Buy Rubber Boats! The Earth is Melting!

Typhoon Ondoy was an eye-opener for the Philippines a few years ago. People still talk about it. Secretary Teodoro lost the rubber boats and Manila washed out to sea on a river of plastic bags. Preparations are better these days, the rubber boats have been found and some communities are banning plastic bags, but too many people are still being killed during typhoons. Poor people, mostly. Steps are being taken to relocate some of the most vulnerable squatters. Oddly, it seems that some don't really want to go.

Yesterday I was reading about how la Nina conditions are posing problems for the Visayas where I live. Reducing rainfall and drying up the rice fields. I can certify that we have had about a week of nice weather. Nice from the standpoint of no rain so it is possible to go out and play badminton or go for a walk or other outdoorsy things. Our mountain range is small. Get three or more weeks of "nice" weather and our water goes dry.

It is a tad unsettling.

Two more unsettling scientific articles popped up on my news roll the other day. Same day. The headlines were a little different but they said, effectively:

• "Antarctic Ice Melts at Record Levels"

• "Arctic Ice at Record Lows"

So the earth is losing her polar ice both north and south. The culprits are the normal characters, warm winds and higher water temperatures and holes in the ozone layer.

You know, of course, there is a tipping point. Once the sensitive equilibrium of the earth's heating and cooling gets tipped too far toward warming, there is no way to get it back. Chaos is sure to follow, massive destruction and shocks to the eco-system, violent changes in weather patterns, starvation and anger, riots and war.

Revelations, perhaps in our time.

I've never quite understood the way the skeptics of global warming play their cards. They seem not to understand risk, and how to protect against it.  Or it is in their SHORT TERM advantage to profit and to hell with the kids. They have no conscience.

• What do you lose if you are right about global warming, it is not an aberration but a natural earth warming cycle, but take steps to prevent it?

• What do you lose if you are wrong about global warming, and it is an aberration? But you do nothing to stop it?

More and more studies are pointing to the reality of global warming. The Philippines is in a precarious position. It is at the divide of earth's northern and southern weather systems. The inter-tropical conversion zone bounces across the Philippines like a floppy elastic band that has lost its discipline. This typhoon season it is pushing all the storms north to blast Luzon, or move past and blast Okinawa. The Visayas are dry. If it bounces back south, then Luzon is a desert and we soak.

This is another reason why the nation's population growth, 50% higher than it ought to be, is dangerous. This is why there should be a sense of urgency to balancing out the nation's population growth and its ability to employ, feed, shelter, educate and care for that population.

It takes time to slow a huge boat, and we may not have much time left.

With climate volatility comes a greater risk to food and water supplies. I'm sorry. This is not an opinion. It is a statistical certainty. Volatility means unpredictable. And potentially extreme weather. And potentially destructive consequences. It does not mean stable and certain and predictable and benign.

The Philippines needs to get control of its resources. It needs to stop drifting down the risky slope of fate like an oarless, rudderless rubber raft ripping out-of-control down the Cagayan de Oro River, at the mercy of the rocks and currents and illegally cut logs.

Like, get a rudder, baby! Grab a paddle and work it.

Fire up the engines of competency to manage the affairs of the Philippines as if LIVES DEPENDED ON IT.

Enough of this talking and posturing as if God actually listens to prayers. I was upset that the first words out of Chief Justice Sereno's mouth was that the Constitution asks us to plead to God.

Give me a break, your honor. This humanization of God is a little much for me, as if the Constitution will soon DEMAND we plead to the Big Your Honor in the Sky or get thrown in jail.

God doesn't answer prayers like Santa Clause in a sled. He set the scene a bazillion years ago, gave us free will, and said "take your best shot." That's all.

You can't pray and make the ice stop melting.

You CAN stop birthing the nation into oblivion and eating the fields bare like locusts with brains filled with some kind of gray green glop.

How about applying some intelligence for a change, in stead of faith? How about exercising some WILL for a change, instead of just lollygagging along as if someone else will do it? As if God will do it.

Like, enough of that faith-bound mentality, that needy "God please help us" beggar mentality. I don't care if you are Chief Justice or a fisherman or a legislator. Get up and go to work.

God takes care of those who take care of themselves responsibly.