A losing battle?

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‘Now, individuals, organizations and even countries are searching for ways and means to slow down the rate of climate change. But is it a losing battle?’

LAST Tuesday, Metro Manila was once again deluged with floodwaters as rains brought about by a weather disturbance that was not even a typhoon brought the National Capital Region to a near-standstill.

I was at NAIA close to noon to check in for a PAL flight to Iloilo scheduled for departure at 1:10. Due to certain conditions, that departure time was first moved to 2:25 (five minutes before our supposed arrival time in Iloilo!) and then pushed back again to 2:55.

While at the airport I tracked flights coming in and going out of NAIA and noticed a couple of domestic and international flights that attempted to land — only to do a go-around.

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The reason? Apparently, NAIA was experiencing strong gusts of wind that made landing difficult, especially in heavy downpour.

We finally got on board a little past three, took off a little close to 3:30 using runway 31 (the shorter runway in front of Terminal 3). As we lifted off heading northwest, we were enveloped in thick clouds, the aircraft sounded as if it were fighting to stay aloft, our plane was rocking a little back and forth, and my GPS wasn’t working so I couldn’t monitor anything from altitude to location.

Finally, as we banked leftward over Manila Bay and then flew over Batangas to Mindoro, the skies started to clear and by the time we landed in Iloilo at 4:30 p.m., about two hours late, the skies were sunny and you wouldn’t have known that offices and schools had been ordered closed in Manila.

It struck me that these stormy weather disturbances that aren’t even typhoons are part of what we now call “climate change,” which is worrying people, organizations, and even countries from Africa to the Americas.

The culprit, we are told, are greenhouse gas emissions which, to put it simplistically, over decades have caused damage to the ozone layer, thinning it and causing the sun’s rays to penetrate what it shouldn’t. So ice caps melt, water levels rise, weather patterns change, and typhoons are more severe than before and come when they are not expected.

If you think about it, it is population growth that has fueled climate change. As the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development warns, urbanization and agricultural expansion contribute to the destruction of forests, which are the lungs of the earth. No wonder we are finding it harder and harder to breathe, literally and figuratively.

Now, individuals, organizations and even countries are searching for ways and means to slow down the rate of climate change. But is it a losing battle?

I’d like to think not, but there are times when I fall victim to pessimism and paraphrase Glum, the dwarf in the TV cartoon of my youth, Gulliver, and say “We’ll never make it.”

Especially when I am inside an airplane that is clearly fighting against the elements outside and the clouds are so thick I can’t see a thing. And all I can do is grit my teeth and pray that God isn’t ready to see me yet!

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