simonong.net|v5

I’ve been posting for Blog Action Day since it started, and for years I’ve been very happy with what I wrote because I can say my opinion on the topic and how I think my words can help, if it can, solve the problem. This time it’s different, because not only did I experience this first hand, but also my family, friends, and my country.

Last September 27, Philippines, mostly Luzon, was hit by tropical storm Ondoy, international name Ketsana, left Manila and 25 provinces submerged in water, Ondoy dropped a one-month worth of rain in just 6 hours. Our shop was submerged in waist deep flood in Manila, my parents were trapped overnight because of that, an officemate of mine lost everything because of the massive flood in their area. You can see it on Boston.com how much damage it did to my country, Cambodia and Vietnam.

When Ketsana (Category 2 typhoon) hit Manila, it’s not as strong as Parma (Category 4 super typhoon), who hit the Philippines a week after, but the damage is almost the same.

What caused it?

Some argued that the reason for the massive flood it’s because the dams around Manila gone critical and they released water to relieve that, others stated it’s because of poor urban planning that lead to this event, the rest blame it on how we treat Mother Nature which would result to climate change.

I, too believe that today, the effect of climate change is upon us, just spend a day reading articles on the web and you can read a lot about how our planet is changing in a span of months to one year. Here in our area, there was a day when it will rain and the sun will shine, in 10-15 minutes intervals; Weird and scary.
I attended an event at Taguig where Bella Gaia is featured, and you can see how beautiful the earth is, and there was a portion on the backdrop video where it shows how we, as people, affected the earth with our everyday lives, it was not elaborated on the program but if you do get the chance to see it, a simple 3-4 minute part of that can make you realize how our individual lifestyle can make a difference to our planet.

So what can we do?

I am not a scientist, but it took us a long time to end up where we are, and I think it will also take us a longer time to change it. And it should start with you.

Change your lifestyle, even at home you can help out. Change regular light bulbs to energy saving ones, shutting off electrical appliances if not needed, use public transport or walk instead of driving your car if your point of destination is very near. Recycle and buy recyclable materials. Plant a tree, it can help lessen the carbon dioxide emitted in our atmosphere.

Last Note

My post will not matter if we can’t even accept the fact that our earth is suffering, we tend to drop the topic since we can live our everyday lives the way we always do, not knowing that in the big picture, we are to blame for all of this. So we must act on it.

I can blog about this all day, but what can we do for our lifetime to save Mother Nature? That’s the challenge we need to face.