Reason & Concern

Ronquillo C. Tolentino

This Warming World

Global warming is happening very quickly. Really, global temperature over the last 100 years have warmed , according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change by about 1.33 degrees Fahrenheit (0.74 degrees Celsius) on average. Indeed, global warming is already changing the world Shifting temperatures have also altered, among others, breeding seasons of penguins, decreased winter snowfalls, change of flowering dates of plants in some countries, the disappearance of other plants including 15 species of orchids, fruit fly genetic patterns, straying of native organisms from their native  habitats at an unprecedented rate. The Cetti’s warbler, for example, is cited as to have moved north over the last two decades by more than 90 miles (144 kilometers).

 
Cambridge cosmologist Stephen Hawking, speaking at the Royal Society of London last week at a conference organized by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists declared that the world stands on  the precipice of second nuclear age and a period of climate change, both of which could destroy the planet.

 
Lord Rees of Ludlow, president of the Royal Society forewarned that humankind’s collective impacts on the biosphere, climate and oceans were unprecedented. These environmentally-driven threats ‘ threats without enemies should loom as large in the political perspective as did the East-West political divide during the cold war era, Ludlow added.

 
The board of directors of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists declared that the threat of nuclear apocalypse is now almost matched by the environmental threats posed by climate change.

 
“We stand at the brink of a second nuclear age. Not since the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has the world faced such perilous choices”, the bulletin said.

 
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists observed with a warning, thus “ North Korea’s recent test of a nuclear weapon, Iran’s  nuclear ambitions, a renewed  US emphasis on the military utility of nuclear weapons, the failure to adequately secure nuclear materials and the continued presence of some 26,000 nuclear weapons in United States and Russia are symptomatic of a larger failure to solve the problems posed by the most destructive technology on Earth.”

 
The Bulletin concluded: “As in past deliberations, we have made other human-made threats to civilization. We have concluded the dangers posed by climate change are nearly as dire as those posed by nuclear weapons. The effect may be less dramatic in the short term than the destruction that could be wrought by nuclear explosions, but over the next three to four decades climate change could cause drastic harm.”

 
Notes:  Aklan’s political monolith,Tibyog  Aklan, has dominated Aklan’s political landscape for two decades. It is bent on reviewing and analyzing its political strength.  Governor Florencio T. Miraflores, Tibyog Aklan provincial chairman and Tibyog founder, former congressman Allen S. Quimpo arrived at a consensus to emphasize on the party’s principle on loyalty and cooperation.

 
By the way, Senate President Franklin Drilon’s being talked about as the probable Liberal Party presidential candidate in 2016 has already been the subject of discussions among old Liberal Party members in Aklan. /MP