Lesson on TATAKalikasan Ateneo de Manila University
97.8 FM Radyo Katipunan, 11 to 12 a.m. Thursday, October 3, 2024
"One Family, One Earth"
Laudato si: On the care of our common home
- Response to the cry of the earth;
- Response to the cry of the poor;
- Ecological economics;
- Adoption of sustainable lifestyles;
- Ecological education;
- Ecological spirituality; and
- Community resilience and empowerment.
Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature - School on Blog
Co-Host, Fr JM Manzano SJ, and Prof. Emoy Rodolfo, AdMU
Guest: Mr Joe O Nacianceno, Formator of Laudato si Movement Filipinas
Part 1 - Endangered Treaty of Nature and ManPart 2 - Ten Important Concerns of EcologyPart 3 - Environmental degradation is the most serious global abuse
Part 4 - Major Concerns about Biology and Ecology - Open QuestionsPart 5 - Ecology's Dilemma Today - "All in the Name of Progress"
ANNEX - Top 10 Laudato Si’ Quotes on the Environment
Wounded Peace in acrylic by the author
Part 1 - Endangered Treaty of Nature and Man
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 Shangri-La, 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.
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.
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Man, being the superior organism, has not only won over his rivals - all organisms that constitute the biosphere. He has also assaulted Nature.
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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 ploughed through the city, ending reign of this erstwhile mercantile power, and removing the threat to the Roman economy.
“If a river dies – so with all the stars that shine on its water.”
Painting by AVRotor in acrylic
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 few thousands 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.
Part 2 - 10 Important Concerns of Ecology
1. The world everywhere, from the tundra down to the rich tropical forests, faces unabated threats to wildlife destruction, as human activities continue to defile nature not only of its flora and fauna but of natural habitats.
End of Summer, wall mural by the author
2. While the target of conservation is the protection of plants and animals particularly those that are considered to be facing extinction and are being endangered, the greater concern of ecology is the protection of natural habitats and ecological systems.
3. On another front of human activities often characterized by man’s quests for the “good life” through industrialization he believes to be the prime mover of progress and development, the production of unwanted by-products threatens the earth’s dynamic processes, Already the emission of gases from burning fossil oil has resulted to two serious consequences; thinning of the ozone layer and the building up of heat of the atmosphere resulting to global warming.
4. As human population continues to escalate which is going to double the present 6 billion mark by 2025, more and more people now believe that only by heeding the Malthusian prediction that our world may be spared of unimagined scenario of mass starvation and death.
5. On the other hand, quests for new frontiers of science has led us to the fore – unlocking the code of heredity that may soon replace conventional breeding, resulting thus far in the production of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) and Genetically modified Food (GMF).
Living with Nature in acrylic by the author
Interplanetary travel takes years, many years. Into the unknown man carries the environment of the earth in a capsule or bubble. Space biology studies not only the effect on man but to plants and animals as well – some kind of man-made ecological system in space. We have virtually started a new field, space ecology.
7. If a third world war is to come, what kind of war is it? People are in a quandary, even those who are witness to the last world war and different wars after that. On media, a third world war if really global and the enemy stalks, respecting no boundaries of politics, culture and faith. It will be a war everyone is concerned of – real or psychological, covering the ultimate warfare materiels - nuclear, chemical and biological.
8. On the concept of human habitat, how ideal can planning get close to it has been demonstrated in some models, which is far from the answer of what a human community should be. The crux of the problem is in drawing up a treaty between nature and man. Could this be an alternative to cities and high rise buildings?
9. Terms like ecotourism, ecomigtration, ecozones, etc. are jargons often disguised economic programs, rather than ecological in purpose. As such, projects of this kind must be reviewed in the light of ecology rather than economics.
10. Zero waste management is ideal, it is a utopia of a modern world. But looking at the experiences of industrialized countries like Japan, Germany and Norway waste is just another resource waiting to be tapped. Why not? Isn’t garbage the excess of our wasteful luxurious living?
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.
Global Warming in acrylic by the author
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 destroyed 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. ~
Part 3 - Environmental degradation is the most serious global abuse
Environmental degradation is the most serious global abuse, not only in pursuit of actual human need, but his unending want of affluence apparently of no end. The earth is slowly choking with deadly gases, its surface defaced and stripped of natural cover, man-made materials dumped on land and water, in fact its geography has changed and continues to be modified directly and indirectly by man.
1. What withheld the world to shift to alternative energy was the cheap fossil fuel, virtually oozing from the ground and flowing through pipelines around the globe to feed the
industrial boom and millions of cars as affluence rose to the point of ostentatious and frivolous living. But each car’s exhaust is a miniature volcano, erupting daily, worse than a Mt Pinatubo (Philippines) and Mount St Helens (US) combined.
4. Gases in the atmosphere trap heat from escaping, thus solar heat together with heat generated by the earth and man’s activities collectively contribute to global warming at an alarming rate. Climate change has been the cause of climatic adversities (typhoons, tornadoes, drought, blizzards), erratic weather, and other unexplained atmospheric phenomena.
5. In Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” the world is getting warmer and warmer at a geometric rate, far exceeding any period of the history of the earth except in its early formation. Warming is traced to increasing amount of CO2 in the air, the principal gas of combustion mainly of fossil fuel that runs agriculture, industry, transportation, and illuminate whole cities around the world.
6, The failure of timely shift to alternative fuel even as fossil fuel sources are dwindling, even as alternative energy is available, even as population demand tremendously increased in the past one hundred years, has grave consequences which we are feeling today, and this is just the beginning - fuel shortage, high cost of living, increasing inequity leading to mass poverty.
7. Environmental degradation is the most serious effect, not only in meeting actual need, but unending want of affluence apparently of no end. The earth is slowly choking with deadly gases, its surface defaced and stripped of natural cover, man-made materials dumped on land and water, in fact its geography has changed and continues to be modified directly and indirectly by man.
8. Reminiscent of the Dust Bowl of the Dakotas in the US in the early 20th century are similar desertification cases, farmlands becoming wastelands due to excessive farming and poor management, such cases include the Sahel region (Africa) struck in the 60s by extreme drought, farmlands around the shrinking Aral Sea (Russia), the source of irrigation now only a measly fraction of its original size.
A comparison of Aral Sea in 1989 (left) and 2014 (right)
10. All over the world lakes and rivers are dying: Lake Chad of Africa, Aral Sea of Russia, tributaries of Mississippi in the US, Nile in Egypt, Yangtze in China, Mekong in Vietnam. Who would believe that odor of methane and hydrogen sulphide from the polluted harbour of Hongkong is the first to greet passengers even before landing on the sprawling modern airport? So with tourists on reaching the deck of the 100-storey Sears Tower on Lake Michigan in the US. ~
Bad air over New Delhi, typical in other big cities like Beijing, New York and Metro Manila
industrial boom and millions of cars as affluence rose to the point of ostentatious and frivolous living. But each car’s exhaust is a miniature volcano, erupting daily, worse than a Mt Pinatubo (Philippines) and Mount St Helens (US) combined.
2. The air accumulates gaseous materials and particulates, building acid rain that turns soil acidic and unproductive, defacing valuable works of art (historical relics and artefacts), causing illnesses heretofore unrecorded in medical books, and triggering other diseases as well, including the resurgence of ancient diseases like tuberculosis.
Thinning of the ozone layer over Antarctica. Ozone hole has been detected over the Arctic.
3. The ozone layer, a protective blanket against radiation from space is being thinned by CFC and other gases. A hole at the southern hemisphere as big as continental USA, exposes millions, particularly children, in Australia and New Zealand to ultraviolet rays, a major cause of skin cancer. A smaller ozone hole is building up over the Arctic region.
4. Gases in the atmosphere trap heat from escaping, thus solar heat together with heat generated by the earth and man’s activities collectively contribute to global warming at an alarming rate. Climate change has been the cause of climatic adversities (typhoons, tornadoes, drought, blizzards), erratic weather, and other unexplained atmospheric phenomena.
5. In Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” the world is getting warmer and warmer at a geometric rate, far exceeding any period of the history of the earth except in its early formation. Warming is traced to increasing amount of CO2 in the air, the principal gas of combustion mainly of fossil fuel that runs agriculture, industry, transportation, and illuminate whole cities around the world.
6, The failure of timely shift to alternative fuel even as fossil fuel sources are dwindling, even as alternative energy is available, even as population demand tremendously increased in the past one hundred years, has grave consequences which we are feeling today, and this is just the beginning - fuel shortage, high cost of living, increasing inequity leading to mass poverty.
7. Environmental degradation is the most serious effect, not only in meeting actual need, but unending want of affluence apparently of no end. The earth is slowly choking with deadly gases, its surface defaced and stripped of natural cover, man-made materials dumped on land and water, in fact its geography has changed and continues to be modified directly and indirectly by man.
8. Reminiscent of the Dust Bowl of the Dakotas in the US in the early 20th century are similar desertification cases, farmlands becoming wastelands due to excessive farming and poor management, such cases include the Sahel region (Africa) struck in the 60s by extreme drought, farmlands around the shrinking Aral Sea (Russia), the source of irrigation now only a measly fraction of its original size. A comparison of Aral Sea in 1989 (left) and 2014 (right)
9. We don’t have to go far. Our own Laguna Bay, bigger than the Sea of Galilee, is dying, its once pristine blue water as I saw it in the sixties as a UPLB trainee in a lakeshore barangay, Gatid, Sta Cruz, is now shallow and muddy as siltation and pollution from homes, farms and industries from four surrounding provinces worsen by encroaching settlements and fishpens clogging the lake – indeed a desecration of the lake’s beauty as described in Rizal’s celebrated novel, Noli Me Tangere.
10. All over the world lakes and rivers are dying: Lake Chad of Africa, Aral Sea of Russia, tributaries of Mississippi in the US, Nile in Egypt, Yangtze in China, Mekong in Vietnam. Who would believe that odor of methane and hydrogen sulphide from the polluted harbour of Hongkong is the first to greet passengers even before landing on the sprawling modern airport? So with tourists on reaching the deck of the 100-storey Sears Tower on Lake Michigan in the US. ~
Part 4 - Major Concerns about Biology and Ecology - Open Questions
Here are questions often raised in the academe about Biological and Environmental Sciences. How familiar are you to these questions? You may find them useful in your studies, lectures, discussions, exams, researches, and the like.
UST Graduate School students visit vermiculture project of La Mesa Eco Park, QC
Photos by Sunshine Rolle
1. How do you relate autotoxicity of yeast in fermentation, and the tale of the Pied Piper, with humankind’s possible extinction? Are we in our sunset as a species?
2. Were our ancestors a happier lot? In what ways? What has Folk Wisdom to do with our present lives?
3. What are the three scientific breakthroughs? What are their applications? (10)
4. There is an aspect in Human Ecology about “love life.” How do you relate it with health and values? Is married life a blissful life?
5. How is bioethics applied in present day life, specifically in ecology? Explain in relation to pollution, human factors in development, and the like.
6. Global warming has many consequences: What are these? Do these have anything to do with the biblical events and prophesies?
7. What is the Disconnection Syndrome? Explain. How do you relate it to Connectivity?
8. Today’s concept of heroes has taken a universal perspective. Compare it with the traditional concept of heroes, saints and martyrs. Cite prominent names.
9. What is the paradigm of salvation on the ecological perspective? How do you relate this with our lessons? What are the other paradigms to compare with? Is it compatible to them?
10. Present ten (10) scenarios created by the increasing atmospheric heat brought about by Greenhouse Effect.
11. Differentiate the following:
a.Paedogenesis from Parthenogenesisb..Aestivation from Hibernationc.Most primitive vs most advance Organismsd.Shortest vs longest life span of organismse.Colony of termites vs a horde of migratory locusts
12.Present a scenario if all insects in the world were eliminated.
13. Inbreeding is apparent in parthenogenetic organisms, which include many inverrtebrates and plankton organisms. This phenomenon is contrary to Darwinian principles of survival and evolution? How can these organisms cope up with this disadvantage?
14.Why is Genetic Engineering controversial? On which side of the argument do you support? Explain.
15.“Stress predisposes an organism to shortened life cycle.” What is the background of this statement? Do you agree with it? What is its implication?
16.“Being small is a biological asset.” What is the rationale in the biological world? In the insect world? (Identify the insects in the photos.)
17.Arthropods dominate the animal kingdom in diversity and number.
a. What are the common characteristics of Arthropods?b. How are Arthropods classified? Describe each class, and cite common
examples.
18.Many organisms are called “living fossils?” Explain. What organisms demonstrate this phenomenon? What enabled these organisms to defy the conventional rules of evolution?
19.What are the components of Integrated Pest Management? Briefly explain each.
20.Make a list of destructive insects (be specific) and the nature of damage they inflict, in common names. You may provide other important information
21.How do insects survive extreme conditions of the environment? During summer? Winter? Cite examples.
22. What are the 12 most important orders of insects? Briefly explain each and cite examples.
23. There are poisonous plants found in nature which ethnic societies learned to deal with their poison. Explain how the poison is removed or at least reduced to safe level.
24. There are 30 pesticide-free vegetables in their common and scientific names which I listed in the Blog and in the book, Living with Nature. They are resistant to insects, mites, nematodes, snails, fungi, including weeds, rodents and birds, and are often found in the wild, or in the open spaces. Name as many as you can recall, in common names.
25. What group of vegetable is the most sprayed – in fact chemical pesticide is a must in its cultivation. What are the tips on how to minimize the effects of pesticides? What should we do with vegetables raised with chemical spraying as a prescribed horticultural practice? (Crucifers. How many can you identify in the photo?)
26. In your readings, what make Garlic a Miracle Health Food and Medicine
27. There are wild food plants or hunger crops that provide an alternative source of food and nutrition on the grassroots in times of poor harvest and calamities like drought. Being native or indigenous they survive extreme conditions of the environment, they need very little care, if at all. Name ten of them which are found locally and how they are prepared.
28. To make natural farming and gardening work, one must turn to the so-called “eight senses” - the intelligence of naturalism- which, in turn, makes a green thumb. Natural farming and/or gardening is described by five principles, to wit: (Give examples under each.)
a. Take advantage of the functions of living things as producers;b. From a single process, harness two or more products;c. Use leftovers and wastes as resource for the next process;d. Remember that the value of a given process can be greater than the sumof its parts; ande. Capitalize on natural assets of certain organisms and certain environmental factors.
29. What are sea vegetables, what are the 5 most common in the market
30. Trace the flow of solar energy from the physical to the biological world. Emphasize the role of the cell and its parts. Show the transformation of energy along the pathway. How is energy conserved and released? Illustrate and explain. ~
*Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class Monday to Friday (www.pbs.gov.ph)Part 5 - Ecology's Dilemma Today - "All in the Name of Progress"
Pristine environment such as the Loboc River in Bohol is becoming rare
• It looks like man has been able to trace the source of the water that comes from the proverbial Pierian Spring, the secret of health and long life. For years it was believed that the spring lies up in Shangrila atop the Himalayas, or according to the Greeks on Mt. Olympus, or the Egyptians in the Pyramids. One does not have to go there now.
Even today the average life span of man is mid 70. It will not be a surprise if one out of a hundred individuals will be a centenarian. One report claims that the life span of man can be increased up to 140 years by the middle of the millennium. How long did Moses live?
• But cancer is on the rise, so with AIDS, and the spread of genetically linked defects and illness. Work-related and stress-related deaths will likewise increase with heart and severe depression as the leading diseases, followed by the traditional diseases like respiratory and diarrheal diseases. Already there are 15 million people who have died of AIDS and 40 millions more who are living with HIV, the viral infection. A pandemic potential with up to 1 billion people to become affected with HIV has started appearing on some crystal balls and this is not impossible if it hits populous Asia.
Street children rehabilitation center. Bahay ni Kuya, Cubao QC
• Cloning, the most controversial discovery in biology and medicine, will continue to steal the limelight in this millennium, stirring conscience, ethics and religion. It is now sensed as the biggest threat to human society, and if Frankenstein is back and some people regard him as a hero instead of a villain, we can only imagine the imminent destruction our society faces - the emergence of sub- and ultra- human beings. On the other hand, there are those who look at cloning as an important tool of medicine to enable doctors to save lives and increase life expectancy. They also believe that cloning in situ (on site) will do away with tedious and unreliable organ transplants.
• Gene therapy is in, medicinal healing is out. It means diagnosing the potential disease before it strikes by knowing its source. Actually diseases are triggered by specific genes. Reading the gene map of an individual, the doctor can “cure” the disease right at it genetic source. We call this gene therapy, the newest field in medical science. But the altered gene will be passed on to the next generation. Playing God, isn’t? Definitely it is, and it is possible to use this technology not only for the sake of treatment but for programmed genetic alteration. Another Frankenstein in the offing? But scientists are saying gene therapy can be a tool in removing permanently the genes that cause cancer, AIDS, and genetically linked diseases like diabetes, Down’s Syndrome, and probably alcoholism.
• We are in an age of test tube babies. There are now 100,000 test tube babies in the US alone since 1978, the arrival of Louise Brown, the world’s first test tube baby. The industry has just started booming with sperm and ova banks established and linked with the Internet and other commodity channels. Not only childless couples can have children, but even a sixty year old woman can - through what is coined as menopausal childbirth technology. Surrogate mothers for hire, anyone?
• If diseases can be predicted and successfully treated, and life can be prolonged – these have indeed grave consequences to population increase. Already there are 7.7 billion people inhabiting the earth today, and we are increasing at the rate of more than 80 million a year. After 2150 we shall have reached 13 billion, the estimated maximum capacity our planet can support. Is Malthus right after all? It looks like the ghost of this English political economist and priest is back to warn us, this time more urgent than his 1789 prediction that our population would grow until it reaches the limits of our food supply.
• Our Earth is getting warmer, and this is not any kind of comfort but destruction. We have experienced seven of the ten warmest years in the past decade and we are heading toward another Noah’s episode. Low lying areas where the rich farmlands and many big cities virtually squat will be flooded. Heat is trapped by the carbon that we generate from our cars and industries creating a “greenhouse effect.” As the world’s temperature increases, the polar ice will melt, more rains and climatic disturbances will ensue. Climate scientists have predicted that by year 2100 the earth’s temperature will go up from 1 to 3.5 degrees centigrade. But wait, the worst is yet to come. Global warming will plunge us ultimately – towards the middle of the millennium – into another ice age! There will be a buildup of ice at the polar regions as the ocean currents fail to carry warm water to the poles and back.
• The trend of lifestyle will be toward the simple and natural, even in the midst of high tech living. More and more people will go for natural food and natural medicine as they become conscious of their health. The media and the information highway will provide more people access to entertainment and information. Remote management and distance learning will greatly influence business and education. But people will still seek greener pastures in cities and in foreign lands.
• “Save the earth!” has yet to be a denominator of cooperation and peace among nations. The failure of the Earth Summit some years ago at Rio de Janairo, and the first summit before in Stockholm, has produced valuable lessons leaders must learn. There is only one ship in which all of us are riding. Let us all save our ship.
All in the name of Progress
It is all in the name of progress that nations are pursuing. The West insists of pushing the frontiers of technology into the so-called “third wave.” The East, the Asian Pacific region, insists on industrialization in order to catch up with the progress of the West, while the Middle East has yet to undergo a major socio-cultural and political transformation while aiming at lofty economic goals.
Progress, it is generally believed, is the aim of globalization, and globalization is building of a world village. Isn’t this the key to peace and cooperation? Sounds familiar to scholars and leaders.
Maybe, but the greatest challenge lies in the preservation of a healthy Mother Earth, a common denominator of concern irrespective of political, ideological and religious boundaries. It is the saving of the environment that will be the biggest challenge to this and the coming generations.
Even today the average life span of man is mid 70. It will not be a surprise if one out of a hundred individuals will be a centenarian. One report claims that the life span of man can be increased up to 140 years by the middle of the millennium. How long did Moses live?
• But cancer is on the rise, so with AIDS, and the spread of genetically linked defects and illness. Work-related and stress-related deaths will likewise increase with heart and severe depression as the leading diseases, followed by the traditional diseases like respiratory and diarrheal diseases. Already there are 15 million people who have died of AIDS and 40 millions more who are living with HIV, the viral infection. A pandemic potential with up to 1 billion people to become affected with HIV has started appearing on some crystal balls and this is not impossible if it hits populous Asia.
• Cloning, the most controversial discovery in biology and medicine, will continue to steal the limelight in this millennium, stirring conscience, ethics and religion. It is now sensed as the biggest threat to human society, and if Frankenstein is back and some people regard him as a hero instead of a villain, we can only imagine the imminent destruction our society faces - the emergence of sub- and ultra- human beings. On the other hand, there are those who look at cloning as an important tool of medicine to enable doctors to save lives and increase life expectancy. They also believe that cloning in situ (on site) will do away with tedious and unreliable organ transplants.
• Gene therapy is in, medicinal healing is out. It means diagnosing the potential disease before it strikes by knowing its source. Actually diseases are triggered by specific genes. Reading the gene map of an individual, the doctor can “cure” the disease right at it genetic source. We call this gene therapy, the newest field in medical science. But the altered gene will be passed on to the next generation. Playing God, isn’t? Definitely it is, and it is possible to use this technology not only for the sake of treatment but for programmed genetic alteration. Another Frankenstein in the offing? But scientists are saying gene therapy can be a tool in removing permanently the genes that cause cancer, AIDS, and genetically linked diseases like diabetes, Down’s Syndrome, and probably alcoholism.
• We are in an age of test tube babies. There are now 100,000 test tube babies in the US alone since 1978, the arrival of Louise Brown, the world’s first test tube baby. The industry has just started booming with sperm and ova banks established and linked with the Internet and other commodity channels. Not only childless couples can have children, but even a sixty year old woman can - through what is coined as menopausal childbirth technology. Surrogate mothers for hire, anyone?
• If diseases can be predicted and successfully treated, and life can be prolonged – these have indeed grave consequences to population increase. Already there are 7.7 billion people inhabiting the earth today, and we are increasing at the rate of more than 80 million a year. After 2150 we shall have reached 13 billion, the estimated maximum capacity our planet can support. Is Malthus right after all? It looks like the ghost of this English political economist and priest is back to warn us, this time more urgent than his 1789 prediction that our population would grow until it reaches the limits of our food supply.
• Our Earth is getting warmer, and this is not any kind of comfort but destruction. We have experienced seven of the ten warmest years in the past decade and we are heading toward another Noah’s episode. Low lying areas where the rich farmlands and many big cities virtually squat will be flooded. Heat is trapped by the carbon that we generate from our cars and industries creating a “greenhouse effect.” As the world’s temperature increases, the polar ice will melt, more rains and climatic disturbances will ensue. Climate scientists have predicted that by year 2100 the earth’s temperature will go up from 1 to 3.5 degrees centigrade. But wait, the worst is yet to come. Global warming will plunge us ultimately – towards the middle of the millennium – into another ice age! There will be a buildup of ice at the polar regions as the ocean currents fail to carry warm water to the poles and back.
• The trend of lifestyle will be toward the simple and natural, even in the midst of high tech living. More and more people will go for natural food and natural medicine as they become conscious of their health. The media and the information highway will provide more people access to entertainment and information. Remote management and distance learning will greatly influence business and education. But people will still seek greener pastures in cities and in foreign lands.
• “Save the earth!” has yet to be a denominator of cooperation and peace among nations. The failure of the Earth Summit some years ago at Rio de Janairo, and the first summit before in Stockholm, has produced valuable lessons leaders must learn. There is only one ship in which all of us are riding. Let us all save our ship.
All in the name of Progress
It is all in the name of progress that nations are pursuing. The West insists of pushing the frontiers of technology into the so-called “third wave.” The East, the Asian Pacific region, insists on industrialization in order to catch up with the progress of the West, while the Middle East has yet to undergo a major socio-cultural and political transformation while aiming at lofty economic goals.
Progress, it is generally believed, is the aim of globalization, and globalization is building of a world village. Isn’t this the key to peace and cooperation? Sounds familiar to scholars and leaders.
Maybe, but the greatest challenge lies in the preservation of a healthy Mother Earth, a common denominator of concern irrespective of political, ideological and religious boundaries. It is the saving of the environment that will be the biggest challenge to this and the coming generations.
Poor Rating of Earth Summit
The recent Copenhagen Earth Summit renewed basically the agenda of previous summits. But demonstrators expressed pessimism over the sincerity of world leaders on environmental issues.
They had in mind what happened to the promises made by leaders from 178 nations who gathered in the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro some years ago. These are the four areas of accord: biodiversity, climate, deforestation, and population.
On the biodiversity accord signed by 161 countries (except the US), ecosystems continue to be assaulted and fragmented. On arresting global warming as a result of emissions from industries and vehicles, developing countries on the path of industrialization have exacerbated the problem. Deforestation virtually knows no limits and bounds as long as there is wilderness to conquer. Every year forests are lost the size of Nepal. Asia has lost 95 percent of its woodlands.
There are now 7.7 billion people on earth. Every year about 85 million people are added. This is slightly bigger than the Philippines’ total population. Although birth rates are going down in the West as well as in the NICS, there is a boom in babies in rural Asia, Latin America and Africa.
What is the score of the Earth Summit? Rhetorics and promises can not be relied upon. It is in this area that globalization should be reviewed. Globalization should be defined in economic, cultural and environmental terms. This triad approach has yet to be addressed to all members of the global village. And there should be a new world governance, more credible than the UN, to undertake this gargantuan task.
“Hundreds of millions of people will starve to death,” warned Paul Ehrlich in his book, The Population Bomb. This is an echo of the Malthusian Theory raised 250 years ago. This means farmers, in spite of biotechnology, can not keep up indefinitely with increasing food demands. Yet there is a great disparity in food distribution. While the average adult needs 2200 calories a day, an American consumes 3603 as compared to the intake of a Kenyan which is only 1991 calories.
Degradation of the land, the breaking up of ecosystems, are resulting to modern day exodus of ecomigrants who cross borders, invade cities and build marginal communities, threaten security of nations, and creates other socio-economic problems. Desertification, soil erosion, overuse of farms drive multitudes to search for greener pasture, many in the guise of overseas workers, settlers, refugees.
The birth of megacities is a human phenomenon in modern times. The world’s cities are bursting at the seams. Half of the world’s population live in urban areas today, and more are coming in. In developed countries 75 percent of their population live in cities. By year 2015, 27 of the world’s 33 largest cities will be found in Asia, with Mumbai and Shanghai bursting with 20 million each. Today the most populous city in the world is Tokyo with 27 million people. New York has 16.3 million which is about the same as Sao Paolo. Metro Manila has 10 million.
On global warming, figures show how the world fares under greenhouse effect. This phenomenon is attributed to the severity of the last three episodes of El Nino in the last three decades, and to the prevalence of deadly tornadoes, hurricane, floods and natural calamities.
A hole in the sky was caused by damaging chemicals that tear down the vital atmospheric ozone shield that keeps us from too much heat and radiation. The size of the ozone hole about the Antarctic region is estimated to be like the whole continental US – and is still expanding. CFC use is now restricted in most countries, but there are other damaging chemicals used by agriculture and industry. Methyl bromide for one is 40 times more destructive to ozone than CFC.
Indeed, this millennium is the deciding point whether we can save Mother Earth - or fail. Already a decade has passed, and the trend of destruction has even increased. If we fail it is also the doom of mankind and the living world. It is yet the greatest challenge to civilization. ~
Idyllic rural life. People tend to go and live in the city. Painting by the author.
They had in mind what happened to the promises made by leaders from 178 nations who gathered in the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro some years ago. These are the four areas of accord: biodiversity, climate, deforestation, and population.
On the biodiversity accord signed by 161 countries (except the US), ecosystems continue to be assaulted and fragmented. On arresting global warming as a result of emissions from industries and vehicles, developing countries on the path of industrialization have exacerbated the problem. Deforestation virtually knows no limits and bounds as long as there is wilderness to conquer. Every year forests are lost the size of Nepal. Asia has lost 95 percent of its woodlands.
There are now 7.7 billion people on earth. Every year about 85 million people are added. This is slightly bigger than the Philippines’ total population. Although birth rates are going down in the West as well as in the NICS, there is a boom in babies in rural Asia, Latin America and Africa.
What is the score of the Earth Summit? Rhetorics and promises can not be relied upon. It is in this area that globalization should be reviewed. Globalization should be defined in economic, cultural and environmental terms. This triad approach has yet to be addressed to all members of the global village. And there should be a new world governance, more credible than the UN, to undertake this gargantuan task.
“Hundreds of millions of people will starve to death,” warned Paul Ehrlich in his book, The Population Bomb. This is an echo of the Malthusian Theory raised 250 years ago. This means farmers, in spite of biotechnology, can not keep up indefinitely with increasing food demands. Yet there is a great disparity in food distribution. While the average adult needs 2200 calories a day, an American consumes 3603 as compared to the intake of a Kenyan which is only 1991 calories.
Degradation of the land, the breaking up of ecosystems, are resulting to modern day exodus of ecomigrants who cross borders, invade cities and build marginal communities, threaten security of nations, and creates other socio-economic problems. Desertification, soil erosion, overuse of farms drive multitudes to search for greener pasture, many in the guise of overseas workers, settlers, refugees.
The birth of megacities is a human phenomenon in modern times. The world’s cities are bursting at the seams. Half of the world’s population live in urban areas today, and more are coming in. In developed countries 75 percent of their population live in cities. By year 2015, 27 of the world’s 33 largest cities will be found in Asia, with Mumbai and Shanghai bursting with 20 million each. Today the most populous city in the world is Tokyo with 27 million people. New York has 16.3 million which is about the same as Sao Paolo. Metro Manila has 10 million.
On global warming, figures show how the world fares under greenhouse effect. This phenomenon is attributed to the severity of the last three episodes of El Nino in the last three decades, and to the prevalence of deadly tornadoes, hurricane, floods and natural calamities.
A hole in the sky was caused by damaging chemicals that tear down the vital atmospheric ozone shield that keeps us from too much heat and radiation. The size of the ozone hole about the Antarctic region is estimated to be like the whole continental US – and is still expanding. CFC use is now restricted in most countries, but there are other damaging chemicals used by agriculture and industry. Methyl bromide for one is 40 times more destructive to ozone than CFC.
Indeed, this millennium is the deciding point whether we can save Mother Earth - or fail. Already a decade has passed, and the trend of destruction has even increased. If we fail it is also the doom of mankind and the living world. It is yet the greatest challenge to civilization. ~
ANNEX - Top 10 Laudato Si’ Quotes on the Environment
1. “A spirituality which forgets God as all-powerful and Creator is not acceptable.”
2. “We are faced…with one complex crisis which is both social and environmental.”
4. .“There can be no ecology without an adequate anthropology.”
5. “Environmental problems cannot be separated from… how individuals relate to themselves.
6. “Acceptance of our bodies as God’s gift is vital for welcoming and accepting the entire world as a gift from the Father…thinking that we enjoy absolute power over our own bodies turns, often subtly, into thinking that we enjoy absolute power over creation“.
7. “The harmony between the Creator, humanity and creation as a whole was disrupted by our presuming to take the place of God and refusing to acknowledge our creaturely limitations.”
8. “The issue is one which dramatically affects us, for it has to do with the ultimate meaning of our earthly sojourn.”
9. “The best way to restore men and women to their rightful place…is to speak once more of the figure of a Father who creates and who alone owns the world.”
10. “We require a new and universal solidarity.” ~ Internet ~
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