Road to Pasig City Hall, typhoon Ondoy aftermath. 28 Sept 2009. Source: Click here

Pedro Walpole

The problem is we don't know where it will hit exactly and how and when. Though there is much local adaptation, many people still get caught unfortunately in deadly circumstances. We do not adequately know our landscape and susceptibility to flooding and we are not adequately relocating peoples' lives and livelihoods. People in Manila might be led to believe this is the worst, but we are far from it. With a geometric increase in climate change, we don't know the specifics of the next disaster.

But we should be learning at this stage that things are getting worse. Perhaps the one lesson the world might learn from a city shutting down is that, whether First or Third World, this will continue to happen. Have we forgotten Louisiana already?

Labutta is one of the hardest hit areas in the Irrawaddy delta region of Myanmar, 2 May 2008. Source: Click here.

Over 100,000 people died in Myanmar last year and the length and breadth of the devastation is hard to grapple with. Everybody loses somebody and in the relief, everybody connects to everyone else. Can we not have this connectivity to overcome the problem? The world easily forgets the 100,000 who died in Myanmar but get on the podium easy enough to complain about the regime. We need to do something about the regime but we could help best these exposed communities and poorly prepared communities, and for that matter the poor in general world wide , if the political-consumer world would put into action the necessary controls on carbon release and "freeze" the temperature rise.

Hurrican Katrina hit  Louisiana, 29 August 2005. Source: Click here

Maybe the world can learn best this week when 3,000 delegates from 190 countries meet in Bangkok from 28 to 30 September 2009, not too far from Manila. This UN meeting on climate change is to prepare the negotiating text for the new agreement, and cutting down the current 280-page document to a 20-30 page document where countries will agree to set clear goals and targets for action that must be taken. This meeting is the last preparation for the Copenhagen December meeting that is trailing behind expectations in preparing for the post-Kyoto Protocol.

We need to reduce the heat, plain and simple, and not merely deal with trade-offs and offsetting just to keep our old style production line going. Radical changes are needed, and needed fast.

28 September 2009
Pedro Walpole, SJ
Executive Director
Environmental Science for Social Change (ESSC)
Philippines