ENVIRONMENT WATCH

Robert L. Domoguen
Climate change and tragic fate of the earth

The earth is the largest of support systems for life, and its impairment through direct and indirect human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere is increasingly becoming the largest of perils besides a nuclear holocaust.

In the early ‘80s, Jonathan Schell, staff writer for the New Yorker, reported that “there were some 50 thousand warheads in the world possessing the explosive yield of roughly twenty billion tons of TNT, or one million six hundred thousand times the yield of the bomb that was dropped by the United States on the city of Hiroshima, in Japan” during the last world war.

In a scenario of a nuclear war where these warheads are put to good use, one imagines the earth’s populated cities like Hiroshima and even countries throughout the globe being incinerated and flattened to the ground by a nuclear firestorm. And that is not the end of it. Scientists studying the impact of such a nuclear holocaust reported that all life forms that would survive the blast will soon be decimated and affected by the radioactivity that has dispersed into earth’s environment.

The second of the global effects of this nuclear holocaust is “the lofting from ground bursts, of millions of tons of dust into the stratosphere which will produce a general cooling of the earth’s surface. The third is a partial destruction of the ozone layer that surrounds the entire earth in the stratosphere.” The destruction may persist for years.

The ozone layer is crucial to life on earth, because it shields the surface of the earth from lethal levels of ultraviolet radiation, which is present in sunlight. Without the ozone, life in this planet would only be possible in the ocean. Without the ozone shield, sunlight, the life-giver, would become a life-extinguisher, according to scientists

If he is still alive today, I wonder what Jonathan Schell thinks about climate change, a global phenomena now occurring worldwide that UN experts attribute “directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.”

Climate change is a top issue today in the UN and its agencies. It’s an issue that pre-occupies the minds of the world’s leaders and must now be a concern of every human inhabitant in this planet. What a nuclear holocaust may probably achieve instantly on the planet in an insane future is slowly taking shape – the extinguishing of life itself through the thinning of the ozone shield, global warming and changes in weather conditions.

Both nuclear holocaust and climate change reflect on our human excesses that lead to the destruction of all that we know and experience as “life.” They constitute the major challenges that modern man must resolve with a clear conscience, morality and full rationality before it is too late.

Owing to what happened in Nagasaki and Hiroshima in Japan, the effects of a nuclear holocaust can more or less be easily envisioned. If it happens, the responsibility of extinguishing the life of future generations of human beings in the planet lies in the hands of those who allowed it to happen.

The climate change phenomena, however, is already indicting us all now. Every time we burn trash in our backyards, burn rice straw and stubbles, use spray cans, turn on the car and burn fuel, we contribute to the thinning of the ozone or generate additional greenhouse gases that trap more heat on the earth’s atmosphere and raise the temperature. Even an increase in nitrous oxide in the atmosphere brought about by agricultural fertilizers harm the ozone. A doubling of the nitrous oxide in the troposphere, which becomes nitric oxide contribute to the reduction of the ozone layer by about 15 percent.

There are several literatures on climate change that could illustrate how this phenomenon occurs. Such literature can date back to the creation of the first atomic bomb. These can enlighten the reader on the various factors that contribute to climate change. The challenge is how to make this technical literature that comes in hard and dull language interesting and comprehensible to the layman. Still, the earnest point to be made is that the reader must now realize that climate change can no longer be taken for granted.

Experiences on climate change relegate the theories on this phenomenon from hindering the required or desired action to mitigate or adapt to its global effects. In the Philippines and other countries, the manifestations of climate change, according to experts, are as follows: 1). Weather is mostly warm; 2) Seasons during the year turn from rainy to dry and back; and, 3) On the average, rains in June to August are accompanied by warm winds mostly coming from the southwest, and in December to February, early mornings are cooler coming from the northeast.

In patterns during the past few decades, observed changes are as follows: 1) Warm months of March, April and May have become even noticeably warmer; 2) Nights have also become warmer, with days also getting hotter; 3) Patterns of rains and rainy seasons have also changed; and, 4) Droughts have been noted to be more frequent in some areas.

Pagasa has observed annual mean temperature anomalies from 1951-2006 in this manner: Mean - An increase of 0.6104°C; Maximum - An increase of 0.3472°C; Minimum - An increase of 0.8904°C, an almost 3 times increase than maximum temperatures. There are also significant increases in the occurrences of hot days and warm nights and significant decreases in the number of cold days and cold nights.

Pagasa also observed shifts from one climate type to another in the country. For instance, the coastal towns of Baler, Casiguran, Tayabas, Infanta and Alabat had shifted from type IV to type II. It reported that this could be due to a maximum rain period during peak of the northeast monsoon season. The agency also noted that there are no trends in the frequency of tropical cyclones and that a noticeable number of destruction typhoons had crossed the country. These are: 2004: Unding in November and Yoyong in December; and, 2006: Milenyo in September, Paeng in October, Queenie and Reming in November.

Climate change now impacts on human health, agriculture, forest, water, coastal resources, species, and natural lands in terms that are slowly being known and comprehended. Right now, attention is focused on 1) biophysical impacts covering physiological effects on crops, pasture, forests and livestock (quantity, quality); changes in land, soil and water resources (quantity, quality); increased weed and pest challenges; shifts in spatial and temporal distribution of impacts; sea level rise, changes to ocean salinity; and, sea temperature rise causing fish to inhabit different ranges. 2. Socio-economic impacts: decline in yields and production; reduced marginal GDP from agriculture; fluctuations in world market prices; changes in geographical distribution of trade regimes; increased number of people at risk of hunger and food insecurity; migration and civil unrest.

Specifically for agriculture, global warming contributes to the loss of biodiversity in fragile environment and forest; loss of fertile coastal lands caused by rising sea levels; more unpredictable farming conditions in tropical areas; dramatic changes in distribution and quantities of fish and sea foods; increased frequency of weather extremes; longer growing seasons in cool areas; increase in incidence of pests and vector-borne diseases.

Under a regime of climate change, this corner is compelled to ask this question and seek a primary but simple action. Do we have that common discipline to compose and not burn trash, to plant trees, conserve the forest or pursue car less days? To be effective, knowledge and action to adapt and mitigate climate change must become a common pursuit. Unhampered individual and irresponsible activities leveled against the environment keeps the human race as a whole moving ever closely to its insane and tragic end. What then can prevent the realization of that final insanity --- the nuclear holocaust as a swift end to this tragic fate of the earth and all of life?