By Anna Valmero
Inquirer.net

History saw the waning and waxing of the campaign for environmentalism. Today more than ever, green consciousness has grabbed the attention of different industries worldwide.

Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” is one of the agents that called the attention of every citizen about the human impact on the environment. The film presented the doom that might happen to the Earth and those that live in it if global warming continues at an unabated rate.

According to the film’s website, at least 279 species of plants and animals are already affected by global warming that has started moving closer to the poles. Moreover, the flow of ice from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled over the past decade. Both scenarios can impact the environment in terms of displacing other populations of plants and animals in their natural home or habitats, which might cause extinction and break nature’s balance. This can be related to the so-called butterfly effect: “A butterfly flapping its wings in one place can, in principle, alter the subsequent weather pattern in a distant place.”

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By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net

In her recent State of the Nation Address, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo guaranteed that her government will be focusing on environment protection and water conservation, as she promised to allocate at least P3.5 billion for various projects next year.

She said P2 billion will be allocated to forest protection and reforestation projects in an effort to reduce effects of typhoons brought about by global climate change.

Arroyo said she will also allocate another P1.5 billion for water conservation projects for 2009. This amount, she added, is three times the amount that was allocated for water-related projects in 2008.

Arroyo said her administration had been implementing and enforcing several environment laws, such as the Solid Waste Management Act, Clean Water Act and the Biofuels Act.

To reduce waste disposal problems, Arroyo said that 21 sanitary waste plants have been opened with another 18 more to be activated next year.

She cited the “Zero-Basura Olympics,” which aims to encourage the public to be part of government’s waste problems reduction by implementing recycling programs.

By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net

AN EXECUTIVE from the Asian Development Bank said that an Asia-wide action to alleviate the effects of climate change is not only an obligation but also a moral imperative.

Speaking at the Carbon Forum Asia in Singapore, ADB vice president Ursula Schäfer-Preuss said the private sector should cooperate in reducing the effects of global climate change.

She noted in her speech that Asia today accounts for 27 percent of the world’s energy-related greenhouse emission, compared to just about 10 percent in the 1970s.

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By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net

AS the summer sizzles to 35 degrees Celsius, indications point to the heat being caused by massive amounts of manmade carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane emissions that result in ultraviolet rays from the sun being trapped into Earth’s atmosphere, thus causing global climate change.

The climate change has greatly affected the environment, particularly extreme cold and hot temperatures in different parts of the world, more powerful storms, destruction of temperature-sensitive crops and animals, and rise in seawater level due to the melting of the polar ice caps, among others.

Worsening weather

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) noted an increase in worldwide air temperature of 0.74 degrees Celsius from 1906 to 2005. While this is just a small figure, it already has major effects on the weather and seawater rise.

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WE know that the Arctic ice cap has been melting, but what’s alarming is that it now seems to be doing so at a much faster rate than previously thought.

Here’s an excerpt from the Scientific American article:

WASHINGTON (Reuters)-The Arctic ice cap is melting much faster than expected and is now about 30 years ahead of predictions made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.S. ice expert said on Tuesday.

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