TRAILS UP NORTH

Glo Abaeo Tuazon
My Earth, my life

Celebration in Baguio started as early as 8 a.m. Wednesday with a parade that saw real people support the Earth Day cause. It was an event set purposely for the awareness and protest on the hurried pace of environmental degradation and destruction.

All over the world are headlines shouting about global warming, forest denudation, water scarcity, garbage pile-up and such others that always go back to one thing…the inability of people to care about this space and time we live in.

Global crises started to set in too. Along with that is the craving of people to do something for survival. In a bid to gain and live, some people turn to the very things that sustain them, mother earth. But what comes after the gain are endless pains. For the momentary reprieve we get from the massive destruction is an aftermath that soon turn ugly and horrifying.

Take the case of uncontrolled mining. When the earth gives, they give aplenty. But everything has to come to an end. The tunnels soon tire and then the veins of gold stop. The sad thing about that is sometimes with the endless tunneling, the mountains give way and erode.

The strength of the earth is gone and with the pummeling of the weather in so long a time it surrender to the forces. Sadder fact is that always the tolls are greater than expected, and sometimes lives are sacrificed. Contamination of the soil and water sources from the chemicals used to treat these bullions also poison everything in a slower pace.

Then again come the illegal loggers, mostly big companies that make millions out of the business. Trees are cut in vast numbers, the landscape denuded, the water flows to the bottom of the earth and leave the watersheds dry. The fauna of the area dies with it and everything comes to extinction.

With the denudation comes the usurpation of the land for more residential and commercial structures. The chain reaction like falling domino dices echo throughout the land. The garbage piles up, the effort to straighten up the problem usually creates other problems too. Disposal by burning destroys the ozone layer, we create dents in the atmosphere with that. Disposal by throwing trash in the sea kills marine life and pollutes water supply. The list of environmental crimes committed goes on and on.

With the slow killing of the earth, the people are also slowly committing suicide. It may take generations to finally die, and we may not be the very people to suffer so much. It is the children of our children to soon experience it when the time comes. The picture of the future is ugly, as ugly as the bald head of the green earth it used to be.

But with Earth Day, somewhere along the stretch called Session Road in a city called Baguio, in the little dot on the map called the Philippine Islands, some kids were released from their usual comfort zones to each draw their thoughts and support the cause of the earth before everything is too late.. -- Email: twilight_glo@yahoo.com