TENIDOR, Jayclaid G.

WFQ

Reaction to Signos and my Carbon footprint

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth…and God said, it was good.” The book of Genesis tells a wonderful story of how the Earth was once a paradise, a place of comfort and joy. When God created the Earth, He made it perfect. It was made such that everything that mankind would ever need is provided by it.

Even though nature is able to give us everything we need, not all of them are available for direct use. That is why mankind as intelligent beings made the necessary efforts to process and transform resources into usable form in order to improve and enjoy life to the fullest that they could reach. True enough, these efforts brought our way of life to a state we could never have imagined. We’ve learned so much about every mystery and we continue to do so.

But there is one thing that we seem to have overlooked as we focus on these developments. Looking upon the Earth we live in today, the truth pierces through the heart that it is now way, way different from the paradise it was made to be.

I first encountered the word global warming when I was in first year college and from then on, I became more concerned on how much I have contributed in worsening the problem. Global warming is really a serious problem that needs not only our attention but most importantly, our actions. This only not become a problem on its own but also caused another serious problem of climate change. Climate change bring about calamities and disasters. I am troubled to know the terrifying impacts of climate change all over the world. The irreplaceable damage on life and properties and the unquantifiable pain, grief and suffering are what were left every time a calamity hits a place.

As a Filipino, it became more bothering for me to know that the Philippines is in the frontline when we talk about climate change. The landslides in Ginubatan, Bicol, dengue and malaria outbreak in General Nakar, Quezon, coastline erosion in Bawang, La Union, drought and flood in the unexpected time and place are just few of the apparent effects of climate change in our country. My family lives in Cavite and because it is near the sea, the danger of the province being flooded is one of my worries. If the condition continues, it will only make life harder for most of us specially the poor.

My personal experience of these effects is when I got stuck in traffic when a rain which lasted in just a few minutes flooded the road in Bacoor, Cavite. I also experienced headache due to too much heat while falling in line to avail NFA rice. I realized that there is no one who can get exempted from the effects of climate change. It doesn’t matter if your young or old, rich or poor, educated or not. The truth is all of us are prospects. It doesn’t take life one by one but in a massive scale.

Every time I look forward to the future, I’m afraid to see the effects of global warming being unresolved. It will be unacceptable for us to find out that nothing awaits us and there are no more fruits for us to reap after all our efforts to graduate. I could never get to fulfill my plans for others and the worst is to have myself being affected even before having done something for myself.

My opinion is that the first step that we can do to act upon this problem is to educate the people about the causes and effects of global warming. We should help them not only to develop concern for the environment but also to take action.

The idea of determining our carbon footprint will help us realize how much we contribute to the problem. It will be a great help if every one of us will move to lessen our carbon footprint by some simple actions like using cloth bags, conserving energy and recycling waste materials.

Could it be, that our desire of a better way of living has grown so much that we now came to the point of not just exhausting the Earth but even destroying it? As Dr. Josefino Comiso (Senior Research Scientist of NASA) said, The Earth is the only entity in the universe that we know can sustain life, and we as part of this life surely would not want to lose this planet. Richard Gutierez also said we are the reason why things turned out like this and in the end no one else is responsible for correcting them but us alone.