iNews, Earth

Myths & Realities. Our forests & the Emperor with no clothes

2011-11-25T08:15:00.001+08:00

LOS BAÑOS, LAGUNA - The myth was that we were going to witness a battle of wits in discussing the role of forests in preventing or not preventing floods. The reality was that for 3.5 hours, we were witness to the gusts of winds about disaster risk reduction and management, the tectonic shifts of volcanology, the survival instincts of Filipinos in times of disaster, and a very, very thin drizzle on the role of forests in preventing floods.

That was yesterday while we were attending the "Forum on Myths and Realities: The Role of Forests in Disaster Risk Reduction and Management" at the headquarters of the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCAARRD) nestled at the footsteps of the legendary Mt Maria Makiling in Los Baños Laguna. PCAARRD coordinates institutional efforts in the AANR sciences.

The forum was not at all tackling the issue it had been advertised to do: define and delineate the functions of forests in terms of flood prevention or non-prevention. I suspect that the presentors, all PhDs, were trying their best to skirt the issue! The masters of ceremonies and forum anchors, male and female were they, also both PhDs, were similarly nonchalant about the whole thing.

I understand. Remember, there is a prevailing Total Logging Ban decreed by the Emperor, I mean President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III, a non-PhD, which Secretary of Environment Ramon C Paje, another non-PhD, is sworn to uphold. President Noynoy is of the firm belief, as I plain citizen am, that forests prevent floods - so who are we to say that the Emperor has no clothes?! (image from tomartist.com)

Paje is also a graduate of the College of Forestry & Natural Resources (CFNR), a plain Mr. Another plain citizen, I was wondering why they did not invite a PhD to represent the views of the CFNR, which was located next to the headquarters of ERDB, which for all intents and purposes, was the convenor of the forum, as the President of the sponsoring body, the Forests & Natural Resources Research Society of the Philippines Inc (FORESPI), Lope A Calanog, another PhD, is from ERDB?

I will venture to answer my own question without fear or favor. It was not that they were afraid of the contrary opinions of plain citizens. Rather, it was that the new Chancellor of UP Los Baños, Rex Victor O Cruz, another PhD, believes "that forests have only a limited influence on major downstream flooding" (see my "FAO affirms RVOC on forests & flooding. Frank H examines their logic," 31 October 2011, University Matters, blogspot.com). Cruz was Dean of the College of Forestry before he became Chancellor of UP Los Baños. So, inviting a faculty member, even a non-PhD, from that College was tantamount to either supporting the position of Cruz, which was unpopular, or subverting it, which was unthinkable.

So, you understand that I was hardly paying attention to the speakers. I was paying more attention to where I was sitting by the table whereon lay expensive publications of the Ecosystem Research & Development Bureau (ERDB), also based in Los Baños. Aye, there's the rub. ERDB used to be the Forest Research Institute (FORI); I used to be the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of FORI, and as CIO, I founded and edited the 3 most important publishing efforts of FORI ever: (1) Habitat, quarterly color magazine, (2) Sylvatrop, quarterly technical journal, and (3) Canopy, monthly newsletter of the Institute (it has since been renamed Canopy International).

Naturally, I grabbed the issues of Canopy; there were only 4 available: 2006, 2007, 2009, and 2010. I said 4 issues, didn't I? I mean 4 issues: January-December 2006, January-December 2007, January-December 2009, and January-December 2010. Did you notice? Here is a newsletter that comes out once a year - an annual newsletter! Will wonders never cease? Since it's an average of 16 pages per issue, that's equivalent to 3 pages every 2 months coming out of the printing press. Have you ever seen a slower publication than this one?! I wish the floodwaters would flow this slow.

In the Age of the Personal Computer, with all the desktop publishing (DTP) software around us, and with Microsoft Word 2002 itself capable of high-end DTP work as I myself had proven with my One-Man Band work as Editor in Chief, copyreader, proofreader and layout artist of the Philippine Journal of Crop Science (PJCS), which under me went from being 3 years late to up-to-date and then listed ISI (Web of Knowledge) in 2007, and considering all those FORI publications and that in FORI I was working in the Age of the Dinosaurs (Typewriters) in the late 1970s and yet was never late with any issue, I can venture only one reason why any publication in this high-tech age can be late in coming out of the press: Indolence.

In explaining the Pinoy's tendency to be indolent, lazy, Jose Rizal, who would be martyred by the Spanish conquistadores and become the National Hero of the Philippines, explained that in those times when Spain ruled the islands, the Filipinos:

The imitative people became bookish, devout, prayerful; it acquired ideas of luxury and ostentation, without thereby improving the means of its subsistence to a corresponding degree. (From Charles Derbyshire translation, from Project Gutenberg HTML download)

In modern times, we Filipinos have become Facebookish, devout, prayerful; we have acquired ideas of high information technology without thereby improving our mastery of IT to a corresponding level.

And so we Pinoys remain indolent even in our science. And so, for instance, we claim that we have studied the role of forests in the prevention of floods, and that "Forests do not necessarily prevent floods ... since they only have a limited influence on flooding" (Marvyn Benaming, 16 February 2011, up.edu.ph). And yet I heard during the forum, from the representative of the World Agroforestry Center/ICRAF Philippines Rodel D Lasco, PhD, that there have been no studies conducted in the Philippines about the role of forests in disasters, specifically floods.

Now then, the science arm of the Department of Environment & Natural Resources (DENR) is the ERDB. If this government bureau is worth its weight in wood, especially old dipterocarp, then the DENR should instruct its right arm to do what its left arm has not been doing:

Get intelligent about the role of forests in preventing floods, and get to work!

Celebrate Rice! Art & science intersecting: Creativity

2011-11-14T20:59:00.001+08:00

CALAMBA CITY - Frank H says IRRI has just reinvented the science exhibit by intersecting it with art, not unlike Steve Jobs reinventing marketing by intersecting technology with art. The art of Steve Jobs such as first noticed in 2001 in the iPod is industrial design; the art of IRRI such as first seen in its double exhibit "Celebrate Rice!" / "Kapag Palay Na Ang Lumapit Sa Manok" in 2011 now showing at CyberZone at SM Calamba is industrial painting, to coin a term. The industry in the iPod is music; the industry in the IRRI double exhibit is rice.

Taken at the opening of the exhibit on the afternoon of Sunday, 13 November 2011, my photo shows the painter Paul Hilario explaining one of his rice paintings to IRRI Director General Robert Zeigler, his boss. Paul is Curator of the IRRI Riceworld Museum and Learning Center. This time, the IRRI head is learning from the museum head.

The science part of the exhibit comprised images mostly of coffee-table-book sizes and their accompanying "news" texts with these headlines:

Bridging the "GAP" makes farmers wealthier
Genetic diversity
Targeting & policy
Adding value
Better varieties
Cooler rice for a warming planet
Snapshots from space
Turbocharging the evolution of rice
Double-trouble rice
Resizing rice's carbon footprint
Rice with a vision
Women of war, women of peace
Cracking the mystery of chalky rice
Managing Bangladeshi farmers
Liquid assets
Fertilizer requirements at farmers' fingertips
Squeezing the most out of flood-proof rice
Last Mile Delivery

A very impressive but not a very interesting list, is it? That's rice science. I'm glad scientists have finally realized that they need art to express themselves better!

In case you didn't know, IRRI is the International Rice Research Institute based in Los Baños, next town to the City of Calamba, next to the campus of the University of the Philippines Los Baños. IRRI is one of 15 international science centers under the aegis of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) based in Washington DC supported by the World Bank. One of the more interesting current projects of IRRI is Golden Rice, the variety that has beta carotene, a precursor of vitamin A, good for your eyes; that explains your "Rice with a vision."

Now we come to IRRI's rice art. Actually, there were 2 painters featured: my son Paul and Jimboy Bactong. The main artist is Paul, and the art exhibit is entitled "Kapag Palay Na Ang Lumapit Sa Manok" (my translation: If the rice approaches the chicken instead - one of the paintings shows a young woman flirting with a young man). As Paul explains it, "The exhibit is a collection of artworks based on the influence of rice on culture by way of proverbs, superstitions, beliefs, symbols and cinematic lines" (interview with 1stAngel Arts Magazine, 1stangel.co.uk).

This is Paul's 1st art exhibit. As he explains to 1stAngel Arts:

My style is eclectic. I mix and match impressionism with pop, low brow, fauvism, and cubism. You can see that sometimes my backgrounds are impressionist, my light and composition is cubist but my characters are always pop and cartoonish in nature. Most galleries will label my work as naïve art.

Well, the father Frank Hilario is naïve about paintings. But I'm a creative writer, so I understand where another creative person such as a painter is coming from.

Actually, the word naïve means: (a) lacking worldliness and sophistication, artless; (b) simple and credulous as a child; ingenuous (American Heritage Dictionary). I like the 2nd meaning better. Father and son are simple and credulous as children. That is why they are very creative.

Writers and artists, verily I say to you, unless you become like children, you shall not enter the kingdom of the gods of creativity!

The Problem with Myths. The Trouble with Realities

2011-11-13T05:26:00.001+08:00

MANILA - Be careful with myths, you might grasp thin air with them. Be careful with realities, you might knock your head on them and get a splitting headache.

On 24 November 2011 at the Elvira Tan Hall of the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCAARRD) just above the Economic Garden in Los Baños, Laguna, at 0830 hours they will conduct a "Forum on Myths and Realities: The Role of Forests in Disaster Risk Reduction and Management." The event is sponsored by the Forests and Natural Resources Research Society of the Philippines based at the UP Los Baños College of Forestry and Natural Resources at the UP Los Baños campus. The image is from a public display board going in after the main gate of UP Los Baños.

The sign doesn't say, "Everyone's invited." The announcement mentions also a General Assembly Meeting of the Research Society and a Tree Planting Program at Biñan, Laguna the next day, again no invitation expressed. Anyway, based in Manila, I'm thinking of inviting myself, travelling some 60 km away, to take part in the debate, as I assume there will be a debate during the Forum, a give-and-take. But if I know me, I'll have too many questions nobody will know how to response to each of them. And I will insist that those questions be tackled first, before anything else. I can be as stubborn as Steve Jobs. Well, I know my Robert's Rules of Order, parliamentary procedures, which I had to learn in college as an officer of the Future Farmers of the Philippines under our FFP Adviser Dolores F Barile (I took up BS Agriculture major in Ag Education).

Now then, if you're looking for a forum on "the role of forests in disaster risk reduction and management" and you want me to participate, first let us agree on the givens:

(1) What makes a "forum" a forum?

Because if the moderator does not know what he's doing, he will allow some speakers to eat much of the time while being irrelevant, or being repetitive - or simply talking much without borders, barriers or limits. And if I'm exasperated, I'll leave the room in the middle of your sentence.

(2) What do you mean by "myth?"

Because if we don't agree about how to define the word or delimit the idea, then we won't go anywhere but where we have always been. I suggest you study first the ideas of Joseph Campbell, the Roman Catholic intellectual who studied myths, symbols and stories. I don't remember what became of him, but I think he talks much sense.

(3) What do you mean by "reality?"

Because if you conducted a rapid appraisal and came up with a list of findings and called those "realities," then we wouldn't agree on the proper definition of "reality," would we? You would be talking Greek to me, and I hate foreign languages, including Spanish - on the other hand, I just love English! (I speak a language other than Filipino, and that is my native Ilocano.)

(4) What makes a "forest" a forest?

Because if you call "forest" a logged-over area with a few gnarled trees, then I will understand your position but I will not agree. I will know where you're coming from, and I wouldn't like to accompany you where you're going.

(5) What makes a "forest soil?"

Because if you define the "forest soil" as Nyle Brady defined "soil," that's a 50-year old definition that I wouldn't want to hear. Brady's definition comes from reductionist science - he takes the parts as if they were more important than the whole. Well, Brady was born yesterday. Apparently, he never heard of Ludwig von Bertalanffy and his systems theory.

(6) Is the "forest litter" part of the "forest soil?"

Because if you say, "Yes," you're dead! And I will be very happy to explain it to you if you care to listen. If you say, "No," you're double dead! Because what you know is not deep enough. What if I told you that the forest soil is the most important part of the forest - in terms of its water-holding capacity?

(7) What is "deforestation?"

Because if you say deforestation is "the loss of forest cover," you are not being SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. When do you consider it simply loss, and when do you consider it irreversible loss? How do you measure it? Can you measure it at all? Is it accurate? What is your time-frame?

(8) What is "reforestation?"

Because if you say reforestation is "the replanting of hillsides with tree seedlings," you are telling me that the Input is the Output without the Throughput. You know what I mean.

(9) What is "Disaster Risk Reduction?"

Because if a critical mass of scientists would believe that forests do not necessarily decrease the risk of floods, then I think that that would be a disaster waiting to happen. The minority is not always right!

(10) What is "Management?"

Because if you consider the history of Philippine forests, I'm afraid forest management has failed in the last 50 years. We Filipinos don't seem to be knowledgeable managers. In 1960, the National Economic Council reported "a rapid conversion of commercial and noncommercial forests to a degraded or deforested state" (David M Kummer, Deforestation in the Postwar Philippines, page 47). The year before that, Tom Gill, an American forester, studied Philippine forests and reported for the NEC in 1960 of "the rapid destruction of Philippine forests." And, my wife who worked as secretary to the Director of the Forest Products Research & Development Institute remembers that in the early days of Martial Law, Secretary of the Department of Agriculture & Natural Resources Arturo R Tanco was sounding the death knell and campaigning to save our forests "from irreversible decline."

I'm not sounding the death knell but I'm campaigning to save the forest of our management logic from irreversible descent. You know what I mean.

Bangkok, The Big Bag City. Take note, UP Los Baños!

2011-11-09T20:19:00.001+08:00

MANILA - Northern Bangkok now has the so-called "Big Bag" Barrier, sandbags piled on top of the other, each weighing from 1 to 2 tons; these have been piled 2 meters high and wide along strategic roads in northern Bangkok, as reported by Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra (Wanwisa Ngamsangchaikit, 08 November 2011, ttrweekly.com). The Barrier is designed to slow the flow and reduce damage from floodwaters. What they're experiencing is "the worst flood in 5 decades" (Jamaluddin Muhammad, 08 November 2011, bernama.com).

Should UP Los Baños be concerned about the floods in Thailand, when its capital city Bangkok is 2000+ km away? Should the Philippine capital city Manila be alarmed at all? Should Davao, Cebu, Puerto Princesa and all other seashore cities be warned?

Yes, yes, yes! All the big universities in the Philippines should be concerned, not the least UP Diliman because it's time to be relevant and not only excellent and it is so close to Manila, and UP Los Baños, because it is supposed to know about mangroves more than anyone else. I mean, my alma mater UP as a whole should be able to tell all of those seashore cities and towns in the islands what to do while there's still time. Time waits for no one; neither does Climate Change.

I bet you didn't know that the Tagalog name Maynila reveals that Manila was once a mangrove swamp. Maynila comes from Maynilad, may+nilad, there's nilad there. Nilad refers to the shrub known botanically as Scyphiphora hydrophyllacea (Wikipedia), which is nila in Malay, often found in mangrove swamps and sandy beaches. In other words, the whole of Manila is a city reclaimed from the swamp by Mother Nature - as all low-lying seaside cities in the world probably are.

I bet you didn't know that Bangkok was once a mangrove swamp either. Ask Anond Snidvongs, a Climate Change expert at Chulalongkorn University (ANN, author not named, 07 November 2011, channelnewsasia.com). "If no action is taken to protect the city," Snidvongs says, "in 50 years... most of Bangkok will be below sea level." That is to say, given the massive Thailand floods of today, and as implied by the sand bags trying to protect Bangkok from flooding, the descent has already begun.

If Frank H is right about Manila being swampland once upon a time, it faces the same future as Bangkok: Dire.

What to do? Albay Province under Governor Joey Salceda has been trying to teach UP Los Baños but so far it has not been listening. Albay established its Climate Change Academy a year ago this month, 04 November 2010 (see my "Philippine LGUs. Climate Change Awareness to Action," 04 November 2010, iNews Earth, blogspot.com). Being the premier university in agriculture, forestry and natural resources in the Philippines, UP Los Baños has no excuse for doing less.

Question: Meanwhile, what now should we teach in our universities, especially UP Los Baños? Answer: What's happening in Thailand, for a start.

ANN tells us that Bangkok has been "relying on a complex system of dikes, canals, locks and pumping stations to keep the rising waters at bay." That was until the floodwaters began coming in July. "The flood protection efforts," says ANN, "failed to prevent an onslaught of run-off water from the north from swamping at least one-fifth of the capital." The Big Bag City can only stop so much water.

Run-off water coming from the north - that's precisely why the Big Bag Barrier has been put north of Bangkok. Where did the run-off water come from? The north of Thailand is "geographically characterized by multiple mountain ranges ... and the river valleys [that] cut through them" (Wikipedia). Those mountain ranges must have forests, right? Actually, not quite. There is now enough deforestation in Thailand to contribute to the massive flooding of one-third of the country, according to Adis Israngkura, Dean of Development Economics at the Thailand National Institute of Development Administration (see my "FAO affirms RVOC on forests & flooding. Frank H examines their logic," 31 October 2011, University Matters, blogspot.com). The run-off that added to the floodwaters in Bangkok came from the deforested mountains and hills of northern Thailand.

There is of course the opposite position of some experts, led by now-Chancellor of UP Los Baños & Forester Rex Victor O Cruz "that forests have only a limited influence on major downstream flooding" (see "Nobel awardee Forestry college Dean bucks logging ban," James Konstantin Galvez, 09 February 2011, pwpa.org.ph). What Cruz is trying to say is that from pristine watersheds come both blessing and curse, and from deforested mountains come the exact same curse: flooding. Deforestation has little to do with floods, if you believe Cruz.

Not if you ask the other experts. About 12 years ago, on 10 January 1989, Thailand imposed a logging ban throughout the country "following the worst flooding there in nearly a century" (ANN, american.edu). "Soil erosion exacerbated the floods, thereby making the damage and loss of lives much worse." The loss was US $120 million. This does not compare with the current flood, which as of 25 October 2011 had already damaged industry to a total of US $6.2 billion.

Well, at the very least, UP Los Baños should teach in a formal class both pro-logging and anti-deforestation positions in an intelligent manner. Quickly now, why doesn't UP Los Baños establish its own Climate Change Academy with formal courses offered in Climate Change Management, using the case study method adopted by the Asian Institute of Management? Let them argue to their hearts' content, and may the best minds win!

In any case, what we need are more Public-Private Partnerships to address:

(1) Climate Change Adaptation - Like we should mandate conserving water and regulate pumping groundwater all over the country.

(2) Climate Change Mitigation - Like we should be preparing to evacuate people, building pre-need evacuation centers, stocking on food and lifeboats.

(3) Climate Change Rehabilitation - Like we should be financially assisting dislocated families in reestablishing their homes and reconstructing their lives.

Climate Change Management could be a business, either for rewards or for recognition, as Bill Gates has proposed in his radical concept of Creative Capitalism (see my "Bill Gates, Nobel Prize for Economics 2008! Well He Inspires Us To Creative Science," 28 October 2008, americanchronicle.com).

In Manila mass media, they can start by inviting volunteer presentors from inside and outside the academe to present their own views. They might even invite Dean Adis Israngkura from Thailand so that others can debate with him. If anything is worth debating, Climate Change, Creative Capitalism and Creative Climate Academies are all worth debating well.

Sun On My Lips. First Philec solar system makes for real People Power!

2011-06-03T14:47:00.001+08:00

MANILA - The Filipino is known for his sunny smile; why can't we harness the sun in that smile?

What we have plenty of, we take for granted. Like sunlight. What genius we have, we ignore. Like Gregorio Zara, National Scientist. As far back as my research has dug out, the first very serious, public attempts to harness the power of the sun in the Philippines were those of Zara, who in the 1960s created new designs for a solar water heater, sun stove, and a solar battery (Edmund Umbao, Pinoy Achievers, wordpress.com). We didn't mind his genius. We were interested neither in renewable energy, nor in low-cost energy, nor in clean energy. Renewable energy wasn't understood; low-cost energy wasn't presentable; and clean energy wasn't real. Ha!

I'm curious, brown, sun-burned. Why over the centuries since the first Filipino set sail to other lands in the dawn of history, eons before Ferdinand Magellan ever feasted his eyes on the beauty of the Philippine islands, why did we not learn to harness the sun just like we harness the wind? Sailing, the balangay brought our ancestors to distant lands (balangay-voyage.com); why didn't the sun cook our food and light our nights?

There was this Spanish-speaking hero who said his country was a "region del sol querida," which I translate as "earth love of the sun" - the poet was Jose Rizal and the poem was his valedictory, that which everybody else calls "Ultimo Adios" and I have retitled "Adios, Patria Adorada" (Adios, Beloved Country), based on the very first 3 words of that poem.

"Adios, patria adorada, region del sol querida."
Adios, beloved country, earth love of the sun

In his last moments, Rizal was thinking of the sun, the enriching sun. Yes, the Philippines is sun-blessed but not sun-enriched. Now that Climate Change is here, we find we have to change oil and fuel into some non-polluting plant-based equivalents. And we have to learn what we should have learned when we were learning to harness the wind: harness the sun.

Intelligently, solar power is what First Philec Solar Solutions is bringing into your home, and I'm happy we Filipinos are realizing the need to shift to alternative and renewable and environment-friendly and user-friendly sources of energy.

First Philec, a member of the Lopez Group, launched yesterday, 02 June 2011, at the SMX Convention Center on the 2nd day of the Philippine Semiconductor and Electronics Convention and Exhibition at the Mall of Asia in Manila, its "First Residential Solar Technology Kit" that it touted to be "the best alternate energy source for homes." Speakers at the launching were President of First Philec Dan Lachica, and Project Manager Derrick John Tolentino.

I'm not comfortable using the term "solar kit" because "kit" suggests a small, portable, handheld device; since what First Philec is selling is a whole system, I prefer to call it a "solar system" (pun intended).

The solar system of First Philec actually comprises 3 types:
(1) 1 kW off-grid system
(2) 1 kW grid-tied system
(3) 10 kW grid-tied system.

In both grid-tied system, you enjoy the option of storing excess energy and, therefore, you are supplied solar power 24/7.

All 3 First Philec's models, as all such solar systems do, convert the sun's energy into direct current (DC), and then converts it again to alternating current (AC) for your appliances. This is the AC-DC type that should be welcome into every Filipino household anytime.

All 3 solar systems are scalable, meaning the power supplied can be increased even up from 2 to 10 times. If you get the grid system, there is no energy loss - excess energy is sent back into the grid and stored for later use.

The entry-level solar system costs PhP 300,000 (about US$ 7,000), including design and installation. That is expensive. With the home system, Lachica was saying you are saving 4-5 kW a day. That gives your home a maximum daily saving of PhP 5, or PhP 1,825 a year, which is an amount you can sneeze at. The solar panels are imported from the United States from SunPower. So, yes, Lachica admitted it is still expensive, but within 10 years the cost of manufacture should go down, when the manufacture of components will be made locally. Nonetheless, I asked if they had financing, and Lachica said they could arrange it; so, it's still expensive but now affordable.

"We believe that the market in the Philippines is (quite ready) to appreciate the energy that comes from the sun," says Lachica, "more so, value the benefits that it delivers." He is referring to savings as well as helping reduce the carbon emission from homes because of the use of electric power generated by fossil fuels, not to mention "bragging rights" - your solar system proudly proclaims for your family that you know what is good for you and your environment: little or no carbon footprint.

I also asked if they had talked to the local government units (LGUs), and Lachica said yes. “Because they have the money,” I said. The LGUs should take the lead in renewable energy, especially solar energy.

"The benefits of the investment ... far outweigh the cost that will be incurred upon purchase," Lachica says. "The future is worth going to this direction wherein zero fuel and zero wastage is applied." With the sun as your source of energy, that's zero fuel; since you can store the excess energy, that's zero wastage.

The venture of First Philec is private and laudable, if a bit late. In a 1985 analysis of Philippine renewable energy programs and policies conducted by Bernardo M Villegas & Pastor T Lorenzo Jr of the Center for Research and Communications, the recommendation was this:

Faced with financial constraints in the coming years, the government should encourage more private sector participation in the development of renewable energy sources. It should continue giving incentives to companies (that) develop and/or use renewable energy. With the general economic conditions favoring the development of indigenous resources and with support coming from various sources, the widespread use of renewable energy and the realization of the economic benefits derived therein may become a foreseeable reality in the near future.

The problem was that Government did not take up the challenge 26 years ago.

Sun power is the most renewable energy in the world. Candeze Mongaya quotes Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras as saying, "Renewable is the right way to go, but we have to do it in small quantities (since it is still expensive)" (01 May 2011, inquirer.net). Precisely! Mr Secretary. It is the duty of Government to make it inexpensive. But I think we should venture big, huge, archipelago-wide.

Who became Philippine President in 1986? Corazon Aquino, the Mother of now-President Noynoy Aquino. She harnessed People Power but not Sun Power. The Aquino type of People Power is not enough! A heavy at-home user of electric power, I would like to install a First Philec solar system right now, but I need financing. Now then, if Noynoy is serious about Climate Change, about decreasing the carbon footprints of most people, among other things, then the Government of the Philippines should be subsidizing the cost of installing solar systems for homes and commercial establishments, and requiring industrial setups to install their own solar systems. These are renewable and environment-friendly and user-friendly sources of energy – another kind of real People Power. Then truly the Filipinos will wear smiles brightened by the sun.

Creative Year 1000. Your Julian Work Ethic, My Frank Pledge

2011-05-26T08:01:00.001+08:00

LONDON - For your reading pleasure, or pressure as in this case, Robert Lacey & Danny Danziger have written a book, The Year 1000, whose 2 subtitles summarize what it is all about: What Life Was Like At The Turn Of The First Millennium: An Englishman's World. It was published by Back Bay Books (Little, Brown and Company) in New York in 1999 in 230 pages. Since it is now history, and it is creative history, I immediately loved the title of it. Yes, I judged this book by its cover!

In the image, I imposed my Nokia XpressMusic cellphone and I juxtaposed my Canon MP198 printer, to indicate modern times and the living past – you have to relate the past to the present. If you misinterpret the past, you will misinterpret the present, or vice versa. Reader beware!

As a copywriter I ask: Is this book Trick or Treat?

Let's see. This book is extremely creative in that it found a dull object, an ancient, dusty, dry document and transformed it into a bright star that illuminates the reader as he hies to history from one season to another, a steady light that shines as he peruses the pages from month to month.

That bloody British parchment is called the Julius Work Calendar, a monthly calendar with sketches of life in England in the year 1000. In Serendipity, one of the authors of the book saw the Julius as 12 smart entry points for the retelling of English history 1,011 years ago. So here we have 12 chapters of history based on pieces of paper that together make up, the authors say, "the earliest surviving example of an Englishman laying out life in a daily routine, juggling time, the schedule of the earth, and the life of the spirit" (page 5).

The Julius can be found of course in the British Library, a month to a page, with the Sign of the Zodiac along with the name-title of the month. The authors say, "Its purpose was religious, to list the high days and holy days to be celebrated in church that month, probably as an instructional manual for young monks" (page 5). Me, I think it was instructional for everyone, a memory aid for every age. Actually, it was much more than that, as we shall see.

Why such a choice of year to write history? It was the turn of the millennium and should be interesting. Or it was because there wasn't much history to tell, so Lacey & Danziger wanted to tell it!

In any case, 1000 AD is the end of the Dark Ages and the beginning of the Middle (newworldencyclopedia.org). That year, the Viking Leif Erickson discovers America (ithappened.info). The Kingdom of Ghana is in control of the gold trade (solonschools.org).

More interestingly, Lynn Harry Nelson of the University of Kansas says by the year 1000 AD, feudalism has been proven to be a peaceful and efficient system, and indeed the Mafia uses the same organization of lords and vassals, same customs and terms (vlib.us). Less interestingly, 1000 AD is the year the Arab doctor Abu al-Qasim Kahalf ibn al-Abbas Al-Zahrawi founds modern surgery (med-street.com).

So! Feudalism was just what the doctor ordered, as it prevented surprise invasion by the enemy, while I stop at the door of modern surgery as it is not my cup of tea - too invasive of private parts.

In writing their book, Lacey & Danziger did not realize that they were perfectly describing feudalism as it dictated month by month the Englishman's world.

With all that in mind, let me now do a modern survey of the antique artifact Julius Work Calendar; here are excerpts from the book:

January
Across the bottom of January's calendar page moves the ploughman, slicing open England's damp and often clay-ridden crust with the heavy iron blade that had been the making of the country's farming landscape. (page 10) The wheeled plough was the foundation of life for English people living the year 1000. (page 11)

February
February's calendar drawing shows a vigorous yard of vines getting pruned ... The sketching of this apparently routine agricultural process was heavy with meaning, since the purpose of pruning is to direct the growth energies of a plant into the channels desired by the cultivator. It is all about human control - a well-pruned plant yields more than a wild one. So, just as the wheeled plough embodied millennial man's mastery of the soil, the skillful pruning of branches demonstrated his ability to create a profitable working partnership with God's bushes, vines, and trees. (pages 27-28)

March
In the year 1000, the average man was represented by the man with the spade - or, in this month's calendar illustration, the man with the rake, the mattock, or pick-axe, and the apron full of seeds. The cultivator and his family were the backbone of the land. (page 39)

April
"The warriors laughed, there was a hum of contentment," runs Beowulf's description of an Anglo-Saxon feast, and we catch that same atmosphere from the April drawing in the Julius Work Calendar, with the revelers seated side by side on what the heroic poems call the medu-bene - the mead bench. In the year 1000, a noble feast was a lavishly staged affair. (page 61)

May
The Anglo-Saxons were clearly sheep-rearing folk, and our calendar drawing for this month reflects that - a flock of delightfully frisky and wood-covered sheep cavorting under the eye of equally contented shepherds. May was the month of shearing, when the animals were first washed and the sheared wool then rinsed in a series of baths. Where necessary, it was lightly greased with butter or lard to facilitate the separation of the individual wool fibres with the heads of thistles or teazles that were used like combs. Then the spinning would commence. (page 73)

June
The word carpenter is said to have come from the admiration which the Romans felt for the fine and sturdy two-wheeled cart developed by the Celtic woodworkers of ancient Britain - not dissimilar to the cart depicted in this month's calendar drawing. The Romans called it a "carpentum," and those who were skilled at making such carts - or who used the wood transported in them - became known as carpenters. (page 85)

July
July was hay month in the year 1000. It was the first great harvest of the year, a time of worry about the weather and the need to get the grass cut and dried before the rain could spoil it ... Hay was fodder to keep the livestock going through the winter. So when the arduous work of haymaking was done, the medieval cultivator found himself facing another stretch that was harder still - the toughest month of the entire year, in fact, since the spring crops had not yet matured. The barns were at their lowest point and the grain bins could be well empty. ... July was the time of another phenomenon quite unknown to us in the modern West - "the hungry gap." (page 101)

August
August 1, Lammas Day, is one of the oldest English country festivals. ... Its origin was actually the annual Anglo-Saxon round of farming and survival. Lammas was blaf-maesse, loaf-mass, the day when the hungry gap ended and the first loaf could be made from the new harvest. ... the Julius Work Calendar drawing for August makes clear that harvesting for the loaf-mass was an activity that involved the whole community. ... More than meat, milk, or any type of vegetable, bread was the staff of life for people in the year 1000. (pages 117-118)

September
Every farmer and householder had to work out the basic equation of survival through the winter. How long would the larder last, and which animals looked like consuming more fodder than their life expectancy could justify? September was the month when ailing and elderly livestock was turned into sausages and pies, and the pig was the crucial factor in this calculation. The cultivated harvest in the fields was matched by the woodland "mast" of beechnuts, acorns, chestnuts, and other fruits of the forest. Autumn was when the hogs were at their fattest. (pages 133-134)

October
The wavy line (that) marks the background to this calendar drawing for October invites us to contemplate a range of hills, from whose heights descends a tumbling river. As the river reaches the foreground, it turns into a lake on which two waterfowl splash happily, unaware that they are sitting targets for the falcons on the huntsmen's wrists. (page 149)

November
The calendar drawing for the month of November could possibly depict the grisly penalty inflicted on those who were suspected of theft. ... He is brought to the ordeal by the two ceremonially clothed agents of justice ... The suspect is now barefoot, and he holds his hands up ready for the ghastly test. He will be required to grasp the red-hot iron and step out nine paces, after which his wounds will be dressed and kept covered for a week. If ... his wounds clearly appear to be healing, he will be judged not guilty. (If not, he will be hanged.) (page 174)

December
The good folk are flailing, winnowing, and carrying away the produce of their harvest ready for next year in a basket of especially fine woven wattle, and there is every reason to believe that that is precisely how most of (England) prepared for and greeted the beginning of the second millennium. (page 187)

Now you can appreciate where the book is coming from. What remains is the history to be told. Sorry, but I can't tell you the historical details mentioned in the book - at this point, this essay is getting too long. The thing is:

As a book writer I ask: Is this book Trick or Treat?

It's Trick. Being creative, the authors' trick is that they use the reader-friendly device of 12-page, 12-month Julius Work Calendar to tell the history of England in the year 1000 in 12 chapters. Actually, the English history they tell is before and after 1000 AD. Ingenious.

It's also Treat. With the calendar as a door to the past, bits and pieces of history of England circa 1000 AD are presented in an interesting and intellectual manner as the above calendar excerpts show very well.

As a Roman Catholic I ask: Is the Julius Work Calendar the origin of the Protestant Work Ethic?

The authors say:

The Calendar is dedicated to work and prayer. Its message is that you must labour as unquestioningly as you worship your God, and, as put into practice through the best part of the millennium that followed, this fundamental work ethic was to prove the basis of material success in England and in every other society that shared it.

This must be The Protestant Work Ethic. Following the lecture of Lynn Harry Nelson about feudalism, about lords and vassals, I am tempted to say that the good old professor didn't look hard enough - I see the modern corporation as feudalism in disguise. In his own words, the essence of feudalism is that "civil and military powers at the local level are assumed by great landowners or other people of similar wealth and prestige" (vlib.us). In the millennial sense, feudalism is the power to withhold.

So I find I must exercise my franking privilege as defined in England in the year 1000, where the king decreed that every man is a vassal, that is, that he shall be faithful to his lord, and shall declare to him what is favorable and shall not conceal to him what is not favorable. This was taken as an oath and known as the Frank Pledge (pages 151-152). I hereby invoke my franking right. As a Frank Pledger, I'm your Guardian Angel or your Neighborhood Watch.

Now then, I as a vassal am exercising my duty to my lord, who is Man, by my Frank Pledge; in franking, I must point out to him what has been disadvantageous to him; I must say:

Lacey & Danziger's book The Year 1000 romanticizes the plow, saying, "The wheeled plough embodied millennial man's mastery of the soil" (page 28) out of which rose modern civilization. They couldn't be more right! And more wrong! "Man's mastery of the soil" is a monstrous conceit; it explains man-made Climate Change.

The plow, or man's mastery of the soil, whichever comes first, is the historical Pandora's Box out of which flew the many social ills because of what I shall refer to here as:

The Plowman's Abuse
Raping of the virgin soil by ripping
forgetting to return to the soil what was taken from it
inspiring indiscriminate opening of forests to farms
neglecting carrying capacity or optimum yield
dismissing intergenerational equity
inducing extreme monoculture
influencing extreme chemical agriculture
accruing to extreme infestations and infections
proceeding to extreme soil erosion
leading to extreme desertification ...
There is no end to the list as there is no end to the conceit.

Okay, to be creative, instead of The Protestant Work Ethic, I'll call it by another name: The Julian Work Ethic. They differ in name, but they mean the same:

You my Lord are royalty; I vassal am vessel.

Climate change is my business. Lucille Sering must mean business!

2011-05-15T10:13:00.001+08:00

MANILA – I’m minding my own business. About the Philippines' "National Climate Change Action Plan" (NCCAP), I want a copy of that plan, and I want action!

But no, I don't think I'm going to get one or the other. Remember, as businessmen, the Filipinos are laissez faire; as citizens, they are lackadaisical, if not downright lazy. So, what else is new?

Yes, I'm a Filipino, in fact, an FBI - full-blooded Ilocano, my grandfather having come from the town of Rosario in the province of La Union in the Ilocos Region. The Ilocanos are the most hardworking people I know; they're not afraid of the climate, hot or cold. Not afraid of indolence either, and I'm speaking from experience, not to mention ancestry.

And so did our National Hero Jose Rizal, who put it down in history, in writing in 1890 in more than 13,000 words, the fact that the Filipinos had the unwelcome "predisposition (to indolence) due to climate" ("The Indolence of the Filipino," Jose Rizal, as translated by Charles Derbyshire, which is downloadable from gutenberg.org). We Filipinos also had the misfortune of being subjugated by Spain for hundreds of years and under the Spanish conquistadors who taught our ancestors the lessons of master and mastered, so that we Filipinos learned to hate manual labor itself. Or hate the low pay.

The climate is hot in Manila, and I'm not even referring to politics, inviting sloth. So I was not surprised to receive by email on Friday, 13 May 2011 one photo release (not shown) on Climate Change that said, "The technical validation of the action plan was held recently at the Discovery Suites, Ortigas, Pasig City to determine whether the plan still needed refinements before its presentation to the President." The release, from the Climate Change Commission itself, was dated 12 May; note the word "recently" in the quoted sentence. My little investigation shows the photo attached to the email was taken on 25 April 2011 (I can tell you the precise time to the second if you like). So, as I rewrite this morning, Sunday, 15 May, it's been 20 days since the "validation" - but I still can't find a copy of that action plan to download, so I am ready to attribute it to indolence.

I've surfed everywhere. The Action Plan is not in the Knowledge Center on Climate Change of SEARCA (beta.searca.org). Something's the matter: The Knowledge Center on Climate Change was born yesterday (2010), and it has no knowledge of today?! If the knowledge center doesn't know, I'm almost too lazy to ask who else doesn't.

No, it's not in the NEDA website (neda.gov.ph) either, but which has the "National Framework Strategy on Climate Change 2010-2022" downloadable. The National Economic Development Authority doesn't have the Plan. What's the matter: Climate change adaptation and mitigation are not fields for national economic development?!

And no, of all places, it's not in the Climate Change Commission website (climate.gov.ph) itself; in fact, it only has the draft "NCCAP Technical Workshop - Jan 26-28, 2011" report. What the heck: There is no climate change even inside the Climate Change Commission?!

Therefore, I suspect that either:

(1) The NCCAP is written in jargon that they think nobody understands anyway except the PhDs. Well, I understand!

(2) The Climate Change Commission doesn't want any further comments on the Plan, especially from crusaders who like to pick nits. Me? I'm a crusader myself but I hate nits. Instead, I like to have a bone to pick with someone.

Actually, I think I have enough of the bone already.

So, no "National Climate Change Action Plan" to look at. The next best thing I have done this morning (13 May) is look for the basis of that Plan, assuming it exists. And the best thing that I have found? I already told you: the "National Framework Strategy on Climate Change 2010-2022" that I found in the NEDA website but not in the Climate Change Commission website itself. What the hell: The Climate Change Commission itself is out of touch of the reality of the imperatives of climate change?! Such an attitude reminds me of a lady journalist who declared during a conference I attended, that the problem with climate change is that it's good for only one story. Some people can't relate the biggest news in history to their little lives.

In any case, it looks like the Commission formulated a "framework strategy" out of thin air and made that a basis for an "action plan" - this is not according to the rules of business management. Climate Change is a business or, which is the same, Government should make it her business!

Now that we're in business, we must follow the rules of corporate management.

Rules? Vadim Kotelnikov has an interesting thesis: The "Strategy Pyramid" is now "old view" and the "Strategy Stretch" is "new view" (narod.ru). The image shown here is from him. Trying to impress his audience that he is radically different, visually, Vadim's Strategy Stretch does not begin with Vision, and yet he defines "strategic intent" as "a company's vision of what it wants to achieve in the long term" - which means, he's starting with Vision anyway! As all Russian managers should. As all Filipino managers should.

Anyway, I like Vadim's image of the Strategy Pyramid because it graphically captures the proper hierarchical relationships:
Vision
Mission
Goals
Strategies
Tactics
Action Plans.

"Strategies" and "Action Plans," there you are! A "Framework Strategy" is not where you begin a corporate plan. Young man or old, you begin with Vision. And in between Strategies and Action Plans, you must formulate the Tactics first.

Now you understand where I'm coming from. Now I can say that the Philippine National Climate Change Action Plan began on the wrong page and is definitely not based on any Vision, Mission or Goal. So, since there is no record of any corporate plan that shows its corporate Vision, Mission, and Goals, it tells me that climate change managers and advocates are working out climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts in the Philippines without the benefit of a proper business plan. Well, the Filipinos are not known for business planning, are we now?

What business do I have to say that? It's my business - I am a journalist and a natural-born citizen of the Philippines, and climate change along with citizen change is my jurisdiction. After all, the Climate Change Commission is supposed to be working in my favor - and if it isn't, I have the duty to myself to find out why not - and as a journalist to broadcast that to the world.

I suspect that the non-performance of the NCCAP according to my expectations as a citizen stems from the fact that the law that created it, Republic Act 9729, has the title that inadvertently straight-jacketed the Commission: "An Act Mainstreaming Climate Change Into Government Policy Formulations, Establishing The Framework Strategy And Program On Climate Change, Creating For This Purpose The Climate Change Commission, And For Other Purposes" (tonycruz.com). Unfortunately, the ladies and gentlemen of the Philippine Congress didn't know business management either - so they blurred out the Vision, denied the Mission, and cancelled the Goals - proceeding immediately to the 4th step of corporate management, Strategies – and then the Commission by itself jumped to the 6th step, Action Plans. They should have asked the opinion of corporate managers and minded their own business.

Adding insult to injury, according to its own website (climate.gov.ph), the Commission "shall formulate (the) National Framework Strategy on Climate Change (NFSCC), National Climate Change Action Plan (NCCAP), and Local Climate Change Action Plan (LCCAP)." That is not in accordance with the law, no. I see this as a misreading of Section 9 (Powers and Functions of the Commission) of RA 9729, or worse, an assumption of powers not rightfully belonging to the Commission. Why not a partnership of government, business, non-government organizations, church groups and civil society to formulate the NCCAP? And why not the local government units to formulate the LCCAP based on the NCCAP?

According to RA 9729, there are 17 specific powers of the Commission, from (a) to (p), and 3 of these have the executive word "formulate" - but not for any action plan. Are those in the Commission putting the law into their own hands?

As a citizen, I would have had no objection to the Commission taking advantage of an apparent loophole in the law if the NCCAP had been formulated with an overall Vision to dream about, a Mission (or Missions) to make that Vision a reality, and Goals that when carried out will accomplish the Mission.

I'm much interested in the NCCAP because it's not your usual R&D program proposal, for 2 reasons:

One, the NCCAP is in fact a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity – we fail in this national endeavor and there is no lifetime to talk about - to create a grand plan to develop the countryside by way of Climate Change Adaptation, using technologies that respect the laws of Mother Nature and reduce greenhouse gases: organic farming, zero or no tillage, intermittent irrigation, micro-fertilization, reforestation, and growing of biofuel crops. (Climate Change Mitigation is mainly to reduce death and damage by way of evacuation and rescue systems, engineering and architecture.)

Two, it's a life-and-death thing for me too. The Philippines is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change depredations: extreme floods, extreme temperatures, extreme droughts.

I am sleepless because, unless the Climate Change Corporate Plan itself is adaptable to and can mitigate damages from:

extreme pressures (from Congress)
extreme calm (indolence of the Judiciary)
extreme winds (of change from the Executive)
extreme heat (from hot heads: activists and antis)
extreme droughts (of funds from non-release by Budget)
extreme floods (of requests for funding from public and private institutions and individuals wanting a piece of the action)

the Philippines will no longer be The Sick Man of Asia - it will be The Drowning Man of Asia. Drowning in sorrow.

Even so, I am willing to forgive the Commission for overzealousness, but I wish to raise this proposition:

That the National Climate Change Action Plan in draft or final form be recalled, reexamined, reformulated and repackaged as a corporate plan worthy of the genius of the Filipino business manager.

Anyone wants to debate with me blog to blog, or in an online discussion group created for the purpose? Climate Change is not the business of Secretary Mary Ann Lucille Sering only.

Filipinos of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your climate of fear and loathing!

The Bataan Nuclear Plant: "When Will They Ever Learn? A Reply To Dr Solita Monsod" by Dr Floro Quibuyen

2011-03-25T11:11:00.001+08:00

FQ is an independent scholar of Philippine history, past and present. I do not always agree with him, but I admire him for his research, findings and forthrightness. He sent the following material as a letter to the Editor of the Philippine Daily Inquirer where SM's column appeared. If you're not afraid of providential radiation from a nuclear plant, I am. With minimal editing - Frank A Hilario

IT IS STUNNING HOW DR SOLITA MONSOD, UP economics professor, in her March 18, 2011 Philippine Daily Inquirer column, could wholeheartedly endorse Mark Cojuangco's recent claim that what happened to the Fukushima Dai'ichi Nuclear Processing Plant would not have happened to the Bataan Nuclear Processing Plant had the same magnitude of earthquake and tsunami occurred at Subic Bay. The notion that the BNPP can be safe has been debunked two years ago by Dr Kelvin Rodolfo (Professor Emeritus, Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago) in a well-documented and widely distributed paper - Geological Hazards of the Bataan Nuclear Plant: Propaganda and Scientific Fact (2009) - as well as in well-attended public forums.

Yet, Monsod persists in trumpeting Cojuangco's call for a revived BNPP, unmindful of the fact that this call has been based on wrong presuppositions. This is evident even in Cojuangco's new claims, as reported approvingly by Monsod:

Claim 1. "Well, says Cojuangco, for one thing, the BNPP is built on a hilltop, 18 meters above sea level, so no tsunami could have touched it. Is this a big deal? Yes, because the FNPP problems were caused by the tsunami that followed the earthquake."

One wonders why Monsod blindly believes all that Mark Cojuangco says. While it is true that the BNPP is 18 meters above sea level, it does not follow that "no tsunami could have touched it." I've emailed Dr Kelvin Rodolfo regarding Cojuangco's claim. He replied, "I'm a marine geologist who has studied Subic Bay and its tectonics. But even I cannot predict a tsunami height there. But bear in mind that the 2004 tsunami was 33 meters high, and that the record tsunami height (1958, Lituya Bay) was 524 m!"

Aside from the real possibility that a tsunami could swamp the BNPP, so many other things can happen that could damage or disable the reactor's cooling system - precisely what triggered the overheating, fires and explosions at the Fukushima Dai'ichi nuclear power plant (FDNPP). As Dr Kelvin Rodolfo notes:

A disruption would not be very difficult: Failure of a pump or valve, rupture of a pipe, an inattentive or sleepy technician, an electrical brownout or power surge… Not much of a task for an even moderate earthquake, let alone an eruption.

Claim 2. "Because the BNPP was designed to withstand a seismic load (definition: the force on a structure caused by acceleration induced on its mass by an earthquake) of 0.4g, while the FNPP was designed to a seismic load of only 0.18g. Cojuangco also points out that the FNPP did not crumble despite the fact that the earthquake was stronger than its design basis, because apparently nuclear plants are built conservatively with "overkill" 'safety factors'."

The integrity of the structure of the reactor is not the only issue. Indeed, as what happened to the FDNPP shows, the Achilles heel of a nuclear reactor is its cooling system. Failure to keep the fuel rods, as well as the spent fuel rods from overheating would lead to a meltdown. Rodolfo explains:

The spent fuel rods must be kept immersed in a pool of water, typically 40 by 40 feet in area and 40 feet deep. Millions of gallons of water must flow through the plant every day not only to cool the reactor core, but also to absorb the radiation in the spent-fuel pool. There, the radiation energy is removed and transformed into heat. But the heated water must be continually replenished with cool ocean water. Interruption of that water supply could be catastrophic.

The spent fuel rods are armored with a zirconium alloy. If the pool water were lost, the armor of the newest spent-fuel assembly would ignite, and in turn could ignite adjacent fuel assemblies. Once started, the fire would be virtually impossible to put out. Spraying it with water would only make it worse, because even more heat is generated when zirconium reacts with steam. A fire and explosion in the spent fuel storage pool could release huge volumes of radioactive gases to the atmosphere, including much radioactive cesium-137, which is water-soluble and extremely toxic in minute amounts.

Claim 3. Cojuangco mentions that while the FNPP is a BWR (Boiling Water Reactor) with only one cooling circuit, the BNPP is a PWR with two separate and distinct cooling circuits. The additional isolation apparently makes for "more forgiving of extreme situations" although the tradeoff is a reduction in efficiency (4 percent).

Having two separate and distinct cooling circuits is not a guarantee that the cooling system will never be disrupted - whether by an earthquake, a tsunami, or a volcanic eruption.

And why does Monsod keep repeating the already refuted idea that the BNPP is in an isolated site. In his paper, Rodolfo has already exposed and corrected Cojuangco's misunderstandings, if not sheer ignorance of the geological context pertaining to the site of the BNPP. To mention a few: BNPP is not just ten kilometers from Mt Natib, "which constitutes more than the entire northern half of the Bataan Peninsula. Its base is below sea level. The BNPP site is on the flank of the volcano, at Napot Point;" the last eruption of Mt Natib is not between 11,000 and 18,000 years ago - "In the years since Marcos decided to go nuclear, many more earthquakes have occurred in the vicinity of the BNPP. From 1973 to 2008, the US Geological Survey has located many earthquakes of moderate magnitude in the vicinity of the BNPP, one of them directly under Napot Point, like the one mentioned by Hernandez and Santos in 1977;" the fact that the BNPP does not sit directly over a fault does not mean that it will never be threatened by an earthquake - "Manileños need to know that a major earthquake on the West Marikina Valley fault would probably be most damaging not along the fault zone itself, but in places built on natural and artificial bay fill kilometers away, like Tondo and the Asia Mall. The earthquake damage directly along the trace of a fault is usually minor compared to the total damage in the affected area. We must remember that the great 1990 earthquake in Nueva Ecija greatly damaged Baguio and Dagupan, cities 100 kilometers away from the epicenter;" the idea that the farthest a volcanic mass can travel is six times the elevation of the volcano is true only with respect to landslides - "During an eruption, pyroclastic flows - dense mixtures of explosion debris and very hot gases - can surge great distances down the volcano flanks at hurricane speeds, searing and obliterating everything in their paths. These are not landslides!;" to bruit about the notion that the BNPP is safe because it withstood the 1990 Luzon quake and the 1991 Pinatubo eruption" is absurd; the plant was not running! Think of the spent fuel pool and high-tension cables of an operating plant" etc. One has to actually read Rodolfo's paper, backed by peer reviewed scientific studies, to realize the full extent of Cojuangco's numerous egregious inaccuracies and misunderstandings of geology, if not outright distortions of the scientific data.

It takes one's breath away how Monsod can concoct, without any qualms, this spin:

Cojuangco's views are a welcome relief from the rush to judgment that has apparently gripped any number of people, led and fed of course by the so-called "anti-nukes." But that does not excuse the inaccuracies being bruited about to bolster the anti-nuke position. Thankfully, Science and Technology Secretary Mario Montejo and Sen Miriam Santiago refuse to be stampeded.

On top of this, Monsod gushes over Cojuangco's credibility and intentions:

Cojuangco is credible, because he has no financial interest in any activity related to the issue, his main concern being how to make the country more competitive by lowering its energy costs, not to mention reduce its pollution. Moreover, he has done a lot of homework on the subject.

Of course only God in his infinite wisdom and mercy can tell whether Cojuangco indeed has no financial interest relating to the revival of the BNPP, but we mortals can at least ascertain if it is indeed true that the BNPP would lower the Philippines' energy cost and reduce its pollution.

Today, it costs US$12B just to build a nuclear plant. But let us assume that the Philippines needs only one plant, and that all that is needed is to make the BNPP operational. It is said that refurbishing the BNPP will cost only $2B (or 86 Billion PhP), but this does not include the cost of its maintenance and operation, let alone the uranium that is needed to make it operational. As Rodolfo has pointed out, the Philippines does not have uranium, and so it will be importing, most likely, from Australia. Moreover, we should also consider how much it will cost to decommission a nuclear plant, once it has reached its expiry date - the costs are huge, according to environmentalist and consumer advocate Ralph Nader. How much will be the total cost of rebuilding, operating and maintaining the BNPP?

Not only does it cost too much, nuclear power is just too risky. That is why, in the USA, observes Nader, "nuclear power is uninsurable in the private insurance market" and "Wall Street will not finance new nuclear plants without a 100% taxpayer loan guarantee (Nader, 2011).

Is the BNPP pollution free? The fact that the BNPP (like the Fukushima Dai'ichi Power Plant) was built on the coast, next to the sea, had a reason - massive amounts of water has to be pumped into the reactor to cool it. But ignored by Congressman Cojuangco and economist Monsod is something environmentally crucial - "the impact," notes Rodolfo, "of millions of gallons of seawater heated and released every day, on Subic Bay and adjacent coastal environments and ecosystems should BNPP be operated." Rodolfo asks, "Does an Environmental Impact Statement for BNPP include an evaluation of such questions?"

Finally, is the BNPP the best option in making the Philippines competitive? Even the more prudent among advocates for a revived BNPP - notably Mark Cojuangco's wife and replacement in Congress, Kimi Cojuangco, who, unlike Monsod, realizes that the disaster at Japan's FDNPP has dealt a death blow to her husband's pet project - have not given up on their conviction that a revived Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) "is one way out of poverty," and that there is "no other alternative that could offer cheap and stable source of power" ["Bill seeking BNPP revival shelved" By Lira Dalangin-Fernandez. INQUIRER.net First Posted 13:10:00 03/14/2011http://globalnation.inquirer.net/news/breakingnews/view/20110314-325371/Bill-seeking-BNPP-revival-shelved Accessed 24 March 2011]

In fact there is a better alternative - solar power!

Author, inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil - who became famous for predicting that the Internet would emerge by the 1990s, that a computer would beat the best human chess player by 1998 (Deep Blue beat Kasparov in 1997), and that the IT would facilitate the spread of information that would accelerate the collapse of the Soviet Union - is now predicting that solar energy will soon be able to compete economically with fossil fuels.

Kurzweil is not looking at the crystal ball; he is deriving his predictions from his law of accelerating returns:

One of my primary theses is that information technologies grow exponentially in capability and power and bandwidth and so on. If you buy an iPhone today, it's twice as good as two years ago for half that cost. That is happening with solar energy - it is doubling every two years. And it didn't start two years ago, it started 20 years ago. Every two years we have twice as much solar energy in the world.

Today, solar is still more expensive than fossil fuels, and in most situations it still needs subsidies or special circumstances, but the costs are coming down rapidly - we are only a few years away from parity. And then it's going to keep coming down, and people will be gravitating towards solar, even if they don't care at all about the environment, because of the economics. … People say we're running out of energy. That's only true if we stick with these old 19th century technologies. We are awash in energy from the sunlight.

[Futurist Ray Kurzweil isn't worried about Climate Change, By Lauren Feeney. February 16, 2011
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/environment/futurist-ray-kurzweil-isnt-worried-about-climate-change/7389/ Accessed 21March2011]

Ralph Nader observes that concerned scientists are saying much the same thing:

Nuclear power is both uneconomical and unnecessary. It can't compete against energy conservation, including cogeneration, wind power and ever more efficient, quicker, safer, renewable forms of providing electricity. Amory Lovins argues this point convincingly (see RMI.org). Physicist Lovins asserts that nuclear power "will reduce and retard climate protection." His reasoning: shifting the tens of billions invested in nuclear power to efficiency and renewables reduce far more carbon per dollar (http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/whynewnukesareriskyfcts.pdf). Peter Bradford, a former Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) commissioner has also made a compelling case against nuclear power on economic and safety grounds (http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/whynewnukesareriskyfcts.pdf).

[Nuclear Nightmare by Ralph Nader http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03/19-0. Accessed 19 March 2011]

Indeed, as Kurzweil has pointed out, the nuclear reactor is fundamentally a 19th century technology - the steam engine. It uses nuclear fission - which was originally developed to create, at the height of World War II, what was then the most powerful weapon of mass destruction - to produce the steam that would turn the turbines of an electric generator. Given the lessons of the tragedy of the Fukushima Dai'ichi Nuclear Power Plant, it is time to discard this 19th century model, and turn to solar power and other renewables.

Postscript:

When a reputed professor of economics argues, without shame or embarrassment, that it is the anti-nukes who bruit about "inaccuracies" and "rush to judgment," when otherwise intelligent people like DOST Secretary Mario Montejo and Sen Miriam Santiago "refuse to be stampeded" into the anti-nuke position, one wonders what is driving their dogged push for the revival of the BNPP? We can be sure it's not scientific reasoning and knowledge, much less the lessons of history. Perhaps something else is at stake - something so compelling that not even the scientific findings of distinguished scientists and the currently unfolding horror at Fukushima can make them think more sensibly and responsibly.

Could this unstated agenda, whatever it is, be the reason why the DOST abruptly, without explanation, ended the Balik Scientist program? Was it to discourage the likes of Dr Kelvin Rodolfo from coming to the Philippines and providing scientific support to the anti-nuke activists loathed by Monsod (which by the way includes several progressive lawmakers, environmental groups and the Church led by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines)? There's the rub!

END

Contact info: Floro Quibuyen at Croydon, Greater Sydney, Australia. quibuyen01@yahoo.com. Australia mobile: 0410031093, Philippines Globe Roaming: 09273986728

Our Noah's Ark. Is Mayon Volcano the new Ararat?

2011-01-08T06:30:00.001+08:00

MANILA - You didn't (I didn't) know it before, but there's more to biblical stories than just stories. For one, there's climate change. Of course, you have to read between the lines. Not to mention that you have to use more than one version of the Holy Bible - I read 4 or 5 versions in research. After this, I hope you will wholly see why they call the Bible Holy - God knows what we don't, because we don't do research.

Like, even if you're a master of the Bible, I don't think you recognized before this that the first recorded man-induced climate change occurred in the Bible. A revelation from Heaven, I would say.

But first, let's come down to Earth.

To mitigate the disaster in your thinking brought about by the United Nations' pronouncement (through the IPCC) that there is man-induced (anthropomorphic) climate change, let me point out to you that in the Philippines, in some quarters we know something else you don't: the cause of flooding.

Going from here to there, I just discovered that the old National Disaster Coordinating Council, NDCC has reinvented itself into the National Disaster Risk Reduction & Management Council, NDRRMC; the clue is in its website: http://www.ndcc.gov.ph/. I know, it's because "disaster risk reduction" and/or "disaster risk management" is the in-thing, the call of the times. You can't say the Philippines is behind the times. Ask Joey Salceda, the Albay Governor, the United Nations Champion in Climate Change.

But I don't see how the NDRRMC is managing to reduce the risk by simply announcing like this (I'm reading online 07 January 2011 at 0634 hours), in its home page yet: "Effects of Continuous Rains in Region IV-B, V, VIII, X, XI, ARMM & CARAGA [Glide No. FL-2010-000258-PHL]" and underneath that, this: "Effects of Continuous Rains due to Tail-End of a Cold Front in Region IV-B, V, X, XI ARMM & CARAGA." The NDRRMC homepage is all a daily list of "Situational Report ... re Effects of Continuous Rain" - that's what I call continuous reporting.

How wonderful that we can blame the continuous rains for our floods! Not only that: We can blame the cold front for those continuous rains! I take it that the NDRRMC is trying to tell us that Man is not to blame for national disasters like floods because they are "natural disasters" and not man-made. Should I rejoice that I don't have any carbon footprint; should I jump with joy that I'm not to blame for climate change at all?

Let me change location. There is flooding in the CARAGA Region in Mindanao; in Butuan City alone, 57 villages have been flooded (MUC, 05 January 2011, pia.gov.ph). And it's going to get worse and not any better.

From my favorite place to visit in Southern Luzon, from the province that has the beautiful and deadly Daragang Magayon (Mayon Volcano), comes the news from Albay Governor Joey Salceda, via email that as of 07 January 2011 at 1900 hours, they have evacuated 7,700 people because of the danger of landslide and flood. Not only that. Salceda says, "16 days of uninterrupted rains have started to disrupt livelihoods - thus increasing required food assistance particularly to fishing, upland and farming households." That involves an estimated 21,150 households.

16 days of uninterrupted rains. The officials of Albay can truly appreciate (and shudder at) the quiet (and not-so-quiet) desperation of the people by the seashore, on the hillsides, and in low-lying areas. Salceda reports that some "residents swooped down on the food rations intended for evacuated households." When the waters come visiting, reason flies out the window.

16 days of uninterrupted rains! Those of us who are on dry land, feeling smug & snug in the comforts of our homes hundreds of kilometers away from Albay, we must be reminded of Noah's 40 days and 40 nights of uninterrupted rains. The Great Flood. After which, Noah's Ark rested on Mt Ararat. Add 24 more and it would be 40 days and 40 nights of continuous rains in Albay! I don't want to think that Mayon Volcano is going to be our modern-day Mt Ararat.

In fact, I don't want to wait for a Noah-size flood to happen before I should want to build my ark - and by the way, Noah's Ark was the first disaster risk reduction ever recorded. When Noah built his ark, it was too late for the other inhabitants of the Earth to do something about the "natural disaster" that was coming their way: global flooding. Another discovery. The Great Flood would be the first global climate change in recorded history - everyone knows it's recorded in the Bible. If you don't believe me, check out Genesis Chapters 6 to 9. It was definitely anthropomorphic: The Great Flood of God was brought by the Great Sins of Man.

And we don't have to wait for a Noah-size flood before we have to build our own Ark of the Inundated. If we are not alarmed by what's happening in CARAGA in Mindanao and in Albay in Luzon in the Philippines, we have been warned enough in the Queensland flood that is happening right now in Australia. Do you know the size of that? The flood, not Australia. The flood is the size of Germany plus France! (Editorial, 05 January 2011, csmonitor.com). 200,000 people are directly affected in an area that's 357,000 sq km (Germany) added to 547,000 sq km (France) (indexmundi.com). That's a total of 904,000 sq km. My awesome, beloved country is a miniscule 300,000 sq km (the Philippines), and being an archipelago with thousands of islands, much of that is water. We're all wet!

What's the world coming up to?

The economy of Queensland is "dominated by the agricultural, tourist and natural resources sectors" (Wikipedia). Sounds familiar; that describes my pint-sized Philippines too. And there we find the connection.

Whether you are in Queensland or the Philippines, when you say agriculture and natural resources, you must mean farms and forests and mines much in forested lands. I'm not familiar with the mines - that's very dirty work, not to mention very dangerous - so I will limit myself to agriculture and forestry, where Man has put his best foot forward and created a million of his footprints, and yet refuses to admit that they are his - like, people will not admit that they are illegal loggers, big or small. I'm also referring to carbon footprints.

In forestry, carbon footprint is like this: A tree absorbs carbon dioxide from the air and converts it into a tree, part of itself. When you step out and cut down a tree, you are cutting off a carbon eater - the tree you cut is your carbon footprint, the carbon cost of your act. That's not your best foot forward. Your best foot forward is like, cutting down on cutting trees! Like, don't waste paper; email, don't send letters by post; don't buy news on print, read online.

Given continuous rains, if you have continuous forests, if your valleys are continuously vegetated and your soils are continuously enriched with organic matter, there should be no floods and certainly no flash floods. If you decimate the forests, if you cultivate the hillsides, you're asking for natural disasters like flash floods, landslides and soil erosion. That's what your carbon footprint brings you. That's what you bring to yourself.

In agriculture, you make even more carbon footprints. Your rice plant absorbs carbon dioxide from the air and converts it into rice, part of itself; the stalks you cut down to harvest your rice are your carbon footprint. You plow the field again and expose the soil to the unmerciful heat of the sun; the soil loses its moisture - you need that moisture for your crops. The period your field is without plant or crop is your carbon timeprint (my coinage), no plant to capture carbon dioxide from the air and help prevent man-made climate change.

And the chemical fertilizers you apply? They are manufactured necessarily with much carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere. And you the farmer, when you apply fertilizer, soon your fertilizer will cause the release of nitrous oxide into the air, another greenhouse gas. You add to the accumulated greenhouse gases in the upper atmosphere of the Earth, that layer of gases which reflects back to earth the heat from the sun and causes anthropomorphic global warming. Farming isn't such an innocent act after all.

Note also that at the time your rice plants are growing, the rows are empty of vegetation; the rows are wide apart such that 90% of the field is wasted as a site for growing other crops that are carbon eaters - those empty in-betweens are your carbon spaceprint (my coinage). Aside from not growing value-added carbon eaters, in your farming, you're wasting space if you're not into multiple cropping. Multiple cropping is multiple sources of income; it is also multiple carbon eating.

Carbon footprint + carbon timeprint + carbon spaceprint = what? The arithmetic is enough to make a grade schooler cry.

What's the other value-added lesson in Noah's Ark? The building of the ark was only disaster risk reduction, or climate change mitigation. And it was only for Noah and his family. Mitigation is reaction, after the fact. It's necessary, but it's only cure.

Even a grade schooler knows that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Climate change adaptation is like prevention. Like, in our farming, if we plant drought-resistant rice, we don't need so much infrastructure and so much fossil-based energy for irrigation. Like, if we intercrop papaya with coffee and Napier grass and apply organic fertilizer, we conserve the soil water, multiply our sources of income, and again avoid fossil-based energy necessary for the manufacture of chemical fertilizers. We avoid greenhouse gas.

Our best foot forward to climate change is adaptation, like a necessary change in our lifestyle, especially those of us who are profligate with natural resources - and that includes the filthy rich and the filthy poor. As in, the unthinking rich depopulate forests, and the unthinking poor populate rivers. So that we don't need to build a New Noah's Ark, we should build a New Noah's Earth. All we have to do is put our best foot forward. Beginning today? Beginning yesterday.

Marketing climate change. Missing AIDA, Al Gore missed

2010-11-24T22:13:00.001+08:00

MANILA - What was Albay Governor Joey Salceda of the Philippines doing in the World Mayors’ Summit on Climate in Mexico City on 21 November 2010? He was doing his job, exhorting the Mayors of Cities around the world to play their active role on climate change affirmative action, and inspiring them with the experience of a whole province on climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. Even if you don’t know him, you can’t miss him; he’s the super-charged speaker when it comes to climate change.

I understand the WMSC was convened to give the World’s Mayors time to sign a voluntary agreement, the Global Cities Covenant on Climate (“The Mexico City Pact”), “that sends a clear message to the international community on the strategic importance of cities in the struggle against climate change” (wmsc2010.org). Is the World Mayors’ Summit trying to send a climate change message to the President of the United States?

I don’t understand why, after the 21 November 2010 World Mayors’ Summit on Climate in Mexico City, there is going to be a World Summit of Mayors in Nigeria 2-8 December 2010 (ncbm.org)? I note that the WSM is to be convened by the National Conference of Black Mayors and the World Conference of Mayors. The announcement says:

As many countries still face the challenges of building and strengthening a viable local government system out of decades of centralized organs of government, the World Summit of Mayors will feature various country reports that can illustrate the instrumental role of local government leaders in addressing the issues, needs and concerns of the people and communities.

This World Summit of Mayors forgot climate change.

There is no specific mention of climate change in the WSM statement, which tells me that climate change, C2 is neither an overriding issue, need nor concern in the view of the WSM. Which tells me that the World Summit of Mayors are only halfway up the slope of the Summit, and they have established their Base Camp there, and only a few intrepid souls may proceed to the Summit. And that would be unfortunate, because C2 should be on top of all other agendas.

But I, as a journalist thinking creatively, can see why the World Summit of Mayors would give little or no importance to climate change in the Nigeria conference 1st week of December even after the Mexico City Pact has been signed 3rd week of November, or barely 2 weeks in-between. The former event was only a signing of the Pact; the latter event is an exchange of data, information, experiences, insights and decisions on matters other than the Pact. I understand that the World Summit of Mayors in Nigeria is saying that climate change can wait. I’m sorry, but climate change, like time waits for no one.

I don’t blame these Mayors. That is because, whether in Mexico City or in Nigeria, there is much the World Mayors do not understand about climate change, granting that they are convinced that it is occurring and that man’s activities are the main causes of such drastic changes in the weather and, ultimately the climate. Climate change is to many a paradox and, don’t forget, to others a hoax.

In the first place, there is an embarrassment of riches in climate change, a bewildering array of technical terms that experts declare on the slightest provocation, silently assuming that their listeners understand what they’re saying as well as appreciate where they’re coming from. Scientists are like that. I should know; I’ve been working with scientists for the last 35 years. Scientists have never been known to be good communicators to other than scientists, and I don’t see any signs of the times that they are starting now to communicate better to the masses. This is science’s unforgivable sin of omission to the world.

Technical papers abound, including theses and research reports, but these are not properly popularized. The jargon remains. It’s like someone wants to inform the movie viewers in a crowded theater that there is a fire and they should file out properly and avoid panic, and the speaker begins by saying, very clearly, in a modulated voice, “There is conflagration in the premises.”

As a citizen of the world, I believe that the #1 problem in the world today, bar none, is climate change that is mainly man-caused and is rapidly happening; as a writer, I declare that the #1 problem in climate change affirmative action is the clear absence of primate change in communication that can only be man-made but is not happening at all. There is confusion in the premises.

I recognized that such a communication barrier exists years ago, and I am officially on record that on 04 February 2007, I came out with the essay “The Yankee Dawdle. On Discovery Sorghum, The Great Climate Crop” (American Chronicle). That’s where I invented the term “climate crop” and later “climate change crop” to refer to sweet sorghum, the intelligent non-food substitute for Philippine sugarcane and American corn as the source of bioethanol.

And how is bioethanol related to climate change? That’s part of the problem I call The Missing Message. Marshall McLuhan famously said, “The medium is the message” and I fatuously say, “The message is missing.” There may be confabulation in the premises.

That’s as far as the marketing of climate change is concerned. The message is missing because the receiver of our message doesn’t understand us. I know that there is no systematic marketing of climate change up to now. And that is why, for instance, it took more than 20 years for Al Gore to convince the world that man-caused climatic change has been happening. He was talking not behind our backs but above our heads.

And not learning much from Al Gore, not understanding much Marshall McLuhan either, and also not comprehending the one who created AIDA, we are hardly moving a critical mass of people to join the War of the World: Climate Change Affirmative Action, C2A2. R2D2 of George Lucas’ mind-bending Star Wars was a thinking robot. As it is, we have too much of C2 and hardly anything of A2. Are we unthinking robots or merely clones?

Instinctively, I knew 4 years ago when I began writing about C2, about the marketing muddle of climate change. The efforts at marketing C2 had been disorganized, confused, poorly reasoned, or complex.

It is a fact that for the people to buy climate change as a product, nay a service to them, it must be marketed and, therefore, the marketing model for climate change should, necessarily, be patterned after the 4 Ps of the classic marketing mix. For the purpose, here is my version of it:

Produced - What exactly is your product? How do you package climate change so that by itself it becomes attractive to the buyer? If you simply label your product Climate Change, you are going to be terribly disappointed. People won’t buy your story - it’s a non-story to them.

Positioned - How does this product compare - compete - with other products in the market such as HIV/AIDS, world hunger, and the threat of nuclear annihilation? Is it a consumer good or a luxury?

Priced - How much do the people stand to gain if they buy the product? How much do they stand to lose if they do not buy?

Promoted - How do you go about promoting your product employing the Hierarchy of Desire: first Awareness, then Interest, then Desire, and finally Action, so that it will be bought?

Product, Position, Price, Promotion: Proceeding from such a marketing model, and arising from the double fact that I am both a writer and a journalist, both a dreamer and reality-based, I see my contribution lies in the 4th P of marketing, which is Promotion.

And so I must visit AIDA now, right this minute, so that I can move up the hierarchy of my desire. If you’re into sales & marketing, and that’s what a writer & journalist for C2 should be, you have met AIDA, of course, the so-called Hierarchy of Desire, where A is the start and must lead up to I, which must lead up to D, which must eventually lead up to A: Awareness --> Interest --> Desire --> Action.

So we begin with Awareness. We want our target critical mass, TCM of people to be aware of C2. Awareness, says the American Heritage Dictionary, “implies knowledge gained through one’s own perceptions, as of the attitudes of others, or by means of information.” Now then, how can our TCM be made awake and watchful of climate change? My own answer to that question is that we the promoters of C2 have to be aware of climate change ourselves first! Are we? No, we are not.

If you think you are knowledgeable, can you answer Frank H’s 10 questions?

(1) Can you define climate change in 15 words? I can do it in 4. (If you want some practice on this, visit my new blog Discuss to Death, Blogspot.)
(2) What metaphor, legend, or parable would you use to imply or indicate climate change that your listeners would immediately understand? Disciple: “Master, why do you speak to them in parables?” Jesus: “Because that’s what they understand.”
(3) What is climate change adaptation? Give me 2 examples.
(4) How does it differ from climate change mitigation? Give me 3 examples.
(5) What about disaster risk reduction? Give me 4 examples.
(6) What about disaster risk management?
(7) What do you mean climate resilient cities?
(8) What is the Kyoto Protocol?
(9) What are the Millennium Development Goals?
(10) What is the Mexico City Pact?

Here’s another set of Frank H’s 10 questions:

(11) What is happening to the weather?
(12) What is happening to the atmosphere?
(13) What is the greenhouse effect?
(14) Why do you call them greenhouse gases?
(15) What is a carbon footprint?
(16) What is a carbon sink?
(17) What is carrying capacity?
(18) What exactly is happening to the environment?
(19) What is happening to the water table underground?
(20) Why the need to reduce spraying of farm chemicals?

And still another set of Frank H’s 10 questions:

(21) Why do pest infestations occur?
(22) Why do disease infections occur?
(23) Why the need to shift to sustainable energy sources?
(24) Why do multiple cropping at all?
(25) Why is monocropping not desirable?
(26) Why the need to restore mangrove forests?
(27) Why plant native species for reforestation?
(28) How does animal husbandry create greenhouse gas?
(29) How does fertilizer production create greenhouse gas?
(30) What makes Manila the most polluted city in the world?

Frank H’s 30 Questions are random; I can change the specific questions and the point I want to make remains exactly the same: We promoters of climate change affirmative action know what we know but we hardly know how to communicate them to others so that they become aware of what climate change is all about and why it is the #1 problem in the world today, and what we can do about it to adapt to it as well as mitigate the damages. In short, our target critical mass cannot relate climate change directly to their lives simply because we cannot relate it to our own lives either. That is why I heard a journalist say, in all seriousness, “Climate change is not an everyday story.” That is a failure of those who are marketing climate change to journalists; if the student has not learned, the teacher has not taught.

And pray, what have I myself done towards awareness on climate change by that critical mass? Answers: Written books. Became and remain a correspondent of the American Chronicle for the last 4 years. And I have blogged, blogged, blogged: so far 81 stories including this one in iNews Earth, 110 in ICRISAT Watch (both in Blogspot), an average of 1,500 words each, each a popularization of scientific theory, practice, knowledge or experience. Blogging is free & easy; popularizing is not.

More to the point, between November 2009 and June 2010, I designed, helped collect data and information, watched as the chapters began to take shape, edited and helped completely revise a new volume on climate change for the people, The Green Book (working title) authored by Sam Martin, an environmentalist with a PhD from the University of the Philippines Los Baños. It’s probably the first of its kind in the world. In 6 months, the final manuscript was camera-ready, all 150 pages of it.

The Green Book was designed into 11 chapters, as follows:

Ch 1. Understanding Climate Change
Ch 2. Global & Local Actions Necessary
Ch 3. Commitment & Political Will
Ch 4. What LGUs, Businesses & NGOs Can Do
Ch 5. What You Can Do at the Office
Ch 6. What You Can Do at Home
Ch 7. What You Can Do at School
Ch 8. What You Can Do Travelling
Ch 9. What You Can Do in Your Community
Ch 10. What Farmers Can Do
Ch 11. What Else Can You Do?

That is climate change science popularized, make no mistake about it.

Since I’m not the author, I have no liberty to show you any page of the book even if I have the ecopy, as I was the one who desktop-published this one. It is enough for our purpose that the titles of the chapters themselves clearly indicate their respective contents. It can thus be seen that the book approaches climate change affirmative action in a practical way, while being technically correct or technically sound. As you will notice, it starts with “Understanding Climate Change” because if you don’t understand it intelligently yourself, how can you talk about it intelligently? It is a book of What Can We Do? It is full of practical things to do, like greening the backyard, carpooling to report to the office, unplugging all equipment for the night, limiting travel to business, encouraging individuals and institutions to do their share, producing your own organic fertilizer, minimizing use of commercial pesticides, and influencing your Senator or Representative in the matter of climate change.

Be that as it may, the manuscript has found no publisher. And I think I know the reason why, and it’s very simple:

You cannot sell a book on climate change to people who don’t yet understand, much less appreciate, the imperatives of climate change. You cannot convince those who pay only lip-service to climate change to support you in publishing a book that goes beyond mere lip-service.

Truth to tell, there is a team I know who is producing a book on climate change; the team members plan to edit the book themselves, assigning certain chapters to each; they will then ask an editor outside the team to do the final editing. The team says, “The book is a straightforward project and should be handled by climate change media experts.” Everything looks okay, right?

The problem is that at this point in time, there are no climate change media experts! Who are they gonna call? I myself cannot claim to be one, even with 4 years continually on the job and 3 books published abroad on C2 and related subjects. The Philippine Network of Environmental Journalists, of which I am a Board Member, is hardly a year old.

I need one thing to show that I am a climate change media expert: Write, edit, and produce a one-man encyclopedia of climate change-related terms, including conservation agriculture and marker-assisted selection and breeding of plants - the encyclopedia written for non-technical people, in English at a level that high school graduates can easily grasp. That would be the day!

The thing is this: If climate change affirmative action is urgent - and it is - then it is more urgent that we get a critical mass of people to be able to grasp the essentials of climate change.

And it is most urgent that we who want to promote climate change understand in the first place what we’re talking about. How can a marketing man sell a pair of shoes to a barefoot native in Africa if the salesman doesn’t exactly know what shoes are for?

The critical mass must internalize climate change, but first we in the mass media must. Unfortunately, the mass media are hardly aware of it. That’s because those who know something have not gotten around to showing a critical mass of the mass media clear, concise, coherent, comprehensive answers to the all-important question of marketing a product made out of climate change:

“What’s in it for me?”

Knocking out climate change?

2010-11-24T08:58:00.001+08:00

Climate Change Commissioner Heherson T Alvarez opens to the mind of 8-Division World Boxing Champion and Sarangani Representative Manny Pacquiao to some devastating facts about climate change.The boxing icon rallied the Filipinos to stop and fight climate change in a short message given in the occasion of the celebration of Climate Change Consciousness Week to be aired in television stations around the country.

Local governments vs climate change - Governor Salceda

2010-11-24T07:45:00.001+08:00

Statement of Albay Governor Jose Salceda at the World Mayors’ Summit on Climate at the Antiguo Palacio de la Escuela de Medicina on 21 November 2010

Buenas dias a todos. El Jefe de Gobierno del Distrito Federal de Mexico, Senor Marcelo Ebrard. Allow me to acknowledge your leadership of the united front of local governments in the struggle against climate change. And to our partners, ICLEI, UN ISDR, UNEP, UNFCCC and UN Habitat, let me thank you for the constancy of purpose and guidance to local governments.

I am Governor of Albay, a province of 1.2m people in a country, the Philippines, that is visited by 19-21 typhoons every year, whose intensity has been rising year after year. Climate change has been an adverse reality to our people and to me since birth. It is the single biggest obstacle to our aspiration for development and more particularly to our achievement of MDGs. That is the basic reason why we are all here today in Mexico City.

Despite the challenge of climate change, Albay has achieved zero casualty in disasters in the past 16 years except 2006 and has attained most of the MDGs (malnutrition, maternal mortality, infant mortality, under 5 child mortality) in 2009 ahead of schedule. We did so first (1) by consciously committing 9% of our annual budget, incrementally and institutionally, to climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction, second (2) by fully integrating climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction to our development plans and their execution and third (3) by working closely with civil society organizations and academic institutions in all our programs and projects.

The fight against climate change and its impacts is the primordial duty of the state to its people especially to the poor. But it cannot do so without the people. And the closest and most direct unit of the state to the people is the local government. And the people’s interests are best articulated by civil society organizations. Thus, the horizontal conversations and engagements of local governments and civil society organizations are the most immediately viable fulcrum of intervention in the arena of climate change, particularly in adaptation. The allied forces of LGU-CSO, through partnerships on the ground that are, in our case, assisted by bilateral institutions and capacitated by national agencies, is the axis for any successful and substantial action on climate change. Certainly, this can not obviate nor substitute for the action of nation-states but it does show the way forward: we must put people at the center of any climate action and of any agreement.

The fight remains challenging. But the way forward is promising in local action and local partnerships with civil society organizations. Gracias a todos.

Mt Bulusan’s ash falls on deaf ears?

2010-11-11T08:29:00.001+08:00

MANILA - This volcano in Sorsogon has been spewing ash since 06 November 2010 or for about 1 week now, and have fallen over the villages of Cogon, Gulang-Gulang, Bolos, Cladgao and Buraburan (Alvin Elchico, 08 November 2010, abs-cbnnews.com), but government officials of the province remain “ill-prepared against possibly deadly consequences from recent volatile behavior” of the volcano (Rhaydz Barcia, 11 November 2010, manilatimes.net).

I understand that people are concerned about dire consequences. Well, that’s not how volcanoes work. In the case of Bulusan, it has spewed only volcanic ash and not lava or pyroclastic materials (rocks) after the last major eruption in 1918, or 82 years ago, so there is no imminent danger of deadly blasts.

On one hand, there is over-reporting of the situation. “Mt Bulusan erupts” is the headline of a report by Rhaydz Barcia (10 November 2010, manilatimes.net), but that is misleading and unnecessarily alarming because it implies a major eruption, not simply the spewing of ash as is the case here. It is not right that the people are improperly alarmed. This calls for a need for PhilVolcs and/or journalists to always mention the alert level of Bulusan and to explain what that means.

On the other hand, the Philippine Red Cross is over-reacting over the situation. PRC Secretary General Gwendolyn Pang has said on the PRC website: “I enjoin all staff and volunteers of PRC Sorsogon Chapter to be on alert 24/7 and to monitor the volcanic activity of Mt Bulusan” (11 November 2010, LBG, gmanews.tv). Madame, monitoring Bulusan is the job of PhilVolcs and they are doing a good job, thank you very much.

Even so, I don’t understand the complacency of the Sorsogon Government in not being “disaster-ready” as next-door neighbor Albay Province is under Governor Joey Salceda. Albay is the epitome of the Philippines in climate change adaptation / disaster risk reduction management, and I don’t see why they can’t learn even by osmosis from the premier CCA / DRRM province in the Philippines. Sorsogon officials owe it to Sorsogon citizens, their own people.

Climates of change. AMA Legazpi #1 with LGU Summit #1

2010-11-09T18:28:00.001+08:00

LEGAZPI CITY - History is being made; climates are changing, including the climate of application of information technology, the IT of modern times; let me tell you about the changes I saw in Albay last week, about the LGUs and their affirmative action on climate change, and the IT people who complemented their collaborative enterprise.

On 04 November, Day 1 of the LGU Summit+31 of the League of Provinces of the Philippines, LPP I arrive at about 0815 hours at the La Piazza Hotel & Convention Center along Tahao Road in Legazpi City, and almost instantly I saw a bank of good-looking, new desktop computers with 19-inch LCD monitors - looks like Heaven to me! Are there good-looking girls? At 70, I'm not looking for any.

To explain, let me tell you of the song composed and sung by Richard Reynoso, “Ale (Nasa Langit Na Ba Ako?)” that goes like this:

Ale, nasa langit na ba ako?
Mama, kayo po ba si San Pedro?
Ok lang sa akin kung ako’y dedbol na
Basta’t ikaw ang lagi kong kasama
Kaya, ale, nasa langit na nga ako.

My free translation:
Lady, am I in Heaven yet?
Sir, are you St Peter?
It’s okay with me if I’m dead
As long as you are with me always
So, lady, I must be in Heaven.

What I’m seeing must be Heaven. Seeing those beautiful personal computer systems in a long row makes my heart leap. You will understand my feelings if I tell you that I’m a computer WONK, which is an acronym that applies only to me: WOrd -based, Nice-to-Know-more writer. That is to say, I write using a word processing program - Word 2010 as of the moment - and I surf the Internet at the same time, researching for background, potentially helpful information, opening my mind to any insights that may intrude. Looking at those PCs, I know they are connected to the Internet, all of them - so, I am in 7th Heaven. That bank of PCs looks like a row of angels to me, waiting to serve at my slightest bidding.

Among other things, I’m a correspondent of the American Chronicle, and I’m attending the Summit for the feature stories I can derive from the proceedings and the exchanges. I am also a blogger, and I have a dedicated website for stories like the Summit; I call my blog iNews Earth (Blogspot). As with my blog, the moment I upload to American Chronicle, it’s published, no need for editorial review by the online magazine, as the editors know I don’t swear, don’t revile people, don’t use 4-letter words ; they also know I always write positively. Since I write quite fast and want to upload faster, a PC with an Internet connection is a heavenly gift.

I note that already there’s a website dedicated to this meeting of the LPP: LGU Summit+31 (lgusummit3i.com). Anticipating my need for a background search, I download from the website what I can: Conference Background, Rationale, MDGs Role, PIA Blogs, Objectives, When &Where, and Expected Outputs. I’m impressed. I’m going to interview the guys who created the website, I tell myself. They have done a great service for the Summit, and I would like to tell their story.

On Day 2, 05 November, I upload my 1st Summit feature story, “Philippine LGUs. Climate Change Awareness to Action” to iNews Earth, 05 November 2010, simultaneously to American Chronicle). I do it at PC #1 in the Summit bank of computers. The Internet is as fast as it looks, and I’m happy. I inform the Secretariat. I’m the first to post my LGU Summit feature story online. In a little while, I am asked for my blog address so that they can link it with the Summit website. It’s a heavenly feeling.

On Day 3 and last day of the Summit, 06 November, after uploading my 2nd Summit feature story at Tanchuling Hotel where I am staying, “Beyond disaster response. Vulnerability & Civil Society,” iNews Earth and American Chronicle), before we go on a bus tour, I arrange to talk to the one responsible for the website, and it turns out that it was designed and set up by the AMA Computer University Legazpi Campus’ Graphics, Events & Tabulation Team, AMAGETT Web Team headed by Jonathan Sadueste Ng. I arrange with him for an interview after I come back from the tour. I come back early evening and Jonathan begs off from the interview, because he and his team have been sleepless for the last 24 hours or so. I understand. You stay up late with the one you love.

On Day 4, in the morning, I upload again at the hotel my 3rd Summit feature story, “Tour of duty. We climb Mayon & meet climate change” (iNews Earth and American Chronicle); the one you’re reading is my 4th. In the afternoon, Jonathan and I meet at Mr Donut at the Pacific Mall in the heart of Legazpi City, and the hot chocolate is nice, the donut is good, and the conversation is pleasant. I don’t really interview people; I just talk with them, because I’ll get more if the one I’m talking with is relaxed and not waiting for the questions to come so he can give intelligent answers. I don’t have a list of questions to ask, not even some keywords to remind myself what I want to know from the other fellow across the table.

The reason I started this essay with the song “Ale (Nasa Langit Na Ba Ako?)” is so that I can simply point to the metaphor of being in Heaven when you like what you see and love what you’re doing - which describes Jonathan as an instructor, computer programmer, and a consultant in information technology, an IT expert based at AMA Legazpi. Similarly enamored with IT, I’m a writer, computer nerd, blogger and an online correspondent of the American Chronicle. He is also from Manila. Boys of a feather flock together.

I learn from Jonathan the LGU Summit+3i website (lgusummit3i.com) is the contribution of AMA Legazpi to the overall effort at governance in the province of Albay with the leadership of Governor Joey Salceda, this time on climate change. It is a labor of love of the AMAGETT Web Dev Team for the LGU Summit+3i. Jonathan is the Team Captain; the team members are students of AMA: Samuel Rey Pareja Carranza (assigned to Plenary outputs, Gallery site), Arlan Armenta (Website, Video), John Francis Offemaria (Website layout), Kevin Balcita and Kendall Louise Luna (Presentation outputs, including flashdrive development), Rachelle Ann Naz and Diana Azul (Registration), Exequiel Sabater and Babyjoy Oloteo Oxiano (Facebook & Twitter documentors), Marc Albert Besinal (Facebook photographer), and Esperanza Ricafort and Steve Ballesteros (Web Dev Team Assistants). I don’t see them attending sessions because they are working behind the scenes.

The Web Dev Team don’t work for money; they get the credits for the work done, and they get the thrill of being able to contribute their talents to a project much bigger than themselves, bigger than AMA Computer University, even bigger than the whole of Albay Province. After all, the LGU Summit+3i was national, and “3i” means “3 islands,” which means the Summit will travel from Luzon to the Visayas to Mindanao. What happened in Legazpi was the Luzon leg of the Summit. From there, the Web Dev Team will go where the Summit goes.

I tell Jonathan that on the Summit website I was clicking the other day on “Download Presentations” but nothing happened. Why is that? He says, ah, it’s because it’s real time. That moment, we were just uploading the materials. (Back in Manila, I check now as I write these lines, 0700 hours 09 November, and I see a beautiful page: 15 presentations ready to download, now in easy-to-carry-easy-to-read pdf, the ones by Gov Carlos Garcia VI (Climate Change Commission), Antonio Balang Jr (FORGE Inc), Rosalina de Guzman (PAG-ASA), Gov Alfonso Umali Jr (National President of LPP), Blandino Maceda (DILG Region 5), Myke Magalang (MaCEC), Margarita Songco (NEDA), Arturo Cruje (Surigao del Norte), Maria Leonila Bautista (DoST-PhilVolcs), Susan Rachel Jose (NEDA), Michael Atrigenio (UP Marine Science), Carlos Primo David (UP Geological Science), Felino Lansigan (UP Los Baños), and 2 other documents by ANN, authors not named. The Web Team is up to Internet speed.)

There’s a count up now at the Summit website; as I write these lines, it has been 4 days, 23 hours, 17 minutes since LGU Summit+31. That is to say, Jonathan and his boys continue to work on the site because they want to, they love to. They are sharing their talents with the world.

I tell Jonathan that a friend of mine who is rich had asked me by email what material blessings have I been getting for my writing - the asker knew I have been (also) passionately writing about Charice, our very own Concert Princess of Asia (you can check out my Pinoy Cinderella blog) - and I said, nothing, no material blessings yet, but I hope I’ll get some when my book comes out. I’m not averse to material blessings, but I don’t write for the money. Up to now, I spend money, not earn, so I can write. Truth to tell, I’m a Member of the Board of the recently formed Philippine Network of Environmental Journalists, but this time, I took leave from PNEJ. As a son of the soil, Citizen of Planet Earth - check out my website iNews Earth if you wish – I invited myself, and Albay CIRCA Executive Director Nong Rangasa said I was welcome. He offered the Governor’s Guesthouse, free of charge, nice bed, but I decided against it because the last time I was there, I couldn’t get my USB SmartBro to connect to the Internet; neither did my USB Tattoo work - I was armed to the teeth but I couldn’t pull any trigger. Nobody but nobody can take me away from the Internet. I was at the LGU Summit on my own, and I checked in at Tanchuling Hotel because I could afford it and because it had a free WiFi setup and, you know, once a blogger, always a blogger - your fingers itch. (By the way, the hotel’s WiFi was fast enough for me; I saw 57 mbps for downloading. And, of course, that’s turtle-slow by world standards, but you get to love what you get.)

Jonathan tells me about how his Web Dev team was working 24/7 to get the website going and in real time. I’m not a programmer but I understand about writing thousands and thousands of lines and lines of code, probably in C++. He tells me he was on the boat from Leyte the day before the Summit opened 04 November, designing the website, programming with his beloved 3-year old laptop. My HP laptop is also 3 years old, I tell him. I always have to be with my laptop, he says. Same here. I don’t feel complete out there without my laptop. (Here’s one of my secrets as a writer: During the Summit, I took notes with the laptop on - I type faster than I write, and the more notes I have, the better for the write up.)

Even if he doesn’t say it, I see that the Summit website, along with building the database, has been - and continues to be - a labor of love for Jonathan and his Web Dev team. In fact, it was also a labor of love lost - he had chosen attending to his laptop (work) over attending to his girlfriend, and the girlfriend broke up with the boyfriend right on Opening Day of the Summit! I understand girlfriends don’t understand boyfriends who love their work. I don’t blame them, girls and boys.

It delights me that AMA Computer University, via AMA Legazpi with Jonathan and the Web Dev team in the frontlines, is showing other universities in the Philippines, including my alma mater, the very proud University of the Philippines, how IT can work along with the local government units, and happily, without so much as project funding. Some people can’t work without funding. Some other people, like Jonathan, know what they can do and would love to do it if given just a hint.

Now then, this Special Historical Note - 3 world’s firsts were made in Albay during the LGU Summit+3i this early November:

(1) That Summit is the first of its kind in the world, and it was highly successful - I know because I was there all the time and, in case you wanted to know, my standards have always been sky high. Well, graduates of the University of the Philippines are used to high principles of theory and practice. (For specific outputs, check out the website we are talking about here.) Congratulations to Governor Joey Salceda, co-convenor & host.

(2) In that case, as it happens, the LGU Summit+3i website (lgusummit3i.com) is the first of its kind in the world, and it continues to be highly successfully executed in real time. Albay Province and AMA Legazpi deserve your congratulations.

(3) In turn, the creator of the Summit website, the Web Dev Team of AMA Legazpi headed by Jonathan, is #1 in terms of IT applied for climate change affirmative action, 2 sectors partnering: private and public.

With the real-time example of the lgusummit3i website, what we are into right now is IT at work at the foreground as well as background of Science & Sense for Development. This is knowledge management at the speed of light. I include Sense with Science because we need to work with the Speed of Light along with the Speed of Enlightenment. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: Science doesn’t have all the answers; Science doesn’t even have all the questions. We walk by Reason with Faith.

Tour of duty. We climb Mayon & meet climate change

2010-11-07T06:08:00.001+08:00

LEGAZPI CITY (06 November 2010) - Day 3 of the LGU Summit+3i Conference is a time for touring some parts of Albay, including the beautiful, world-famous Mayon Volcano. She’s lovely, but you’ve seen her before. Ah, if you don’t think it’s a duty to join the tour, you are sadly mistaken. You are making exactly the same mistake that journalists covering climate change are making; I’ve heard the journalists themselves say in public that climate change is not an everyday story. You say, following the journalists’ argument, that joining the Summit+3i bus tour of Albay is fun and educational but it’s not about climate change, so you can skip it. I say, following another line of reasoning, that you and the journalists are on the same boat: Wrong boat.

Why? Join us in today’s tour by bus and you’ll find out. It’s a day for lessons. It’s the right bus and, as it turns out, we don’t make any wrong turns.

With seasoned and joke-easy Eden Intong as our tour guide, first we visit the Cagsawa Ruins. Underneath lie the bodies of those who were buried alive who were hearing mass in the Roman Catholic Church of Cagsawa when on 01 February 1814, Mayon Volcano erupted and tons of lava flowed down the crater of Mayon and incinerated them instantly. (Lesson: Faith is not enough to save you; you have to know what’s going on around you - lucky for us, today we have PhilVolcs to warn us about any impending eruption.) How deep was the lava flow? It was deep enough to almost bury the whole church, with essentially only the church belfry now showing.

What do the eruption of Mayon and the Cagsawa Ruins have to do with climate change that the Summit tackled? Easy, I say. There are lessons to learn about 2 things: climate change adaptation, and disaster risk reduction. Eden may be joking, but I’m not.

Climate change adaptation lessons from Mayon’s eruptions - On our climb to halfway up Mayon (by bus, up to the place they call the Skyline), we see quite a few people along the highway that is supposed to be No Man’s Land. I ask the obvious, “What are they doing here?” And Eden gives the obvious answer, “Farming.” I note also a sign that says, “Load na dito.” We invite you to have your eload here - if you didn’t know, the eload gives you instant load for your cellphone without buying a card. This indicates that the seller of the eload has squatted and staked a claim on that part of Mayon, saying “This is mine.” Some people like to call these people informal settlers, as if to say, “It’s okay. Nobody’s looking.”

While you’re not looking, Mayon is an active volcano, and she’s deadly. Some people never mind public property, not to mention that they never learn to adapt to the danger of a volcanic eruption. And now, with climate change, during extreme typhoons, the lahar from Mayon’s crater are brought down by accumulated rainwater, causing extensive damage to life and property within an 8 km radius from the crater. When she’s happy, Mayon is beautiful and playful, hiding her face every now and then; when she’s angry, she’s ugly.

The best adaptation for those people in the Mayon danger zone is to accept the offer of relocation from the office of Albay Governor Joey Salceda and work out their livelihood from their new surroundings and situations. But people can be hardheaded.

Disaster risk reduction lesson regarding Mayon’s eruptions - The next best thing that the people can do to avoid the tragedy of Cagsawa is to practice disaster risk reduction, DRR. Two simple things the squatter farmers up in Mayon can do in the name of DRR are: (1) get out of the place when authorities tell them to get out, scram! (2) stop going back there to farm, going back there to gather wood to make charcoal, collecting live wood to make driftwood. This will allow Mayon’s forest to regenerate itself where there is no lahar or lava flow - the Legazpi City side - and at the same time and all the time get the people out of the danger zone.

What lesson is there in our visit to Mt Kawakawa? This is a nature sort of resort owned by former Albay Governor Fernando Gonzalez. We walk up about half kilometer to the top and it takes all our breath away - we pant all the way up. With a slope of about 30 degrees, it’s an extreme climb to non-mountain climbers like us. Along the way, we can see that Gonzalez is replanting the hillsides with trees, preferring the exotic kinds. For years an information officer of both agriculture and forestry, I know for a fact that the native tree species are so much easier to maintain and do grow better, if not faster overall - a lesson in restoring the balance of nature on hillsides and setting up faster a carbon sink that a forest is. I never thought of it before, but reforestation is climate change adaptation.

The conversation shifts to agriculture. Gonzalez asks what can be done to combat the pests of rice and, being an agriculturist with a practical bent of mind, I think I have some answers, so I tell him 2 choices: (1) learn how to do trap cropping, and (2) do multiple cropping. It’s obvious he hasn’t heard about it, so I spell it for him: t-r-a-p cropping. After I explain, he says, “It makes sense.” Gonzalez understands science.

The pests come from other places, Gonzalez tells us. I don’t have the heart to tell him the pests stay in your place because they have plenty of food to eat. Don’t blame climate change for pest infestations. In trap cropping, you plant a non-commercial crop that will attract the pests rather than your commercial crop. I suggest that they stop the monoculture of rice and turn to multiple cropping instead. With several different crops growing side by side, the insect pests have enough natural enemies from other crops to prevent infestation. Multiple cropping is also a multiple hedge against crop failure. In other words, indeed trap cropping and multiple cropping are disaster risk reduction farming tactics.

What lesson is there in our visit to an upland farm in Tabaco City? At the village of Bagumbayan in Tabaco City, they have some hilly 10 hectares dedicated to farming by the way of Tumana, acronym for Tabaco upland management of nature-based agriculture. They are practicing multiple cropping as well as multi-layered cropping, with crop canopies just above ground as well as canopies above other canopies. Technically, this is called agroforestry, mixing agriculture with forestry. They are growing cash crops (like vegetables) alongside perennial crops (trees). A multi-layered setup is a much better carbon sink than a monoculture like all rice or all corn for miles and miles. A monoculture is a great food supply for insect pests and zero food supply for their natural enemies. That explains your pest infestations.

Not only that. In the Tumana project, they are into organic farming and out of inorganic. On top of Kawakawa, Gonzalez tells me that if the soil is depleted of nutrients, you can’t avoid using inorganic fertilizers. In fact, you can. And the Tumana project is showing how. They are not using any inorganic or chemical fertilizers, which means no methane polluting the atmosphere from chemical fertilizers. (To make the story short, I decide not to tell Gonzalez about micro-dosing of fertilizers, an innovation of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics based in India.) And in Tumana, they are not spraying pesticides on any of their crops, which means less use of fossil fuels, less air pollution that leads to global warming.

In terms of climate change, what does it mean when you don’t apply chemical fertilizers on your crops? It means you are avoiding the use of fossil fuels in the manufacture of fertilizers, which means less carbon dioxide pollution, which counts as climate change adaptation. To put it simply: Carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere traps the heat of the sun and bounces it back to earth - the greenhouse effect - and that explains global warming, and that’s why carbon dioxide is called a greenhouse gas. When you don’t apply inorganic fertilizers, it also means there is no greenhouse gas called methane coming from those fertilizers that similarly does harm to the atmosphere.

What climate change lesson is there in our visit to Chevron? Chevron-Aboitiz runs the Tiwi geothermal plant. Geothermal energy is a renewable source of power and does not pollute the atmosphere and therefore does not exacerbate climate change. Renewable sources of energy are environment-friendly.

So, on the farm, on top of a hill, or on top of a geothermal field, there are stories to tell that relate to climate change. So, never again dismiss a bus tour as humdrum; never again say, “Been there, done that!” If you’re a journalist, first you have to know your subject matter thoroughly, naturally; then it just takes a little creative thinking to recognize a story when you meet somebody, or something, face to face.

Indeed, there are inadvertent lessons during the tour. Like, don’t forget to laugh. Eden as a tour guide is superb (the lady in orange at the right of the photo - the Tumana people make us plant our own trees given our own names). She is both knowledgeable of the places we go to; she is also knowledgeable in the art of the joke. She has a database in her cellphone.

Among other things, between laughs at the jokes of Eden and our own, I get to know Tom, a refugee from the United States of America, as he refers to himself. “How does it happen that we think alike?” Tom asks. It’s a good question because, of course, I’m a Filipino and I’m probably 3 times older. I don’t happen to have a funny answer, so I don’t give any. Come to think of it as I write these lines, I should have said, “Boys of a feather flock together.”

On the bus, at one point during the tour, I joke and ask Eden to look at her database of jokes, be a lady and tell us “Jokes for Sleeping.” The lady protests, naturally, but not too much. Then when I look back (I’m sitting 3rd row from the driver), I see almost all heads bent up - sleeping. It’s after lunch. And so I say, “Eden, look, your charm is working on everyone. Your Jokes for Sleeping are working!” Tom has a good laugh. There are no other souls awake to laugh at our jokes.

On our way back to the La Piazza Hotel & Convention Center, I notice a police car ahead of us. I joke about it, and the security officer - so I notice - tells us there is in fact another one following our bus. This is security for guests on tour. Remember, the other day, foreign embassies declared travel advisories against the Philippines because of the danger of terrorist acts. Remember also that we are part of the Governors and Mayors group meeting as the LGU Summit+3i, so we are VIPs. It’s a nice feeling.

At the end of the day, we have a nice day. So now, here’s a lesson I inadvertently learn from today’s travel around some places in Albay planned for us by the LGU Summit+3i convenor group headed by Nong Rangasa, Albay CIRCA Director. There are 3 points to observe in a tour: Learn. Think. Enjoy!

Beyond disaster response. Vulnerability & Civil Society

2010-11-06T06:38:00.006+08:00

LEGAZPI CITY (05 November 2010) - In the Hierarchy of Desire, AIDA - Awareness > Interest > Desire > Action - Day 1 was on the Desire to Action; Day 2, today, is on the Nature of the Action. Everyone wants to reach the heavenly summit of climate change affirmative action.

The LGU Summit+3i continues at the new La Piazza Hotel & Convention Center in Legazpi City hosted by Albay Governor Joey Salceda and the whole provincial government. (For more initial details on the Summit, see my “Philippine LGUs. Climate Change Awareness to Action,” iNews Earth, Blogspot.)

In the draft LGU Commitment read by Governor Alfonso Umali Jr, it says, “Climate change is ultimately the issue of intergenerational equity.” We owe our great, great grandchildren the legacy of love of this planet, the only one we have, which is going to be theirs. “Intergenerational equity” - To me, that statement indicates that climate change is a process and implies that affirmative action for climate change takes at least a generation for its impact to be felt. So, the time for action is now!

The draft Commitment also says that the national action plan remains to be implemented by local government units. What it implies is that the success of the national framework on climate change action depends on the LGUs. So, the draft says, there must be strengthening of local capacities. That is why the LGUs are here. The draft is presented to Secretary Heherson Alvarez of the Climate Change Commission.

The final document is a commitment to action. We have to begin. This Summit is the very first in the country, so there are no precedents. However, there are precedents in terms of experiences in affirmative action by some local government units in the country.

In the parallel sessions in today’s afternoon part of the Summit, there are 3 themed sessions running: Theme 1: Tools, Systems and Approaches on Climate Risks Vulnerability Assessment; Theme 2: Climate Change Vulnerability and Impact Assessment Tools; and Theme 3: Climate Change Adaptation at the Local Level. I choose Theme 3, and the papers presented are CCA in Surigao Province, Legazpi City, Marinduque, and Cebu City. Among other things, these happened: In Surigao, the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council was reorganized; and Oxfam supported the building and use of knowledge management systems. In Legazpi City, DRR and CCA efforts were spent in coastal communities exposed to climate risks. “Livelihood interventions were anchored on available, accessible, renewable and hazard-resilient natural resources of the communities. In Cebu City, hazards for areas congested with people come from fire and landslides in watershed areas; another hazard is water pollution from squatters of riverbanks. The intervention reported was on the construction of a 50-meter riprap and the relocation of squatters.

For more experiences and lessons learned on climate change adaptation, mitigation, and disaster risk reduction, read the book Building Resilient Communities published by Oxfam Great Britain Philippines Programme (2008, 93 pages).These are actual cases that happened in Infanta, Quezon (farmers changing farmer practices), Iloilo City (grassroots volunteerism), Bato, Camarines Sur (disaster education), Labo in Camarines Norte (community radio), Dagupan City (community preparedness against flooding), and Albay (a permanent risk management office).

In the evening, we are treated to a dinner delight in Embarcadero de Legazpi, a new landmark of food and entertainment, by the City of Legazpi through Mayor Carmen Geraldine Barrameda-Rosal. While taking dinner, we are treated to song and dance.

In his little talk, Vice Mayor Vitorio Roces says, “Amidst the difficulties, there is so much we can do.” He does not say, “There is too much to do and too little time.” He encourages us and says, “There must be commitment in the quality of your work, pride in your work for others, nuanced to the smallest.”

City Engineer Joseph San Juan says Legazpi Park, where stands Embarcadero, a reclaimed piece of land of several hectares, with its concrete embankments, protects several barangays from flooding. It is a private enterprise pursued in partnership with the City Government, as is the Central Bus Terminal. With commitment to quality along with pride in working for others, as well as in seeking to help the poor, private-public partnerships should be mutually rewarding to both capitalists and citizens.

Graciano Yumul Jr, Officer in Charge of the Weather Bureau (PAG-ASA) says, “Sustainable development can only be if there is something stable.” That to me is an oblique way of defining what is sustainability. If a natural resource like a forest is exploited and is not allowed to regenerate itself naturally, it is not sustainable. And in fact, that has been happening to Philippine forests for at least 35 years now. They have disappeared.

Continuing on the topic of sustainability, Yumul also says how can we Filipinos have food sufficiency if our fields are almost always hit by typhoons? How can we say the situation is normal if our schools are being used as evacuation centers, or the buildings themselves are being destroyed by natural calamities? “All places in the Philippines are vulnerable,” he says, to climate change, disasters, and poverty.

We must be able to increase, he says, our “adaptive capacity,” leading to resilient communities. “Then that’s the time we can talk about sustainable development.”

“It’s all about leadership,” Yumul says, “that your people follow you. And partnership. Climate change action has to be tackled not by individuals but as a combined group.”

Is the government ultimately responsible for the people? In the end, Yumul says, “the people have the prime responsibility of saving themselves.” There are 3 things we the people can do. “We put a defense; we take offensive; and we actually accept what’s happening.” I take that to mean that we do disaster risk reduction, and we do adaptation - and we accept what we cannot change, and pray to God we are able to discern the difference. A pragmatic approach to climate change affirmative action, I must say.

“Duty ng gobyerno na ‘yong walang kalaban-laban ay tutulungan,” Albay Governor Joey Salceda says. It is the duty of government to help the helpless. If you are thinking of the UN Millennium Development Goals, the MDGs, don’t think of CCA or DRR, he says. “Hindi nakakapag-reelect ang DRR, kondi mas konti ang mahirap.” You cannot get reelected because you espouse DRR, except for instance if you reduce the poverty level.

Don’t just think “adaptation,” he says. “Adapt to develop. There is no such thing as adaptation per se. Adaptation for what? MDG. The MDG provides true meaning to adaptation.”

“We cannot adapt at the national level, he says. “Adaptation by nature is local.” Then he gives an example of adaptation: “If you increase the budget for disaster risk reduction, that’s adaptation.” Do not dream of high-visibility DRR, he says. “Lahat may karapatang mabuhay kahit walang disaster.” Everyone has the right to live even without disasters.

In the Theme 3 open forum, Salceda raises the need for active participation by civil society in climate change affirmative action. A major, major point! On his part, Antonio Pulong Jr who has just reported on Cebu City raises the need not only for risk reduction but also vulnerability reduction. That makes sense to me. On one hand, risk is external to the situation and some risks can be avoided up to 100% - If you don’t do it, there’s no risk to you. On the other hand, vulnerability is internal and cannot be avoided in any way, so it needs a lot more consideration first of all - I leave it at that.

Philippine LGUs. Climate Change Awareness to Action

2010-11-05T10:11:00.002+08:00

LEGAZPI CITY (04 November 2010) – I have been following climate change from Al Gore and his Nobel Prize for Peace, and it has been following me ever since. In this city that is a good 500 km south of Manila, I noted today 4 climate changes: (1) in travel & tours, (2) in extreme rain, (3) in the level of readiness of Governors to accept and do more about climate change in their own jurisdictions, and (4) in education on climate change.

(1) Travel & tours. Yes, today there was a climate change in air trips taken. “The travel advisory hurt us,” Albay Governor Joey Salceda told me, speaking of the attendance of local government units, LGUs to the Executive General Assembly of the League of Provinces of the Philippines, LPP held in conjunction with the LGU Summit+3i held at the new La Piazza Hotel & Convention Center in Legazpi City. Only 19 Governors arrived this morning for the beginning session of Day 1 of the Assembly/Summit; usually, 30 Governors attend meetings, Salceda said. Foreign embassies had issued a Travel Advisory against the Philippines the day before, warning tourists about threats of terrorist bombings. Sometimes, Filipinos take such travel advisories seriously.

(2) Extreme rain. Yes, there was sudden and extreme rain at about 8 this morning as I got off at the Central Bus Terminal of Legazpi City. In fact, it had been raining the whole night as I rode a St Christopher bus from the terminal in Farmers Cubao, Quezon City to Legazpi. The sound of that heavy rain was unusually loud to my old ears. To me, it was a warning to those attending the LGU Summit+3i that climate change is real and we have to deal with it ASAP before it deals with us sooner or later.

(3) Level of LGU readiness. After the presentation of Salceda and following his answers to the questions that mostly media people leveled on him, I believe that most if not all of the Governors present finally were convinced that concerns about climate change adaptation, climate change mitigation, and/or disaster risk reduction, had to be addressed. I can sense that in the Hierarchy of Desire, in the AIDA for climate change affirmative action, they have graduated from Awareness up to Interest up to Desire and now are up and ready for Action.

I say that even granting that our local executives have yet to regurgitate and digest in full what those concepts really mean. It’s not easy, and the academicians are not helping any. Climate change, climate change adaptation, climate change mitigation, disaster risk reduction, disaster risk management: all those unpalatable words you have to swallow and digest, and they are essentially indigestible, especially if you didn’t take science, so pity the local executives! Those CC, CCA, CCM, DRR, DRM have to be tackled head-on because they are all necessary for the Philippines to meet the MDGs as mandated by the United Nations, according to Salceda. That is to say, if you design your climate change adaptation to reduce the number of poor people, you are also meeting the MDG goal on poverty reduction. If you implement a policy that allows a part of the environment to be exploited and at the same time allow Mother Nature to replenish itself in a natural cycle, you are meeting the MDG goal on environmental sustainability. In other cases, climate change affirmative action should be easy. Like, you can reduce your carbon footprint if you have your town save more energy, so that your town is so much more environment-friendly.

(4) Education about climate change. Late in the afternoon, Salceda, Meyer and Secretary Heherson Alvarez of the Climate Change Commission signed a Memorandum of Understanding establishing in Albay the Climate Change Academy. You must institutionalize your response to climate change, Salceda said. The Academy will institutionalize the learning process.

The LGU Summit+3i is a national conference on “Mainstreaming Climate Change Adaptation in the Philippines.” You want CCA to be an everyday activity in the villages. That’s where it is needed most. It will be noted that the National Framework Strategy on Climate Change of the Philippines has pointed out the high vulnerability of the archipelago to climate-related dangers like extreme typhoons and floods, especially in the many low-lying areas. The “+3i” in the name indicates that the Summit results ought to be applicable in the 3 major islands that comprise the archipelago. The successful experiences must be shared nationally. It also happens that 2010 is the 3rd year after the CCA program started in Albay in 2007.

Summit+3i has been designed to bring together scientists, academic partners, 81 Governors, 81 Vice Governors, 81 Provincial Planning Officers, third level officials in the forefront achieving MDGs and ensuring climate change adaptation, civil society leaders, legislative and judicial partners, community practitioners and development partners. The Summit+3i website says “the main objective of the Summit is to provide a venue for critical actors to agree that adaptation is a critical development concern” (lgusummit31.com). The website considers LGU officials as front-liners in meeting the commitment towards MDGs and therefore, they have to think on a wider horizon and be flexible in tackling the variability and extremes of climate.

Speakers for the day are: Governor Alfonso Umali Jr, National President of the League of Provinces of the Philippines, LPP; Renaud Meyer, Country Director of the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP; Sheila Marie Encabo, Director, NEDA Agriculture Staff & Programme Coordinator, MDG-F 1656 JP; Jerry Velasquez, Senior Regional Coordinator, United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction; the Albay Governor, who is Chairman RDCR 5 & Co-Convenor of the LGU Summit+3i; and Nong Rangasa, Executive Director of CIRCA & Conference Director of LGU Summit+3i.

A major lesson for the day: Anything the LGUs do for CCA and CCM and DRR can be directly linked to the MDGs of each country. This is important for local executives to understand. As far as the MDGs are concerned, for up to 2015, the Summit website says the Philippines is too slow in minimizing poverty, insuring food security, humanizing health, and working toward environmental sustainability. In other words, we Filipinos still have too many poor; we still are not self-sufficient in food; we still have not improved much the overall health of the people; and we still are exploiting Mother Nature beyond her capacity to regenerate herself.

The website cites 3 reasons for the inadequate progress in fulfilling the MDGs for the country: inadequate investment, ineffective government policies, and lack of commitment. Meaning, there are not enough funds committed to achieve the goals; government policies do not work out well; and there is not enough political will from top to bottom - and, I might add, from bottom to top. Lack of political will from the top is failure in leadership; lack of political will from the bottom is mendicancy.

The 4th reason, according to the same source, is climate change itself: largely unpredictable weather, sudden extremes such as of temperature as well as rainfall. Incidentally, towards explaining “climate change,” Incidentally, I note that the Summit website has 4 words that I think can be used as a simple definition for the modern phenomenon; Climate change is “climate variability and extremes.” You can’t predict the weather anymore; the patterns of the past have disappeared. You can’t ignore the weather anymore; when it rains, you can almost smell danger; when there is a typhoon, you worry much that there is too much damage unlike before.

If I may add a 5th reason: The Philippines has a “limited capacity to undertake climate risk-based planning and project implementation” (lgusummit3i.com). We Filipinos don’t do much climate change affirmative action. I’m not surprised because we cannot affirm what we don’t understand. The very concepts of climate change adaptation, climate change mitigation, disaster risk reduction, and disaster risk management are not easy to imbibe because scientists flood us with technical papers and their definitions merely drown us with verbiage.

In the press conference late in the afternoon, the genius of the Albay Governor showed in his answers to questions that were professional as well as personal. Noting that the United Nations calls him a “Senior Champion” in climate change action as Governor of Albay, and that he refers to himself as a “Green Economist,” if you will observe with an open mind, it is easy to see that Salceda is a first-rate manager who also happens to be a first-class wit.

Among other things, he said during the press conference:
“Preferential treatment for the poor is why I entered politics.”
“Everything you do should enhance the dignity of people.”
“It’s not mystical. We did not suddenly discover climate change. Many of what we are doing actually is climate change adaptation. Like improving the drainage.”
“I saw that we cannot achieve MDG if we did not do climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction. The CCA is just a tool, not the end. And you have to deal with DRR.”
“Adaptation should not create more problems.”
“I saw that climate change adaptation was becoming the most important duty of society. Not simply mandate but duty.”
“How can you sustain that? Environmental sustainability. You cannot implement CCA, DRR at the expense of the environment.”
“Para lumakas ang loob ng local government, kailangan nila ng science.” To strengthen the resolve of local government, they need science.
“Mas maganda kung ang resulta ng science, ibagay sa local kaysa sa national. Sobra nang studies.” It would be better if the results of science fit the local situation rather than the national in a broad way. We have too many national studies already. Frank H understands that what Salceda is saying is this: We need global thinking less and more local action now.

Someone referred to his gift of genius, and Salceda said, “The best way to manage a gift is to use it for the good of all.” If you give in the Christian sense, you are multiplying the gift. Following Salceda, I say the best way to manage your resources, whoever you are and whatever they are, is to use each for the good of all. Then you would be doing CCA, CCM, DRR and improving your carbon footprint even if you couldn’t define them to save your life. In science or faith, you don’t have to understand everything - you just have to believe.

My 4th I. Ruth’s zero waste ideal, Neric’s paradigm shift

2010-10-09T22:23:00.001+08:00

MANILA (07 October) - The air was clean for the almost-quiet launching of the Movement for Zero Waste Philippines we were all dreaming of, at least at the LS Virata Hall of the Development Academy of the Philippines’ headquarters along San Miguel Avenue in Pasig City. And the mountain of trash called Payatas in Quezon City, that which has been much romanticized for years by do-gooders public and private, disappeared before our eyes. Some things gotta give. Trash must be trashed.

Waste must go. Thousands of squatters live on Payatas trash; thousands more of the mosquitoes thrive there, they who carry in their bowels the microbes that cause dengue fever when they bite humans. From decaying organic matter comes methane, deadlier than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. We humans should live on clean food, not garbage, and on clean air, not one polluted by methane. Payatas trash invites squatters, those who live by their own rules. All Payatases must go the way of Don Quixote de la Mancha, that is to say, “sane and broken” (Wikipedia).

Back to the rational event at the Virata Hall of the DAP. Formally, it was called the “Zero Waste Philippines’ Forum,” where to be presented were the overall status of solid waste management in the country, what had been done along the lines of SWM in the last 10 years, what else needed to be done, and public-private partnerships with funding with which to do those.

Ruth P Briones was the Lead Convenor, Juan Romeo Olaivar “Neric” Acosta the Co-Convenor. Ruth is the Chair and CEO of Greenergy Solutions Inc based in Quezon City. Acosta is a natural force to be reckoned with. He is a native of Bukidnon in Mindanao, an international scholar, and a passionate advocate for the environment. He is also the Co-Convenor of the Philippine Imperative on Climate Change. In 2004, he became the First Filipino World Fellow of Yale University (nericacosta2010.com). As a Congressman, he fathered the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of the Philippines (RA 9003). (Photo shows Acosta at left, Briones 2nd from right.)

The historical event was co-sponsored by 4 warm bodies. Aside from Briones representing Greenergy, attending were Anita Celdran for Endesa Carbono, being the Country Manager; Ma Theresa Capellan for the Swine Board of the Philippines, Adviser; and Bernard Tadeo for Full Advantage Philippines, President (in photo, at right). Joseph Lufkin, a consultant of the Asian Development Bank was Forum Moderator.

The opening prayer of Rev Dan N Miranda of The Good Samaritan United Methodist Church was to the point; the short prayer-message included this plea:

As You, O God, have given us material and spiritual blessings and favors in the past and up to the present time, extend to us now Your loving hands to each and every stakeholder in this forum so that a truly united and coordinated effort be done and be achieved towards a nation-wide sustainable approach in the problem of waste management.

Prayers are for the benefit of those who listen with their heads and hearts.

Having turned our eyes to Heaven, we must turn our attention to Planet Earth in general and to the Philippines in particular. We must do what must be done. You know that God helps only those who help themselves.

Neighbor, how stands the Philippines? Surprisingly better, if you ask about the handling of trash by local government units. The LGUs are complying with the law, said Eligio T Ildefonso, Deputy Executive Director of the National Solid Waste Management Commission (in photo, 2nd from left). The NSWMC had records to show that the great majority, about 79%, of the 1700 town and city Mayors in the country have complied with the law and no longer maintain open dumpsites and controlled dumps that are against RA 9003; those who have not complied with the law, 21% or 360 Mayors in all, have all been charged in court courtesy of the Ombudsman. The penalty for non-compliance is a fine of PhP 500,000 (about $11,000), plus a minimum of 10% of the income of the town or city. If you throw trash around, you have to pay dearly for it.

Ildefonso cited the good example of Santo Tomas, Batangas formerly generating 360,000 tons a day of garbage. Ildefonso’s NSWMC taught the local officials and in 6 months, after the whole town built compost pits, the garbage went down to only 6 tons a day unprocessed.

Personally, compost pits always remind me of earthworms, the most visible and lovable allies in the decay of organic matter in your compost pile or in the mulch on your garden.

About Metro Clark, the former Clark Air Force Base in Pampanga, Armando Garcia, President of the Metro Clark Waste Management Corporation said the company’s sanitary landfill of 100 hectares has accepted 650,000 metric tons of garbage as of July 2010, filling up 7 hectares. A joint Filipino-German venture, the $200-million facility is located in Capas, Tarlac, some 20 km away from Metro Clark.

Landfills are not new. In the United States alone, there are more than 3,000 active landfills (zerowasteamerica.org). However, whatever its merits, I consider a landfill a lazy man’s solution to waste: Bury your trash and forget about it. Mother Nature doesn’t forget.

Ronel Dizon, formerly Swine Maintenance Supervisor of Fil-Am Foods, presented the biogas system of Pilmico, part of the Aboitiz Group of Companies. Tapping the electric energy out of methane produced by piggery waste, the company has saved about PhP 800,000 a year and has almost perfected its system of waste management. Pilmico shows that waste becomes energy if you don’t waste it.

Bernard Tadeo spoke on technologies and development strategies based on intelligent, scientific waste management. Celdran discussed “Carbon Financing and Clean Development Mechanism” as sources of funds and incentives for project developers. Laurie Navarro, US AID Contractor, talked about fund sourcing for waste management projects. Capellan talked about “Opportunities in Electricity Markets: RPS & FIT-All.” Gene David of the Land Bank of the Philippines spoke on “Program Loans for Zero Waste” and pointed out, among other things that, uniquely, the Land Bank finances feasibility studies to the tune of millions of pesos (sharing up to 50% of the FS). Now then, I must say the only remaining excuse for wasting waste is ignorance.

John Lindborg, Advisor of the Asian Development Bank, spoke on Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Agreements, pointing out that it was President Fidel Ramos who dramatically used PPP to solve the energy crisis during his administration. PPPs are good for solving the waste crisis too.

On her part, Briones distributed copies of “The Blueprint for Zero Waste Philippines Project,” which has been conceived and is spearheaded by Greenergy, the Project being “a sustainable approach to waste management in the Philippines.” It will not only pay for itself; the benefits are multiple and widespread.

In presenting the Zero Waste Philippines Project, Briones needed to read only the first sentence in the Foreword:

There is an alternative to speculation about the meaning of a New World. It is all about how we rebuild our future. Inventions may not be sufficient to comply with these requirements but, joining hands together, we will make a lot of difference.

The Zero Waste Philippines Project proposes to install, operate and manage waste-to-energy, W2E gasification facilities in cities and towns all over the Philippines in 10 years. The feedstock: municipal solid waste. The MSW can include tires, industrial wastes, animal wastes, lumber, and medical wastes, even slurries; excluded are concrete, glass, and metals (nuclear wastes are a different matter). The energy needs of special zones such as industrial parks, malls, and hospitals can then be easily addressed. Each gas facility will have a minimum output of 3.8 MW net.

The W2E facilities rely on the Batch Oxidation System; the BOS is designed for zero discharge and operated at low capital and low cost relative to the scale of waste disposal. (For more details, visit waste2energy.com.)

As public-private partnerships, the W2E facilities will turn the question of municipal waste disposal on its head - instead of the problem looking for a solution, this is the solution looking for the problem.

Once the W2E facility is registered as a Clean Development Mechanism, it is entitled to carbon credits, that is, 1 Certified Emission Reduction or CER unit for every ton of CO2 equivalent reduced or sequestered. As additional sources of income for the W2E facility, its CERs can be traded with governments, corporations, and brokers.

Thus, W2E gas facilities remove 2 major causes of global warming:

(1) W2E displaces energy generated from fossil fuels; that eliminates CO2 emission.
(2) W2E eliminates methane emission from biomass.

At the same time:

(1) W2E eliminates breeding places of disease-causing microbes.
(2) W2E prevents environmental degradation.
(3) W2E produces income from 6 sources: energy, water, ash, organic fertilizer, tipping fee, and CER.

According to Briones, the Zero Waste Sustainable Development Philosophy is this:

That the concept of waste as rubbish be replaced with the concept of waste as resource.

That in fact calls for a paradigm shift, which was the major point of the guest speaker, Neric Acosta. There are no problems, only opportunities.

Acosta recalled that as a Representative, as the principal sponsor of the Ecological Solid Waste Management bill, he was defending it against all kinds of arguments. He remembered Rep (now Senator) Joker Arroyo making the point that they should solve the problem of jobs first before the problem of pollution. Acosta countered by saying, “Aanhin naman po ang pera kung patay na ang ilog?” What need do we have of money if the river is dead? As in fact, the Pasig River that runs through Metro Manila is dying; at low tide, the Pasig flows out of Laguna Lake which is dying from pollution by waste coming from homes, farms, factories and other establishments; at high tide, the Pasig flows out of polluted Manila Bay into Laguna Lake. As in fact the Philippines has the most polluted river in the world, the Marilao-Meycauyan-Obando (MMO) river system. The MMO is 55 kilometers long and actually runs through the cities and towns of Caloocan, Valenzuela and Malabon in Metro Manila and San Jose Del Monte, Meycauayan, Marilao, Obando and Santa Maria in Bulacan (thegreenmilesrun.ph) - and drains into Manila Bay. So don’t wonder that the fish we eat coming from Laguna Lake, the MMO river system and Manila Bay have heavy metals concentrated in the eyes and stomach.

We eat what we dispose of!

To fight air and water pollution, Acosta said we need the 3 I’s: Information, Innovations, and Investments. He explained:

Information - “We have to know exactly how much waste we produce, we generate, so that we will be able to know in terms of intervention, how much is recyclable,” Acosta said. This is the “knowledge base from which systems of intervention can flow out of.” If we don’t know anything, we cannot do anything.

Innovations - “The systems of intervention are the innovations, the range of technological mechanisms, approaches that can be taken to manage the waste,” Acosta said. That includes the hardware (technologies) and software (management). Frank H says this is Science (the maker of the reducer of refuse) coming to the rescue of Science (the maker of refuse).

Investments - These comprise “how much money we can put into those innovations” as interventions, Acosta said. Costs and returns. Frank H says, that’s how much money we can make money out of our own waste.

Which all brings us back to the need for a paradigm shift.

Acosta said that while the 3 I’s are simple enough and doable even for all those 1,700 local government units, towns and cities, the LGUs will not able to move a single ton of waste towards the proper management of it if there is no paradigm shift, meaning to say, if the Mayor has not yet arrived at an awareness and a full grasp of the whole environment. “Is the Mayor green-minded?” he asked. Is he green-minded enough? “Does he understand that these are not only environmental issues but instead are fundamental issues that have to do with our very survival (on Planet Earth)?”

Even if the Mayor understands the law, the policy, Acosta said, if the Mayor does not have a whole green paradigm, if he does not understand that “economics ay kaakibat ng ecological imperatives” (literally, “allied with”), he is not going anywhere. One is the basis of the other.

Paradigm shift: You cannot have economics without ecology, he said. “In the end, economy and ecology come from the same root word, oikos, household. The most basic economic unit is the household. Economics: domestic home. Ecology: planet home.” The most basic ecological unit for us is Planet Earth. This is home for all of us. We must take care of it.

And how do we bring about such a paradigm shift? Frank H says you need

The 4th I: Inducement.

“An inducement,” says the American Heritage Dictionary, is “something that helps bring about an action or a desired result.” I will revise that to say, “something that helps bring about a desired action or a desired result.” Both the action and the result must be desired or desirable.

Now then, what is the inducement for LGUs to make a paradigm shift from dirty air and waters (polluted) to clean air and waters (healthy)? Or, more to the point, who will induce the LGUs to make such a paradigm shift?

My answer is: The communicators, the mass media.

The next question is: Who will convince the mass media to make a paradigm shift from negative news to positive views, from regaling themselves in demolishment to being happy getting involved in development?

It all goes back to a revolutionary few. The revolutionary inducers. Not the laggards but the innovators. Like those who are pushing for the Zero Waste Philippines Movement.

RP eJournalists on the Urgency of Climate Change

2010-09-18T17:10:00.001+08:00

Climate change is one of the most pressing and debated issues of the 21st century. It is also suddenly a very hot new topic to journalists, especially from the countries most at risk from climate change like the Philippines. As a sign of that, just recently, the Philippine Network of Environmental Journalists (PNEJ) was born in Manila, PNEJ President Imelda Abaño of BusinessMirror said. The other PNEJ officers are Alex Rey Pal of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Vice President; Henry Tacio of the Manila Bulletin, Secretary; Delmar Cariño also of the Inquirer, Treasurer. The 3 Board Members are Myrna Velasco also of the Manila Bulletin, Frank Hilario of the American Chronicle, and Nora Gamolo, freelance.

Highlighting that the media have a critical role to play in raising levels of public awareness and influencing public opinion, the PNEJ has seen a need to increase the capacity of local ejournalists to produce greater quality and volume of reporting on climate change issues and concerns, Abaño said.

On November 5 and 6, 2010, some 35 ejournalists will interact with climate change experts from the Philippine government and academe in a workshop entitled “Too hot to handle: Understanding and Reporting Climate Change” at the Bayview Park Hotel in Manila.

In collaboration with the Singapore-based Economy and Environment Program of Southeast Asia (EEPSEA), an organization which supports training and research in environmental and resource economics, the PNEJ be hosting the event. The workshop is also being supported by the Ayala Foundation, Inc as well as Greenergy Solutions, Abaño said.

In time for December’s international negotiations on climate change in Cancun, Mexico, the two-day workshop will look into the science of climate change, the politics of global warming, the Philippine strategy in mainstreaming and addressing climate change, adaptation, reporting climate change and the future direction of climate change communication. The Manila ejournalism workshop will also highlight the presentation of the EEPSEA research cross country project on climate change in Southeast Asia as well as the climate change vulnerability map of Southeast Asia.

To make more Filipinos aware of the consequences of climate change, the media have a greater role in disseminating information, for which they need to be well-informed beforehand. “There is an urgent need to equip Philippine journalists on environmental issues particularly on climate change. This is a timely opportunity for them to grasp, understand the science of climate and the political and social context of the problem as well as hone their skills in reporting this often complex issue,” Abaño said.

“Participants will have an opportunity to share their climate change questions, challenges (and hopefully, solutions) with experts and with other participants in this ‘journalists-climate experts meet-up,’” she said.

PNEJ, an organization of nearly 40 journalists, aims to advance excellence in environmental reporting and commits to helping the Filipino people to deepen their understanding of nature and the environment. Thus, it believes that more tools and knowledge are needed to fully equip Filipino ejournalists in presenting environmental issues to the public.

Understanding Albay. Mayon, Beauty & the Beasts

2010-08-15T10:26:00.001+08:00

Revised 15 August at 2023 hours Manila time
LEGAZPI CITY - The Albayanons know of the blessings of beauty and the burdens of beasts, many beasts. They have learned to live with all of them, in serenity, urgency and emergency. They prepare to look at beauty every day; they also prepare to fight, because they prefer to win and they know that the beasts pound on them also when they least expect.

Mayon Volcano is the most perfect cone in the world of mountains. A natural beauty. On 13 October 2008, it was included in the New 7 Wonders of Nature Top 10 list. It is so lovely a sight that you will want to wait until she shows her face again behind the clouds where she hides. She is always hiding that face. Once in a while, the face of a beast shows, and it emerges from the bowels of this beauty angry, very angry. On 01 February 1814, dark ash from Mayon buried the town of Cagsawa in Albay and burned to death 2,200 people, burying them forever (Wikipedia). Beauty and the Beast. Beasts are no respecters of persons, properties, or places. To triumph over their devilry, you must learn to respect them first.

Maria Venus Raj, the Philippines' candidate to the Miss Universe contest this year, our Bb Pilipinas-Universe, was born in Doha, Qatar; raised in Bato, Camarines Sur, Southern Luzon; nonetheless, she studied in college and finished her Bachelor of Communication Arts major in Journalism at the Bicol University, which is located in Legazpi City in Albay, so this province can claim her as its own. In fact, she is Albay’s Youth Ambassador for Climate Change. Fate has been both beauty and beast to her (see my “Aphrodite Rising,” American Chronicle). She was born an illegitimate child of an Indian national; in the Philippines, if you are born out of wedlock, you are mercilessly the butt of cruel jokes and the object of ridicule of your neighbors. This year, on 06 March, she won as Binibining Pilipinas-Universe; on 29 March, or 23 days later, the pageant organizer Binibining Pilipinas stripped her of her crown, alleging “inconsistencies” between her birth documents and her own declarations. First, they accepted her, flattered her with a crown, and then they dishonored her and kicked her out of her throne. A former Miss Universe of her own country, Gloria Diaz, advised her to let go, because the pageant owners always had the last word, she said. Venus looked inside herself and found beauty, so she fought back. With her guts and the friends she got, with emails and online petition, Facebook and blogs supporting her cause, 41 days later the crown was returned to whom it was concerned: Miss Maria Venus Raj. In the Philippines, we have the saying, “Gumawa ka ng multo, ikaw ang natakot.” You created the ghost, you scared yourself. Some beasts are our own making. If we make them, we can unmake them - if not, others will.

Miriam Quiambao, Ms Universe 1st Runner-Up in 1999, is from Albay, her father from Tabaco/Bacacay, her mother from Oas. The father of Miss International 2005 Precious Lara Quigaman is from Ligao City. Last year’s Binibining Pilipinas-International Melody Gersbach is from Daraga. Reigning Mutya ng Pilipinas-International Jane Bañares is from Legazpi City. Jane won despite her dark looks compared to the beautiful mestizas she competed against (Joyce Burton Titular, adventuresofabeautyqueen.com). She’s smart. Question: If ever you won the Mutya ng Pilipinas 2009 crown, would you change anything about yourself so you could better represent the Philippines in the international pageant? Answer: NO because it is my imperfections that make me unique. Despite inadequacies, the Albayanons have learned to bring out the beauty in them.

Heavy rains can bring in floods and lahar flows if you are in Legazpi City where actively volcanic Mayon lies in beauty. 13 October 2009, Tuesday night, heavy rains visited on Albay, Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur, Masbate and Sorsogon (Rhaydz Barcia, manilatimes.net). 14 October, Wednesday morning, lahar suddenly cascaded down the slope of Mayon Volcano, the flow making a major road leading to Legazpi City impassable, immediately causing a traffic flow jam. The lahar flow also caused panic among residents of Buyuan and Padang in this city. Relying on the beauty of prescience, partnership, and persistence, knowing today the wiles and whims of Mayon, not to mention those of Mother Nature, Albay Governor Joey Salceda ordered the immediate evacuation of those villagers and others living in the lowlands across the province. In response to Salceda's order, all town and city disaster officers in Albay, as well as Naval Forces Southern Luzon, the Philippine Navy and Philippine Army quickly dispatched trucks to carry out evacuees from communities threatened by flash floods, or mudflows, or both. Salceda also suspended classes in the elementary and secondary levels, as well as a provincial Boy Scouts jamboree being held in the town of Manito. He also instructed the town’s and the province’s health offices to stand by for any medical emergency. As of noon of Wednesday, about 1,000 individuals or 180 families had been evacuated from the flood-prone towns of Daraga, Camalig and Guinobatan by Army and Navy troops. In Albay, when the beasts come, rescue cannot be far behind.

Unseasonal heavy rains are the portents of more such things to come. Climate change is here, and the whole of Albay knows and accepts that. That’s history. As of Thursday at 2300 hours, 21 February 2008, in Albay province alone, almost 10,000 families or more than 50,000 people had been evacuated, the Governor reported on Friday morning, 22 February (Ephraim Aguilar, inquirer.net). Relying on the beauty of disaster preparedness, Thursday afternoon, Salceda had ordered preemptive evacuation based on meteorological grounds: incessant rains in the past 8 days registered a 45.72-mm rainfall at 1300 hours, signaling emergency evacuation to keep residents bodily away from possible lahar flows triggered by rainwater collecting on the crater of active Mayon Volcano. Salceda described it as a “guerrilla type of disaster” where small incidents suddenly erupt without warning even when there are no major disturbances (storms or typhoons) except incessant rains. Disaster officials reported a total of 16 landslides in Albay: in Tiwi, Malilipot, Santo Domingo, Manito, Daraga, Bacacay, Ligao, Pioduran, Legazpi and Tabaco. 4 major roads, the Ligao-Pioduran, Ligao-Pantao, Legazpi-Tabaco, and Ligao-Tabaco became impassable. Salceda ordered the Department of Public Works and Highways to clear them Friday morning. He suspended classes at all levels and advised people in isolated areas to stay put while waiting for rescuers. An aerial reconnaissance was set by the Albay Provincial Disaster Coordinating Council to survey flooded areas and landslides. 9 Army trucks and 2 rubber boats were deployed for rescue or evacuation from Thursday night to Friday morning in Legazpi City and in the towns of Libon, Daraga and Camalig. Villagers in Busay, Daraga called for rescue as floodwaters kept rising to the rooftops of their homes. The sun was up in Legazpi City Thursday morning but Salceda issued orders not to allow residents in landslide-prone sites to leave the evacuation centers. He explained that the floodwaters cannot subside immediately, and that there were still threats of lahar flows and more flooding. The Governor noted that the rainfall registered within the past 24 hours had reached 297 mm, the highest without a typhoon. Salceda also said the provincial government was strictly monitoring prices to guard against overpricing of commodities. Not only that, he wanted to make sure that farm produce and medicines were available at a moment’s notice. Much of Legazpi City’s central business district remained submerged in floodwaters and shops were closed Friday. With climate change, today when it rains, it pours misery.

Japan responds to the plight of the Albayanons by granting PhP 480 million to Albay for the construction of 6 multi-storey permanent evacuation centers, that is, in the towns of Manito, Santo Domingo, Oas, Libon and Polangui, and in Legazpi City (Mar Arguelles, inquirer.net). On Thursday, 08 August 2010, Albay Governor Joey Salceda and JICA Representative Nagaishi Masfumi signed the Memorandum of Agreement at the Provincial Disaster Coordinating Council office in Legazpi City for the disaster risk reduction project. (Relocation is part of risk reduction. My photograph is taken from a relocation site in Legazpi City; I have titled it “Children of the Pump.”) JICA must know that adaptation is the greater part of valor; mitigation or risk reduction is the greater part of discretion. The MoA does not require Philippine counterpart funding. JICA, that was a beauty!

Beauty can last 100 years. One of the natural beauties of Albay is abaca. This is the sturdiest natural fiber in the world, the beauteous stuff lasting up to 100 years (Wikipedia). Our country supplies 84% of the world’s abaca, making the Philippines the international abaca capital, and Albay the national center of the trade. Botanists prefer to call it Musa textilis. Muse of textiles as it were. In the recent Pinukpok Fashion Show, local designer Klang Klang created more than 200 evening gowns and barongs for local officials, beauty pageant contestants and the dance troupe “to bring out the natural elegance of Albay’s pride” (George Bp Supetran, philstar.com). Pinukpok - that which has been pounded on - brings out the best in the old species yet.

After all is said and done, the Albayanons are not only survivors;
they are winners because they bring out the beauty within.

Technorati Tags: climate change adaptation,mitigation,disaster risk reduction,beauty & the beast,volcanic eruptions,landslides,lava flows,flash floods,evacuation centers,relocation sites,beauty queens,Venus Raj,the beauty within,JICA,Joey Salceda

Greening Albay. Bayan-Anihan brings in black soil

2010-08-14T06:00:00.001+08:00

LEGAZPI CITY - On 07 August, our 4th and penultimate day of a data-filled wow-learning visit as a party of a dozen or so members of the Philippine Network of Environmental Journalists, PNEJ, courtesy of the provincial government of Albay, at lunch time at the Governor’s residence when we were being handed our certificates of participation, my favorite successful student just happened to be there, surprise: Candida “Ayds” Adalla nee Bernabe, former Dean of the College of Agriculture of the University of the Philippines Los Baños. She was in her 1st Year of Bachelor of Science in Agriculture in 1967 or 1968, I’m not sure now (I have an excuse for forgetting: I’m 69), and in Horticulture 1 Lab, I gave her the highest point grade I could give, 1.0. She was in Legazpi City to talk with Albay Governor Joey Salceda, also our host, about Bayan-Anihan (literally town-harvest, actually a play on the word bayanihan, reciprocal assistance), which is now part of the climate change adaptation package of Albay. Surprises come in live packages.

She was surprised to see me too. In front of the Albay Governor and everybody else, she volunteered that I was his favorite professor, and that I was an activist. That day, we were both there as activists for climate change action and reaction. When teacher and student meet, there should be more learning.

Ayds gave each of us PNEJ members a copy of the Bayan-Anihan Program Manual, which presents the vision, mission, goal, strategy and roadmap as “a solution to (end) hunger” in participating Bayan-Anihan villages. Bayan-Anihan is a brainchild of Gawad Kalinga, a community-building movement in the Philippines with Roman Catholic roots.

The Bayan-Anihan vision is expressed in 5 words:
Empower the hungry.
Eradicate hunger.
Simple and powerful, as a vision statement should be. If your Vision Statement is wordy, it’s not worthy.

The Bayan-Anihan Hunger Eradication Road Map has 4 phases:

Phase 1 calls for the assignment of 10 square meters of garden to a family, with an expected 10 kilos of vegetables harvested every month. Clear and doable.

Phase 2 calls for the formation of small-scale commercial farming. This can happen once the community has learned in action the value of a vegetable garden in family life and wants to graduate to a higher level of farming. The risk is higher; the returns are also higher. The villagers have to learn the economies of scale in order to be more economically rewarded.

Phase 3 calls for integrated farming, that is, growing crops and raising livestock on the same farm at the same time. This will be possible when the economic fruits of small-scale commercial farming are harvested. The Filipino is not in unfamiliar territory when it comes to crops & livestock; he just has to learn to integrate them more wisely in the business sense so that a higher quality of life is sustainable for his family.

Phase 4 calls for the formation of a cooperative in each Bayan-Anihan community. From Phase 1 to Phase 3, the family produces and the middleman disposes. In Phase 4, it is the community represented in the cooperative that becomes the middleman and enjoys not only higher farm gate prices but also dividends from the transactions of the cooperative which they own by being members of it. In the cooperative, reciprocal assistance graduates to reciprocal benefits.

That is all very fine, commendable; in fact, it’s excellent. That is on paper. You know what? “The biggest challenge for us is the sustainability of the farm,” says John Concepcion, Bayan-Anihan Champion. The reality wakes up the dreamer. Concepcion means that after the first assisted planting in the 10 square-meter garden, there is a tendency for many of the gardeners to not continue, to not maintain their vegetable plots. In Eden’s Garden, the weeds take over.

I’m not surprised. I am a Filipino and I know that the Filipino is not lazy but he hates manual labor, working with his hands. Don’t ask me why, but we have been victims of history, that is to say, of colonizers who forced our ancestors to work with their hands without or with very little compensation for hundreds of years that it became a habit of thought: Where is the dignity of labor in that?

Bayan-Anihan gives me 2 other reasons for the lackadaisical attitude towards small-plot gardening. One is that the target gardeners of Bayan-Anihan are the poorest of the poor. If you have done it to one of the least of my brethren, you have done it unto me. Fine. But these are the ones known to be lacking in hope of ever rising from where they are by their own labors, and so are known to be simply dependent on others. Two is that vegetables are considered to be “poor man’s food.” Who likes to be associated with poverty? Not the poor, certainly! And don’t call it a backyard garden, please? Sounds backward.

This is a national movement spearheaded by Gawad Kalinga starting in March 2009. I note that Tony Meloto (GK founder) had shaken hands with Arthur Yap (Secretary, Department of Agriculture), and with others in some non-government organizations, and now with the ladies and gentlemen of the province of Albay for this joint project to end hunger in the Philippines, with a difference:

They are trying to build a culture of productivity and self-sufficiency.

In Albay, they are trying to do it first in relocation and resettlement sites following the climate change adaptation and mitigation measures adopted by the province under the leadership of Salceda. Fine. Then I note that, as contained in the Bayan-Anihan Production Manual (March 2009), they are into organic farming. If you want to prick my ears, say “organic farming.”

I have a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture degree to my name, no less and no more, major in Agricultural Education; having passed the very first Teacher’s Exam in 1965 (I got 80.6%, in case you’re interested), which qualified me to teach in any rural high school in the Philippines. So I should know my agriculture. Factor in that I am a bonafide farmer’s son and a wide reader, a very wide reader.

Funny that in 1967 or thereabouts, 43 years ago, mostly from my reading I was already talking and writing about organic farming - and nobody was listening to me! My writing was honorable, but it was horrible to those who knew only “scientific agriculture.” I was even published in the much-respected Philippines Free Press talking about the soil being alive with organisms that help make it fertile beyond your imagination, including the soil underneath the forest, but professors in the University of the Philippines Los Baños where I graduated were disagreeing with me, in print yet. They were the experts.

Well, being an activist with a loud mouth (if not a loud presence), in 1968 I was kicked out as Substitute Instructor in Horticulture from the College of Agriculture, and Dean Fr William F Masterson of the College of Agriculture of Xavier University in Cagayan De Oro accepted me with his open big arms, God bless his dear soul. I therefore moved my ministry of trash farming (based on Edward H Faulkner’s model) to Xavier, producing my own thick lecture syllabi in the technical subjects I taught: Horticulture, Floriculture, Pomology, Olericulture and Scientific Reporting. You can be sure organic farming was in there. Nicanor “Nicky” Perlas was one of my A students as college freshman. The teacher didn’t last long at Xavier, but the student did and graduated. Years later, Nicky became world-famous with his own biodynamic agriculture. You may know him as one of the candidates for President of the Philippines in the last election. Some dreams don’t come true.

That was then, and Bayan-Anihan is now. Thank God for those who care for the poor and think about gifting them with a rich soil. That should be more than enough.

They call “Albay New Green Revolution” the joint project of Bayan-Anihan and the provincial government of Albay, “for the attainment of the Millennium Development Goal 1: Building Climate-Resilient Communities” (the image you see is from the 2.7 MB pdf file I downloaded from the Albay Governor’s own website, joeyssalceda.wordpress.com). Putting food on the table, the program is committed to “establishing progressive sustainable food sufficiency (in Albay) through private and public partnerships.” You need partners as you need friends.

Bayan-Anihan in Albay is promoting the raising of not only vegetables but also root crops, medicinal herbs, and fruit trees. It is talking my language. To produce a rich soil wherever the garden lies, the program is talking of the compost pile. Not only that. It is talking of the families producing their own seeds, of soil and water conservation. It is talking of mulching. That reminds me of good old Ruth Stout and her book Gardening Without Work; it was all about the romance of mulching your garden. (How can I forget that book that I chanced upon in the old UPCA library when I borrowed the only copy and typed the whole book myself for my own reading pleasure? That’s how patient I am. 40 years ago we didn’t have copiers.) All music to my ears. My quiet advocacy that germinated 43 years ago is all coming back to me now, and from another source. Am I Jack and the beanstalk never ever died? Climate change is here, so we need to go back to the basics, to the soil. If you want to green Albay, you cover it first with black soil, the richest there is, full of organic matter. Wake me up if I’m dreaming. Or is my dream coming true now? Not only somebody else but a whole province is whispering in my ears: “You were right after all. You were damned right.”

Climate Change Academy. Albay as lessons to learn

2010-08-13T16:42:00.001+08:00

LEGAZPI CITY - The whole of Albay Province has been the unofficial field laboratory for authentic “Championing of Climate Change Adaptation” since Joey Sarte Salceda became Governor in 2007 (and was reelected this year). This has come about for 2 reasons:

One, because Albay is home to the most deadly and most beautiful Mayon Volcano, a source of both delight and despair. In fact, Albay is home to all major natural disasters you can name: landslides, flash floods, typhoons, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The people have had to learn to cope by changing their ways, and coping can be by adapting to the realities and by mitigating the damage and destruction. If the Albayanons don’t wake up today, tomorrow they may never will.

Two, because they have an intelligent, insightful leader in Salceda who obstinately does not look at obstacles as obstructions but rather as opportunities for advancement. Local governments always complain that they don’t have enough funds. In his 1st term of 3 years as Governor of Albay, Salceda had successfully shown that “There’s money if you use it properly.” Today, Albay has become a global model for climate change adaptation, having been recognized as an outstanding overall effort by the United Nations. (See also my story, “Salceda in excelsis. The NPAs are part of my forest” 06 August, American Chronicle.)

So I’m not surprised with the Albay proposal that the Philippines establish a Climate Change Academy (CCA) for LGUs in the country, as recommended in a concept note authored by Salceda, a copy of which I obtained by email. Upon the invitation of Salceda, I was a member of the dozen or so party from the Philippine Network of Environmental Journalists, which is headed by Imelda Abaño of BusinessMirror, who visited Albay last week and immersed ourselves in the Albay Experience of championing climate change adaptation (photo by Mau Victa). Thus we became aware that the people of Albay have been enriched so much from past vicissitudes and victories that the whole province has a database of invaluable lessons where lava has flown, inescapable examples where rock fragments blasted into the air have come down and buried persons and/or properties, and important warnings from where floodwaters have inundated villages and wreaked havoc on the people.

The climate academy will be well-positioned in the province. With the United Nations leading, world agriculture now has enough examples of GAPs, good agriculture practices; with the academy, the world will then know that Albay has enough examples of GAMPs, good adaptation and mitigation practices to enhance any library or database, or any institutional or individual mind. Where the learning had been hard, further learning will be easier.

Why does the climate academy target the local government units, LGUs? It is following government’s advocacy, initiated by the Centre for Initiatives and Research on Climate Adaptation, CIRCA, a brainchild of Salceda and headed by Nong Rangasa, such that in 2008, the Department of Interior and Local Government, DILG issued a circular to governors, mayors and other local executives “to implement change adaptation and disaster risk reduction measures” (Concept Note). Earlier, in 2007, the Albay Declaration on Climate Change Adaptation was adopted as “a framework for mainstreaming climate change into development planning of the country.” Adaptation must be considered an input in mapping out how can the country progress from fair to better. Pursuing the matter further, the advocacy of the Albay Declaration by Senators Loren Legarda and Gringo Honasan, and Congressman Ignacio Arroyo, Dato Arroyo and Orlando Fua led to the passage of Republic Act 9729, the Climate Change Act, signed by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on 23 October 2009 at the Rizal Hall in Malacañang Palace. The Climate Change Commission was established to pursue climate planning, research and extension for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (adaptation) and reducing damage to property and preventing loss of lives in vulnerable communities (mitigation). Think national, act local.

The national government is implementing the MDG-F1656: UN Joint Programme on Strengthening the Philippines’ Institutional Capacity to Adapt to Climate Change with the support of the Spanish Government. This calls for pursuing policy, planning and programming capacity development countrywide. Especially the 25 most vulnerable communities identified, they must be able to “develop demonstrable climate change adaptation measures” in their localities, says Salceda. Indirect beneficiaries total about 41 million in the 43 target provinces. Support to the most vulnerable but least vigorous communities is all logical, as the strongest link in a chain is the weakest.

“In the Albay experience,” says Salceda, “climate-proofing of the area of every local government unit and local agency has become an urgent matter,” and that calls for capacity-building in risk assessments, risk reduction, and adaptation planning for local officials and communities. They plan not only for their future but also their own present.

Salceda says, “Since adaptation to climate change is highly local, the action needs to be centered at the local level.” And with that I can see the higher, not hidden agenda: Resolve poverty. Salceda told us during last week’s PNEJ’s visit to Albay: “All four (climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction, environmental protection, and climate change mitigation) must reduce poverty” (see my “Salceda in excelsis. ‘The NPAs are part of my forest,’” 06 August, American Chronicle). You cannot solve poverty, because that is not the problem; it is merely a sign of a social disease; but you can mitigate it. Society must adapt to the reality of climate change; it must reduce risks from disasters; it must protect the environment; and it must minimize the damage and destruction from natural calamities intensified by the factors of climate change. I like to say: If we don’t resolve climate change, climate change will resolve us.

“All four … must reduce poverty.” That’s the 3rd time I heard it; the first time, I heard it from Salceda during his PowerPoint presentation during our PNEJ visit, and I said a little “wow.” The 2nd time, on recollection, I thought I just had to quote it. Come to think of it now, isn’t that a most inspiring thought? It is the poor who are most vulnerable to climate change; they are the ones who need to adapt to the reality, and yet they are the ones who are the least able to do so. President Ramon Magsaysay was right when he declared, “Those who have less in life should have more in law.”

What that all means is that if you establish the climate academy for the LGUs all over the country, and the academy works as it should, you are in fact targeting to resolve poverty in those places. I think that the purpose of all this talk and walk about climate change adaptation has found a neat little idea that everyone can grasp. The rich can very well take care of themselves, or are supposed to; the poor we will always have with us until an agency like the Climate Change Academy teaches the LGUs how to care, and care enough to do their best despite everything.

Frank’s Vocabulary of Climate Change (v1.0, 2010)

2010-08-12T22:17:00.001+08:00

This is an essay into the vocabulary of climate change, as far as I know the first of its kind in the world, that of communicating about this modern threat to mankind, starting with the absolutes and the assumptions. An initial effort, Version 1.0, it is meant to motivate minds into discussing what has been taken for granted: that we understand each other when we talk about climate change. Talk is cheap if we don’t understand each other.

The 2 most important concepts in climate change are adaptation and mitigation, hence the theme as well as slogan of this essay is derived from those 2 words: “Adapt to Triumph, Mitigate to Endure” - the image insinuates how one necessarily results from the other.

By design, this essay is itself an adaptation, to be followed if necessary by mitigation. Indeed, this is an attempt to adapt to the unnatural disaster of science failing in the use of the mass media to serve the people, that is to say, failing to talk in the language of the man on the street; if there be error in any entry, I shall be careful to mitigate any damage by reducing the error of my ways.

MANILA - On 31 May 2010, the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN-ISDR) elevated the name of Albay Governor Joey Salceda into a Senior Champion of climate change, that is to say, in terms of both climate change adaptation, CCA, and disaster risk reduction, DRR (ANN, 09 June, malaya.com.ph). A cause for national celebration. Salceda is very knowledgeable, and very witty, when it comes to talking - and the UN honor tells us he walks his talks. May his tribe increase!

As I see it, based on an intense 4-day bodily incursion into the Albay Experience in championing climate change by us, a dozen or so members of the Philippine Network of Environmental Journalists, the PNEJ being headed by Imelda Abaño (BusinessMirror), our visit courtesy of the provincial government, care of the Centre for Initiatives and Research in Climate Action headed by Nong Rangasa, we must know and understand more about what we ought to do about climate change even as climate change is going about doing whatever things to us. (For some more details on our Albay sojourn 04-08 August 2010, see my “Salceda in excelsis. ‘The NPAs are part of my forest,” 06 August, American Chronicle).

Now then, by way of vocabulary, first I have 2 things to say about CCA and DRR, the intellectual world of Joey Sarte Salceda:

On one hand, may I recognize the United Nations for respecting the achievements of Albay under the insightful leadership of Salceda, a fellow Filipino? An honor we can’t refuse.

On the other hand, may I remind the UN that they are not making things easier even for the English-educated human race to understand what is going on by talking about climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction under the same breath as if they were a simple pair like bread and butter (as American as apple pie), or rice and fish (as Filipino as can be)? Like I said in an earlier essay that’s not even remotely connected to climate change, “You can’t explain anything by being technical” (“Charice’s Glee. Amid the noise & haste of Belo’s Botox,” 01 August, American Chronicle).

Technically, you can’t explain. As a science editor for the last 35 years, I know science cannot explain itself; to explain to the layman, your language must be that of a layman. Layman, as in zero knowledge, or zero understanding, or zero awareness - or none of the above.

With its experience in championing climate change, Albay now has the technical, difficult-to-understand vocabulary, but I must say that its mantra of Zero Casualty is simple yet dramatic, compelling and fulfilling. “Albay is the one-stop shop for natural disasters,” says Salceda. Zero casualty for landslide? Check. Zero casualty for Mayon Volcano eruption? Check. Zero casualty for earthquake? Check. Zero casualty for typhoon? Check. Zero casualty for flood? Check. Zero casualty for landslide? Check. (Zero casualty for maternity? Will check on that.)

With all that, you can only begin to appreciate how the whole province of Albay moves to educate, warn, announce, assist, and provide access to resources to the Albayanons in times when they need it most, not to mention even before they need it. Stories of triumph and survival abound around here. As a writer, I’d like to live in Albay so I could dig out enough details of those stories. A writer triumphs when he shares.

Meanwhile I have this project that I have hardly begun; note that this is Version 1.0. The secret of writing, Rudolf Flesch likes to remind those who care to listen, lies in rewriting. That is tantamount to saying the secret of learning is learning from your mistakes.

A vocabulary like this is meant to make the fuzzy clear, not obfuscate the issue. So, if you happen to disagree with any statement I make here, I hope that with it at least you understand what you are disagreeing with. Note further that this is a vocabulary, not a dictionary, so if you’re looking for alphabetization, there’s some assembly required.

Also required: Some reassembly of technical words into non-technical language. Now then, why do we continue to talk about climate change adaption and disaster risk reduction when what the people want is what they can stomach, and that is only bite-size, like zero casualty? Since the people have to eat climate change morning, noon, evening and snack time, we might as well educate them in the language that they can appreciate: their own, or at least at their own level of knowledge. And since they can appreciate zero casualty, let’s make zero casualty a mantra for serving the people the complete science of climate change. We need to explain more, because zero casualty is only a part of climate change action and reaction.

Let me point out 2 assumptions here: One is that science is the answer to the question. Two is that faith is the answer to the question that science cannot answer. Let us then consider both.

Science & Faith

Even science and faith have to be explained in layman’s terms. I’ll volunteer this:

Science is assumption, certainty, knowledge, analysis or conclusion reached after experimentation, or after several experiences, or after much observation, after communication back and forth. Science is subject to further inquiry; it is verifiable.

Faith is expectation, supposition or anticipation not supported by clear proof or evidence, with little or no experience at all, based on personal revelation of the benevolence of a Supreme Being. Faith is in another dimension and is not subject to any inquiry by science.

While scientists may believe in science more, the people may believe in God more, and these have to be made to complement each other for science to be able to serve the people.

A flash flood after heavy rains is knowledge; the wrath of God in the form of a flash flood is not. Death and destruction after a volcanic eruption is firm fact; a singular escape from a lava flow is faith in the mercy of God. Careful, because that singular escape may become the mode of thinking of the people. “Bahala na, may awa ang Dios.” Come what may, God is merciful. That can be a very powerful habit of thought. Habits of thoughts are either enemies or friends.

Climate Change, Global Warming & Global Cooling

To understand climate change, first you have to understand what makes climate, and that is weather. Weather is the combined behavior (or lack of it) of several factors: rain, wind, cloud, humidity, temperature, sunlight, air pressure, and fronts. Climate is the average of the observable weather over weeks or months. Climate change is any relatively rapid change in climate compared to past years based on recorded data.

There are 2 very dramatic climatic changes observable so far: global warming and global cooling. Today, when it’s hot, it’s very hot; when it’s cold, it’s very cold, not unlike before.

Global warming: UN scientists have determined that there has been a relatively rapid increase in sea water temperature in the last 100 years due to activities of man such as burning fossil fuel, which results in the emission of greenhouse gases that traps the heat of the Earth from escaping into outer space. There has also been a relatively rapid increase in air temperature on land. If you don’t believe in global warming, you must have lived your entire life somewhere in and have just come out of Africa.

Global cooling: The same scientists have determined that considering the cold or rainy seasons over the years, there has been a relatively rapid decrease in temperatures everywhere. If you don’t believe in global cooling, you must have lived your entire life and has just emerged from hibernation.

Greenhouse Effect & Greenhouse Gases

Focusing on carbon dioxide, it is classified as a greenhouse gas because of its greenhouse effect, that which happens when the layer of carbon dioxide above Earth traps the heat coming from our planet and reflects it back, causing it to warm up, exactly as the plastic or glass roof works in a greenhouse.

From the continuous carbon dioxide emissions coming from the combustion of fossil fuels by earthly vehicles, for example, the carbon dioxide layer above Earth continues to increase in dimension and contribute to the warming of the globe. Thus, carbon dioxide is called a greenhouse gas.

The other important greenhouse gases are methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. Without such gases, according to Wikipedia, Earth would be cooler than it is now.

When you drive a car, you are burning gasoline, which gives off among other things, carbon dioxide. Your vehicles are greenhouse gas givers. They make global warming worse than it already is. Animals such as we are give off carbon dioxide; plants absorb our carbon dioxide and give off oxygen, which we need to breath. That makes plants greenhouse gas receivers. Thus, in the climate change sense, it is more blessed to receive than to give.

Natural Disasters

By design, climate change action is what Albay is known for all over the world. Its attention is focused on natural disasters that can be triggered as well as exacerbated by climate change: landslides, flash floods, typhoons, tsunamis, windstorms, heat waves, cold waves, droughts, famines, pestilences, and epidemics. By necessity, it has to pay attention to natural disasters not related to climate change: earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

A natural disaster is always bad; it can be made badder by climate change, like the flash flood brought by the extreme rains of Typhoon Ondoy that drowned the town of Marikina in September 2009: too much water too soon. In June 2008, because of the deluge brought by Typhoon Frank, San Roque Dam collected too much water too soon it had to release huge volumes of it to prevent the dam from reaching the breaking point - the accelerated release of tons and tons of water destroyed properties and drowned people and animals downstream, including in the town of Asingan in Pangasinan, my hometown, and that’s how I came to know. The flash flood was man-made but it was triggered by climate change, and it was no less destructive.

Adaptation and Mitigation

I always like to simplify, so I’m not going to the extent of explaining how adaptation and mitigation differ on spatial, temporal and socio-economic scales in reducing climate change risks. I will explain otherwise.

To adapt is to adjust in reference to the cause of a disaster; to mitigate is to adjust in reference to the effect of a disaster. It so happens that with that, I have the opposite view when it comes to the meaning of the terms adaptation and mitigation, so reader beware. The website that calls itself Global Greenhouse Warming emphatically states:

Our present age has proactive options (mitigation), and must also plan to live with the consequences (adaptation) of global warming.

Quite the opposite of that is my view that adaptation is proactive and mitigation is reactive. To adapt is to make do with what you have to prevent potential damage or destruction. To mitigate is to lessen, reduce, or decrease actual damage or destruction to that which has already been done by a natural disaster.

Accepting the reality of climate change, you adapt by making the new rules to confront an impending disaster; you mitigate by following the new rules of the game brought about by the disaster at hand, to minimize further damage or destruction.

Climate change adaptation is any preventive action that aims to avoid the damage and destruction that can occur in the event of a natural disaster such as a flash flood or heat wave. In the city, adaptation can take the form of turning garbage into compost; doing that, you prevent the generation of methane in a garbage pile or trash mountain like Payatas - know that methane as a greenhouse gas is even deadlier than carbon dioxide. In the farm, adaptation can take the form of changing a water-hungry crop like rice to a drought-resistant crop like sweet sorghum.

Climate change mitigation is any minimizing action on further damage and destruction after a natural disaster. In the city, mitigation can take the form of well-prepared evacuation centers with complete goods, services and personnel to handle maximum occupancy. In the countryside, mitigation can take the form of news seeds and new technologies to replace the ones lost to a flood or invasion of insect pests.

To explain by example, to adapt is to reduce the potential impact of, say, a coming drought brought about by El Niño; to mitigate is to reduce the actual impact of the drought that has already been brought about by El Niño. If you plant a drought-resistant crop like sweet sorghum, that is adaptation - you may be richly rewarded. But if you plant a water-hungry crop like rice and irrigate with a cost subsidy from government, that is mitigation, but for the good of one at the expense of many others: you are lessening the impact on you as farmer but not on society from which the taxes come from to pay your water bills.

To differentiate further adaptation from mitigation, let me point out that even if you say both are for reduction of the adverse effects of climate change, adaptation is the Before and mitigation is the After.

Another way of differentiating the two is that adaptation is working around any of the factors of climate change and averting disaster, while mitigation is waiting for disaster to happen and then rescuing people and salvaging properties.

For instance, too much cultivation of the soil has resulted in massive soil erosion that has impoverished the soil, which explains the felt need to add more and more fertilizer to the land every year. In this case, adaptation would be to decrease the disturbance of the soil and increase its organic matter content; mitigation would be to build embankments and ripraps to physically stop the soil from running off the land.

Adaptation may be less costly but it’s entirely an option; mitigation may be more costly but it’s entirely necessary.

Disaster Risk Reduction

Where is disaster risk reduction in all that? I note that the Albay Governor always writes it this way: CCA / DRR. I have no objection with (almost) equating adaptation with risk reduction; that is one way of looking at their relationships. But I want to point out a more liberal approach, to include climate change mitigation, CCM. DRR is applicable in both cases of CCA and CCM, I can write it as CCA / DRR and CCM / DRR. In CCA, you want to reduce the risk of potential danger; in CCM, you want to reduce the risk of actual or imminent danger.

Example: Long before any flooding occurs as expected in a season, a CCA action is to build a safe house in a higher location, or to add an upper story to the current structure; a CCM action is to relocate the people to safer places when the flood is already there, or even when flooding is imminent and all signs lead to that conclusion.

Adaptation is dealing today with tomorrow’s risk of disaster, while mitigation is dealing today with today’s disaster.

Planning for Adaptation and Mitigation

Why have I gone into great length to distinguish which is adaptation and which is mitigation? So you can plan and budget accordingly.

In either practical or business sense, we need both, but if you asked me, I would allocate funds to CCA more than I think is necessary; funds for CCM are on demand and may be difficult to predict. CCA is investment, adjustable and therefore can be very productive; CCM is cost, actual and not adjustable, and therefore much less productive. A roomful of climate-ready seeds of crops is CCA; a roomful of canned goods is CCM.

With CCA, you go forth and multiply; with CCM, you go forth and divide!

Salceda likes to say, “DRR is not a cost; rather, it’s an investment.” By my explanation above, more DRR for CCA is advisable; the earnings or the savings generated by DRR for CCA can offset the cost of CCM, or generate even more resources. Whether the DRR is for CCA or CCM, all things considered, if you practice DRR, you improve business and increase returns on investment.

Creative capitalism

I have high respect for innovators who are risk takers. Perhaps assuming as a given Bill Gates’ idea of creative capitalism, the creative capitalistic mind of Salceda has produced a global model of a province in climate change action and reaction. In natural disasters, Albay has been proactive as well as reactive, preventing destruction as well as restoring to normal as much as possible. Albay is climate change action seen as necessary by a creative capitalist.

For your actual climate lessons, go see Albay and talk to Governor Joey Salceda. For creative capitalism, go see Bill Gates; meanwhile, you may want to see my 2-year old essay, “The Little People. Creative capitalism calls for new risk takers in science” (27 November 2008, American Chronicle).

Climate Change Academy

So I take a happy note that Salceda has proposed that, among other things, a Climate Change Academy be set up by the Philippine government to address the needs of local government units, LGUs, for them to learn from The Albay Experience and the LGUs themselves to plan and provide climate change goods, systems and services to their people. In fact, what the Climate Change Academy really will do is teach those of us who are not in Albay one singular lesson:

What Albay can, we can. In fact, if we learn what she has learned and avoid making the same mistakes, we can do better.

v1.0 frankvocc, 11-12 August 2010, Frank A Hilario

Aphrodite Rising. Venus in earthy dimensions

2010-08-11T05:47:00.001+08:00

PLANET EARTH (10 August) - 35-22-35, black hair, brown eyes, 5 ft 9 in, Filipina. Remember the name: Maria Venus Raj. Maria is the mother of Jesus; Venus (Roman) is Aphrodite (Greek) - goddess of love - and Raj (Indian) means dominion or rule (American Heritage Dictionary). Translation: Aphrodite Rules! And so, my prediction along with my good friend Double O: In faith, Venus reigns over the universe.

That’s our Miss Philippines candidate for the Miss Universe contest this year. Victorious after her unconditional battle against an earthly giant, before she left for Los Angeles, she went back to her hometown Bato in Camarines Sur some 500 km south of Manila and sought the blessings of her pastor. “My unconditional faith in God is the real tool that is keeping me composed and never (to) waiver that I could win this very tough contest” (quoted by Cet Dematera, 03 August, philstar.com). Already she’s a winner. Already she has won over the Binibining Pilipinas pageant owner in her fight to get back the crown grabbed from her. Remember, God helps those who help themselves, and Venus has done her homework, headwork, and legwork.

Aphrodite is the goddess of love. As of now, with Venus it’s Aphrodite Rising, with temperatures rising, and not only those of men of passion.

Global warming is in her territory; Maria Venus Raj is Albay’s Youth Ambassador on Climate Change, having been appointed to that position in 2008 by the Governor Joey Salceda-inspired provincial Centre for Initiatives and Research on Climate Change headed by Nong Rangasa; CIRCA says she has “actively participated in the local climate (change) advocacy” (wowlegazpi.com). Like, she triumphed over the others at the Bicol University, receiving the award for Best Development Case Study for her paper, “The Role of Local News Papers in Climate Change Adaptation in 2009.” Planet Earth is her jurisdiction; representing Legazpi City, she reigned as Miss Bicolandia in 2007; she was crowned Miss Philippines Earth Eco Tourism in 2008.

More. Climate changes characterize the life of this chic chick from Camarines Sur, some 500 km south of Manila in the Philippines. She was there in Los Angeles to help promote the Miss Universe contest to be held in Las Vegas on 23 August. Miss Universe Organization owner Donald Trump had handpicked 6 candidates to help spice up this year's contest: Miss Australia Jesinta Campbell, Miss Colombia Natalia Navarro, Miss Haiti Sarodi Berin, Miss Mexico Jimena Navarrete, Miss Puerto Rico Mariana Vicente, and Miss Philippines Maria Venus Raj (Robert R Requintina, 08 August, mb.com.ph). Trump must know what he’s doing; in his list is a brave girl from the Pearl of the Orient Seas. This is one of those dreams that won’t have come true if the dreamer didn’t wake up.

22 years old, Venus is the story of being disadvantaged in life but blessed in spirit. Her mother had been an overseas Filipino worker, single; an Indian national got her pregnant without the benefit of marriage. So Venus was born in Doha, Qatar out of wedlock (John Berthelsen, 19 April, asiancorrespondent.com) on 07 July 1988 (Wikipedia). Unfulfilled, her mother brought her baby home to the Philippines, to Bato in Camarines Sur, and they both endured their poverty. Perseverance is an option; rebellion is a poor choice. Her mother was a dressmaker and a sharecropper (tenant farmer). Their house stood in the middle of a rice field in the Bicol Region and had no electricity. That house stands still: wood bamboo, and thatch.

Venus dreamed of finishing her studies and earning enough to build her mother a decent house (Julie Matienzo, 05 August, asianjournal.com). She began competing in beauty pageants when she was 17; she also joined oratorical contests at the local San Vicente High School. With her winnings, she started to buy land on installment for her mother (Wikipedia).

She went after excellence. Winning a scholarship from the Francis Papica Foundation, she took up Communication Arts, major in Journalism at the Bicol University in Albay and graduated cum laude (with honors). This girl is beauty & brains who dreams and do what must be done.

Genres5 says, “In Venus, we see what self-determination and a conscious effort at self-improvement can do to a person. By that alone, as Gloria Diaz says, Venus is already a winner” (facebook.com). Gloria Diaz is the first Miss Universe from the Philippines; Margie Moran was the second; Venus Raj will be the third.

When Venus won the Bb Pilipinas-Universe title in a beauty contest staged by pageant organizer Binibining Pilipinas some 5 months ago on 06 March 2010, she thought it was blue skies from then on, blue skies in the city. Winning that prestigious beauty contest was her gateway to fame and fortune, away from home. She would become a citified country girl.

Then blue skies turned to grey when the pageant owner took away her crown on 29 March, or 3 weeks after winning, after Binibining Pilipinas charged that there were “inconsistencies” (ANN, gmanews.tv) between her birth documents and her own declarations as well as those of her mother, the discrepancies discovered only after the coronation. Binibining Pilipinas was saying, in effect, since the words and the records did not match, Venus Raj had been lying; the documents she submitted had been falsified. This queened beauty did not deserve the crown after all. To Binibining Pilipinas, the inconsistencies amounted to dishonesty. Was the Binibining Pilipinas thinking like the Brotherhood of Christian Businessmen and Professionals who live by this motto?

Be honest
Even if others are not
Even if others cannot
Even if others will not.

Inconsistencies. Inconsistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. In law or in life, if you’re inconsistent, you’re probably telling the truth. Venus says that when she was stripped of her crown by Stella Araneta’s Binibining Pilipinas, that thing “nearly brought her down” (Dematera). You can bring a good girl down only for inconsistency.

I know the feeling. I had been writing a book on Filipina international singing sensation Charice for 11 months, since September 2009; I had my nth complete draft and had sent out a pdf file seeking some “advanced praises” before I finesse the manuscript and submit it for print on demand at CreateSpace (amazon.com). I knew I held in my hands the best book I have ever written in my entire life, a writer since college days 51 years ago at the University of the Philippines. As I had worked as a copywriter before at Pacifica Publicity Bureau with my friend, I knew my marketing: packaging, positioning, pricing, promotion. I knew I deserved the praise.

Just early this August, in a cold email, I was told in no uncertain terms not to publish my book because it was inconsistent with marketing plans for Charice, and instantly I felt stunned, drained of energy and had to steady myself; I managed to stay calm, but when I emerged a few minutes later from that unforgettable Internet café in Isabela in Northern Philippines, far away from any friend or family who would empathize, my companion remarked, “You look very tired.” I was. I was sad. I was dispirited. That book, as the working title DreamsGirl Charice suggested, was meant as an inspirational story for dreamers: young girls with talents, their mothers and their advocates. As bonus, it even had 18 lessons for aspiring young singers based on the life, trying times, & triumphs of Charice.

The next day, the negative vibes turned positive when my son Jomar emailed something like: “They can’t stop Frank Hilario from creative writing!” And later my wife Amparo said something about freedom of expression. I needed to be reminded of all that.

Climate changes and dreams: Today, Maria Venus Raj knows that climate change is changing us, so we all have to change - but what about dreams? Now she knows it too, that you need most family and friends in times when disaster strikes as you pursue your fantasy. You need to fill up that empty feeling with empathy, if not with love. When the news of her dethronement broke out, many came out in open defense of her. Thanks, she needed that. “She felt the overwhelming support not only of Filipinos but the whole world as well” (Dematera). On the day she was dethroned, immediately she had the very important support of Chair Leila de Lima of the Philippine Human Rights Commission, who said that Venus’ case “deserves serious scrutiny” (ANN, abs-cbnnews.com). More:

She’s a fellow Bicolana who hails from a neighboring town of my hometown, Iriga city. Preliminarily, I ask: Was Ms Raj given her day before being stripped of her title? What was the exact basis for the decision to dethrone her?

Queen-like, Venus rose and fought to have her crown back. People took notice. With Aphrodite rising, Giovanni Paolo J Yazon says her disqualification “caused outrage among her fans here and abroad” and some turned to online petitions and campaigns via Facebook as well as emails to the Miss Universe Organization (27 May, manilastandardtoday.com).

Paulorila says (paulorila.i.ph):

Venus is indeed an epitome of a modern Filipina ... a woman of strength, courage, faith, intelligence, and principle. A woman who knows what her rights are, and knows when and how to fight for them. A woman who will stand up for her dreams instead of just sitting back and watch them fail.

Joyce Burton Titular says that following Venus’ shocking dethronement, with her fighting back, the support for her cause grew overwhelmingly, encouragement coming from texters, Facebook friends, bloggers and pageant fans, and these gave her “the emotional boost” she needed to fight on (adventuresofabeautyqueen.com). Indeed, friends in need are friends in deed.

“My fight is now more than just chasing a dream” (from The Buzz interview by Boy Abunda, quoted by Ephraim Aguilar, 09 April, inquirer.net). “It is about clearing my soiled reputation. It is about standing up for people who are poor and born out of wedlock. It is a fight for acceptance.” She also told Abunda: “I know I deserve the crown.”

Metaphor shift. A few days ago, we were told in a special audience with Regional Director of PAG-ASA Landrico Dalida Jr last week, we of the Philippine Network of Environmental Journalists, headed by Imelda Abaño, guests of Governor Joey Salceda of Albay, that in the natural state of things, a tropical depression occurs; when it worsens, it becomes a storm; when it further increases ferocity, it is declared a typhoon. When Venus was dethroned, what followed was a tropical depression; when she and her family began to fight for her honor, not to mention her crown as Bb Pilipinas-Universe, what followed was a storm; when fans, friends, and feisty people online and offline began to fight for her, what followed was a typhoon. It was going to be a natural disaster if Binibining Pilipinas did not relent and refused to reinstate her as Bb Pilipinas-Universe and restore all her rights and privileges, including representing the Philippines in the Miss Universe contest this year!

It took 41 days up to the issuance of a passport by the Department of Foreign Affairs on 21 May, but she did it, with a little help from her friends and fans. A triumph of promotion over demotion.

Now then, Rowena Joy Sanchez asks (22 May, mb.com.ph), “Raj got her passport (and got reinstated) - but can she get the (Miss Universe) crown?”

As if to answer that, my good friend Double O declares by SMS (text) that the Bicolano word orag and its derivative oragon fit Venus Raj perfectly:

I see our own earthy Venus as the quintessential oragon - just look at those eyes and, Jumping Jupiter! You see a livin’, walkin’ aphrodisiac! Orag - the fire in her belly, her lust for life, her quest for success. The key to it all is orag, which has always been the secret behind all creative / pro-creative winners.

But what exactly is orag and oragon? “Oragon is Bicol slang for somebody who is feisty, determined, principled, a fighter, unafraid of consequences, and one who stands up for his principles” (urbandictionary.com). “Oragon is a macho lover” (aboutph.com). Orag then is the quality of being brave and being lustful for life.

Double O: Look at Venus Raj. What you see and what you feel is orag. And what she did with her life and how she fought her good fight is orag.

Frank H: Oragon is brave and lustful, and she is both.

Double O: Brave. And lustful. And cool. And awesome. And baaad! (When desired.) Tough.

Venus rising, sensual, which I redefine as sexy and sensible. After the 2-day pre-pageant activities in Los Angeles, Venus rose to the top in 2 categories: “People’s Choice” and “Miss Universe Top 15 Hot Picks” among 83 beauties from as many countries (09 August, Robert R Requintina, mb.com.ph). Oragons are champions.

Venus Raj. This Bicolana redefines oragon. Her being the new oragon - brave and lustful for life and sensual - is Venus’ secret. She’s definitely going to win with it.

Do I have orag, that kind of inner aphrodisiac? I know I have more of it now; I’m more creative at 69 than I was at 59 or 49 or 39. Am I oragon? Maybe, but I’m only the writer bravely lustful for more. Certainly, I have no doubt Venus Raj is the brave and lustful and sensual winner here. She will wear the crown over Planet Earth for quite a while.

Venus rises, Aphrodite rules!

Salceda in excelsis. “The NPAs are part of my forest”

2010-08-07T05:28:00.000+08:00

Legazpi City (05 August) - At home in Legazpi City, Albay Governor Joey Salceda is in his element, even as he smokes. In about an hour of question-and-answer with us, a dozen with the party of the Philippine Network of Environmental Journalists, with PNEJ President Imelda Abaño leading, Salceda explains his high vision for Albay as a province of happy people, and displays his happy command of the language of what he is trying to achieve for the people, by the people, for the people in the province within the Bicol Region. With his terse reply, he manages a joke or two. He’s happy.

The PNEJ party is composed of Imelda Abaño (BusinessMirror & SciDevNet), Jun Aguirre (PNA Aklan), Leoncio Balbin Jr (Inquirer Northern Luzon), Rhayds Barcia (Manila Times), Ging Cardinoza (Inquirer), Christina Gabrillo (Radio DYAC), Nora Gamolo (Radio Veritas), Frank Hilario (American Chronicle), Noel Magturo (The mimaropa Sunrise & Channel 3), Rimaliza Opiña (SunStar Baguio), Alex Rey Pal (Inquirer & MetroPost ), Lyn Ramo (Bulatlat.com), Prime Sarmiento (Xinhua & Newsbreak), Henry Tacio (SunStar & Reader’s Digest), and Mau Victa (BusinessMirror). From 04 to 08 August, with lectures, presentations and site visits, we are here to explore The Albay Experience in championing climate change adaptation. It is also for many of us a change of workplace, from different parts of the Philippines, to LA.

The Q&A is a free-for-all. Emerging from his beauty sleep in his LA den, Salceda is taking his lunch after we have taken ours. He is also saying a mouthful, as usual. He is in his sanctuary. LA, of course, is Legazpi, Albay.

Expected questions. Then someone unexpectedly asks, without any introduction, “What would you do with the NPAs in Albay?” His unexpected reply: “They are part of my forest.” That was a quick quip. That was high thinking. Do not mistake the NPAs as the forest; the forest is the larger view. The members of the New People’s Army, the warriors of the Communist Party of the Philippines, take refuge and recharge deep in the forests, and Salceda considers them, simply, as his constituents and, therefore, he has the duty to serve them. I can imagine Salceda’s mind working like this:

Do they want social justice? I am going to give it to them. Do they want less crime? I am going to give it to them. Do they want gender equality? I am going to give it to them. Do they want cleaner environment? I am going to give it to them. Do they want to fight climate change? I am going to fight for them.

You always have to take the larger view. Do not mistake the people in communities in the lowlands as the forest either, but just the same, it is the duty of the government to serve the people.

As Governor, Joey Salceda manages the affairs of the province of Albay by virtue of his office, he manages with a difference: he manages communities, not programs, projects, tasks, terms of reference. He manages the budget, in terms of minding where the money is needed and not how it is spent. Where ordinary leaders don’t feel the need, he will create it. Like:

1. Albay has 30% of college student scholars sponsored by the province of Albay. And he wants more than 30%. He wants a scholar in every family, and there are 1.2 million people in Albay; if you have 5 members to a family, that will be 240,000 scholars.

2. Legazpi, Albay has the most modern hospital south of Makati. Given the same modern, expensive medical equipment, the difference between the two cities is that for instance in the Makati Medical Center, it is the rich who are served; in the Bicol Regional Training & Teaching Hospital, with the aid of PhilHealth, it is the poor who are served. And in BRTTH, the Health Emergency Management Service has been rated the best in the Philippines.

3. Albay has a Provincial Education Department that no other province in the Philippines has. This office sees to it that education serves the people, including engaging in proactive initiatives in addition to reactive responses to climate change.

4. Albay is into continually awakening the slumbering initiative among the poor families. For instance, in Legazpi, they have a project where youth volunteers dredge up their residential canals, spading up the organic debris (see photo) and forking up the plastic components. They have found that a great part of the matter that fouls up streams that run near or through residences is plastic. Legazpi City doesn’t have yet local laws against the use of non-biodegradable plastic. For the effort of the young dredgers, each family receives 5 kilos of rice. They call the project “Food for Work.” If you work, you get food; even so, since you work for your community, you are rewarded with more than food. “Tuwang-tuwa sila sa project na ‘yan,” says Salceda. “Feel na feel nila ang ownership.” The people are very happy with that project. They can really feel their ownership of it.

5. Albay has bought so many rubber boats for use in case of floods, 18 rubber boats coming. Salceda doesn’t want to be caught unaware when the next flood comes. He is both saddened and angered by the fact that in Typhoon Ondoy / Ketsana (2009), many victims were rich-enough people (in subdivisions in Marikina), who could afford the means to save themselves. But there was no social preparation, he says. Those rich should not have suffered the way they did if their means had been translated in the first place into learning ways of survival in a disaster. Time and disaster wait for no one.

6. Albay promotes Mayon Volcano as one of the premier tourist attractions in the country, being “the most sensuous mountain in the world” (my words). Salceda says Albay “promotes iconic enhancements (such as Mayon) without depleting them.” He means no logging, no mining. I have not signed any mining permit, he says.

7. Albay has for farmers a market development project pursued to its logical conclusion. Albay is a net importer of rice, producing only about 50% of its annual needs. So, the province has given rice priority. Albay has prepared people and prescribed processes so that after harvest, the trucking, storage, processing, buying are managed and monitored so that they all happen within Albay, and the farmers not only get the best market information - they get the best price for their produce.

8. Albay has a very active research arm on climate change, the Centre for Initiatives and Research in Climate Adaptation, CIRCA. If you don’t do research, you will not find anything new. If you don’t use science, you will not find anything not known before.

And Salceda will tell you that these are all in the name of disaster risk reduction / climate change adaptation for the province of Albay, the most disaster-prone province in the Philippines. “We are the one-stop shop for disasters,” he says. Name it and Albay has it: typhoon, earthquake, flood, volcanic eruption. What they’re doing is getting ready for any Big Bang that nature might bring to the people of the province.

“What sets us apart from the rest of the country is,” Salceda says, “intensity, consistency and passion of Albay in terms of social preparation” in disaster risk management. More than that, Frank H thinks what sets Albay apart from the rest of the world is its mantra on climate change actions and reactions being directed at reducing poverty. As Salceda puts it:

Adaptation begins with disaster risk management. Mitigation is integral to environment protection. All four (climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction, environmental protection and climate change mitigation) must reduce poverty.

We must adapt to the call of the times and simultaneously reduce poverty and all its attendant risks.

And where is Salceda getting the money for all those initiatives? Surprise: From the government. “There’s enough money if you use it properly,” he says. Along with funding, based on the Albay Experience: You must make climate change adaptation a goal; you must ordain policies; you must execute programs and projects; you must build institutions; you must nurture partnerships. All for “a safe and shared development vision.” And that vision is:

Albay as the most liveable province known for good schools, good hospitals, overall a good environment.

Not only that. Salceda is looking at what he calls “spatial management” - for instance, he is looking at Albay and Sorsogon as one geopolitical zone sharing that development vision. And beyond. As a spatial manager, Salceda says, “We don’t treat political boundaries.”

Today, the Bicol Region. Tomorrow, the world?

Philippine Canvas. How the Flinch stole Hugeness

2010-06-29T17:26:00.001+08:00

Revised at 1938 hours 29 June
MANILA (28 June 2010) – Early today, the Philippines is “unveiling what it aims to be the world’s longest mural painting on canvas” in Batangas City (Dennis Carcamo, philstar.com). For public viewing. Through the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, BFAR and the On-The-Spot Artists Association, OTSAA headed by Founder Rolando M de Leon (otsaa.cjb.net), the creation of the extremely long mural with the theme “Fishes of the Ocean” is the Philippines’ contribution to the celebration of the 2001-2010 International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World (otsaainfo.multiplycom). 3 cheers for BFAR and OTSAA!

Not my feelings exactly. That’s because by the time I reached the Batangas City Port at about 1400 hours, the children painters had disappeared, waylaid by the Flinch. Actually, Hugeness was still there, all 7000 plus meters of Philippine Canvas – I tried to follow the twists and turns of that thing – but the Flinch had assumed its body. Can you discern his inhuman snarling face there? Like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, the Flinch had misled the children, and all that was left of them were names like Ryan, Rafols and Santos painted on canvas. The fairy tale had come alive. This is the day the Flinch stole Hugeness from the children.

Innocently, Hugeness was going to be in the Guinness World Records as the “World’s Longest Painting” on continuous canvas and children were going to paint it according to the rules of Guinness. But some of the children did not follow rules, as children sometimes do - like the guideline that to qualify as a painting, there can be only pictures and pictures alone, that is to say, no handprints, no footprints, no words should appear (worldrecordnews.com), and no abstract painting either – painters flaunting the rules, that huge thing made them disappear, swallowed them, guilty and innocent alike. This is the day the Flinch stole the children from themselves.

As painters, for many years children of the world have been competing to create the world’s longest painting ever painted by a country. For the Philippines, through BFAR in partnership with OTSAA (otsaa.cjb.net), this “longest painting” will be the country’s contribution to the celebration of the 2001-2010 International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World. In fact, the creation of the extremely long mural with the theme “Fishes of the Ocean” has been at least a 7-year quest, beginning in 2003 (otsaainfo.multiply.com).

2006. On 22 April, the attempt to break the Guinness world record for the longest painting was finally, formally and publicly started with the painting of the first 100 meters of continuous canvas at SM City Fairview in Quezon City. Chelony Mercado wrote of it (pinayartist.webs.com):

On that special day the first one hundred meters to start the continuous canvas masterpiece was done. UNESCO Commissioner of the Philippines, Honorable Professor Taha M Basman witnessed this creation, which will inspire the Filipino in the future. Immortalize the Filipino talent. As he mentioned in his speech, if the Philippine attempt will break the (Guinness World Records) current, the OTSAA dream will soon come true to proclaim the masterpiece as one of the World Heritage treasure for the New Millennium.

2006. On 23 April (date corrected), a second batch of artists worked on their assigned portions of the mural; Mailah Baldemor, a participant, said (undated, artesdelasfilipinas.com):

We never expected how hard it was to paint and finish through the day. We painted non-stop while forgetting to eat, drink, and rest! But we all had fun. Our greatest concern during the event was the continuity of each artwork to the other. Our works are connected as one ocean. Different kinds of fishes are seen in the paintings. All blues, all underwater with fishes of different colors compositions are made; even mermaids are seen.

“Our works are connected as one ocean” – when the works are connected, everyone should be able to see that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. And there is the hidden lesson we can learn from doing “The World’s Longest Painting” – which is holism as practiced in life. Holism is “the theory that living matter or reality is made up of organic or unified wholes that are greater than the simple sum of their parts” (American Heritage Dictionary). Remember the quarrel between the body parts?

I’m making this as a particular topic-in because I know my own countrymen, as the way the children have dealt with the Hugeness shows, Filipinos don’t think holistically; rather, they are reductionists or atomists. Reductionism is “an attempt or tendency to explain a complex set of facts, entities, phenomena, or structures by another, simpler set” (American Heritage). Like: “If C happens when A is present with B, but not when A is present with D, and not with E, then B is the cause of C. That would be science. Atomism is “a theory according to which social institutions, values, and processes arise solely from the acts and interests of individuals, who thus constitute the only true subject of analysis” (American Heritage). That would be philosophy. Science and philosophy are not that far apart, and I appreciate both. But I prefer thinking wholes first and parts last, and I’m glad that holism is the object lesson the Philippine quest for The World’s Longest Painting is trying to teach us, if only accidentally.

2006. On 16 October, sponsored by BFAR, in partnership with OTSAA, a simultaneous nationwide activity was scheduled, each region provided with a 200-meter canvas to be painted on by local artists, amateurs and professionals; adding to the OTSAA canvas, they will eventually create an 8.4-km painting with the theme “Fishes of the Ocean” (RA Canabe, 06 October 2006, pia.gov.ph). BFAR was then headed by Executive Director Malcolm Sarmiento. This is a dream that didn’t come true.

Early on, the OTSAA had wanted to create more than 6 km of mural, with different regions of the Philippines participating. The many canvases will then be attached to each other to make a whole, and only then can it be measured. If you have 17 regional canvases, they don’t make a whole until you stitch them together to make them a whole. And then you will see that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

2006. Meanwhile, on 22 August, Iran won the Guinness World Records title of “World’s Longest Painting” with a 5-km mural (payvand.com).

2006. Meanwhile, on 18 November, children of Romania painted themselves into the Guinness World Records with “the longest painting” done on canvas (unicef.org).

I’ve been surfing too many webpages to be able to say not much happened in 2007 and 2008 in terms of the world’s longest painting on continuous material – no country came out to claim the world prize, even if it’s only prestige.

2009. On 23 April, OTSAA’s founder Rollie de Leon said they already had 7 km of painting and officials of the Guinness World Records were coming 07 June to “officially announce the Philippine collaboration as the longest ever painting in the world” (Boy Villasanta, 23 April 2009, abs-cbnnews.com). “We want to make sure we get the longest painting award from the Guinness World Records this year, so I decided to lock it to 7 kilometers.” It didn’t happen as Rollie expected. Sometimes grand dreams don’t come true.

2010. On 28 May, Mexico won “The World’s Longest Painting” on continuous paper (Kimberly Patrick, 03 June, guinnessworldrecords.com). The rule says it can also be on such material.

The Philippine quest is on continuous canvas. I’m a walker; I wanted to walk the whole 7 km of twists and turns, but I think I finished only 2.5 km today. I understand the mural was supposed to line the walls of the 4-storey Livelihood Center at the Port; the children I asked told me the canvas did go up the 4^th floor. I reached halfway of the 2nd floor display and gave up on my quest.

It has been a 7-year quest for a 7-km mural for the prestige of a group of 7,000 islands. It’s just 1 month from that world title going to Mexico; now then, will the Philippines grab that title anytime soon? The mural needs Guinness World Records certification.

I’ll be extremely happy to be proven wrong, but from what I saw of the canvas today, the Philippines will not win that coveted title this year.

Despite that, I am encouraged. Because, win or lose, there is a lesson to be learned, and that is why I created my own metaphor of how the Flinch stole Hugeness; it’s a lesson similar to what we can learn from the Jim Carrey film How the Grinch Stole Christmas – “Christmas is not about presents and decorations, but about being together” (uruseiranma, imdb.com). In like manner, more than anything else, Hugeness is not about prizes and praises, but about participation and partnerships. It is as about networking as Facebook. It is as simple and as profound as Mailah Baldemor puts it, a lesson we (geniuses and clowns included) have yet to learn:

Our works are connected as one ocean.

To give, love. Paul Coelho & One Hungry Planet

2010-06-26T04:39:00.001+08:00

EARTH - BASF has come up with a YouTube video titled “One Hungry Planet.” It’s about “how farmers are feeding a hungry planet,” Cindy says (13 June, AgWired). It’s more about how farmers are failing in feeding a hungry planet, I say - that’s why we have One Hungry Planet!

I beg your pardon; I’ve watched the 4-minute BASF video, and I see it’s complete with statistics but incomplete with analysis. After these centuries of farming, was Thomas Malthus right after all, that human population increases geometrically while food increases arithmetically, implying that human population will always outstrip food supply unless checked?

The question of food is not simply of production but more of distribution. The laws of democratic economics tell us farmers produce the food, but they do not distribute. The BASF video equates the shortage of food with the surplus of population. Granting without conceding, with global warming bearing on all of us, filthy rich or dirty poor, population is the least of our worries!

No, I’m not worried about the population of the Earth. If we don’t do what we must, ASAP, climate change will depopulate the Earth for us, ASAP. Mostly the poor in poor countries like mine, the Philippines. Problem solved!

I mean, the world is hungry for food, but most of all, the world is
hungry for love
hungry for pardon
hungry for faith
hungry for light
hungry for joy
hungry for consoling
hungry for understanding
hungry for giving.

What the world needs most today is not Higher Productivity but Higher Peace. No, Peace is not simply the absence of war, and as Christians we can all contribute to making the Peace, by praying and practicing the Peace Prayer of St Francis:

Lord, make me an instrument of your Peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love
where there is injury, pardon
where there is doubt, faith
where there is despair, hope
where there is darkness, light
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console
to be understood, as to understand
to be loved, as to love
for it is in giving that we receive
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.

In one word: Love. Love of course is the most interesting topic of all. Interestingly, the Brazilian international bestselling author Paul Coelho has managed to write a mostly boring book about love that was published by HarperCollins in 2004: Eleven Minutes. Everything about love interests me greatly. This is not an old story because Coelho claims that his book “sensitively explores the sacred nature of sex and love and invites us to confront our own prejudices and demons” (back blurb). I never heard or read of that claim before in any intellectual output, in any media. The original was written in Portuguese; it was translated into English by Margaret Jull Costa. Having read enough of it, I doubt if something was lost in the translation.

Did I say boring? Mostly. Here’s the very first paragraph:

Once upon a time, there was a prostitute called Maria. Wait a minute. “Once upon a time” is how all the best children’s stories begin and “prostitute” is a word for adults. How can I start a book with this apparent contradiction? But since, at every moment of our lives, we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss, let’s keep that beginning.

“Once upon a time” is okay depending on how you use it; not in this case. Coelho could have written something like this:

ONCE UPON A TIME was the dream world that Maria lived in, even in her waking hours. She was 16, innocent, an only child, the daughter of a traveling salesman and a seamstress. She loved them both. They had a lovely house with a sea view. She had fallen in love when she was 12.

This is fiction; in my version, there is no dark secret revealed yet, only the surprising fact that Maria had fallen in love when she was yet 12. You will want to read more. In Coelho’s version, saying “prostitute” right in the first paragraph is spoiling the fun of his readers. You don’t want to read more. Actually, in that first paragraph Coelho is like saying, “I’m sorry I have to do this.” Why should you apologize for using “once upon a time” and writing about a prostitute in your story?

Minor points actually. Does the book really sensitively explore the sacred nature of sex and love? No. The Emperor has no clothes! Coelho’s Eleven Minutes is all about sexual love, period. I’m a Roman Catholic, so I know that sexual love is sacred to the Roman Catholic, and Coelho is one (Wikipedia). No Roman Catholic need write a pocketbook of 273 pages to say sexual love is sacred.

And if Coelho wanted to really explore the nature of sacred love, he would have had to write a book of fiction of 1,000 pages. Because no, sexual love is not all there is to love, just as food is not all there is to life.

If I understand St Francis right, the true nature of loving is sowing pardon, sowing faith, sowing hope, sowing light, sowing joy; too, loving is consoling, understanding, and giving.

Now, are we like Linus in Peanuts who says, earnestly, “I love mankind ... it’s people I can’t stand!” If we do love mankind, if we truly know the nature of love, the affirmative action to climate change is adaptation - mitigation is merely a reaction. If we don’t adapt, climate change will adapt us.

To save us from One Angry Planet, we have to love mankind and decrease radically our carbon footprints:

(1) cut greenhouse gas emissions drastically, like: shrink the use of chemical fertilizers, chemical pesticides, gasoline, diesel, coal.

(2) escalate energy efficiency severely, like: walk, don’t drive; drive, don’t fly; plug off equipment when not in use; learn to carpool; cut down on air-conditioning; don’t print out - use email.

(3) increase the speed with which we tap environment-friendly sources of energy: sun, wind, water, grains, biomass - without competing with the food supply.

(4) intensify the use of good agricultural practices that conserve the soil, water, seeds; that build watersheds out of marginal, degraded, barren areas and become carbon sinks.

If you can’t do your part in climate change adaptation, then you truly love mankind - it’s just that you can’t stand people.

I would like to simplify and say that loving is giving: If you can’t give of yourself, you can’t truly love. When you forgive, you give to God your hurts so that He can take care of them Himself because you can’t handle them anymore. When you share your faith, you give your life as a model. When you encourage others, you give hope. When you enlighten others, you give light. When you share, you give joy. When you console, you give part of yourself to share the pain. When you try to understand, you give of yourself to empathize. Sacred Loving is All Giving.

Only Sacred Love can feed One Hungry Planet and save Man from One Angry Planet!

Investing in Now. Competing against climate change

2010-06-22T22:31:00.001+08:00

Revised 23 June at 0400 hours
MANILA (21 June) - Clean energy is climate change adaptation, which must be a global effort. It is an acknowledgment that mankind’s greenhouse gas emissions are the ones causing dramatic climate changes. The response must be in two forms: for unclean energy, higher efficiency; for clean energy, higher economics. The inventing must be now; the investing must be now.

Today, we had the “PFAN Philippines Clean Energy Investor Forum” at the EDSA Shangri-La Plaza in Manila. PFAN is the Private Financing Advisory Network, an initiative of the Climate Technology Initiative, CTI. PFAN is a global, multi-lateral public-private partnership for technology transfer and financing. “It identifies promising clean energy projects at an early stage and provides mentoring for development of a business plan, investment pitch, and growth strategy, significantly enhancing the possibility of financial closure” (cti-pfan.net).

The main sponsors of the whole-day forum were CTI, the US Aid for International Development (USAID), International Center for Environmental Technology Transfer (ICETT), Security Bank and Allied Bank. PFAN Philippines has a membership of 228 according to the Forum Directory distributed at the forum. The Funding Partners are CTI, USAID, Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (APP), Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP), and International Center for Environmental Technology Transfer (ICETT). The Resource Partners in the Philippines are the Development Bank of the Philippines, Land Bank, Department of Energy, LGU Guarantee Corporation, Allied Bank, Veterans Bank, Endesa Cardono, and Security Bank Corp. The In-Country Coordinator for the Philippines is Ms Laurie B Navarro (laurie@cleanergyasia.net).

Listening to the presentors, I thought the forum had a missing element, that it should have been labeled an “Investor-Inventor Forum.” By the term inventor I mean project developers and entrepreneurs in clean energy. The theme of the one-day forum had it right: “Connecting Clean Energy Businesses With Financing.” The connection was missing.

Peter Storey, Global Coordinator of CTI PFAN introduced the term and described “The Missing Middle” as groups looking for funding for projects on one hand and institutions looking for projects to fund on the other. Access to financing was missing.

CTI PFAN describes itself thus (cti-pfan.net)

CTI PFAN seeks to bridge the gap - by coaching and mentoring emerging clean energy businesses; by developing a network of investors and financial institutions who are interested in and informed about the clean energy markets, and by presenting these investors with projects that have been screened for viability, sustainability and environmental and social benefits.

Peter Storey was saying PFAN had global coverage with 4 regional networks: Latin America & Caribbean, Africa, Asia, CIS & Eastern Europe. It has more than 50 projects in the development pipeline, 40 already signed up and 3 under active negotiation. There are 40 projects already identified in 2010 for potential induction. He also said something about a pipeline for investors and direct access to investors for developers, including the establishment of a project preparation facility and an early-stage investment fund. PFAN open for business in Asia and the Philippines for “future opportunities.”

Roger Carlson, Acting Mission Director of USAID, talked about the need to reduce greenhouse gas emission, a power plant that is “exactly the one we need,” and farmers supplying the feedstock.

Mario Marasigan, Assistant Secretary of the Department of Energy, said the Philippines was blessed with resources for energy projects: sun, wind, water. “Starting today,” he said, “we will be celebrating clean energy.”

Alberto S Villarosa, President and CEO of Security Bank said, “I am a firm believer that a firm energy challenge cannot be met without firm investment.” He said his bank has developed and will continue to develop technical expertise to allow its resources to be fully aligned with the project developer’s financial requirements. “The only way to continue to grow is to align our objectives and our interests with those of our investors. We cannot be merely spectators.”

In the roundtable discussion on the future of compressed natural gas for transport in the Philippines, Marasigan said CNG was “not yet economically viable.” Ankur Arora of Intermech Ltd of New Zealand pointed out the need to consider technical know-how from other countries. “Safety first,” he said.

Eduardo M Olbes, EVP of Security Bank, said the bank is trying to understand, holistically, customers and regulators, emphasizing “prudent investments.”

Marasigan mentioned the “huge capital investment in doing clean energy” and EVP Cecilia C Borromeo of the Land Bank replied, “We have funds.”

These were 7 investment pitches:

(1) Biogas - First Commercial Multi-Feedstock Anaerobic Digester In Southeast Asia, presented by SURE - This makes use of biogas technology from Denmark with a proven track record of over 50 plants worldwide. Designed to transform manure from over 30 farms within a 10-km radius producing over 50,000 pigs per annum, located in Pampanga.

(2) Hydropower - 18 MW Timbaban Hydropower Project by Oriental Energy and Power Generation Corp - This is a mini-hydropower plant located along the Timbaban River in Aklan Province in Central Philippines. According to hydroworld.com, this is 1 of 5 small hydro projects set to be developed by Oriental Energy.

(3) Tricycle - Etrike by E Save Transport Systems - An etrike is a battery-operated tricycle costing each about PhP 190,000. ESTS is seeking funding to expand manufacturing and distribution.

(4) Gasification - 10 MW Pangasinan W2E Gasification Facility by Greenergy Solutions - “We are the alternative to the dumpsite,” Greenergy Chair Ruth P Briones said. “We will bring the garbage to the facility.”

(5) Hydropower - 10 MW Inabasan Mini-Hydropower Project by Ormin Power - Located in San Teodoro, Oriental Mindoro; construction projected in 2011, commissioning in 2012, for Phase 1. The expansion potential is 30 MW. To use Norwegian turbine technology. Committed with the LGU for conservation of the watershed where the water for the river comes from.

(6) Biofuel - Philippine Biodiesel Initiative by Ecolife Group - This is a project based on Jatropha curcas, which is non-edible and therefore does not compete with the food supply of the country. As far as this reporter knows, the technology for the catalytic conversion of jatropha oil has not been perfected.

(7) Design - Green Building by Italpinas - The proposed building is called Primavera (top truth), to be the first green building in Mindanao, located in Cagayan de Oro City. The building addresses both energy needs reduction and energy efficiency.

The Etrike was declared the winner in the competition. I had mixed feelings about it.

PFAN explains that “projects are competitively selected though calls for proposals and receive intensive coaching on the preparation and presentation of their business plans before they are showcased at the forums.” During the forum, “the focus is on the business plan competition, to showcase the most promising clean energy investment opportunities in CTI PFAN’s development pipeline.”

I was hoping all the while that the 10 MW W2E gasification project by Greenergy Solutions would win. It is much better than the winner of the 1st PFAN Philippines Clean Energy Investor Forum in June 2009, Asea One Power Corp’s biomass power plant in Aklan Province. I was thinking of tons and tons of garbage in metropolitan districts being turned into power and the cities being cleaned of trash, simultaneously producing clean energy and clean air, as well as preventing soil & water contamination. The social impact of this project was tremendous, incalculable.

Of the 6 finalists in the 2009 forum, 2 have secured financing, both biomass power plants: the one in Aklan Province using all sorts of crop refuse from rice, sugarcane and coconut, and the one in La Union Province using rice hulls and wood chips.

After today’s forum, I must say we are not doing enough. We are not investing enough for now. The future is dark and all we’re doing is light work. We are proposing too few clean energy projects - and we are funding even fewer clean energy proposals. I do not see The Missing Middle - what I see is The Missing Will - political will, both on the side of inventors-proponents and on the side of investors-financiers. He who hesitates is lost. Where is the proof of what Villarosa said, that “Clean energy makes and is good business.”

At the very least, yesterday I was also hoping that all 7 proposed projects get the funding that they deserved and become all winners in a non-competition. It must be remembered:

We are not competing against each other - we are competing against climate change.

Isabela Principle. 3: Don’t forget biodiversity!

2010-06-12T15:46:00.001+08:00

Revised 13 June at 0549 hours, Manila

ROXAS, ISABELA, Northern Luzon, Philippines (11 June) - Burgos, Isabela was a long 8-1/2-hour Victory bus ride from Bagsakan in Villasis, Pangasinan, which was a 1/2-hour ride from my hometown of Asingan, Pangasinan Aside from the never-ending passing windows of soil and sky, mostly somber, there was the never-ending passing windows of grey and green, mostly grey. Last Saturday, 05 June, I would have slept all the way had it not been so hot, temperatures rising to unpleasant, uncomfortable.

Today I’m reminded about early this year when the United Nations declared 2010 as Year of Biodiversity. There’s a smile on my face when suddenly it dawns on me - I’m writing these lines at 0345 hours Manila time - remembering the Bagsakan in Villasis - that the Bagsakan is itself a metaphor for biodiversity. In Tagalog (Filipino), “Bagsakan” literally means “drop-off point” - this one is an open, covered structure of about 300 square meters (30 x 10) where trucks and all kinds of vehicles deposit all kinds of farm products from who knows where, to be sold wholesale or retail. The Bagsakan is the farm gate come to town.

The Bagsakan scene is one of unreported, unsung biodiversity: vegetables of all kinds, fruits of all sorts, roots of all types, and leaves of many sources.

Now I think of the inviting scene of the Bagsakan biodiversity and think of the monotony of the croplands in the 3 hours-long provinces I traveled through last Saturday: from Pangasinan through Nueva Vizcaya to Isabela - mostly ricelands. In the Villasis Bagsakan, diversity wins over monotony; in Philippine agriculture, the opposite is true: monoculture triumphs over biodiversity. What’s the matter: Agricultural scientists don’t have much variety in their theory it reflects on their practice?

Monoculture is assembly-line agriculture and does not tolerate deviations from the pattern. We are imitating the Americans in this regard, for it was the Americans who were the ones who brought the modern science of farming to these islands by founding the College of Agriculture of the University of the Philippines Los Baños in 1909. Even to this day, American farms have stayed monocultures, flouting the imperative of biodiversity.

So, is monoculture a directed classroom lesson emanating from my alma mater, the 100-year old College of Agriculture of UP Los Baños? Was it deliberate, or did the founding fathers not know any better? I shall be kind enough and say that biodiversity is a neglected classroom lesson.

Today, an insight of a biodiversity lesson struck me: Bagsakan University. Why, actually there are at least 2 lessons to be learned there while the wide array of vegetables, fruits, roots and leaves feast your eyes. And those 2 lessons are:

(1) Man cannot live by bread alone - he needs biodiversity.

Here is a list of actual, 05 June 2010 Bagsakan biodiversity - not alphabetized, to show mixture and assortment, which is biodiversity simplified:
durian
corn
eggplant
tomato
pomelo
string beans
sweet orange
bitter gourd
squash
cabbage
ginger
celery
snap beans
broccoli
asparagus
radish
garlic
mango
cauliflower
lasona (red onion)
sweet potato
okra
kabatete (dishrag gourd)
chayote
dippig (cooking banana)
pallang (winged bean)
yam
ubi (water yam)
aba (taro)
papaya
dalayap (lemon)
calamondin
melon
banana
saluyot (jute)
rambutan
potato
and some other vegetables, roots, fruits or leaves I didn’t notice or know the names of (some local names are in Ilocano, the language in the towns of Villasis and Asingan in Pangasinan, my own).

That list of mine is quite a variety of species meant to enhance anyone’s menu. Ask the lady of the house and she will tell you she knows variety is the spice of life on the dining table.

(2) Man is the ruler of biodiversity.

It strikes me that the Bagsakan University is the most public, the most popular if unplanned display of current biodiversity. That cannot be denied. It also cannot be denied that there is no Bagsakan to begin with if nobody brings to it any vegetable, fruit, root or leaf. Man has dominion. Man is the ruler of biodiversity.

And who are those who bring vegetable, fruit, root or leaf to the Bagsakan? Some are the farmers themselves; mostly, it’s the traders with their vehicles who deliver the goods. Which means that it is the traders who are largely responsible for the biodiversity that we find in the Bagsakan - which further means that if the farmer diversifies his crops but the trader doesn’t buy, the farmer is the loser - and biodiversity. At the moment, biodiversity is whatever the market wants, not what the world needs.

In free market economies like the Philippines, in the farms, there is high biodiversity and there is low biodiversity. The lowest form of biodiversity is monoculture: rice alone, sugarcane alone, corn alone, or tobacco alone. No biodiversity at all.

Does the world really need biodiversity?

A foolish question, as the world was biodiversity itself until the genius of man thought otherwise and invented the monotony of monoculture: One Crop Alone. In the Philippines and many countries in Asia, that crop is rice. Asian countries compete against each other for a single crop that not every country has the competitive advantage of. The Philippines is foolish to compete in any monoculture because the soils of this country are very rich and can lushly support a great variety of vegetation, from grass to herbs to trees to orchids.

Here now is my Isabela Principle (Revised):
You need control, continuity and biodiversity in order to grow.

In 2 earlier essays (both titled “Isabela Principle,” both published in ICRISAT Watch and the American Chronicle), in thinking about crops, farmers, society and environment, I propounded The Isabela Principle and stated it thus: You must have control and continuity in order to grow. Today, I have come to realize that without biodiversity, control and continuity will come to nothing.

It strikes me now that the 2 Indian watershed models of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT under Director General William Dar, the Adarsha and the Bundi watersheds as I described them earlier (“Isabela Principle. 2: In rain, don’t look at the water!” 10 June, American Chronicle), are themselves models of biodiversity: crops and vegetation of many kinds, as well as wildlife. Biodiversity is not only the spice of life; biodiversity is the essence of life.

Does the Philippines really need rice self-sufficiency?

My Isabela Principle (Revised) tells me that the goal should not be the narrow view of rice self-sufficiency but the larger view of Philippine self-sufficiency. To insist on rice self-sufficiency is to go against the grain of comparative advantage. Thailand can sell cheaper and better-tasting rice because they have the comparative advantage that the Philippines doesn’t have. Not only that. For any country to go for rice self-sufficiency is to perpetuate rice monoculture against the knowledge of biodiversity.

Not only that. Unlike corn or sorghum, rice is an inefficient crop when it comes to harvesting sunlight - and therefore the sun’s heat - and turning it into food. If crops were given the same space and parallel time, rice is the loser. The long and narrow leaves of rice can only catch so much of the sun’s rays, while the long and wide leaves of corn or sorghum catch much more of the same and convert it into much more food, feed, fodder and fuel. Why shouldn’t we desire more from less?

There is another way of putting that: To help the world to adapt to global warming, we need crops that are more efficient harvesters of carbon dioxide from the air. With their broad leaves, corn and sorghum are such crops; rice leaves much to be desired.

Inadvertently, my Isabela Principle challenges both the Philippine Rice Research Institute, PhilRice (based in Muñoz, Nueva Ecija) and the International Rice Research Institute, IRRI (based in Los Baños, Laguna) to modify their visions and missions in order to bring about biodiversity with rice, PhilRice for the Philippines and IRRI for the world. Rice must become a part of the mixture of crops, no longer the main crop that it has always been. All PhilRice and IRRI need to do is to make a paradigm shift from mono-culture to multi-culture. Multi-culture is not a new idea; I didn’t invent it; but it just happens that biodiversity is a very compelling reason for reiterating it.

Global warming is a danger we cannot ignore, this year or next. Biodiversity is an intelligent response, but it must be ASAP, as soon as possible, and that is today. In a year of living dangerously, biodiversity is the spike of life.

When PhilRice and IRRI finally do their diversity, then we can celebrate truthfully a year of living biodiversity.

Living without. PhilRice, farmers & choices

2010-06-09T16:05:00.001+08:00

ROXAS, ISABELA, Northern Luzon, Philippines (07 June) - I’m a man with a mission. I’m here in the boondocks right now - and we’re having a blackout as I revise this evening of 08 June - since I actually reside in a town 500 kilometers away and have no plans of putting up residence here, my vision is that of a landless person, sans 4 hectares of ricefields, and my mission is for a landowner to get rid of his landownership if only because the distance between owner and land is 1 backbreaking trip of 16 hours getting from there to here. Long distance lends disenchantment to the view.

This land is my land, but I want to get rid of it once and for all. I have no other piece of land anywhere else; I can live without land; I can’t live where the Internet is a special trip of P150 ($3 plus) by tricycle and not my usual walk of only 5 meters to my personal Internet café at home: an affordable SmartBro broadband connection at 1 MB to which network I attach an Intel Core i7 desktop PC and its wireless router from which this HP Compaq laptop I’m using right now gets its automatic Internet login when I’m home. I’m a writer, editor, blogger; I can’t live without the Internet being only a change of chairs away whether I’m home or not. A short distance lends enchantment to the view.

I am a farmer’s son and a graduate of the College of Agriculture of the University of the Philippines Los Baños. I know travel is always educational - if you’re always out on learning mode, your mind set free. So, as I have been in Isabela Province since Saturday, without expecting it or intending to be, in my being a seller of soils, I have been a learner on the overall subject of living without. Details follow:

(1) Living without rights
(2) Living without crops
(3) Living without rice
(4) Living without choices.

Tenants living without rights

Here I am, inadvertently learning about what agrarian reform laws are relevant and how they apply when one is trying to sell 4 hectares of ricefields and there are 4 tenants who have been working the soil in the last 36 years and 3 of them are only thinking for themselves, thinking of exercising rights that they don’t know they don’t have.

In the first place, 3 of my father’s tenants - whom he assigned when he was still alive decades ago to cultivate 1 hectare each - now have each a Certificate of Land Transfer, CLT, issued by the government of President Cory Aquino in the 1990s, and the CLT owners now claim that they own the lands my father assigned to them, and if somebody wants to lend them money, he will sign the mortgage with them, the new landowners. Good heavens!

Is that a fact? As a matter of fact, I came to know the nature of a CLT about 35 years ago when I was working as Chief Information Officer of the Forest Research Institute based in the campus of UP Los Baños in Laguna. A CLT is issued by government from public lands officially declared alienable and disposable, A&D. With A&D, what government proposes, government disposes. However, this time, my government is disposing of my land without my knowledge and consent. Not my kind of democracy. Democracy to me is a government of knowing and consenting adults.

So in Burgos I called for a meeting with the holders of those CLTs and I asked to read one copy. I called attention to the fact that the CLT states that there was no available prior cadastral survey, and that was the reason for the cadastral survey done as reported in the CLT. I then showed the CLT holders what I had in my possession: the master title. This Transfer Certificate of Title, TCT, states that an original survey was indeed made on 3-12 October 1938. Therefore, if I understood correctly, the CLT was misdeclared.

The CLT copy I read was issued in 1994; the TCT I have was issued in 1974, which means that my Title predated their Certificate by 20 years. I asked if the CLT holder has in her possession a Deed of Sale, that would show that a portion of the lot covered by the TCT had been sold, and that would show that she indeed owned the lot she claims ownership of through the CLT. She said there was none. Of course, there was none, because neither my father nor I have sold any piece of that 4-hectare property, nor has the property been confiscated by the Land Bank. She has a right to that CLT, but she has no right to the land with prior and current ownership. She owns the paper, I own the land.

The CLTs had been issued by Cory Aquino who executed an Operation Land Transfer program of government. Land for the landless, like land from each of those who had more than 5 hectares to their name. Fair enough - if fair is fair.

Knowledgeable and consenting Ms Rosita Saccuan of the Municipal Agrarian Reform Office of Burgos, Isabela noted that the 8 hectares covered in the TCT I was holding was actually owned by 4 persons: my relative (1.00 ha), my brother-in-law (2.00 ha), my father (4.09 ha), and somebody else (1.00 ha). The maximum retention limit is 5 ha; if any single individual owns more than 5, the property becomes subject to Operation Land Transfer. Therefore, these pieces of land cannot be classified as subject to OLT because they are not owned by a single person. Therefore, the CLT issued resulted in an erroneous coverage. The government is not always right. We are law-abiding citizens; we have been paying the proper taxes. I must say: If the government must err, it must err on the side of the law-abiding citizens.

Fields living without crops

On a slow road to Roxas from Burgos riding a small tractor-driven trailer the other day, it struck me that the rice-white fields were among the Philippines’ great contributors to global warming. And on a fast Isuzu Trouper traveling through several towns up to the PhilRice Branch Station in San Mateo, Isabela today, I was more convinced that such crop-bare fields all over are indeed guilty of appreciably warming up the Philippines. According to IRRI, there are about 4 million hectares of ricelands in the country; according to Frank H and his Theory of the Rice-White Fields (see the other day’s essay, “1st 100 days,” iNews Earth), that’s 40 billion square meters that are heat-absorbent. These are ricefields fallowed in-between rice crops in those 3 months from mid-April to mid-July. Open fields with very little or no vegetative cover - no crops growing and hardly any grass - cannot help but absorb the heat of the sun and dissipate it upward and sideward. And no photosynthesis converting sunlight and carbon dioxide into food or wood and oxygen! This is soil working against man. Lazy fields are busy working against lazybones.

Climate change is coming! Climate change is coming! We need to plant those empty fields sooner, not later. Let us learn from the forest. Vegetation is the sincerest form of forestry in the lowlands. Let no man hesitate; let those fields vegetate!

Rice stations living without rice

Today, on my prompting we visited the PhilRice Branch Station in San Mateo, and I asked for some certified seeds that farmers can plant for better results. One of the staff told me they didn’t have any inbred rice variety, but they did have hybrid rice. I decided to keep my mouth shut and did not ask why was it that PhilRice seemed to be favoring the richer farmers who can afford to risk their money on a highly expensive rice crop and seemed to be forgetting the poorer farmers who can afford only the inexpensive, inbred or self-pollinating variety, the usual kind. Inbred is the one farmers are familiar with; unfamiliarity breeds contempt.

Hybrid is too complicated, and farmers like their lives simple, and so do I, a landlord for once in my life. The fellow said they were selling inbred rice, like Angelica, outside PhilRice. I knew Angelica is good, but I wanted it free, and I wanted it from PhilRice, and I knew this public rice research institute could afford to distribute 1 or 2 kilos of seeds free to credible farmers who ask. Last time I worked with PhilRice was in 2004, and I knew that this institute was designed to help the local farmers improve their lives. Rice is life, not simply food.

Today I see that good seeds are a conscious choice for both rice farmer and research institute. Further, I see that PhilRice’s choice to give good seeds free can come with PhilRice’s chance to give good advice free to farmers on good agricultural practices, GAP, like water harvesting, like multiple cropping, like micro-fertilizing. You get good seeds, you get GAP; you also get monitored. Farmers should understand that nothing really comes free.

Farmers living without choices

In Isabela, the 3 most expensive items in the farmer’s list of costs are fertilizer (6 bags, say P6,000 total), crude oil for the small hand tractor (P5,000), and transplanting (P4,000). If you want to cut the total cost of farming down, you begin with fertilizer, fuel and planting materials.

This time, let’s just focus on fertilizer. Fertilizer here means chemical compounds of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, the well-known NPK. These are in the bags of fertilizer you buy from your friendly neighborhood farm supply dealer.

But here or elsewhere, they don’t teach you that your soil needs not only the 3 “major” elements but also any of the many other “minor” elements, including sulphur and zinc. Here are farmers living without other choices except urea (for N) and “complete” (NPK). A misnomer, to say the least; bags of “complete fertilizers” are by no means complete as sources of the minor elements that plants need for proper growth such as sulfur, zinc, boron, copper and manganese - they have none of the above. In the last 100 years, NPK being referred to as “complete” is the height of scientific hubris.

With rice centers and stations in certain regions of the country, and with the PhilRice-initiated Farmers’ Internet (Open Academy for Philippine Agriculture), for the last 6 years I have been expecting PhilRice to be teaching more and more farmers about more and more fertilizer choices, among other options. I know they have the technology; I know they have the knowledge; I know they have the awareness.

In any case, PhilRice has a wonderful soil testing technique called minus-one-element technology, MOET. With MOET, for the soil test, you don’t need a soils laboratory. All you have to do is plant rice in huge flower pots with proper samples of your soil and grow them under direct sunlight, with each pot having 1 different element missing, like minus N, minus P, minus K, minus S, minus Zn. Set up those pots near where you can watch the MOET experiment unfold. Growing rice from pot to pot and seed to seed, with your own eyes day to day you will slowly but surely see what your soil does lack - or doesn’t.

A year or so ago, the new Director of PhilRice, Ronilo A Beronio pointedly asked me: “Frank, what can you do for PhilRice?” Sir, finally I have an answer; I can proclaim to the world that:

MOET is the intelligent farmer’s guide to fertilizing.

MOET is quite a different sound from the 50-year old mantra: NPK. MOET farming is a choice that goes beyond NPK farming, the one I learned from my100-year-old alma mater, the College of Agriculture of UP Los Baños.

MOET farming is the intelligent farmer’s guide to cropping.

MOET farming inspires me to say that more rice farmers should be choosing to live with options, and rice experts should be choosing to find out and teach more.

1st 100 days. I’m Red if Noynoy becomes Green

2010-06-06T15:24:00.001+08:00

Revised 07 June 1124 hours, Roxas, Isabela

ROXAS, ISABELA (06 June 2010) – It is noon when I begin this; it is half past four in the afternoon when I finish. I’m in the boondocks; I don’t like what I see in the ricefields – very little green – riding on a motorized cart from Gamu to Burgos to Roxas in Isabela Province in northern Luzon, but I like what I read online at Megaknet, an Internet cafe in Roxas, that Noynoy Aquino will be proclaimed President of the Philippines tomorrow, 08 June, less than 30 days after the elections (Barbara Mae Dacanay, 04 June, gulfnews.com). That’s a historic first, and welcome news, since we used to proclaim the President within 100 days, which was forever, with loss of lives, which was unforgivable; thanks to the Comelec for pushing for automated elections. In the Philippines, it used to be: Suffrage delayed is suffrage denied – not to mention lives denied.

But what’s this I read that on World Environment Day, 05 June 2010, in Manila some “progressive environmental groups challenged presumptive President Noynoy Aquino to implement fundamental environmental reforms and actions in his first 100 days in office” (Anne Marxze D Umil, 05 June, bulatlat.com)? The groups are Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment, Center for Environmental Concerns Philippines, and Advocates of Science and Technology for the People (AGHAM). AGHAM is a familiar name to me, not KPNE and CEC Phils, a minor point. Commonly, I have a problem with what they are saying - they say “fundamental” - meaning elemental or basic - and yet they are specific about their demands:

“prosecute the environmental crimes of Ms Gloria Macapagal Arroyo” - it would be expedient and inexpensive, wouldn’t it, if we could put the blame all on GMA for our own environmental crimes?

“cancel contracts or environment compliance certificates of environmentally destructive and controversial projects” - don’t you think that would include most if not all setups all over the country that have not complied with environmental laws? And what about the millions of people who squat on riverbanks and roadsides and railsides? Calling those masses of humanity “informal settlers” is condoning their sins against the other masses of humanity.

“review anti-environment policies that were passed and implemented during the Arroyo administration” - do they mean there were no anti-environment policies promulgated before GMA?

“replace Department of Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Horacio Ramos with an individual who has a proven track record in environmental protection and conservation” - that individual would be impossible to find, wouldn’t it? Or, if we could find such a person, we should declare that we have found a Saint on Earth!

You know, those presumptive progressive people are not very realistic. I’m sure they will be disappointed with Noynoy Aquino about the environment. I say that on the basis of the fact that our would-be President refuses to quit smoking - which is a clear sign to me that he himself does not understand what the environment is all about, because he himself does not understand the environment that is his whole body - he’s polluting it, slowly but surely! And he does not understand the environment he shares with those who do not smoke. Science says second-hand smoking is more dangerous to your health. Your environment or mine?

I mean, Noynoy Aquino has a lot of learning to do about the environment and how to take care of it. I do hope he’s a good learner.

I was trained to be a teacher, and even beyond retirement age, I can’t resist the urge to teach. Taking care of the environment is like this:

Those ricefields I have just seen on the slow road to Roxas told me that it must be the same scene all over the Philippines. June is planting season for rice, but there are many more fields that remain white with dead rice stalks or are otherwise without vegetation. Looking at those rice-white fields, a thought occurred to me: If you have 4 million hectares of ricelands in the whole country (IRRI figures) that are bare of vegetation, you have 40 billion square meters of soil surface absorbing the heat of the sun and heating up the surrounding air and making human life more miserable than it should be. The rice farmers are not as blameless as they look.

If those 4 million hectares are all flooded, 4 million hectares of water are the ones absorbing the heat, reflecting the heat to the surrounding air and making the lives of humans still more miserable, not to mention the lives of the fish, frogs, crabs and other animals in those fields. Irrigation water is not as blameless as it looks.

I therefore conclude:
Ricefields are a major contributor to the warming of the Philippines.

Let me call that The Rice-White Fields Theory, my contribution to the theory of global warming. Remember, there are 3 months of each year when those 4 million hectares of ricefields in the Philippines have nothing to do but absorb and reflect heat – because the rice farmers have nothing to do but absorb and reflect on their rice futures.

I’m not blaming him, but not being a farmer’s son or an agriculture graduate, Noynoy Aquino wouldn’t appreciate any of that. So you see, I’d be Red if Noynoy Aquino ever becomes Green. There are 3 months in-between the planting of 2 rice crops; in those 3 months, the ricefields are bare. Those 4 million hectares of bare ricelands that are now contributing to the high temperatures of the Philippines should be green.

If Noynoy Aquino would be green, he would mandate that farmers plant those 4 million hectares of bare, rice-white lands in-between rice crops with any legume, for 5 reasons:
(1) to enrich the soil with nitrogen even as the legume crop grows
(2) to provide food for the family (vegetables)
(3) to provide feed for the animals (forage)
(4) to provide green manure for the soil (organic fertilizer) later
(5) to keep the soil with a plant cover so that the sunlight that otherwise is absorbed as heat is transformed into food or wood, which is carbon dioxide harvested from the atmosphere, which is helping Planet Earth breathe easier, which is helping us humans breathe easier. If farmers keep their fields planted the whole year through, that would be good for their families and the Family of Man.

Well, I just looked into his political blog, and so I say that the environments that Noynoy Aquino seems to understand have something to do with his slogan, “Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap.” You get rid of corruption and you get rid of poverty. He has abandoned the website - noynoy.ph - but not the slogan. I understand him to be saying that corruption is the environment that breeds poverty. The problem I see with that is that if you suddenly dismissed all the corrupt, who would be left?

And yes, in what remains of his website, he says (my translation):

In the name of my siblings and family, I am thanking you the people for your support and trust. ¶ You can rest assured that I will push forward the change that we all have been longing for. But I cannot do this alone. You are my strength. ¶ I encourage you to join me and continue the fight.

He talks about change; I hope it is a change we can all believe in. Like, many Filipinos condemn their own country as hopeless. How do we change that attitude? Like many Filipinos condemn English as a colonial language and do not appreciate the fact that our mastery of that international language is a competitive edge with the rest of Asians. What’s the matter: Those English haters don’t understand economics?

He talks about continuing the fight; I wish he defined what he meant by fight.

If it is the fight against corruption, everyone has tried and failed. He must understand that the corruption will stop if the corrupting will. And who are the corruptors? The people, big and small, rich and poor. We are all into corruption, either as corrupters or corrupted. Like, a car owner is flagged by a policeman for violating a traffic rule; the driver hands over his license, along with a sum of money that is designed to return the license in no time at all. Like, you go home with 1 ball pen, 1 pad of yellow paper, 1 roll of tissue paper, 1 marker coming from office supplies. Like, you offer to buy my vote and I accept your 500 pesos; if another party offers 1000 pesos, I accept that too, not bothered by my conscience. Corruption begins with each of us; likewise, change begins with each of us.

If the fight is against climate change / global warming, and that is the biggest fight of all, I go back to my Rice-White Fields Theory and how to combat it. So, why shouldn’t President Noynoy Aquino compel, by Executive Order, the Department of Agriculture and/or local governments to compel the rice farmers to keep their fields covered all-year round with green and increase their harvest of crops from their fields for their families - and increase the harvest of carbon dioxide from the polluted atmosphere for the rest of us? Give me oxygen, or give me death!

If it is the fight against the so-called overpopulation, I cannot subscribe to it. I am a graduate of the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture; I am a science writer, so I should know whether the rate of population increase is geometric while the rate of food increase is only mathematical, and never the twain shall meet. The quality of life is not measured only in food versus population.

I am a Roman Catholic and I do not subscribe to the contention that “too many Filipinos” is the cause of poverty in the Philippines and that the Roman Catholic Church is the single great barrier to the road to wealth because it is against the Reproductive Health Bill. That is giving too much value to science and too little value to religion. Because I have a choice, if they insist, whoever they are, Science would always be Red to me and Faith always Green.

Hope from PNEJ. New network of eco-journalists

2010-06-04T06:42:00.001+08:00

MANILA - "It's been a great day!" Po Garden said at the end of the one-day Environmental Media Workshop that culminated in the launching of the Philippine Network of Environmental Journalists, PNEJ today, 03 June 2010, at the Heritage Hotel Manila. The Earth Journalism Network, EJN is the advocate and ally of PNEJ, and Garden is the Project Director of EJN, which is based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. It was all very pleasant. The media workshop had been enthusiastically participated in; there were no debates or major disagreements; the guest speaker planed in from Bonn, Germany and spoke with vision, knowledge and heart.

The funding for the workshop and launching was a grant from the EJN. The EJN is a project of Internews Network and Internews Europe "to empower and enable journalists from developing countries to cover the environment more effectively" (earthjournalism.net). Through small grants, the EJN is designed to establish environmental journalist networks in emerging countries and help build local capacities through training, including development and distribution of training materials.

Indeed, 03 June 2010 was a day to remember. The guest speaker, reelected Governor of Albay Province Joey Salceda, had just come from the Bonn, Germany nth-time meeting of countries (and of cities, separately) trying to come up with a policy framework on climate change that applies both internationally and nationally (30 May, unfccc.int). Salceda said that the rich countries were like squeezing money from the poor countries by selling them technologies for greener economies when in fact the rich countries had been the major contributors of greenhouse gas emissions that are directly causing all these accelerated climate change.

"Climate change is real, science-based," Salceda said. "Adaptation is the national imperative, demand driven, but mitigation is a duty, an exercise of political will." If you have doubts, prepare to shed them now. Adaptation is the first agenda, but that doesn't mean you can neglect mitigation.

To mitigate is to lessen the impact of something undesirable. To adapt is to adjust, to modify something to suit new conditions or needs. Adaptation is what we must do first, and best. To be able to do that, "climate change adaptation must become a worldview," Salceda said, our way of looking at the world today. Adaptation must pervade our thinking from day to day. "It must become our way of life." We must expect to be always adjusting, modifying our lives as climate change happens in dimensions we do not know yet.

And the best way to adapt to climate change, Salceda said, is through institutions. He then described what the Government of Albay has been doing under his leadership for the people to adapt to changing conditions, including the threat of eruption and the lava dangers coming from Mayon Volcano.

"The Philippines is among top ten countries with high populations occupying low elevations," he said. If sea levels rise, as indeed they are rising, there will come a time when much of the Philippines will be inundated. "The adaptation challenges have to be met in agriculture, coastal and marine forest and watershed sectors," he said, because "these sectors represent crucial areas upon which majority of the people depend for food and livelihood." The farmers and fishermen are the most vulnerable under climate change.

The Philippines needs a Disaster Management Risk Act, Salceda said. "Hazard plus exposure minus capacity equals risk." That is to say, climate change is now a natural hazard but you can minimize it by decreasing your exposure and increasing your capacity to adapt. Governments should not look at adaptation as a cost, he said, but rather as an investment. One thing to consider is that the most affected by climate change are the ones least capable of reacting to climate change. For the people, local governments must assume the primary responsibility as they are in the frontlines.

Later in the afternoon, after the media workshop, the first officers of the PNEJ were elected by acclamation, their own adaptation to the needs of the time. There were no rounds of nominations and secondings of nominations. Any objections to the list of officers? None. It was all okay, A-Okay.

The elected officers were:

President: Imelda Abaño - She has been an environmental journalist for 12 years now. She was the Asian Winner of the Global Awards on Environmental Reporting by Reuters and IUCN in Washington DC in 2002. She is the 1st Filipino to receive the Developing Asia Journalist of the Year Award, bestowed in 2009. She is also the 1st Filipino journalist to receive the prestigious United Nations Correspondents Association, UNCA Award for excellence in humanitarian and development affairs reporting.

Vice President: Alex Rey Pal - A veteran journalist, he has been in the media industry for 27 years now. Among his many awards are Excellence in Environmental Reporting given in 1999 by the Asian Development Bank and the Asia Pacific Federation of Environmental Journalists and the Exemplary Environmental Stewardship Award given by the Save Tanong Strait Citizens' Movement in 2008. He is the Editor in Chief of MetroPost based in Dumaguete City.

Secretary: Henrylito Tacio - He specializes in writing science feature stories such as in medicine, agriculture, environment, and technology. He has received several national and international journalism awards, including the Hall of Fame in Science Reporting from the Philippine Press Institute (1999) and the Journalist of the Year Award from the Rotary Club of Manila (also 1999). He is a correspondent of Sunstar Daily Davao, Reader's Digest (Asian Edition), People and Planet, Gaia Discovery, and Travel Plus.

Treasurer: Delmar Cariño - He has been writing about the environment, agriculture and culture of the Cordillera peoples and places for many years now. As Chairman of the Benguet Press Corps and a long-time correspondent of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, he has developed a passion for the environment, particularly on concerns / issues that directly impact the region: climate change, watershed, energy, concerns of indigenous communities, rivers and waters.

Also elected were these members of the PNEJ Board of Directors:

Nora Gamolo - She is one of the ten journalists cited in the 2007 Jaime V Ongpin Awards for Excellence in Journalism, for writing a special report series on the problems confronting the implementation of ecological waste management in the Philippines. She earned her MA in Communication Management from the Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication, and promotes the cause of citizen or civic journalism. She is a former senior desk editor and columnist of The Manila Times. She will soon co-publish a magazine dedicated to reportage on development issues in the Philippines.

Frank Hilario - He is a writer of popular science and entertainment articles that are regularly published in the American Chronicle. He also maintains several blogs such as iNews Earth, DreamsGirl Charice, FRANK A HiLARiO and ICRISAT Watch. He is a graduate of the University of the Philippines Los Baños. He has written 3 popular science books for the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT published in 2007, 2009 and 2010. With his 35 years of experience in writing and 25 years of expertise in working the personal computer, he thanks God for the Internet that intruded into his life only 5 years ago.

Myrna Velasco – She has done research and editing works on consultancy and sub-contract capacity with the International Finance Corporation, Asian Development Bank, and the Japan External Trade Organization. She has been a fellow at the Nihon Shinbun Kyokai (Japanese Newspapers Publishers Association)-Confederation of Asean Journalists Fellowship Program in Tokyo, Japan. She is a recipient of the Henry Ford Journalism Award, Citibank Pan-Asia Journalism Award, and an institutional award on Journalism Excellence from the Philippine National Oil Company.

Inducting the PNEJ officers was Undersecretary Manuel Gerochi of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, DENR. After the induction, in his remarks, Gerochi spoke of the environmental journalist as a camera with "a wide-angle lens capable of zooming in, and vice versa, without loss of focus," so that he does not miss the forest for the trees.

Climate change is a given. "Weather extremes are becoming more violent and destructive," Gerochi said. This is where the environmental journalist comes in. "(All) this must be explained to ordinary citizens in the language they understand, so that they may know how they can become part of the solution or at least contribute less to the problem."

"What I have said earlier," he said, "underscores the need for journalists to be environmentally knowledgeable and conversant." That is why, he said, the DENR supports "the PNEJ's rationale of building a stronger, better-educated and tightly interlinked network of environmental journalists." Out of such in-depth knowledge are expected to come appropriate climate change messages.

And all that calls for the press to be credible. "Coming from the credible press, such enlightening messages will be heeded," Gerochi said.

To put icing to the cake of a wonderful day for environmental journalism in the Philippines, the Balangay band came to perform, led by Dr Ted Esguerra. Dr Ted is the Assistant Team Leader of the Balangay Expedition team and the famous Mt Everest Expedition Team of the Philippines. He is the lead singer of the group. He spoke and sang of how man has ravaged nature for his selfish gain. He spoke and sang of being an affirmative-action activist in the face of people cutting down trees in the forest beyond the legal limit, beyond reason. He spoke and sang of the seas being ravaged by the people who should be taking care of it in the first place because it is their source of wealth, for themselves and their families.

We eco-journalists have a Herculean job to do! We not only must thoroughly understand climate change so that we can thoroughly talk about it in the language of our audiences, but must thoroughly be credible in the first place. In other words, there must be a climate change within the minds of journalists if they are not yet clear about what they want to talk about. The teacher must educate himself first before he can teach.

Inconvenient Truth: We Are All In This Together

2010-06-02T05:17:00.001+08:00

Revised 03 June at 0525 hours

MANILA – Environmental journalists do not have a monopoly of the truth – they are part of it, so they must learn to deal with it with intelligence and insight more than any other group of journalists. To help each other out, on 03 June Thursday at the Heritage Hotel, the Philippine Network of Environmental Journalists (PNEJ) will be formally launched, according to Imelda V Abaño, PNEJ advocate. The funding for the launching was a grant from the Internews Earth Journalism Network (EJN). The EJN is a project of Internews Network and Internews Europe "to empower and enable journalists from developing countries to cover the environment more effectively" (earthjournalism.net). Through small grants, the EJN is designed to establish environmental journalist networks and help build local capacities through training, including development and distribution of training materials. Climate change / global warming is everybody’s business, but perhaps first, the environmental journalists as exemplified by Al Gore and his Nobel Prize-winning masterpiece An Inconvenient Truth.

After the launching, the PNEJ will immediately sit down to work in a one-day Environmental Media Workshop with the following objectives:

(a) to discuss the main environmental challenges facing the Philippines
(b) to facilitate sharing and access to information by environmental journalists
(c) to discuss the best methodology in networking and, afterwards, set up a dynamic network of environmental journalists for the Philippines.

PNEJ and EJN wish to assist Filipino journalists to advance their knowledge on environment issues and concerns as well as to enhance environmental reporting in the country.

Mid-morning, there will be a Panel Discussion on environmental reporting in the Philippines during the Media Workshop, to discuss some of the challenges facing environmental reporters and the need for training and information to help them do their jobs better.

Myrna Velasco of the Manila Bulletin will chair the panel. A five-minute introduction each on who the panelists are and what they do in terms of environmental reporting/training will be made by the panelists themselves.

Expected to be touched upon during the workshop are obstacles to reporting. Also expected are some tips generated for covering environmental issues such as climate change, biodiversity, deforestation etc.

Current problems recognized among environmental journalists include insufficient training, minimal knowledge of science, low professional fees, demands for story quantity rather than quality, as well as government pressure one way or the other.

"No man is an island entire of itself," says the poet-philosopher John Donne. In the city or in the countryside, the built-in problem in environmental reporting is that a journalist may simply report on an environmental concern or issue without realizing that s/he is part and parcel of the environment and therefore s/he is also a stakeholder and must share in the work that needs to be done. Environmental reporting is unlike reporting an accident, murder or a corporate milestone - the reporter is affected by what he observes directly or indirectly. Once an accident is reported, it is essentially finished; an environment report is a continuing story because what happens next is important, very important.

Also expected to be generated during the Heritage Hotel workshop to address environmental challenges / issues are some innovative platforms, new technology and groundbreaking partnerships, including on-the-ground training, awards competitions, online courses and fellowships.

This event precedes the celebration of World Environment Day on 05 June. An innovation in the celebration of WED this year is WED A-Z Countdown, which lists from A to Z what one can do for the world environment. For each letter of the alphabet, there is an artwork that can be downloaded.

The media workshop also precedes the event AL GORE Live In Manila, a one-day lecture-presentation on An Inconvenient Truth (Asian Edition) sponsored by SM Prime Holdings. Al Gore would be the keynote speaker at a leadership conference held at the SMX Convention Center at the Mall of Asia in Manila. SM Prime President Hans Sy says Al Gore's visit is "part of the SM's Group commitment to environmental preservation." He explains (19 April 2010, abs-cbnNEWS.com):

Beyond our many environmental programs, we feel that we can further spread the advocacy by having more people learn about this global problem and how it impacts each and every one of us. This is why we are bringing in the world’s most influential authority on climate change. We want the urgency of his message to be heard by Filipino leaders as well as Filipinos in general.

The urgency of Al Gore’s message goes beyond “preservation” and encompasses “conservation,” which implies wise use, including preserving heritage resources such as seeds of native species of crops, as well as taking care of little earthworms for their big contribution to the Big Planet called Earth.

Granting their individual genius, environmental journalists need to listen more and learn more before they can communicate more successfully.

"Scientists don't speak English!" - Alex Pal, MetroPost

2010-03-24T20:27:00.002+08:00

MANILA - Policy, investments, and journalists are necessary to confront a major challenge of our generation, Nick Keyes said, referring to clean energy. For the longer term, it must get the attention and treatment it deserves, Peter du Pont said. Keyes is the Communications Director of USAID ECO-Asia Clean Development and Climate Program (ECO-Asia); Du Pont is the Chief of Party of ECO-Asia. We are attending the 23-24 March 2010 "Media Workshop on Clean Energy in the Philippines and Asia" at the EDSA Shangri-La Hotel in Manila. The Workshop Coordinators are Joydeep Gupta who is Secretary of the Forum of Environmental Journalists based in India, and Imelda V Albano who is a Manila correspondent of the Science and Development Network based in the UK.

Day 1, Secretary Heherson Alvarez, adviser to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Global Warming and Climate Change, was our honored speaker. He spoke of the lack of an adequate "climate investment fund" made accessible to developing countries by the developed countries. The promise of 150 billion dollars a year is "miniscule," he said, compared to the size of the problem. He emphasized that this is not an issue of poverty, not an issue of gender, but the very survival of human society. "Science tells us it is an issue of our survival," he said. Low-lying countries like the Philippines are especially vulnerable to climate change.

"Copenhagen was almost there," Alvarez said, "but now time is running out." You have 191 democracies debating, he said, which showed that "democracy is more tedious," that "unfortunately, the debate is democratic." Too many words and not enough works.

That's one side of the Copenhagen non-treaty. I know of another, and it has to do with the United Nations' Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) itself, the lead agency in Copenhagen. The UNFCCC had prepared hundreds of pages for discussion in Copenhagen, and was not listening to its own Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer's recommendation that the discussion be limited, at the first instance, on 4 points (I reported on them earlier; see my "Climate Changes. The Miracle of Copenhagen," American Chronicle); in my own words now, they are:

(1) Clarity of targets - for developed countries to promise their limits to growth;
(2) Clarity of limits - for developing countries to promise their own limits to growth;
(3) Clarity of financing - for developed countries to promise how much to contribute;
(4) Clarity in governance - for all countries to agree on how to manage the funds.

Clarity of intentions. I say Copenhagen failed because the delegates did not begin with the basics. The developing countries blamed the developed countries for the collapse of the talks. Personally, I see that it was not a failure of democracy - it was a failure in discernment.

Alvarez also mentioned the United Nations program called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), which dramatizes the role that tropical forests such as those in the Philippines can play not only in reducing greenhouse gas emissions (specifically carbon dioxide) but also in bringing in export dollar earnings for reforestation projects in carbon trading, the income coming from the developed countries that want to reduce their carbon footprints, the developing countries "exporting" the carbon. The Philippines has millions of hectares where once grew lush virgin forests; the deforested lands are candidate carbon sinks. Thus, the Philippine President told the US President, "Mr President, we are not trouble makers - we are carbon takers." That's talking in the language of the listener, a basic rule in communication.

Du Pont spoke of "energy efficiency options on both the supply and demand sides." On the supply side, he was referring to clean technologies that companies can supply; on the demand side, he was referring to energy conservation, reducing avoidable energy demand.

In their joint presentation, Mycle Schneider and My Ton both of ECO-Asia said that one of the most radical changes necessary is the conduct of "an energy service needs analysis" and not to begin with "a barrel of oil analysis." How much power do we really need, not how much oil to buy to meet the demand. "The home is the place to start," Schneider said. On his part, Ton said California's energy success can be explained by the State adopting a comprehensive strategy, sustaining state efforts and insisting on cost-effective standards. Democracy must be exercised, but rules, borders and limits must be observed.

Why are we having a media workshop on clean energy? Because the story is not being told as it should be. Because it's a "dirty" story to tell - it's usually told by dramatizing, first, the air or water pollution, and next pointing fingers on whom to blame. It's almost always the media-vs-the-big-polluters story, the good and the bad. The citizens are not made aware that they are in fact the biggest polluters combined.

That I will consider a failure in the exercise of democracy by the media. But that's because journalists don't really understand what clean energy is all about - because, as one of the journalist participants, Alex Rey Pal of MetroPost in Dumaguete City put it, "The scientists don't speak English!" If the scientists don't speak the journalist's English, the more the journalists can't speak the scientist's English. Communicating clean energy (or for that matter, climate change and global warming) is first the responsibility of the scientists, not of the journalists. The scientists are the experts on the subject, so they should be the teachers; the journalists are the non-experts, so they can only be students. If the students have not learned, the teachers have not taught.

There was the point raised by a journalist during the workshop that clean energy, or any related subject, cannot be an everyday story. An assertion like that only proves that journalists - and I cannot blame them - don't understand enough of what clean energy is all about, and what homes, managers and employees in offices, professors and students in schools, drivers and car owners on the road, housewives at home, and journalists in the field can do to conserve energy - to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions from Planet Earth. Clean energy is not only about producing fuels from renewable resources; it is also reducing the air and water pollution as well as energy consumption by practicing conservation measures as simple as unplugging the TV for the night, car pooling during the day, and journalists gathering info by cell phone or email.

Journalists had to know what they didn't know about clean energy, and it would have to be the scientists telling them in the language not of the research lab but of the daily news, or the weekly feature in any or all of the following media: newspaper, magazine, radio, TV, video, the Internet. The scientist-journalist partnership must be a working relationship and not simply a pronouncement. The journalists would know what kind of stories they wanted to tell - if they had the context, if they understood the short-term and long-term issues, if they could see The Big Picture. If they had been properly educated by the scientists in the language of the masses.

Actually, I had all that in mind when I was invited to join that workshop by Imelda Abano, through the Philippine Network of Environment Journalists (PNEJ) that she had just formed, and where she was the Coordinator. So I emailed her that one of the major obstacles preventing clean energy from getting the publicity that it deserves in the media is the lack of a journalist's handbook for difficult terms explained in dictionary language, including model or actual "clean energy" stories. This morning, on the last phase of the workshop, I recommended that an online magazine be put up as a common effort to publicize clean energy. That should take care of educating the journalists on clean energy, and providing an immediate medium for publishing their stories, with the least editorial bureaucratic red tape.

Day 2, this morning, Assistant Secretary of the Department of Energy Mario Marasigan spoke of the need to educate the banking sector to convince them to provide attractive financing mechanisms to meet renewable energy needs. "This is an exciting time for everybody," Marasigan said. Now, if only we can make the journalists become more excited about clean energy. That brings us back to the need for journalists to understand clean energy in the first place.

World's best mango. Pangasinan, it’s the soil & water

2010-03-04T17:33:00.002+08:00

MANILA - Half-expecting to partake of fresh mangoes and to meet & greet rival candidates for Congress of the 6th District of Pangasinan General Hermogenes Esperon and Vice Governor Marlyn P Agabas today, Wednesday, the 24th of February, I am at the auditorium of the Narciso Ramos Sports & Civic Center in this capital town of Lingayen, Pangasinan, attending the 12th National Mango Congress of Philippine mango producers, handlers, processors, traders and exporters under the joint sponsorship of the Philippine Mango Industry Foundation Inc, PMIFI, as represented by PMIFI President Virginia Dela Fuente, as well as the Province of Pangasinan as represented by Governor Amado T Espino Jr. The Congress ends on the 26th, Friday. I am attending as a delegate of Esperon’s own hometown of Asingan in this province; I who happen to have graduated with a BS in Agriculture from the University of the Philippines Los Baños interested in mangoes, as well as I am a journalist interested in climate change and global warming. How will mango and climate change mix - not to mention politics - on this occasion?

Not only that. I have always thought that the mangoes from my province are one of the best in the Philippines; I am going to find out today if I have been right. Photo shows the mangoes bought for me by Neneng Manuel; my Charice notebook is there for size and the promise of something very sweet.

I find out I am wrong. About mangoes, I learn today at least 2 things:

(1) Mangoes from Pangasinan are the best in the Philippines. Equivocal.
(2) Mangoes from the Philippines are the best in the world. Unequivocal.

On the inside front cover of the Souvenir Program is this teaser from Syngenta Philippines: “The world’s best mangoes come from the best mango growers.” Syngenta has come to the right place. I learn from Ms Dela Fuente that Pangasinan is the #1 mango producer in the country, contributing 38% of the national annual harvest of 1 billion kilos. And the #2 mango province? Isabela, but a very poor 2nd, because it produces only 5% of the national total (Leonardo V Micua, 25 February, balita.ph). When we’re ahead, we’re ahead by a mile and a half.

That tells me immediately that the mangoes from Pangasinan must be the best, and this is my logic: Since they are the most delicious, most people buy them - and that’s why over the years, a great many more farmers have come to grow more mangoes in Pangasinan than in any other province in these tropical isles, including Guimaras Island, the more popular mango name if you read the papers. Careful: What the papers make famous does not necessarily mean they make the best. By the same logic, I’m willing to beat that mangoes from Pangasinan are not only the sweetest in Luzon, as shown in a contest (ANN, 17 February 2010, pia.gov.ph), but the sweetest in the whole country. When we’re #1, nobody comes close.

Indeed, the PMIFI reports that “the Philippine mango (‘carabao’ variety) is considered the best in the world.” And the best of the best mangoes in Pangasinan come from the town of Anda and other western towns where there are limestone deposits. They grow the most succulent and sweetest mangoes. The soil must be rich and juicy itself to the trees. This is the soil at its best.

Mangoes are at their best when the ripening is natural and not speeded up by chemical or some other means. It’s Mother Nature at work, at her best.

The Philippines produces at least 1 billion kilos of mangoes a year; minus a total 12% of rejects and waste, and assuming only an income of a minimum 10 pesos a kilo, already that gives us a staggering 8.8 billion pesos a year, or about 191 million dollars income. If otherwise mango rejects and waste were processed, it would bring an additional total of 1.2 billion pesos, or 26 million dollars earnings. The sweetest fruits are what you find in the golden pot at the end of the rainbow.

This part I’m writing after the Congress. So, did the Congress succeed in what it itself set out to do? We now turn to the theme: “Maximizing Mango Growers’ Income Thru Cheaper Farm Inputs And Thru Processing Of Pre- And Post-Harvest Rejects.” Consider that theme now against the topics tackled in the sessions of the Congress that included:

(1) mango industry development plan
(2) high-value commercial crops
(3) presentation of Processing Technology Handbook
(4) technology transfer of mango fruit drops
(5) ethylene control (delayed ripening)
(6) process tolling agreements (for fruit drops)
(7) marketing agreements
(8) buying prices for mangoes for processing
(9) nursery accreditation
(10) parent tree registration
(11) plant material certification
(12) crop insurance
(13) lending program for fruit production
(14) integrated pest management
(15) organic fertilizers
(16) irradiation
(17) alternative flower inducers
(18) organic mango production
(19) residue limits for chemicals, and
(20) clearing houses for supply and price.

Presentations and open forums, maximum 16 hours. My verdict: Technically strong, congressionally weak. Too much, too soon. By itself, the quantity was too many subjects to tackle in 2 days; no wonder the quality of the exchanges suffered much. And yes, the sound system was poor; you could understand what was being said only if you were some 10 meters away from the microphone.

And the theme itself was also as ambitious as the total of the sessions: “Maximizing Mango Growers’ Income Thru Cheaper Farm Inputs And Thru Processing Of Pre- And Post-Harvest Rejects.” My comments on the theme alone:

(a) Why target maximum when it’s not sustainable?
(b) Why growers’ income only?
(c) Why cheaper inputs only; how about higher production efficiency?
(d) Why limit to processing of rejects?

I also noted:
6,520 mango growers in Pangasinan
106 private mango orchards of 2,831 ha
1 mango trader-exporter
39 mango buying stations & mango sprayers (San Carlos)
1 processing plant (Manaoag)
1 certified mango seedling propagator (Manaoag)

Now, why only 1 trader-exporter? In that case, there is no competition; what he says is what you get. And why only 1 processing plant? There is no economy of distance; there is increased risk of deterioration.

And why only 1 certified mango seedling propagator? How is the high quality of the seedlings guaranteed? Are they planting only one variety?

Based on the PMIFI data, I note that if your mango trees are 7-14 years old, you can earn a net income of 6,700 pesos to a hectare; if the trees are 15-16 years old, you can earn up to 163,000 pesos net per hectare in 120 days (starting from flower induction to harvest, 4 months).

I’m interested in the idle 245 days, when that hectare of mango is not productive of anything. Why not teach the mango grower multiple cropping, including other crops and some livestock? This way, there is added income and the soil is covered with vegetation all the time, to keep the soil moisture in, to enrich the soil with organic matter, and to prevent erosion.

In the Souvenir Program, the following were listed as “bottlenecks” in improving the performance of the mango industry in Pangasinan: (a) Production: High cost of production inputs, prevalence of pests and diseases, climatic factors, and lack of knowledge on good agricultural practices (GAP). (b) Post-production: lack of postharvest facilities, lack of postharvest technologies (handling, storing, transport). Since these problems were not tackled at all during the Congress, I don’t understand why they were listed there, as if they were just waiting to be solved by government, specifically the Department of Agriculture?

If I were the Secretary of Agriculture, I wouldn’t try and solve the problems of management for the mango growers, just as I wouldn’t with other crop farmers. Instead, I would assist growers and farmers in becoming their own business managers, learning how to access resources and managing these things as in a family corporation. I will put an end to the dole-out mentality of those who have less in life - government would contribute more in law while the farm families would contribute more in labor.

One thing is clear to me: Land ownership is not a requirement for productivity or efficiency of any business, including keeping the farm as a business in itself. The farm family must learn to use scarce resources, including scarce water in times of drought, scarce fertilizer in times of global warming - as commercial fertilizers emit to the atmosphere nitrous oxide, one of the major greenhouse gases.

Nobody mentioned climate change in general and/or global warming in particular. They didn’t think either was relevant; they didn’t believe the UN report; or they were misinformed. With El Niño coming this year, bringing in more heat and driving away more of the rains, mango growers, crop farmers, families, villages and towns must learn to adapt. In the case of growing mangoes, it would be wiser to provide soil cover in terms of intercrops; it would pay in the short-term and long-term to replenish the water in the watershed as they do in India (ask the ICRISAT people, or go see first my “Water Lessons Of Adarsha,” 02 November 2008, ICRISAT Watch).

Climate change is a given, not a give or take. So, I suggest that our Congressional candidates, either or both Esperon and Agabas, make climate change affirmative action part of their legislative agenda. They can also start raising the people’s consciousness even as they campaign for votes. We have to get the farmers and mango growers to realize that climate change is real, and that one part of it, which is global warming, is already threatening crops and livestock, as well as people. The higher temperatures of the day and the droughts will not go away; they will in fact increase in intensity.

Man is the cause of rapid climate change. His vehicles emit carbon dioxide; his fertilizers emit nitrous oxide; the manures of his animals emit methane. All these 3 different gases go high up into the atmosphere and reflect back to Earth the sun’s rays that should be escaping into the wild blue yonder - the greenhouse effect - causing global warming.

Mango or not mango, Conservation Agriculture is what is called for. I know we have been ignoring this in the Philippines. And if we begin to do this in this part of the country, we will show everyone that not only the best mangoes in the world come from Pangasinan, but the best act of man: respect for nature. In the end, this is respect for man.

People can adapt; crops, livestock and the fishes can hardly do the same by themselves. But we need them. We humans must help them, because that is the only way we can help ourselves. We must:

Conserve crops.
Conserve species.
Conserve soils.
Conserve fertilizers.
Conserve water.
Conserve energy.
Conserve life.

If we do not enter the Age of Conservation, we will be forced to enter the Age of Conclusion - the Age will conclude us!

English Lessons. Adapt, mitigate - think!

2010-02-21T14:29:00.009+08:00

MANILA - 2010 is the Year of Biodiversity as declared by the United Nations. It is a new year of living dangerously. The imperfect storm called Climate Change has remained stationary over much more of the Third World, threatening low-tolerance countryside villages and low-income stream dwellers squatting in the cities. Climate change is trying to teach urban river dwellers some problematic lessons in living, but they are too busy occupying space to pay attention.

The squatters will spend another year of living dangerously, and then another. In the Philippines, we have settled down to calling them informal settlers, as if political correctness will solve the problem of migration without direction. They must think climate change will go away, and soon. Typhoon Ketsana is now a dim memory. They who forget the past are bound to repent it.

The lesson now is that not only squatters but all of us must learn to adapt because of our past mistakes. Our mistakes have collected themselves and turned into climate change, a nightmare before but a daymare now, threatening us all, we who collectively call ourselves Homo sapiens, the species who thinks he is full of wisdom.

Like: We Filipinos have the richest, most biodiverse marine resource in the entire universe, “the center of the center of marine shore fish biodiversity in the world” (see my “Changing climates, US. Biodiversity is US,” iNews, Earth). Unfortunately, we don’t appreciate it - we depreciate it. We don’t practice optimum sustainable yield; instead, we aim for maximum instant gratification.

And so, like sin, biodiversity covers all; likewise, climate change covers the world. Our religion, our nationalism, our liberalism, our socialism, our capitalism will have to adapt; otherwise, it will have to continue to mitigate the disasters, and in the end, that will be the end of us all.

Stop thinking of endangered species: We are the one!

And stop accusing others of colonial mentality - you are colonial yourself; you must learn to think outside the box of your own colony.

The anti-colonial Filipinos love to protest the habitual use by Filipinos of the English language; I am an Ilocano from Central Luzon and I love it! I’m a writer; I cultivate it. The world must think in English now, and the message is URGENT. We have 2 worldwide English vocabulary lessons now, biodiversity and climate change. Grand corruption is of no value compared to either of the 2 contemporary phenomena. Corruption is about decay; the 2 taken together is about life. Politicians must learn to adapt to climate change, or climate change will adapt them.

Biodiversity is English; you cannot translate that in Filipino (that is, Tagalog; not even I can do it in my native Ilocano, and I have a facility for language that is unusual); bio for life, diversity for variety. You cannot translate climate change either. English has truly become the universal language of the being that needs to think beyond the limits of language and needs to change with the climate.

It seems that the 2 concepts were born or popularized starting in the same year, 1988: I understand biodiversity was coined by Walter G Rosen that year (Biodiversity, EO Wilson, nap.edu); the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was created in the same year (Wikipedia). Connected or not, their origins connect them now: one species has caused climate change on all species, and that same species must learn to undo it. We have a job cut out for us by us!

I simply define biodiversity as all life on earth (see my “My diversity or yours? A missing link to media,” iNews, Earth). Very simply, all species, all life is biodiversity - and biodiversity is threatened by climate change; so, all species - whether paleface, yellow, red, white, black, or brown - must go get their act together, or go hang.

It seems now that looking at how to prevent the loss of biodiversity may yet turn out to be the best paradigm in pursuit of nature conservation, which in turn may be the best adaptation response to climate change.

So, how do you prevent the loss of biodiversity in large scale all at the same time in the whole world? You don’t; you can’t.

Instead, James Watson of Australia proposes “a whole-of-continent conservation plan.” This is not simply the concept of protected areas - the protected area may be large but the concept is too small. Watson’s proposal calls for large-scale landscapes for protecting or restoring natural processes, maintaining viable populations of species, maximizing intra-species genetic diversity, restoring key ecological processes, and reducing all threats (2008, allacademic.com).

That looks to me like a boundless idea. That solves the problem of biodiversity in adaptation to climate change.

Now, how do you solve a problem like man? After all, he is the cause of all this profit & loss of modern times, profit from biodiversity and loss from climate change.

Actually, there’s so much to do we don’t know what to do!

Celia Harvey is the major author of a report that is the basis for “REDD+: How Tackling Climate Change Can Be The Biggest Conservation Opportunity In History” (conservation.org). This calls for Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, referred to as REDD+. This was presented at the Copenhagen talks, which everyone knows collapsed.

Still, REDD+ looks like another great idea as they come; it should indeed “lead to significant biodiversity conservation gains” as claimed. However, it is limited only to tropical forests, and REDD+ is impractical for urban areas.

Harvey is English, but I think there’s more to the body English that we can learn more from them. Now turn to the image above; you are looking at England’s Biodiversity Strategy Climate Change Adaptation Principles, all 5 of them arranged logically (defra.gov.uk):

1. Take practical action now.
2. Maintain and increase ecological resilience.
3. Accommodate change.
4. Integrate action across partners and sectors.
5. Develop knowledge and plan strategically.

“This is all for conserving biodiversity in a changing climate,” the English Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, DEFRA said. I love it that DEFRA had juxtaposed #1 on the other 4 principles - I take it to mean Take action now on #2, #3, #4, #5 - and their interaction effects. Expect interaction effects.

Now then, do you realize that, continents apart, Australia and England, from Sydney to London a geographical distance of about 17,000 km, now have a thoughtbridge? Everything is connected. I find that England’s 5 adaptation principles can be made to fit in nicely with 1 Australia's whole-of-continent conservation plan. In 1 landform for conservation, you must apply all the 5 principles.

Combining the Watson and DEFRA ideas, I’m thinking further, of double model climate change action towns established simultaneously:

BioClimate Town 1, which is a landscape of a whole landmass or island employing the 5 adaptation principles, more for protecting and restoring biodiversity, along with native cultures, and

BioClimate Town 2, which is an urban or a rural landscape, a region or zone, also employing the 5 adaptation principles, more for protecting and restoring man to his senses.

Still, after all is said and done, we’re back to the same human fault all along, the worldwide weakness that is translatable into strength: political will. The failure in Copenhagen (in Kyoto previously) is lack of political will. Signed or unsigned, a policy is only a piece of paper until it is carried out. That is true with all countries throughout the world, bar none. The small ones are telling the big ones what to do, and they wait and wait, hardly doing anything themselves. At the same time, time waits for no one, climate change neither.

Gentlemen and ladies of science, I encourage you to go ahead with your conducting key informant interviews and focus group discussions, statistical analyses and computer modeling and mapping, constructing survey questions in Likert scale and generating criteria for sustainable affirmative action in adaptation and mitigation - but we have to do something now, quickly. From up down to the local government level, from up down to the grassroots. Like? Reduce, reuse, recycle.

The Davids of this world demand from the Goliaths giant funds for mammoth climate change projects - meanwhile, whatever happened to slingshots and stones, to self-reliance? So what if you don’t have resource - you have resourcefulness. And that is enough for now. Stop your accounting of the past and get to work today! Lack of funding is a good excuse only for lazybones and lazyminds.

Beggars can be choosers: They can choose to keep on begging, or they can choose instead to do SWOT analysis on themselves, to look at their Strengths as against their Weaknesses, to generate Opportunities even as they analyze Threats. They must look at all this as a magnificent management challenge. Like Harvey, they must look at all this as a business proposition.

Biodiversity and nature conservation and climate change are man’s business. It’s our business, and we can combine them into one. It must be well-managed. And it must be operational now. And yes, small is also beautiful.

My diversity or yours? A missing link to media

2010-02-20T13:22:00.005+08:00

MANILA - Boring. That’s what this essay is all about. Precisely! I want to help make it interesting enough to talk about, write about. Have you heard of biodiversity - probably not. Short for biological diversity, the term biodiversity was coined by Walter G Rosen in 1988, or 22 years ago (EO Wilson, Editor, Biodiversity, free book read at National Academies Press, nap.edu), but it hasn’t exactly become a household word. That’s because no attempt has been made to make it popular. It looks like it’s science waiting for people to serve themselves.

Boring. That is why in the Philippines, as I suspect elsewhere in the world, news or feature stories on biodiversity are probably the last priority in print media, broadcast media, as well as in electronic media - including online newsmagazine reports, webcasts, podcasts, emails, and blogs. Except bores, nobody likes boring.

So I’m not surprised that “Biodiversity rarely makes the headlines” was the lament last year of Rodrigo Fuentes, Executive Director of the Asean Centre for Biodiversity, ACB (aseanbiodiversity.org). He was speaking at the start of the Asean workshop on “Communication, Education and Public Awareness and Media Relations” held at the Gran Melia Hotel in the City of Jakarta (30 November to 03 December 2009). I myself haven’t thought about it for months, and I have quite a number of blogs on a diverse number of subjects, from agriculture to the art of singing, from crops to creativity (begin with FRANK HiLARiO, blogspot.com). Biodiversity? I’ll think about it.

No news is bad news. That’s because biodiversity headlines would bore news readers to death, the copy editor first. And I can give you 3 reasons for the low mass media value of biodiversity:

a) The subject is very technical, so media people just don’t get it.

b) Scientists don’t enlighten media people; they just don’t get it either.

c) There is no guidebook for media people who want to write or broadcast, so there’s no way any audience can get it!

Here are a few affirmative actions suggested to change the depressing climate on biodiversity, ASAP:

(1) Unmake biodiversity technical.

I don’t get it myself, although I’m not unfamiliar with the science. I have a BS Agriculture degree and have worked for institutions involved in aquaculture, agriculture and agroforestry; I was the Editor in Chief who made the Philippine Journal of Crop Science, PJCS world-class (ISI-rated); I was Editor of the PJCS for almost 6 years - a good collection of 34 years of abstracts in crop science published in that journal I have uploaded in my blog Hilario's Paper - but I still find the subject ambiguous, abstruse. Biodiversity is very highly technical; if you think otherwise, I challenge you to explain this statement (39 words total):

The peoples of Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Viet Nam depend on the basic products provided by nature’s biodiversity. These include food, medicine, shelter, clean water, and a host of services.

You assumed that now I know. Explaining is easy, yes? No. If those 39 words in italics above are all you tell me, then I don’t understand how biodiversity gives me food, medicine, shelter, clean water etc. There is a missing link between science and media, I dare say, in this particular case between your biodiversity and my food, for instance the rice I take 3 times a day. Our rice comes from the farm, as far as I know, but not from somebody’s farm called Nature’s Biodiversity. See what I mean? You don’t assume that I see; you have to make me see the connection between your biodiversity and my breakfast. Biodiversity must be every bit as digestible as the day’s meal as well in a hotel as in a hovel. I dare say:

The missing link is the translation of biodiversity from the formal language used at conference tables to the informal language used at breakfast tables.

I think it’s incumbent for the Asean Centre for Biodiversity itself to make biodiversity first of all understandable to the mass media. That the Centre can recognize the sizes and shapes of biodiversity upside down is expected of it. Located within the campus of the University of the Philippines Los Baños, the Centre was established in 2005 with funding from the European Union, so funding should not be a problem. The Centre is a regional center for cooperation and coordination among Asean member-states for “the sustainable use of biological diversity” within the region (aseanbiodiversity.org), so mandate is not a problem either. And there goes another technical term that needs to be explained: sustainable use.

(2) Scientists, teach media, please!

Is the scientist waiting for the media person to ask him for a lecture on biodiversity? That will be the day! I can’t blame the media person because biodiversity is not an easy subject to fathom, to begin with. No media man will ask a question on any science and sound an ignoramus at the same time. It is time that the scientists learned to explain themselves to people other than their ilk. Scientists have refereed journals and ISI-rated journals by which they want to talk to each other in complicated if not esoteric language, but they don’t have a piece of paper talking the language of media? Not fair!

My lack of a doctorate degree in Plant Physiology or a masteral degree in Horticulture should not be a hindrance to my understanding the nature of biodiversity and appreciating its value or values to my life as an ordinary citizen, including what is meant by sustainable use. It’s your science, not mine. If you can’t show how your diversity relates to me, why should I divert from my own interests?

(3) Come up with a media guidebook.

By the generic term media guidebook, I don’t mean a stylebook to teach, for instance, basic grammar, when to capitalize a title, how scientific names should be printed, and where you define technical terms using, God forbids! other technical terms. You have to help the poor media person first of all have a good idea of what biodiversity is all about by just reading in that cute, pocket-size, reader-friendly book. Also, you have to provide some good sample or actual stories written on the subject or related to it. A team of 2 scientists and 2 media people can come up with the materials for such a book, the first item in the agenda being to make sure that the media people understand the science inside and out. Difficult? Doable.

(4) Come up with more media awards

I note that in November 2009, the Asean Champions of Biodiversity Awards were launched: (1) Most Outstanding Biodiversity Conservation and/or Advocacy Project by a private business or corporation, (2) Most Outstanding Biodiversity Reportage and Advocacy by a Media Organization, and (3) Most Outstanding Biodiversity Conservation and/or Advocacy Project by a Youth Organization (aseanfoundation.org). This project is a collaboration signed by Executive Director Felimon Uriarte Jr of the Asean Foundation and Executive Director Rodrigo Fuentes of the Asean Centre for Biodiversity.

Awards are always welcome, but as an independent media person, I note with envy that the media award is for a media organization, and I am but a media organism. Do I take it that the Asean Foundation and the Asean Centre for Biodiversity give little value to the efforts of individual journalists? Just asking.

(5) Come up with own media campaign.

I’m only a few kilometers away, so why haven’t I known of the Asean Centre for Biodiversity itself conducting its own mass media campaign? Its magazine Asean Biodiversity is too technical even for me, with decades experience editing technical papers in agriculture, forestry, aquaculture etcetera. The Centre’s online news archive leaves a soul hungry searching for bits of data and pieces of information in easily digestible forms.

The Centre reported on a presentation made by European Commission Ambassador Alistair MacDonald (photo) addressing Filipino journalists in a “Media and Climate Change” workshop at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Pasig City, on “Seven Ways To Mitigate Climate Change Through Biodiversity” and yet in its report failed to list down those 7, as well as discuss them (May-August 2009 issue, Asean Biodiversity, aseanbiodiversity.org). If I were the Editor of the magazine, I would have devoted an entire issue on those ways - the gentleman from London was telling me how much value (7 times) there was in biodiversity, my field of work! Much obliged.

2010 has been declared as the International Year for Biodiversity by the United Nations (2010, cbd.int). All the more I from the mass media would want to know more about those 7 ways of mitigating climate change through biodiversity. By the way, I wonder if Ambassador MacDonald or somebody else did come up with a companion presentation on 7 ways of adapting to climate change through biodiversity? I hope it is not too much to ask the Asean Centre for Biodiversity information staff to find out for us media people.

Coverage. About the all-important concept of biodiversity, why is it that the National History Museum of London (nhm.ac.uk) reports as success stories only those about rescuing (multiplying the population) of endangered species? That is rather limiting the reportage on biodiversity. I don’t think that is all that biodiversity is about. Otherwise, some have biodiversity and some don’t!

Now then, there’s a lot of explaining to do about biodiversity, and the mass media are waiting to listen to some sage advice. An email will do.

Meantime, I have to help myself; luckily, I’m online 24/7 through this Digitel DSL rated at 1.5 MB, I understand; well, it’s faster than the other one we have, SmartBro rated at 1 MB. With my Core i7 PC, this is heaven! I’m an inveterate blogger, with at least 7 separate, active blogs, 2 of them I pay for. I’m not a millionaire; I don’t even own a car. And no, I didn’t study programming; my blogging is completely me, all self-taught. The point I want to make here is that when it comes to information either to browse or broadcast, to peruse or publish, there is the Internet on call anytime - at bargain basement prices, with minimum skill, but maximum enthusiasm. There then is no excuse for not harnessing the power of the Internet for mass communication, either to know or to make known - except gusto.

So now I know that the UN Convention on Biological Diversity defines biodiversity as “the variety of life on Earth” (cbd.int), and the City of Chicago defines it a little more subtly as the “fragile web of life” (fieldmuseum.org); personally, I define biodiversity as all life on Earth (for more on this, see my essay “Changing climates, US. Biodiversity is US,” in my blog iNews, Earth). The endangered species are in there, and so is man.

Having checked, validated and edited the book Think Green! How To Profit From Climate Change Action by Sam Martin (131 pages, in press), I know that there are 2 broad ways by way of response to climate change: (1) adaptation and (2) mitigation. To adapt to climate change is to modify old ways of doing things in order to minimize the emission of greenhouse gases (the 3 major ones being carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide); to mitigate is to reduce the impact of climate change, such as floods and droughts. What I know today, outside of biodiversity, for instance, to adapt to climate change is to reduce your gas consumption (to lessen carbon dioxide emission), reduce your garbage pile (methane), and reduce your fertilizer application (nitrous oxide). So, even now I’m interested in finding out what exactly are those 7 ways to mitigate climate change through biodiversity. And about 7 ways of adapting. Some assembly required.

If the information staff of science agencies don’t take it upon themselves to talk about biodiversity, and then talk some more, in a language that the media people can understand, who will? If not now, when?

Changing climates, US. Biodiversity is US

2010-02-19T14:25:00.005+08:00

VERDE ISLAND PASSAGE - We are in Southern Luzon in the Philippines, in a place between Batangas and Mindoro Island, in a little while scuba-diving 60 feet underwater in a locale that experts have referred to as “the world’s blue water version of the Amazon River basin,” as this marine site has been studied and determined to have “the largest concentration of marine life in the world” (Blanche Rivera, 15 October 2006, inquirer.net). This declaration comes from American marine biologist Kent Carpenter of the World Conservation Union and Victor Springer of the Smithsonian Institution, the duo who discovered in 2004 that not Indonesia but the Philippines is “the center of the center of marine shore fish biodiversity in the world.” It is all fantastic, and it is all true.

All in all, Verde Island Passage has “1,736 overlapping marine species in a 10-km by 10-km area,” the 2 marine experts say. Biodiversity upon biodiversity, I say.

“Overlapping marine species” - that must mean the populations of the species run into each other - as even terrestrial species naturally do. They encroach into each other’s territory. Sounds familiar?

Today, climate change upon biodiversity; today, climate change imposes itself into the watery existence of those marine species, as truly as it intrudes into the aboveground life of the species called Homo sapiens, the sapient being, the species that thinks. Let’s see what it’s thinking about biodiversity now.

First, I’m thinking about climate change. I don’t question the conclusion of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that climate change is “unequivocal” or clear, unmistakable; and that that it is man-made activities that are mainly causing climate change. I define climate change as the radical alterations in the climates in different parts of the world, that is, relatively rapid changes in any or all of the factors of climate: sunshine, rain, cloud cover, wind, temperature, rainfall, humidity, atmospheric pressure, visibility, and particle counts in the air. Climate change is the whole shebang; global warming refers to the palpable increase only in the temperature of the Earth, from the sea to the land to the air. The flipside is global cooling.

The Earth needs the sun’s energy to keep it warm enough for all forms of life. But a little too much heat is a little too much. In the now-notorious greenhouse effect, some gases in the atmosphere reflect back down to the Earth that part of the Sun’s energy that previously has been reflected up by the Earth and should be escaping harmlessly into space; as in a glasshouse, the heat reflected back cannot escape, so the Earth warms a little too much. Global warming is a little too much.

Thus, the gases that cause global warming are called greenhouse gases. Here, I refer only to the more guilty ones I shall call the Gang of 3: carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide (epa.gov). Those 3 are the main causes of global warming. Now, who are the causes of the causes? Among the more guilty ones are: vehicle owners, poultry & animal raisers, and farmers, would you believe? Sir or Madam, as the case may be, your vehicle emits carbon dioxide. In the burning of wood and manufacture of cement, same thing. From poultry houses, piggeries, horse and cattle ranches comes animal manure that gives off methane. From mountains of garbage also comes methane. From chemical fertilizers that farmers love to apply comes nitrous oxide. The manufacture as well as consumption of fossil fuels results in greenhouse gases. So, what else is new?

Those who contribute the greatest volume of the Gang of 3 in the atmosphere are the biggest polluters of them all. They know who they are.

Even so, we are all guilty. We all contribute to the pollution and degradation of the environment: air, soil, water. And food. Since we all contribute to causes of climate change, it is not surprising that climate change covers all, and I say, including biodiversity.

Now, do we agree on the meaning of biodiversity? I was reading the book that is the origin of the species called biodiversity; this is the book that introduced the concept and that launched the world into giving much attention to it: Biodiversity (edited by the famous biologist EO Wilson, published in 1988 by Harvard University, 538 pages); I downloaded my pdf copy from the National Academies Press (nap.edu). I had just started reading the Editor’s Foreword when something struck me as it said: The diversity of life forms, so numerous that we have yet to identify most of them, is the greatest wonder of this planet. The biosphere is an intricate tapestry of interwoven life forms. Even the seemingly desolate arctic tundra is sustained by a complex interaction of many species of plants and animals, including the rich arrays of symbiotic lichens. The book before you offers an overall view of this biological diversity and carries the urgent warning that we are rapidly altering and destroying the environments that have fostered the diversity of life forms for more than a billion years.

22 years ago and we already had a scientist warning about biodiversity, biological diversity. But in order to appreciate my insight gained from the mind of Wilson, and as it turns out, from the whole book, let us make a preliminary study of how scientists themselves appreciate the concept. Species upon species. Belonging to the species that think, the scientists conceived it, so we will allow the experts to make their PowerPoint presentations first and let us try to learn from them. 2010 is the United Nations International Year of Biodiversity, so we begin with the UN:

Biodiversity is “the variety of life on Earth” - UN Convention on Biological Diversity (cbd.int).

Biodiversity is “the variety of all life forms on earth” - Australian Government, DEWHA (environment.gov.au).

Biodiversity is “the uncounted variety of living things on the planet” - United Nations Environment Programme (unep.org).

Biodiversity is “the immense variety of life on the planet and the complex relations among living things” - Center for Biodiversity and Conservation (cbc.amnh.org)

Biodiversity is “the number and variety of organisms found within a specified geographic region; and the variability among living organisms on the earth, including the variability within and between species and within and between ecosystems” - New Zealand Biodiversity (biodiversity.govt.nz).

I think I’ve seen enough PowerPoint today. You must have noticed; above, look at the 5 groups of text in double-quotes getting longer. That’s not an unusual route taken by a technical term being explained - the more subject matter specialists you ask on the same topic, the more it gets complicated!

“Simplify, simplify,” said Henry David Thoreau, my favorite American philosopher from the boondocks. I probably learned that in high school yet, some 50 years ago, in a favorite subject, “British & English Literature” at the Rizal Junior College in my sleepy hometown of Asingan, Pangasinan in Central Luzon, the Philippines. Literature had always been my cup of tea, and memorizing select lines and even whole poems was merely icing on the cake. So, from John Donne, quoted in the Reader's Digest probably: “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”

I say: To simplify is to follow the 4 Cs of Communication: Concise, Comprehensive, Coherent, and Clear.

Now to simplify. What is common in the above experts’ definitions of biodiversity is “variety of life,” right? Now we’re getting somewhere. I’d like to add to that “on Earth,” because although we’re on Earth and not on another planet, I’m thinking: We are the species that thinks - and forgets!

So we have a new definition, and as it turns out, an old one: “Biodiversity is the variety of life on Earth.” It’s the definition given by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (see above).

Still, while I have a great respect for the UN CBD, I think there’s something missing, if only I can put my finger on it. To find out, let us explore further. Here’s another definition:

Biodiversity is “a fragile web of life” - City of Chicago (fieldmuseum.org). Ah! In a 5-word definition of biodiversity, there are 2 very important concepts that we did not find in any of the other definitions: “fragile” and “web” - life is fragile and life is a web.

So now I can tell you what insight I gained from Wilson’s introduction to the book, whose source was the National Forum on BioDiversity held in Washington DC on 21-24 September 1986 sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences and Smithsonian Institution. It was this: Biodiversity refers to the intricate tapestry of interwoven life forms. As it turns out, essentially the same as web of life, as a spider’s web, complex, delicate.

So we consider a new and simpler definition: “Biodiversity is the fragile web of life on Earth.”

But I find a new problem with the new definition, and it is this: That life is fragile is not obvious; that life is a web, or interwoven, is not obvious either. I agree that life is subtle; life is interconnected - but this is not at all easily observable, not at all readily seen by the naked eye, or even with the electron microscope under 1,000,000x magnification.

So, instead I propose an even simpler definition of biodiversity, and it consists of only 4 words: All life on Earth.

An all-inclusive definition: Biodiversity is all life on Earth. My definition does not limit biodiversity to the variety of life; it goes on to imply the web, the network, the interconnectedness of all life, the complexity of all that - and yes, and more importantly, connecting to man, pointing to man. Homo sapiens, think about that!

What is missing in all the other definitions is the connection between biodiversity and the species called Homo sapiens. They succeed in looking at the genes apart from the species (see “Scientific Definitions Of Biodiversity,” biodiversity.ca.gov), but fail to connect biodiversity to all species. I cannot see biodiversity as connected to all other life except mine. I go back to John Donne:

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”

Biodiversity is all life on Earth. So now I can say that, like climate change, biodiversity covers all. Everything is related. I suspect that that was the original idea behind biodiversity. Not incorrect but inadequate as a guide for action. A clue is the “overlapping marine species” we met above. I think the more intelligent view on biodiversity is this: Everything is connected. All life is connected. All life.

In fact, even if we refuse to think that, climate change connects all life. Another way of putting that is this: Climate change connects the dots. Big dots, small dots, we’re the dots! As things stand, biodiversity cannot stand apart from climate change. We must connect the dots ourselves. Combining our 2 main topics, now we can define the centennial conundrum well: Climate change is threatening biodiversity. Climate change is no respecter of any life. Even as it threatens a life, it threatens all life.

We need affirmative actions, both adaptation and mitigation, on climate change; we have to adjust our lives to the reality of it even as we anticipate its impact.

It is us who must adapt to climate change, because climate change will not adapt to us. I’ve said it before (“Change climate? Look at me, not energy!” 28 October 2009, Lifestyle 2 Change, blogspot.com), I’ll say it again: If we do not resolve climate change, climate change will resolve us.

Translating myself, I say:
WE are Biodiversity;
Biodiversity is US.
Climate change will resolve biodiversity
unless biodiversity resolves climate change.
ASAP!

Bird’s-Eye View. Green Cart before Green Horse?

2010-02-12T13:32:00.000+08:00

MANILA - Here’s an exercise in taking a bird’s-eye view in doing something positive for Climate Change. If you’re too close to the ground, you may not be able to see that the huge cart is before the huge horse.

As a journalist and a citizen concerned, I attended the “Interface Conference” between the Department of Agriculture, DA and the Climate Change Congress of the Philippines, CCCP. The DA was represented by no less than Secretary of Agriculture Arthur C Yap, the CCCP by both former Comelec Chairman Christian Monsod and Roman Catholic Archbishop Antonio Ledesma SJ, and the Climate Change Commission by Secretary Heherson Alvarez. It was 10 February 2010; we were at the Bureau of Soils & Water Management at the Department of Agriculture, DA compound in Visayas Avenue, Diliman, Quezon City.

Days before, I knew about the meeting. That day, I was at the nearby headquarters of the Department of Interior & Local Government, DILG, to attend to some official business, but suddenly I had time in my hands, so I proceeded to the Interface meeting. I was late, but I don’t think I missed any new, important developments; I knew in broad outlines what they were talking about. When I arrived past 1000 hours, the wide screen was showing these (from my notebook):

- Shape of govt-CSO partnership in undertaking the doables

- Work in progress

- It is a joint undertaking, a joint journey. Together, let us help define it.

Did you notice anything yet? If not, read on. (CSO as far as I know is their abbreviation for “civil society organization.”)

The Interface doables listed onscreen were (again from my notes):

- At national and regional levels

- Focused on how govt & CSOs can work together, thresh out barriers of CC adjustments & govt-CSO collaboration, & flesh out way forward through identification of convergence-partnership doables

- Funding for national and regional conference dialogues shall be co-shared by various government agencies involved in CC

(CC is Climate Change.) If you haven’t noticed anything yet, Secretary Yap did. About an hour after I got there, past 1100 hours, he asked, “Chairman Monsod, can I ask how do you propose we can work together?” That was a basic question. If we can agree on how we can work together, then we can work together. If not, not.

A lady raised her hand and she was allowed to speak. Unfortunately, she did not address the question squarely.

I heard Chairman Monsod read parts of the document, and he recited among things that the total budget requested is 10.9 million pesos for the proposed regional “conference dialogues” culminating in a national conference on Climate Change. Still, that was not answering Yap’s question.

After some more discussion and, obviously not satisfied with the direction the meeting was going, Secretary Yap said, among other things, “Do you want me to sign the document now? I will sign it now. But what next?”

In other words, I understand Secretary Yap was concerned that the CCCP was proposing what to collaborate on in response to Climate Change (the doables), but the CCCP was not talking about how to collaborate (a device with which to come up with the doables). Since this called for a new system, they could not possibly work without a user manual. I did not hear anyone talking about a mechanism whereby Government and Civil Society can effectively join hands, that is to say, a working partnership within a specific territory surrounded by guidelines, limits, and boundaries.

Even limited only to the text I quoted above, the problem I (and I presume Secretary Yap) saw in the CCCP document was that it was already talking of materials for partnership when there has been no agreement on the method of the partnership itself. The cart before the horse, I’m sorry to say. It must be agreement first before arrangement, and that is true even in the dictionary. It is process first before projects; that is also true in the dictionary. Caveat: I must warn the reader that the dictionary is not to be relied upon in matters of methods, because in those pages cart appears before horse.

Another metaphor is to take the bird’s-eye view - you cannot see further if you don’t rise from where you sit, fly up and then and only then can you look at all directions: left, right, forward and backward. Only then can you see The Big Picture.

To explain further: I was talking to a group the day before. They are earnest, sincere, passionate people. But, you know, sometimes passion can get the better of you.

Our discussion was getting farther and farther from where I thought it should go. So I gave them this metaphor: First, you have to agree and then make the formal announcement that you are engaged to be married before you can sensibly begin preparations for the marriage ceremony and beyond. So, in proposing a marriage of purposes or projects, the process of marriage must come first. And, I said, you cannot combine proposal of marriage and procedures after marriage in one meeting.

That is to say, you cannot discuss process and purposes in one paper. You have to come up with a Covenant first. For Climate Change, something like the proposed Copenhagen Accord is necessary. If you don’t agree to get married, how can you talk about wedding preparations? That was the mistake of the Copenhagen people - talking about parts of the picture before they had agreed on The Big Picture. If you don’t agree on the process of how you will be working together, how can you proceed to the projects you have to work together with?

But as the Copenhagen talks failed last December, so did ours the day before. I failed to convince them to come up with something like a Government-Civil Society Green Accord first before proposing Green Accord projects. After all my arguments, they were all agreed that the path they had chosen was the sensible one. They must have thought, what did I, a newcomer, know?

Ah, but ladies and gentlemen, sometimes you need someone who doesn’t know what you know, who doesn’t think like your group does to disturb your complacency, so you will think more creatively. Perhaps I wasn’t creative enough to make myself clear. Still, the question of Agriculture Secretary Arthur C Yap remains unanswered. The How cannot be a priori.