptable. And we would not adhere to the rule of force or violence just to be able to succeed.
It is said, that revolution starts in a small corner. It could start in each of us.
Part 5 - Tragedy of the Commons
The tragedy of the commons is an economic problem where the individual consumes a resource at the expense of society. If an individual acts in their best interest, it can result in harmful over-consumption to the detriment of all. This phenomenon may result in under-investment and total depletion of a shared resource.The case of the shrinking and disappearing "dilis" (anchovies) and "espada" fish.
Tragedy of the Commons*
Tragedy of the commons, a term scholarly phrased,
means simply shrinking resources
in the midst of open competition to all in the name
of freedom with whatever process
of acquisition in social Darwinism falsely applied;
at the end, the winner neither the best
nor the vanquished, the passive nor meek, but all
victim swept by the current of unrest
where the old Malthus' ghost once more roam,
where lost the essence of progress,
and Toffler's ecospasm of economics and ecology
clashing and falling from their crest. ~
* The tragedy of the commons is an economics theory by Garrett Hardin, according to which individuals, acting independently and rationally according to each one's self-interest, behave contrary to the whole group's long-term best interests by depleting some common resource. The concept is often cited in connection with sustainable development, meshing economic growth and environmental protection, as well as in the debate over global warming. "Commons" can include the atmosphere, oceans, rivers, fish stocks, national parks, the office refrigerator, and any other shared resource. The tragedy of the commons has particular relevance in analyzing behavior in the fields of economics, evolutionary psychology, anthropology, game theory, politics, taxation, and sociology. Some also see the "tragedy" as an example of emergent behavior, the outcome of individual interactions in a complex system. (Wikipedia)
Part 6 - The Dog That Found A Home
Home he found and a happy company with us and the neighborhood.
Jemille and Ten-ten-ten (arrived on October 10, 2010)
It was a quiet afternoon and guess who was knocking at the gate?A starving dog, a mongrel, and what is there in him to gain?Could you spare me a morsel? His eyes moist and sad, begging,And food we gave, closed the gate, everything was quiet again.The sun was setting down, we saw a shadow seeping through the gate,He is still there, I told the children, and he was knocking again,Could you spare me a place for the night? His moaning told us so,Who are you, who is your master? Silence. I felt a little pain.We took him in. It was a special date on the calendar that comesBut once, and never again, not in a lifetime or generation.Tenth day, of the tenth month, of the first decade of the millennium,And we named this lost dog Ten-ten-ten. What a celebration!Home he found and a happy company with us and the neighborhood,Call his name, you wish luck and fortune, how easy to remember!And children tired from school come knocking to play with their friend,Can we play with Ten-ten(-ten)? Heaven sent a dog to love and share. ~
Nature Crucified
"Above me rises a dead tree..."
Lady devotee Angie Tobias turns her attention to Mother Nature in the
midst of today's massive destruction of the environment symbolized
by this driftwood artwork made by the author for Lent 2024.
When the sky is gray and red in sorrow,
the fields bare and dry all around,
the sun beats hard on ev'ry levee and furrow;
I wonder where I am and bound.
No shade to find comfort even for a while,
save a tree standing on a hill,
where some birds briefly rest and again fly,
leaving me empty at the scene.
I look up and wonder, "Is this Golgotha?"
No sound, no breeze, but eerie
like I were in the heart of the Sahara;
above me rises a dead tree. ~
MOTHER NATURE CRUCIFIED
"I am Nature crucified, hungry, thirsty, imprisoned, naked, abandoned –
wishing some souls to stop, look and listen." AVR
Silhouette of a tree skeleton, Manila (AVR Photo)
I am Nature crucified, Paradise lost to my own guardian
whom my Creator assigned custodian of the living earth;
I am Nature crucified by loggers, my kin and neighbors
annihilated, forever removed from their place of birth;
I am Nature crucified by slash-and-burn farming dreaded
- once lush forests now bare, desertification their fate;
I am Nature crucified, greedy men with giant machines
take hours to destroy what I built for thousands of years;
I am Nature crucified in the name of progress, countries
vying for wealth and power, fighting among themselves;
I am Nature crucified, rivers are dammed, lakes dried up,
swamps drained, estuaries blocked, waterways silted;
I am Nature crucified, the landscape littered with wastes,
gases into the air form acid rain, and thin the ozone layer;
I am Nature crucified, flora and fauna losing their natural
gene pools by selective breeding and genetic engineering;
I am Nature crucified, the earth is in fever steadily rising,
ice caps and glaciers melting, raising the level of the sea;
I am Nature crucified, privacy and rest becoming a luxury
in a runaway population living on fast lanes, and rat race.
I am Nature crucified, inequitable distribution of wealth
the source of conflict, greed and poverty, unhappiness;
I am Nature crucified by the promise of heaven in afterlife,
the faithful restrained to regain Paradise while on earth.
I am Nature crucified by scholars of never ending debates,
on the goodness of the human race in fraternal praises;
I am Nature crucified by the many denominations of faith,
pitting God against one another in endless proselytizing;
I am Nature crucified by licenses of freedom in extremism,
human rights and democracy - tools of inaction and abuse;
I am Nature crucified by mad scientists splitting the atom,
building cities, tearing the earth, probing ocean and space;
I am Nature crucified by capitalism, consumerism its tool
to stir economy worldwide, wastefulness it consequence;
I am Nature crucified by the unending pursuit of progress,
the goal and measure of superiority, nation against nation;
I am Nature crucified by man’s folly to become immortal:
cryonics, cloning, robotics - triumvirates for singularity.
I am Nature crucified, hungry, thirsty, imprisoned, naked,
abandoned – wishing some souls to stop, look and listen. ~
8. Natural and Planned Obsolescence (Self-administered test True or False, 25 Items)
Purchases must be well planned. Customers must be meticulous. Buying can be programmed. Don’t make haste, haste makes waste. Waste is the result of planned obsolescence - served in advance.
Premature obsolescence is a major factor in garbage/pollution buildup
in our society today.
2. Obsolescence occurs when certain parts of a machine breaks down disabling the whole system. This is the basis for producers to take advantage through what we call planned obsolescence.
3. A particular item becomes functionally obsolete due to natural causes or planned design to terminate its function before its due time.
4. It is now the chance of amateur photographers to buy film cameras which were very expensive before digital cameras were introduced in the market.
5. Books are becoming less and less popular in lieu of electronic publishing, except encyclopedias which continue to be published in print.
6. Planned obsolescence victimizes consumers, not only because of the premature failure of an item they buy, but they bear the cost of research and development of new products – without their knowing it.
7. Planned obsolescence diminishes demand by discouraging purchasers to buy again and sooner.
8. A leading brand cannot afford to resort to planned obsolescence, because of the prestige it maintains. At any rate it can always depend on its established customers.
9. The more we advance technologically, the more planned obsolescence will thrive.
10. Socialist societies like North Korea adopt one-policy programs, such as common dress code, common transport systems, and the like. This is not a practice in democratic societies.
11. There are batteries for electronic devices made of dangerous metals such as Cadmium, Mercury and Lithium, which after their use are left dangerously in the hands of the purchaser. There is not the responsibility of the producers.
Obsolete technology in sugarcane milling results in low output and heavy pollution. Calatagan, Batangas. Photo by the author.
12. We can economize on the use of flashlight and penlight – for electronics too - batteries if only there is a built-in meter, and that the price difference between disposable and rechargeable is afforded by ordinary users.
13. Every modern household faces a dilemma on how to dispose so many non-functional items – from underused notebooks, manuals, to unserviceable appliances to souvenir items we do not wish to part.
14. One solution is to organize garage sale independently or in group – as community project.
15. Altruism and benevolence can be tapped from our character and values if only we are courageous to part with our possessions that have very little value left. This is also to free us from the uncomfortable memories of having been a victim of planned obsolescence.
16. Purchases must be well planned. Customers must be meticulous. Buying can be programmed. Don’t make haste, haste is waste. Waste is the advance result of planned obsolescence.
17. “Waste is something we do not yet know its use.” So goes the saying. With planned obsolescence, waste is something you anticipate to happen when you buy an item.”
18. When buying a machine or equipment, beware of the catch. The machine is just a decoy that the purchaser becomes solely dependent on the supplier of that machine. Take as examples: color ink is many times more expensive than the printer; a brand new drum of a duplicating machine is more expensive than the machine itself. This is not only planned obsolescence, this is modus operandi. Many printers today are disposable in favor of evolving designs or systems.
Not only that, their ink is exclusive to a particular brand and are very expensive.
Not only that, their ink is exclusive to a particular brand and are very expensive.
19. If we are not willing victim of planned obsolescence go back to the province and live a simple life.
Chances are that batteries are discarded even if they are still good. A built-in charge indicator would help users save millions of pesos worth of batteries.
21. If we make a thing very durable, some time, somehow we will be overtaken by newer, more efficient, versatile models. There are photographic equipment which simply became totally obsolete. So with audio-video equipment. This justifies planned obsolescence per se.
22. Style obsolescence makes old-looking clothing the "in-thing," colonial designs are coming back, the classics once more fill the air lane, Shakespeare and Da Vinci are still relevant, and the like.
23. There is the so-called National Obsolescence Center or NOC – to provide an easily accessible, proactive obsolescence management service – but this has no teeth, so to speak because of its pioneering nature and limited power and application.. We do not have such an office or organization in the Philippines.
Children are ultimately the victims of planned obsolescence. Garbage dumps at Sta Fe, Argentina (left) and New Delhi, India
24. America is the most wasteful country in the world, from food to fuel, amount of waste generated. It is the origin of a wasteful life summed as “use-and-throw-away-society.” This Western model is losing support during economic crisis.
25. Planned obsolescence involves social and ethical responsibility. It is therefore a sin – a cardinal sin. Amendments to such sin is far reaching. First, "Love your Fellowmen," Second, "Don’t be a Waste Maker." Third, and the most basic, "Be truthful." This applies to all of us who have been given the honor and privilege to produce something for somebody to use. The imprimatur of a good name must go with the product and service. x x x
ANSWERS: False, 4, 5 (Britannica has stopped printing), 7, 8 (in the long run, it will lose in the competition), 19 F(We are still victims, but we can minimize the impact of planned obsolescence on our lives.), and 21 (the end does not justify the means), 22T (In 2004. Americans threw out 315 million computers, in 2005 – 100 million cell phones, most were still usable, and they contain permanent biological toxins.) ; True for the rest of the questions.
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“Waste is something we do not yet know its use.” So goes the saying. With planned obsolescence, waste is something you anticipate to happen when you buy an item.”
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RATING:
23- 25 Outstanding - never a victim – resource person
20-22 Very Good - good model against PO
17-19 Good - discerning, analytical
14-16 Fair - potential victim
13 and below 13 - vulnerable victim to planned obsolescence. Listen to Paaralang Bayan.sa Himpapawid
Vocabulary Exercise: How many words can you build from OBSOLESCENCE? Minimum of three letters to a word.
----------------------------------------------
Planned obsolescence involves social and ethical responsibility. It is therefore a sin – a cardinal sin. Amendments to such sin is far reaching.
- First, "Love your Fellowmen,"
- Second, "Don’t be a Waste Maker."
- Third, and the most basic, "Be truthful."
------------------------------------------------
Living with Nature School on Blog
Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan.sa Himpapawid (School on Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio 738 KHz AM 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday
Part 9 - Cellphone Radiation is Bad to Your Health
Don't gamble on your life and learn about the reasons why increased cell phone use can have short-term and long-term effects on your health.- Case Study of Cancer in Mumbai
- How Mobile Phones Affect Sleep
- 5 Reasons Why Cellphones Are Bad For Your Health
- Visual pollution1. Case Study Usha Riran Building Worli Mumbai
By Hemal Ashar |Posted 03-Jan-2010
Mumbai's swanky Usha Kiran building says the four cancer cases there could be linked to mobile towers installed on the facing Vijay Apartments
Mobile towers or mobile tumours? That is the question. A slew of buildings in the plush Carmichael Road area in South Mumbai, have come together to appeal to Vijay Apartments to remove mobile towers on top of their building, to prevent harmful radiation. The trigger is a couple of cancer cases in Usha Kiran building located opposite Vijay Apartments.
'Remove mobile towers'
Buildings that are supporting Usha Kiran and have joined in the appeal are: Rushila building, Ghia Mansion, Anand-Kamal Co-Op Society, Everest House and Indira Premises Co-Op Society.
Though debate on the issue has been simmering for six months now, things have heated up since the past two months, with written appeals and meetings with Vijay Apartments to disband the towers.
Fatal signals
The appeal, also signed by Prakash Patel, treasurer, CRCC, elaborates: "There are three cases of brain tumours (two cases are of a cancerous nature and one case of recurrent/aggressive meningioma) and one case of bone cancer, all four cases in the recent past in Usha Kiran building. These three floors are directly facing and at the same height as the two mobile phone towers placed on the roof of the building (Vijay Apartments) on the opposite side of the road.
"These life-threatening health issues have been either caused or enhanced by the high levels of Electro Magnetic Radiation (EMR) emitted by mobile phone towers. The health hazards arising from such EMR emissions of mobile phone towers is now recognised in all developed countries and the numerous research reports have been published overseas." They say the towers must be removed to prevent widespread panic too.
Inconsequential findings
Siddharth Bhandari, chairman, Vijay Apartments building society says, "There has been no hostility, either from our side or Usha Kiran. Some months ago, scientists from the Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering and Research (SAMEER) agency in Mumbai did measure the radiation from the towers on our building. It fell within permissible limits.
"We went to Usha Kiran with these findings but they said it was inconsequential, we need to remove the towers anyway."
Risk to families
Bhandari says, "We need to have a solid case to convince society members that these towers, which have been on the building for more than three years, have to be removed. As a resident of the nine-storey building, I reside on the top floor closest to the tower. Even I do not want to expose my family to any radiation risk.
Nobody would. Yet, is there a link between the cancer cases and the mobile towers? Is there reasonable doubt? We have to find out for sure. We also have asked that if we remove the towers then no other building in the vicinity be allowed to put towers.
Ghia Mansion's Shyam B Ghia's letter to Usha Kiran dated October 6, 2009 allays those doubts. It says: "To assure Vijay Apartments' residents that their cooperation is not nullified by future unneighbourly (sic) actions by other societies the undersigned societies undertake and indemnify Vijay Apartments that they themselves will not install any cell phone tower in future."
Not convinced
The Indira Premises Co-operative Society letter says: "In the year 2001, our society was approached by Orange (now Vodafone) for permission to install cell phone towers on our terrace for handsome money consideration to the society. In a special general meeting convened for this specific purpose, the officials of Orange tried to convince our members that there were no known radiation hazards to the residents or to those in the neighbouring buildings.
"In spite of their assurances, our society decided not to allow any installation of cell phone tower on our terrace and subsequently, Vijay Apartments was approached by them."
Health or wealth
Bhandari would not reveal how much money the building was making because of the mobile phone towers, though he did say there was a financial consideration. When asked if there had been a resident recently afflicted with cancer in Vijay Aparments, he candidly said yes. Yet he sought to dispel the notion that Vijay Apartments' residents were callous and money hungry, stating categorically, "Our building residents are not putting money before health considerations."
Bhandari says Vijay Apartments is set to hold another radiation testing in the second week of January 2010, with the "mobile towers switched off. If the testing shows a substantial drop in radiation levels with the towers switched off, we would have to decide how to take this further".
Lakhs or lives?
The angry opposition says testing will not prove anything conclusively, but "all over the world, studies are being done about mobile towers and cancer. Years ago, there was no 'conclusive' proof that cigarettes caused cancer too, but down the line it was proved. So, what are we waiting for? People to die before case studies prove 'conclusively' that mobile cell phone towers are a cancer risk? Is Rs 20 lakh more important than a person's life?"
The rich and the famous
Carmichael Road is one of Mumbai's priciest real estates. Perched on a steep gradient next to its equally pricey neighbour, Altamount Road (labelled as the Millionnaire's Row), Carmichael Road's landmark Usha Kiran building has flats going at more than Rs 90,000 a square foot. The Ambanis were former Usha Kiran residents.
Now, Mukesh Ambani's hyped Antillia building is under construction just ten minutes away on Altamount Road. Kumaramangalam Birla's Adityayan Mangal bungalow is on Carmichael Road. JRD Tata's heritage bungalow is also on Altamount Road.
What doctors say
Dr Suresh Advani, chief oncologist, Jaslok Hospital, says: "I am very clear that there is no evidence or scientific proof of a link between mobile towers and cancer. The link between tobacco and cancer did not take years to establish, it was known since the very beginning earlier than the 1940s or 50s in fact.
"This is a wrong comparison. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that they may cause cancer."
Yet, concerned citizens have collected a huge database of international reports that state cell phone towers are a health hazard, quoting two-time Nobel prize nominee Dr Gerald Hyland who says, "Existing safety guidelines for cell phone towers are completely inadequate. Quite justifiably, the public remains skeptical of attempts by governments and industry to reassure them that all is well, particularly the unethical way in which they often operate symbiotically so as to promote their own vested interests."
Says Dr V V Haribhakti, consultant surgical oncologist, "I am unaware of any studies proving a conclusive link.
The last I read was a Scandinavian study which says there is no link between mobile phone towers and cancer.
I don't think there is any solid evidence supporting this so. I do not think towers should be removed."
What about Jaslok?
Ironically, the Jaslok Hospital, just 120 meters away from Vijay Apartments, has mobile phone towers on top of the structure.
Says Jaslok Hospital CEO Colonel M Masand, "We are not the only building in the vicinity to have these towers.
So far, there is no proof or data from any prominent authority saying that radiation from the towers is harmful.
If anybody shows me proof, I would be the first to throw away these towers."
2. How Mobile Phones Affect Sleep (INFOGRAPHIC)
02/15/2013 12:40 pm ET | Updated Mar 22, 2013
· Katy Hall Managing Features Editor, Huffington Post
· Chris Spurlock
Most people who own iPhones use them as their alarm clock — making it all too easy to check email one last time before falling asleep and hard to ever feel unplugged from work and social networks.
Several years ago my boss, Arianna Huffington, passed out from exhaustion after staying up late to catch up on work. She banged her head on the way down and ended up with five stitches — and became what she calls a “sleep evangelist.” Now she leaves her phone charging in another room when she goes to bed and encourages friends to do the same.
“I sent all my friends the same Christmas gift — a Pottery Barn alarm clock — so they could stop using the excuse that they needed their very tempting iPhone by their bed to wake them up in the morning,” she said.
If your phone wakes you up in the morning, it may also be keeping you up at night. A 2008 study funded by major mobile phone makers themselves showed that people exposed to mobile radiation took longer to fall asleep and spent less time in deep sleep.
“The study indicates that during laboratory exposure to 884 MHz wireless signals components of sleep believed to be important for recovery from daily wear and tear are adversely affected,” the study concluded.
And that’s just a physical symptom of sleeping near the phone — “sham” exposure to a phone without radiation failed to produce the same effect. The itch to check in at all hours of the night or wake up to the sound of a text message disrupts our sleep, too. A quarter of young people feel like they must be available by phone around the clock, according to a Swedish study that linked heavy cell phone use to sleeping problems, stress and depression. Unreturned messages carry more guilt when the technology to address them lies at our fingertips. Some teens even return text messages while they are asleep.
Most of us choose not to set limits on our nighttime availability. Nearly three-quarters of people from the age of 18 to 44 sleep with their phones within reach, according to a 2012 Time/Qualcomm poll. That number falls off slightly in middle age, but only in people 65 and older is leaving the phone in another room as common as sleeping right next it. This story appears in Issue 42 of our weekly iPad magazine, Huffington, in the iTunes App store, available Friday, March 29.
Consumer News
3. Five Reasons Why Cellphones Are Bad For Your Health
Jul 12, 2013 01:15 PM By Lizette Borreli
Ninety-one percent of American adults and 60 percent of teens own this device that has revolutionized communication in the 21st century — the cellphone. Whether you own an Android, an iPhone, a Blackberry, or a basic flip phone, chances are you check your phone for messages, alerts, or calls even when your mobile device isn't ringing or vibrating, reports a Pew Internet & American Life Project survey. The modern convenience that cell phones provide is responsible for everyone's increased daily use. According to the Morningside Recovery Rehabilitation Center, the average American spends 144 minutes a day using his or her phone during a 16-hour period. With an estimated six billion subscriptions worldwide and counting, cell phones have become one of the fundamental means of communication in society.
While cell phones provide an efficient and easy way to communicate with friends, family, and co-workers, excessive use can take a toll on your health. Mobile phones use transmitting radio waves through a series of base stations where radiofrequency waves are electromagnetic fields that cannot break chemical bonds or cause ionization in the human body, says the World Health Organization (WHO). Although cellphones are considered to be low-powered radiofrequency transmitters, your handset transmits power when it is on, and therefore it is important to increase your distance from the handset to reduce radiofrequency exposure. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) suggests cell phone users to keep a minimum distance of 20 centimeters from their handset to significantly reduce radiation exposure. Adults and especially children can suffer the long-term effects of radiation waves on the brain. "Young children particularly need to be careful," Dr. Devra Davis, director for environmental oncology at the University of Pittsburgh, told CNN.com. "We do not have enough information nor do we have enough time to be sure that cell phones are safe, and there's reason for concern that they may be harmful," she said. The University of Pittsburgh also warned its faculty and staff to limit their cell phone use due to the possible cancer risks.
Don't gamble on your life and learn about the reasons why increased cell phone use can have short-term and long-term effects on your health.
Negatively Affects Emotions. The presence of a cell phone while two or more people are talking face-to-face can generate negative feelings toward the person who has his or her device visible. In two studies conducted at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom, researchers studied the effects of a mobile device during a nose-to-nose conversation. In the first study, 37 pairs of strangers were asked to spend 10 minutes talking to each other about an interesting event that happened in their lives within the past month. Half of the participants were seated in a secluded area with a mobile device present on a desk nearby whereas the other half remained without a cellphone. The results of the study showed that those who had a mobile device nearby were perceived less positive by the stranger, compared to the other participants without a cell phone present.
In the second study, researchers included 34 different pairs of strangers who were asked to discuss trivial topics while others were asked to discuss significant events that occurred in their life. Half of the participants chatted with a mobile device while with the stranger and the other half had a notebook. The results of the study showed that those who spoke about significant events in their lives with a notebook present experienced a feeling of closeness and trust in the stranger, unlike those with a cell phone. "These results demonstrate that the presence of mobile phones can interfere with human relationships, an effect that is most clear when individuals are discussing personally meaningful topics," said the researchers of the study.
Increases Stress Levels. The high frequency of cell phone use can have negative effects on our stress levels. The constant ringing, vibrating alerts, and reminders can put a cell phone user on edge. In a study conducted at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, researchers examined if there is a direct link between the psychosocial aspects of cell phone use and mental health symptoms in young adults. The participants of the study included 20- to 24-year-olds who responded to a questionnaire, in addition to a one-year follow-up. Researchers found high mobile phone use was associated with stress and sleep disturbances for women, whereas high mobile phone use was associated with sleep disturbances and symptoms of depression in men. Overall, excessive cell phone use can be a risk factor for mental health issues in young adults.
Increases Risk of Illnesses in Your Immune System. The incessant touching of your phone can harbor germs on your handset. The greasy, oily residue you may see on your cellphone after a day's use can contain more disease-prone germs than those found on a toilet seat. In a study conducted at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Queen Mary, University of London, researchers sampled 390 cell phones and hands to measure for levels of bacteria. The results of the study showed that 92 percent of the cell phones sampled had bacteria on them — 82 percent of hands had bacteria — and 16 percent of cell phones and hands had E. coli. Fecal matter can easily be transferred by cell phones from one person to another.
Increases Risk of Chronic Pain. Cell phones require constant use of your hands, especially when sending text messages and e-mails. Responding to messages at rapid speed can cause pain and inflammation of your joints. Back pain is also common with increased cell phone use, especially if you hold the phone between your neck and shoulders as you multitask. "Long periods of cell phone use cause you to arch your neck and hold your body in a strange posture. This can lead to back pain," says Healthcentral.com.
Increases Risk Of Eye Vision Problems. Staring at your mobile device can cause problems in your vision later in life. Screens on mobile devices tend to be smaller than computer screens, which means you are more likely to squint and strain your eyes while reading messages. According to The Vision Council, more than 70 percent of Americans don't know or are in denial that they are susceptible to digital eye strain.
4. Visual pollution
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_pollution
Updated: 2016-04-20T03:08Z
Visual pollution disturbs the visual areas of people by creating negative changes in the natural environment. Billboards, open storage of trash, space debris, telephone towers, electric wires, buildings and automobiles are forms of visual pollution. An overcrowding of an area causes visual pollution. Visual pollution is defined as the whole of irregular formations, which are mostly found in natural and built environments.
Mobile towers or mobile tumours? That is the question. A slew of buildings in the plush Carmichael Road area in South Mumbai, have come together to appeal to Vijay Apartments to remove mobile towers on top of their building, to prevent harmful radiation. The trigger is a couple of cancer cases in Usha Kiran building located opposite Vijay Apartments.
The cell phone towers installed on the Vijay Apartments terrace at Carmichael Road
pic/Bipin Kokate
Though studies have not yet shown proof of a direct link between mobile tower radiation and cancer, Burjor Cooper, chairman, Carmichael Road Citizen's Committee, (CRCC) echoes the sentiments of those opposed to the towers in his recent appeal, when he says: "It will take several years for the completion of conclusive research and for any restrictions and safety standards to be implemented -- with the result that many innocent lives could be lost because of the harmful effects of mobile phone towers."'Remove mobile towers'
Buildings that are supporting Usha Kiran and have joined in the appeal are: Rushila building, Ghia Mansion, Anand-Kamal Co-Op Society, Everest House and Indira Premises Co-Op Society.
Though debate on the issue has been simmering for six months now, things have heated up since the past two months, with written appeals and meetings with Vijay Apartments to disband the towers.
The appeal, also signed by Prakash Patel, treasurer, CRCC, elaborates: "There are three cases of brain tumours (two cases are of a cancerous nature and one case of recurrent/aggressive meningioma) and one case of bone cancer, all four cases in the recent past in Usha Kiran building. These three floors are directly facing and at the same height as the two mobile phone towers placed on the roof of the building (Vijay Apartments) on the opposite side of the road.
"These life-threatening health issues have been either caused or enhanced by the high levels of Electro Magnetic Radiation (EMR) emitted by mobile phone towers. The health hazards arising from such EMR emissions of mobile phone towers is now recognised in all developed countries and the numerous research reports have been published overseas." They say the towers must be removed to prevent widespread panic too.
Inconsequential findings
Siddharth Bhandari, chairman, Vijay Apartments building society says, "There has been no hostility, either from our side or Usha Kiran. Some months ago, scientists from the Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering and Research (SAMEER) agency in Mumbai did measure the radiation from the towers on our building. It fell within permissible limits.
"We went to Usha Kiran with these findings but they said it was inconsequential, we need to remove the towers anyway."
Risk to families
Bhandari says, "We need to have a solid case to convince society members that these towers, which have been on the building for more than three years, have to be removed. As a resident of the nine-storey building, I reside on the top floor closest to the tower. Even I do not want to expose my family to any radiation risk.
Nobody would. Yet, is there a link between the cancer cases and the mobile towers? Is there reasonable doubt? We have to find out for sure. We also have asked that if we remove the towers then no other building in the vicinity be allowed to put towers.
Ghia Mansion's Shyam B Ghia's letter to Usha Kiran dated October 6, 2009 allays those doubts. It says: "To assure Vijay Apartments' residents that their cooperation is not nullified by future unneighbourly (sic) actions by other societies the undersigned societies undertake and indemnify Vijay Apartments that they themselves will not install any cell phone tower in future."
Not convinced
The Indira Premises Co-operative Society letter says: "In the year 2001, our society was approached by Orange (now Vodafone) for permission to install cell phone towers on our terrace for handsome money consideration to the society. In a special general meeting convened for this specific purpose, the officials of Orange tried to convince our members that there were no known radiation hazards to the residents or to those in the neighbouring buildings.
"In spite of their assurances, our society decided not to allow any installation of cell phone tower on our terrace and subsequently, Vijay Apartments was approached by them."
Health or wealth
Bhandari would not reveal how much money the building was making because of the mobile phone towers, though he did say there was a financial consideration. When asked if there had been a resident recently afflicted with cancer in Vijay Aparments, he candidly said yes. Yet he sought to dispel the notion that Vijay Apartments' residents were callous and money hungry, stating categorically, "Our building residents are not putting money before health considerations."
Bhandari says Vijay Apartments is set to hold another radiation testing in the second week of January 2010, with the "mobile towers switched off. If the testing shows a substantial drop in radiation levels with the towers switched off, we would have to decide how to take this further".
Lakhs or lives?
The angry opposition says testing will not prove anything conclusively, but "all over the world, studies are being done about mobile towers and cancer. Years ago, there was no 'conclusive' proof that cigarettes caused cancer too, but down the line it was proved. So, what are we waiting for? People to die before case studies prove 'conclusively' that mobile cell phone towers are a cancer risk? Is Rs 20 lakh more important than a person's life?"
The rich and the famous
Carmichael Road is one of Mumbai's priciest real estates. Perched on a steep gradient next to its equally pricey neighbour, Altamount Road (labelled as the Millionnaire's Row), Carmichael Road's landmark Usha Kiran building has flats going at more than Rs 90,000 a square foot. The Ambanis were former Usha Kiran residents.
Now, Mukesh Ambani's hyped Antillia building is under construction just ten minutes away on Altamount Road. Kumaramangalam Birla's Adityayan Mangal bungalow is on Carmichael Road. JRD Tata's heritage bungalow is also on Altamount Road.
What doctors say
Dr Suresh Advani, chief oncologist, Jaslok Hospital, says: "I am very clear that there is no evidence or scientific proof of a link between mobile towers and cancer. The link between tobacco and cancer did not take years to establish, it was known since the very beginning earlier than the 1940s or 50s in fact.
"This is a wrong comparison. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that they may cause cancer."
Yet, concerned citizens have collected a huge database of international reports that state cell phone towers are a health hazard, quoting two-time Nobel prize nominee Dr Gerald Hyland who says, "Existing safety guidelines for cell phone towers are completely inadequate. Quite justifiably, the public remains skeptical of attempts by governments and industry to reassure them that all is well, particularly the unethical way in which they often operate symbiotically so as to promote their own vested interests."
Says Dr V V Haribhakti, consultant surgical oncologist, "I am unaware of any studies proving a conclusive link.
The last I read was a Scandinavian study which says there is no link between mobile phone towers and cancer.
I don't think there is any solid evidence supporting this so. I do not think towers should be removed."
What about Jaslok?
Ironically, the Jaslok Hospital, just 120 meters away from Vijay Apartments, has mobile phone towers on top of the structure.
Says Jaslok Hospital CEO Colonel M Masand, "We are not the only building in the vicinity to have these towers.
So far, there is no proof or data from any prominent authority saying that radiation from the towers is harmful.
If anybody shows me proof, I would be the first to throw away these towers."
2. How Mobile Phones Affect Sleep (INFOGRAPHIC)
02/15/2013 12:40 pm ET | Updated Mar 22, 2013
· Katy Hall Managing Features Editor, Huffington Post
· Chris Spurlock
Several years ago my boss, Arianna Huffington, passed out from exhaustion after staying up late to catch up on work. She banged her head on the way down and ended up with five stitches — and became what she calls a “sleep evangelist.” Now she leaves her phone charging in another room when she goes to bed and encourages friends to do the same.
“I sent all my friends the same Christmas gift — a Pottery Barn alarm clock — so they could stop using the excuse that they needed their very tempting iPhone by their bed to wake them up in the morning,” she said.
If your phone wakes you up in the morning, it may also be keeping you up at night. A 2008 study funded by major mobile phone makers themselves showed that people exposed to mobile radiation took longer to fall asleep and spent less time in deep sleep.
“The study indicates that during laboratory exposure to 884 MHz wireless signals components of sleep believed to be important for recovery from daily wear and tear are adversely affected,” the study concluded.
And that’s just a physical symptom of sleeping near the phone — “sham” exposure to a phone without radiation failed to produce the same effect. The itch to check in at all hours of the night or wake up to the sound of a text message disrupts our sleep, too. A quarter of young people feel like they must be available by phone around the clock, according to a Swedish study that linked heavy cell phone use to sleeping problems, stress and depression. Unreturned messages carry more guilt when the technology to address them lies at our fingertips. Some teens even return text messages while they are asleep.
Most of us choose not to set limits on our nighttime availability. Nearly three-quarters of people from the age of 18 to 44 sleep with their phones within reach, according to a 2012 Time/Qualcomm poll. That number falls off slightly in middle age, but only in people 65 and older is leaving the phone in another room as common as sleeping right next it. This story appears in Issue 42 of our weekly iPad magazine, Huffington, in the iTunes App store, available Friday, March 29.
Consumer News3. Five Reasons Why Cellphones Are Bad For Your Health
Jul 12, 2013 01:15 PM By Lizette Borreli
Constant cell phone use can impose a lifetime of health issues. Here are five reasons why.
Ed Yourdon
Ninety-one percent of American adults and 60 percent of teens own this device that has revolutionized communication in the 21st century — the cellphone. Whether you own an Android, an iPhone, a Blackberry, or a basic flip phone, chances are you check your phone for messages, alerts, or calls even when your mobile device isn't ringing or vibrating, reports a Pew Internet & American Life Project survey. The modern convenience that cell phones provide is responsible for everyone's increased daily use. According to the Morningside Recovery Rehabilitation Center, the average American spends 144 minutes a day using his or her phone during a 16-hour period. With an estimated six billion subscriptions worldwide and counting, cell phones have become one of the fundamental means of communication in society.
While cell phones provide an efficient and easy way to communicate with friends, family, and co-workers, excessive use can take a toll on your health. Mobile phones use transmitting radio waves through a series of base stations where radiofrequency waves are electromagnetic fields that cannot break chemical bonds or cause ionization in the human body, says the World Health Organization (WHO). Although cellphones are considered to be low-powered radiofrequency transmitters, your handset transmits power when it is on, and therefore it is important to increase your distance from the handset to reduce radiofrequency exposure. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) suggests cell phone users to keep a minimum distance of 20 centimeters from their handset to significantly reduce radiation exposure. Adults and especially children can suffer the long-term effects of radiation waves on the brain. "Young children particularly need to be careful," Dr. Devra Davis, director for environmental oncology at the University of Pittsburgh, told CNN.com. "We do not have enough information nor do we have enough time to be sure that cell phones are safe, and there's reason for concern that they may be harmful," she said. The University of Pittsburgh also warned its faculty and staff to limit their cell phone use due to the possible cancer risks.
Don't gamble on your life and learn about the reasons why increased cell phone use can have short-term and long-term effects on your health.
Negatively Affects Emotions. The presence of a cell phone while two or more people are talking face-to-face can generate negative feelings toward the person who has his or her device visible. In two studies conducted at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom, researchers studied the effects of a mobile device during a nose-to-nose conversation. In the first study, 37 pairs of strangers were asked to spend 10 minutes talking to each other about an interesting event that happened in their lives within the past month. Half of the participants were seated in a secluded area with a mobile device present on a desk nearby whereas the other half remained without a cellphone. The results of the study showed that those who had a mobile device nearby were perceived less positive by the stranger, compared to the other participants without a cell phone present.
In the second study, researchers included 34 different pairs of strangers who were asked to discuss trivial topics while others were asked to discuss significant events that occurred in their life. Half of the participants chatted with a mobile device while with the stranger and the other half had a notebook. The results of the study showed that those who spoke about significant events in their lives with a notebook present experienced a feeling of closeness and trust in the stranger, unlike those with a cell phone. "These results demonstrate that the presence of mobile phones can interfere with human relationships, an effect that is most clear when individuals are discussing personally meaningful topics," said the researchers of the study.
Increases Stress Levels. The high frequency of cell phone use can have negative effects on our stress levels. The constant ringing, vibrating alerts, and reminders can put a cell phone user on edge. In a study conducted at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, researchers examined if there is a direct link between the psychosocial aspects of cell phone use and mental health symptoms in young adults. The participants of the study included 20- to 24-year-olds who responded to a questionnaire, in addition to a one-year follow-up. Researchers found high mobile phone use was associated with stress and sleep disturbances for women, whereas high mobile phone use was associated with sleep disturbances and symptoms of depression in men. Overall, excessive cell phone use can be a risk factor for mental health issues in young adults.
Increases Risk of Illnesses in Your Immune System. The incessant touching of your phone can harbor germs on your handset. The greasy, oily residue you may see on your cellphone after a day's use can contain more disease-prone germs than those found on a toilet seat. In a study conducted at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Queen Mary, University of London, researchers sampled 390 cell phones and hands to measure for levels of bacteria. The results of the study showed that 92 percent of the cell phones sampled had bacteria on them — 82 percent of hands had bacteria — and 16 percent of cell phones and hands had E. coli. Fecal matter can easily be transferred by cell phones from one person to another.
Increases Risk of Chronic Pain. Cell phones require constant use of your hands, especially when sending text messages and e-mails. Responding to messages at rapid speed can cause pain and inflammation of your joints. Back pain is also common with increased cell phone use, especially if you hold the phone between your neck and shoulders as you multitask. "Long periods of cell phone use cause you to arch your neck and hold your body in a strange posture. This can lead to back pain," says Healthcentral.com.
Increases Risk Of Eye Vision Problems. Staring at your mobile device can cause problems in your vision later in life. Screens on mobile devices tend to be smaller than computer screens, which means you are more likely to squint and strain your eyes while reading messages. According to The Vision Council, more than 70 percent of Americans don't know or are in denial that they are susceptible to digital eye strain.
4. Visual pollution
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_pollution
Updated: 2016-04-20T03:08Z
Visual pollution is an aesthetic issue and refers to the impacts of pollution that impair one's ability to enjoy a vista or view.
Visual pollution disturbs the visual areas of people by creating negative changes in the natural environment. Billboards, open storage of trash, space debris, telephone towers, electric wires, buildings and automobiles are forms of visual pollution. An overcrowding of an area causes visual pollution. Visual pollution is defined as the whole of irregular formations, which are mostly found in natural and built environments.
Effects of exposure to visual pollution include: distraction, eye fatigue, decreases in opinion diversity, and loss of identity.
Artificial tree to hide a mobile phone base station
Sources
By administrative negligence, local managers of urban areas lose control over what is built and assembled in public places. As businesses look for ways to increase profits, cleanliness, architecture, logic and use of space in urban areas are suffering from visual clutter. Variations in the environment are determined by the location of various objects. For example, public transport stations, garbage cans, large panels and stalls. Insensitivity of local administration is another cause for visual pollution. For example, poorly planned buildings and transportation systems create visual pollution. The increase in high-rise buildings brings negative change to the visual and physical characteristics of a city, which reduces the readability of the city and destroys natural environments.
Sources
By administrative negligence, local managers of urban areas lose control over what is built and assembled in public places. As businesses look for ways to increase profits, cleanliness, architecture, logic and use of space in urban areas are suffering from visual clutter. Variations in the environment are determined by the location of various objects. For example, public transport stations, garbage cans, large panels and stalls. Insensitivity of local administration is another cause for visual pollution. For example, poorly planned buildings and transportation systems create visual pollution. The increase in high-rise buildings brings negative change to the visual and physical characteristics of a city, which reduces the readability of the city and destroys natural environments.
Artificial cellphone towers are deceiving to the eye
Advertising is a mirror and shaper of public outlook, social behaviors and standards. A frequent criticism against advertising is that there is too much of it. However, with the introduction of new communication technologies the fragmentation and incentive nature of advertising methods will improve, reducing clutter. Thus, with the increase of mobile device usage, more money goes to advertising on social media websites and mobile apps. Vandalism, in the form of graffiti is defined as street markings, offensive and inappropriate messages made without the owner’s consent. Graffiti adds to visual clutter as it disturbs the view. Billboards are another example of excessive advertising. This form of visual pollution has been alleged to distract drivers, corrupt public taste, boost the infinite need of consumption and clutter the land. See highway beautification.
Natural Radiation Cycle
Advertising is a mirror and shaper of public outlook, social behaviors and standards. A frequent criticism against advertising is that there is too much of it. However, with the introduction of new communication technologies the fragmentation and incentive nature of advertising methods will improve, reducing clutter. Thus, with the increase of mobile device usage, more money goes to advertising on social media websites and mobile apps. Vandalism, in the form of graffiti is defined as street markings, offensive and inappropriate messages made without the owner’s consent. Graffiti adds to visual clutter as it disturbs the view. Billboards are another example of excessive advertising. This form of visual pollution has been alleged to distract drivers, corrupt public taste, boost the infinite need of consumption and clutter the land. See highway beautification.
Natural Radiation Cycle
* Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid July 5, 2016
Part 10 - Let us save the Earth our only ship in space
A view of the Earth from the moon
Two views from Antipolo of Marikina Valley, a dying ecosystem
1. Changing Environment, influenced by man, breeds a variety of ailments and diseases. Nature-Man Balance, the key to good health is being threatened.
2. What and Where is the so-called Good Life? The Good Life is shifting with the transformation of agricultural to industrial economy.
3. The Good Life is synonymous to Affluence. People want goods and services beyond what they actually need. Want leads to luxury - to waste.
Millions of trees and palms are sacrificed every Palm Sunday. Potential loss in coconut alone is immeasurably high, affecting farmers and the industry.4. The world’s population is about 8 billion. Another billion will be added in less than 10 years. Runaway population is the mother of human miseries
5. The proliferation of cities, growth of cities to metropolises and megapolises, each with 10 to 20 million people ensconced in cramped condition. Cities breed Marginal communities
“People, people everywhere, but not a kindred to keep," in condominiums, malls, schools, churches, parks, sharing common lifestyles and socio-economic conditions. They are predisposed to common health problems and vulnerabilities from brownouts to food and fuel shortage, force majeure notwithstanding.
6. Loss of Natural Environment – loss of productivity, loss of farmlands, and wildlife. Destruction of ecosystems - lakes, rivers, forests, coral reefs, grasslands, etc. Destruction of ecosystems is irreversible.
7. Species are threatened, many are now extinct, narrowing down the range of biodiversity. Human health depends largely on a complex interrelationship of the living world. No place on earth is safe from human abuse. Coral Reef – bastion of terrestrial and marine life, is now in distress.
Reflection of deer in a fountain, UST Manila
8. Wildlife shares with our homes, backyards and farms, transmitting deadly diseases like SARS, HIV-AIDS, Mad-Cow, FMD, Ebola, and Bird Flu which can now infect humans, allergies notwithstanding.
9. “Good Life” cradles and nurses obesity and other overweight conditions. Millions of people around the world are obese, wih 34% of Americans in the US obese.
10. Global warming stirs climatic disturbance, changes the face of the earth.
11. Globalization packages the major aspects of human activity – trade, commerce, industry, agriculture, the arts, education, science and technology, politics, religion and the like.
12. . Mélange of races - pooling of genes through inter-racial and inter-cultural marriages produces various mixed lines or “mestizos” - Eurasian, Afro-Asian, Afro-American, Amerasian, and the like. Native genes provide resistance to diseases, adverse conditions of the environment. But will this advantage hold on even as the native gene pools are thinned out?
13. Modern medicine is responsible in reducing mortality and increasing longevity. It has also preserved genetically linked abnormalities; it cradles senility related ailments. It made possible the exchange of organs and tissues through transplantation, and soon tissue cloning. It has changed Evolution that is supposed to cull out the unfit and misfits. Man has Darwinism in his hands.
14. The first scientific breakthrough is the splitting of the atom that led to the development of the atomic bomb as the most potent tool of war as evidenced by its destruction at Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and the nuclear reactor which still holds the promise of providing incessant energy to mankind. The second scientific breakthrough – Microchip led to the development of the Internet which “shrunk the world into a village.”
16. The third breakthrough in science, Genetic Engineering, changed our concept of life - and life forms. It has enabled man to tinker with life itself. Revolutionary industries Examples: In vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood, Human Genome Project (HGP or gene mapping), multiple childbirth, post-menopausal childbirth, DNA mapping, etc. Birth of the prototype human robot – pampered, he lives a very dependent life.
17. Genetic Engineering gave rise to Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) and Gene Therapy. It has also primed Biological Warfare into a more terrifying threat to mankind and the environment. On the other hand Gene Therapy aims at preventing gene-link diseases even before they are expressed; it has actuallty revolutionized medicine. More and more countries are banning GMO crops and animals through legislative measures and conservation programs, including protection against “biopiracy”
No to Genetically Modified Organisms Campaign all over the world18. Today’s Green Revolution opened up non-conventional frontiers of production – mariculture, desalination, desert farming, swamp reclamation, aerophonics (rooftop farming), hydroponics, urban farming, organic farming, Green Revolution adapts genetic engineering to produce GMOs and Frankenfoods. We may not be aware, but many of us are eating
genetically modified food (GMF or Frankenfood) everyday – meat, milk, chicken, corn, potato and soya products, and the like mainly from the US. Many food additives and adjuncts are harmful, from salitre in longganiza to pesticide residue in fruits and vegetables, aspartame in fruit juice to MSG in noodles, formalin in fish to dioxin in plastics, bromate in bread to sulfite in sugar, antibiotic residue in meat to radiation in milk.
• Hydroponics or soiless culture makes farming feasible in cramped quarters, and it increases effective area of farming.
. Aeroponics or Multi-storey farming Vertical Farming Farming in the city on high rise buildings
• Post Harvest Technology. is critical to Food Production. PHT bridges production and consumption, farm and market, thus the proliferation of processed goods, supermarket, fast food chains, food irradiation, ready-to-eat packs, etc.
19. Exploration into the depth of the sea and expanse of the Solar System - and beyond. We probe the hadal depth of the ocean. We build cities in space - the Skylab. Soon we will live outside of the confines of our planet earth. Now we aim at conquering another planet, another Solar System to assure continuity of mankind after the demise of the earth.
20. Regional and International Cooperation is key to global cooperation: EU, ASEAN, APEC, CGIAR, ICRISAT, WTO, WHO, UNEP, WFO, FAO, like fighting pandemic diseases – COVID, HIV-AIDS, SARS, Dengue, Hepatitis, Bird Flu
ANNEX - Candy L. Hidalgo
Program Guest
August 15, 2024
August 15, 2024
A licensed environmental planner, Candy Hidalgo is the deputy coordinator and
project officer of Philippine Misereor Partnership Inc. (PMPI), a social
development network of more than 250 organizations in the country. At PMPI,
she oversees the implementation of diverse projects and activities of PMPI
nationwide since 2013, with thematic concerns including climate change
adaptation/ mitigation and disaster risk reduction and management and the
Rights of Nature
She holds a BS Community Development degree and a Master of Arts in Urban
and Regional Planning from the University of the Philippines, as well as a
Certificate in Applied Humanitarian Logistics Management. Prior to joining
PMPI, she worked as a project officer at PHILSSA and was a research associate
at the Institute of Philippine Culture of Ateneo de Manila University. She
recently finished the Deeptime Network’s Leadership and Personal
Empowerment Program and the 6-month REGEN-Nations program.
Work Experience
Philippine Misereor Partnership, Inc. (PMPI)
Deputy Coordinator (September 2014 to present)
Project Officer for Thematic Concerns (January 2013 to present)
Institute of Philippine Culture Ateneo de Manila University
Research Associate (February 2012 to June 2013) Research Assistant (2004 to
2006; May-June 2011)
Kasagana-Ka Development Center, Inc.
Research Associate (November 2011 to December 2012)
Partnership of Philippine Support Service Agencies (PHILSSA)
Senior Project Officer (2007 to 2011)
Education
Deeptime Leadership and Personal Empowerment Program A 9-month program
of the Deeptime Network
MA in Urban and Regional Planning
Diploma in Urban and Regional Planning, 2012
University of the Philippines – School of Urban & Regional Planning, Diliman,
Quezon City
Certificate in Applied Humanitarian Logistics Management, 2014
Kuehne Foundation-National University of Singapore Education Center for
Humanitarian Logistic Asia Pacific in partnership with the School of Urban and
Regional Planning
BS Community Development
University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City
Researches, Papers and Publications
“Expecting the unexpected: the role of surprise in community-driven
development” by Czarina Saloma, Lorraine Mangaser, Candy Hidalgo, published
by Oxford University Press, January 2016 and in Community Development
Journal, Volume 52, Issue 4, 1 October 2017, Pages 702– 719, https://doi.org/
10.1093/cdj/bsv067
“Supporting Community Gains in Sitio Dormitory in Quezon City” by Cynthia C.
Veneracion, with assistance of Candy D. Lachica, a project output of the JSDF/
World Bank-PHILSSA Upscaling Urban Poor Community Renewal Scheme
Project, published by Institute of Philippine Culture, Ateneo de Manila
University in Quezon City, 2006.
[https://openlibrary.org/works/OL2611901W/
Supporting_community_gains_in_sitio_dormito ry_in_Quezon_City]
“Improving Communities in the City of San Fernando (La Union)” by Cynthia C.
Veneracion, with assistance of Myal C. Apilado, Candy D. Lachica and Lorraine
S. Mangaser, a project output of the JSDF/World Bank-PHILSSA Upscaling
Urban Poor Community Renewal Scheme Project, published by Institute of
Philippine Culture, Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City, 2006. [https://
openlibrary.org/works/OL2611894W/
Improving_communities_in_the_city_of_San_Fer nando_La_Union]
World Bank. 2011. The social impacts of tropical storm Ondoy and typhoon
Pepeng - The recovery of communities in Metro Manila and Luzon (English).
Washington, DC: World Bank. [http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/
767871468094149664/The-social-impacts-of tropical-storm-Ondoy-and-
typhoon-Pepeng-The-recovery-of-communities-in-Metro-Manila and-Luzon
“Expecting the unexpected: the role of surprise in community-driven
development” by Czarina Saloma, Lorraine Mangaser, Candy Hidalgo, published
by Oxford University Press, January 2016 and in Community Development
Journal, Volume 52, Issue 4, 1 October 2017, Pages 702– 719, https://doi.org/
10.1093/cdj/bsv067
“Supporting Community Gains in Sitio Dormitory in Quezon City” by Cynthia C.
Veneracion, with assistance of Candy D. Lachica, a project output of the JSDF/
World Bank-PHILSSA Upscaling Urban Poor Community Renewal Scheme
Project, published by Institute of Philippine Culture, Ateneo de Manila
University in Quezon City, 2006.
[https://openlibrary.org/works/OL2611901W/
Supporting_community_gains_in_sitio_dormito ry_in_Quezon_City]
“Improving Communities in the City of San Fernando (La Union)” by Cynthia C.
Veneracion, with assistance of Myal C. Apilado, Candy D. Lachica and Lorraine
S. Mangaser, a project output of the JSDF/World Bank-PHILSSA Upscaling
Urban Poor Community Renewal Scheme Project, published by Institute of
Philippine Culture, Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City, 2006. [https://
openlibrary.org/works/OL2611894W/
Improving_communities_in_the_city_of_San_Fer nando_La_Union]
World Bank. 2011. The social impacts of tropical storm Ondoy and typhoon
Pepeng - The recovery of communities in Metro Manila and Luzon (English).
Washington, DC: World Bank. [http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/
767871468094149664/The-social-impacts-of tropical-storm-Ondoy-and-
typhoon-Pepeng-The-recovery-of-communities-in-Metro-Manila and-Luzon
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