The past few weeks have seen how the world’s climate is changing and getting hotter at an increasingly faster pace.
Here at home, Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration recently recorded a heat index of 51 degree celsius in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija. This measurement—the discomfort perceived from the temperature and humidity of the air—is within “dangerous levels” (410C to 540C) where heat exhaustion and heat strokes are imminent with sustained exposure.
The country is, of course, in the midst of El Niño, which has since driven local governments to declare states of calamity and the International Rice Research Institute (Irri) to warn of a looming global food crisis. But a more tragic development is the recent clash between riot police and farmers in Kidapawan, North Cotabato, where some lives were lost and more than a hundred were injured.
The signs of a hotter planet can be observed elsewhere. Greenland is experiencing a much earlier ice-melting season as temperatures rose to a relatively high 170C last week. Researchers from the Danish Meteorological Institute found that 12 percent of Greenland’s ice sheet was already melting in April, instead of June—the traditional start of that country’s summer.
The melting of the polar ice caps is a regular phenomenon, with most of the water refreezing by wintertime. But as a 2014 Nature Geoscience study pointed out, the ice caps have been receding in recent decades, resulting in rising sea levels that lead to profound changes across the world.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientists determined that even the Earth’s axis is affected by the global redistribution of water with the geographic North Pole veering toward London instead of Canada at a rate almost twice as fast than previously observed. The study did not connect the change to man-made activities. And as the Earth really wobbles on its axis, the shifting of the North Pole is generally considered a harmless phenomenon.
However, the scientific community sounded the alarm last month when researchers from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Pennsylvania State University found that the UN’s current projections on sea level rise grossly underestimated how fast Antarctic glaciers would thaw. Where old projections saw sea levels rising 3 feet by 2100, the new study says it may actually be double—at around 5 or 6 feet.
The Philippines should be gravely concerned, considering that a University of the Philippines Los Baños study calculated that 171 coastal towns under 10 provinces would go under water if sea levels rose by a meter or roughly 3 feet. What more if it was double? And while 13.6 million Filipinos in 2014 lived in coastal communities, our seas have also risen at a rate five times faster than the global average. That means the children born today could very well see their country submerged within their lifetimes.
We were among the countries that actively advocated for the recently signed Paris Declaration. But of all the candidates campaigning today, who among them elaborated on their plans to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, combat climate change and mitigate its adverse impacts on Filipinos?
E-mail: angara.ed@gmail.com.