Friday, July 31, 2009

Phil. Geography on Climate Change

     In Australia the region focused on dry and wet tolerant crops. Since they are used to unpredictable rainfall patterns. Filipinos on the other hand is not used to shifting rainfall patterns. A farmer in Cagayan Valley was complaining that their corn crops was destroyed by a fungus due to unseasonal heavy rains. The same unexpected rainfall ruined the manggahan festival in Guimaras. Jared Diamond of UCLA says that the economic development is much hampered by the climate and geography of the region.

     The issue of climate change means seeing beyond the increasing concentrations of green house gases in the atmosphere and fluctuating global surface temperatures. We imagine how and why these concentrations have risen and how human societies can and will cope with changes they bring. Just as importantly, we imagine who has been and will be benefiting and who has been and will be losing, and where they are.

     Climate models predict an increase in global surface temperatures that can translate to more destructive storms, extreme drought conditions, sea level rise and highly stressed ecosystems—changes in local conditions that will inevitably impact food production, infrastructures, economies and communities everywhere. We know that not all countries in the world may have mechanisms to adjust and cope with these conditions. Not all places and communities are equipped to survive in drastic changes in the immediate environments. And not all countries have contributed to all these the same way.

     This is where one realizes that all are interconnected at the local, regional and global levels. That what you do to the strand you do to the web. I hope that we all will realize the significance of our individual action to mitigate the climate change.

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