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Whole essay entry from the Philippines

(included in the 200 shortlisted essays out of more than
2,100 entries in the 2009 World Bank Essay Competition)
“Alternative to Despair: A Simple Action Plan
Towards A Resurrected Earth”
by David Michael M. San Juan
(www.lastrepublic.multiply.com)

Parched tracts of formerly verdant rice fields. Dead fish floating in once
pristine waters. Flashfloods plaguing lowlands. Lungs helplessly breathing the
poisonous air. Sound like lines taken from an apocalyptic poem. But this is no
poem. This is no stuff from film reels. This is what global warming brings to my
country, my town and community. Uncaring hearts from far-away lands of
opulence might find these things trivial, but for a nation of poor farmers and
fishermen, all these boil down to two things: death or survival. The ill effects of
global warming caused by an unprecedented and continuous soar of the world’s
greenhouse gas emission are taking their toll on the once paradise-like land
called earth. Global warming has made life less and less tenable and
sustainable. Basic necessities such as food, potable water and clean air are
becoming less and less abundant.

Getting hotter each year

Figuratively, people would say “you are hot” when you look good.
Nowadays, everyone seems to be literally getting hotter each year as world
temperatures soar by approximately 0.6°C – 2°C according to the International
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In our country, summers are becoming more
unbearable each year. When I was a child, every summer is just a little relatively
hotter than other seasons, a still bearable and enjoyable season after all. Way
back then, it’s still possible to take a nap in a room without air-conditioning or
even without an electric fan. But those were the days, as an old song says. Due
to the extreme temperatures that often make tempers flare, taking a bath twice
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every summer is the norm. Moreover, older people in our community have
become more vulnerable to heat strokes and high blood pressures which in turn
breed cardiovascular diseases.

Verdant fields turned parched lands

Less and less children are able to bear the heat of the sun especially
every summer. Thus, my childhood memories of kite-flying and playing in the
moderately dried-up rice fields will be forever cherished and sadly, banished from
reality at least in these days of global warming. More than discouraging playing
and kite-flying in summertime, heat waves leave a worsening dry spell problem to
farmers in my homeland. As a poor nation, we depend much on natural irrigation
(e.g. rain trapped in crude “mini-dams” made of mud). With the advent of an
increasingly warmer world, such irrigation systems prove to be ineffective.

Lesser irrigation means lesser rice fields which in turn mean lesser food in
the table. Already, our country had become a huge importer of rice (from being
once an exporter). One needs only to look at the formerly verdant rice fields
turned parched lands to realize how global warming affects a poor agricultural
country like ours. Due to lesser agricultural productivity, more people in my
community have abandoned farming. Without any strong industries to absorb
unemployed farmers, and in the midst of a global financial crisis, many people in
my homeland are going jobless, hopeless and foodless.

Our folks have from time to time engaged in rituals, dances, prayers to ask
the high heavens for rain and hope for our troubled land. Our people believes
that with more rain, there would be more chances of good harvests. But, sadly,
as a Salvadoran priest in the movie “Voces Inocentes” remarked, “Today
brothers, it is not enough to pray.”
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Deluge of death
As a citizen of a tropical archipelago, I am fortunate to have mountainous
islands of rice fields and vegetable plots as my home town’s surroundings. Ours
then is a town of farmers and fishermen. Just like farmers, fishermen in our area
depend much on nature for their daily “business.”
Dwindling fish populations have been worsened by the “deoxygenation” of
much of our lakes, rivers and seas. This process describes the phenomenon
brought by global warming to the world’s waters, in which, extremely high
temperatures decrease oxygen levels in bodies of waters such as lakes, rivers
and seas primarily through limiting the growth of organisms that produce oxygen.
As a result of this “deoxygenation,” reports of “fish kills,” of seasonal avalanches
of dead big and small fish floating in once pristine waters have become more
common. Death has come even to the life-giving waters of our homeland. On the
economic side, lesser fish supply means higher prices. Together with rice (whose
price has also increased due to constricted supply), fish provides our citizens
with a nutritious yet cheap staple food. It seems that we’ll be singing “those were
the days” again.

Rising tides will sweep a myriad of islands

Aside from a deluge of dead fish, literal deluges of death ravage our
community in the form of “flashfloods,” a term we use to refer to sudden
inundation due to continuous rains. These floods are also attributed to the dark
force called global warming. As scientists have said, rising temperatures make
sea levels soar each year, thus creating a scenario of islands being gulped by
the seas and oceans in the coming year. Our town is among the low-lying
regions set to be eaten up by the rising sea levels, experts from our very own
premier state university say.

Year after year, we are plagued with literally rising water levels. When I
was a child, floods occur only when rains fall for weeks, non-stop. Nowadays,
just a day of incessant rain will let loose the seemingly voracious flashfloods. As
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a result, funds of our local government are often used up for relocating residents
each time a big flood comes and provide them temporary shelter and food.
Everyone in our town fears that as the experts predict, our town would be
inhabitable in 10 years time due to the rising sea levels.

Breathing an air of poison

Global warming worsens as air pollution does. Thus, another unwanted
effect of this phenomenon would be the deteriorating quality of the air we
breathe. As humankind continue to rely mostly on fossil fuels. As people cut
more and more trees to keep up with market demands, a lethal combination of
poisonous air and lack of trees to filter it would bring death and mayhem to all
creatures.

Recently, the World Health Organization and various international non-

government organizations stated their alarm over the surge in the number of
people victimized by respiratory illnesses due to worsening air pollution. I myself
am a victim of a respiratory illness. “The very air we breathe is poison,” says an
old movie (whose title has slipped from my fragile memory). Frequent colds and
coughs due to this air limit my productivity as a worker. Breathing this air of
poison kills our lungs, and eventually it will kill us all. Worsening global warming
by cutting more trees would definitely make such a scary scenario highly
probable.

Blowing the trumpets of hope

Immediate action is needed to halt and try to reverse the menace of global
warming if the world is to survive. As the uncontested future heirs of what will be
left of the earth in the coming years, young people of the world must lead and
initiate the great leap towards a planet resurrected from its imminent death. The
only key to succeed in this noble endeavor lies to “going back to basics.” This is
the only thing that will halt the march of global warming’s ugly cabal of disasters:
living simply so that the world may simply live, to paraphrase the great pacifist
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Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, as in the good old days of the once unexploited
beauty of the earth.

“Yes we can,” says US President Barack Obama. I dare add, “Yes, the
world can, the youth can and we will...” Talks about our capability to halt global
warming are obsolete. There’s no question about it: the world can halt global
warming. It’s just a matter of choosing the right methods of combating this
problem and trying to reverse its ill effects.

Back to basics: “old school” is cool

We should go back to basics. Old schemes such as the “reuse, reduce
and recycle” slogan continuously give us potent hopes of winning the war against
global warming. This maxim says it all. Reusing existing materials, reducing
“wants” and recycling seemingly useless by-products will certainly be beneficial
in the struggle to resurrect the earth. Global warming can be traced to the
unbridled and ceaseless production of huge volumes of unnecessary consumer
goods and products which require tremendous amount of energy and emit
equally tremendous amounts of greenhouse gases which unfortunately blocks
the exit of trapped sunlight in our atmosphere. Reusing, reducing and recycling,
reinstituting a mantra of simple living would decrease the need to churn out more
and more useless products, thereby halting further global warming. As tried and
tested purveyors of novel ideas, the youth can certainly make this campaign
succeed.

Let the world be green-minded: green jobs for everyone

To make-up for job losses due to the reuse, reduce and recycle campaign
which will certainly reduce working hours for many factories that produce non-
essential consumer goods, the youths and governments of the world must bring
the world to a new green revolution. Already, leading companies have
recognized the need to create “green jobs.” More and more companies are trying
to project a “green face.” Young peoples and governments of the world can take
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the cue by producing more green jobs in tandem with companies that have
began the green revolution. Green rooftop makers, wind mill technicians, solar
panel designers, sustainability engineers, tree planters, energy managers, urban
gardeners, “there are many to call, many that must come,” says an old Ent leader
in “The Lord of the Rings.”
Indeed, many more green jobs are still waiting out there to be discovered,
jobs that will make humankind nature’s friend and sustainable steward instead of
the enemy and exploitative master that it is today. As among the world’s most
creative species, the young peoples of the world would be in a good position to
provide an impetus to the over-all endeavor to create green jobs.

Technology+Sustainability= – Global Warming

Instead of entirely discarding civilization’s modern gifts, the youth can tap
humankind’s advances in technology to possibly reverse the damage done by
the destructive forces of global warming. Perhaps, the scientists are just being
pessimistic in declaring that global warming is irreversible. Perhaps, as in
Galileo’s time, small voices that dare to disagree with the majority’s view would
be proven right in the end. Perhaps, the effects of global warming are reversible
after all. Indeed, some optimistic scientists have announced that they have been
studying how to harness the power of algae in possibly reversing global warming.
They contend that if global warming is primarily caused by the unsustainable
greenhouse gas emission which can no longer be filtered by nature due to rapid
deforestation, the only way to stop and reverse it is by producing more
greenhouse gas-guzzling organisms like the algae, to help our forests filter those
problematic gases. With their capacity to think “out of the box,” young scientists
can certainly provide new insights on how such ambitious projects will succeed.

Facebook etc.: globalizing the war against global warming

For any anti-global warming endeavor to succeed, any solution must
transcend cultures, languages, ideologies and nations. There is a compelling
need to globalize the fight by globalizing the message and all efforts against
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global warming and towards a resurrected earth. An international army of

“Facebookers,” most especially the younger populations who love to roam the
net for hours, would certainly help the message get across the world, and
eventually produce results everywhere. Imagine every blog, every site, every
video in the net advocating sustainability and urging action against global
warming. That in itself is like winning half of the general battle, for with
enlightenment comes action, as Oriental philosophers always point out.

With these things in mind, let a paraphrase of the social critic Karl Marx
resound all throughout the land, declaring: “Young peoples of the world, unite, for
you have nothing to lose but a dying world and everything to gain in a
resurrected earth.”

About the Author:

A Brunei-born Filipino citizen, David Michael M. San Juan teaches Filipino in Colegio
San Agustin; magna cum laude graduate of Bachelor in Secondary Education at the
Bulacan State University; finishing his Master of Arts in Teaching Filipino at the
Philippine Normal University; won First Prize in the Gawad Surian sa Sanaysay 2009
(an annual academic essay competition sponsored by the Commission on the Filipino
Language); among the shortlisted participants in the 2009 World Bank Youth Essay
Competition; he also currently serves as the officer-in-charge of the Filipino subject area
in the High School Department of Colegio San Agustin.

SUMMARY of an essay entry from the Philippines

(included in the 200 shortlisted essays out of more than
2,100 entries in the 2009 World Bank Essay Competition)
“Alternative to Despair: A Simple Action Plan
Towards A Resurrected Earth”
by David Michael M. San Juan
Parched tracts of formerly verdant rice fields. Dead fish floating in once
pristine waters. Flashfloods plaguing lowlands. Lungs helplessly breathing the
poisonous air. Sounds like an apocalyptic poem but this time, it’s fact not fiction.
This is what global warming brings to my country, my town and community.
Uncaring hearts from lands of opulence might find these things trivial, but for a
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nation of poor farmers and fishermen, all these boil down to two things: death or
survival.

Global warming has made life less tenable and sustainable in our
community and elsewhere. Basic necessities such as food, potable water and
clean air have become less abundant. Urgent action is needed to halt and try to
reverse global warming if the world is to survive. As future heirs of what will be
left of the earth in the years to come, young peoples of the world must lead and
initiate a great leap towards a planet resurrected from its imminent death.

The key to succeed in this noble endeavor lies to “going back to the
basics.” This will halt the march of global warming’s ugly cabal of disasters: living
simply so that the world may simply live as in the good old days of the once
unexploited beauty of the earth. Instead of entirely discarding civilization’s
modern gifts, the youth can tap humankind’s advances in technology to possibly
reverse the damage done by the destructive forces of global warming.