Today marks the 50th year of the commemoration of Earth Day.\nEnvironmental activists vow that it will not just be a day but a movement. But\nin as much as we would want to manifest this human solidarity in a rally and\nmass gathering, we cannot \u2013 we are on our sixth week of a rather militaristic\nlockdown due to a pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
50 years – a lot has changed in those years, the most\nsignificant of which is how people have come to pay tribute to Mother Earth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I myself remember my own environmental awakening \u2013 it was bittersweet.\nAt first there was this desire to commune with nature, which I soon realized to\nbe in a critically degraded state. I shed off that romanticism and embraced the\nharsh reality that we have to do something about our planet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The other week while on lockdown, our batch at Ayala\nMountaineers (named after the avenue, the concrete jungle) created an FB group\nto reconnect. In a matter of days, we\u2019ve been photo-dumping old memories of our\nclimbs, of breathtaking ridges, rock walls, rampaging falls, crisscrossing\nrivers, and crowded summits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, crowded summits and campsites! You see, we are Batch \u201992 –\nright on the year of the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro when there was an\nupsurge in environmentalism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mountaineering club memberships have dwindled since then, not\nbecause the mountains and the great outdoors have stopped beckoning lovers, but\nbecause even our mountaineering has been put in a proper perspective. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have learned a lot from activists. They raised the level of\nthe discussion to sustainable development in Rio, forwarded the critique on the\nmanner things were being governed, and vowed to reclaim our common future.\nToday, the general public have a far more profound appreciation of our planet,\nwhich has been expressed in vibrant struggles and social movements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Profits over planet<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet, undeniably, we are confronted with the worst ecological\ncrisis. It took Rio another 20 years for governments and stakeholders to talk\nabout more focused political reforms for sustainable development, and another\nthree years to formulate such goals. Yet again, it has been five years since\nthe sustainable development goals or SDGs, we are faced with what can be the\nworst pandemic, which undeniably has ecological roots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Are we really this ignorant, ill-informed and lacking in science\nand technology to reach this precipice? No, it is the profit-motivated economic\nactivities of few corporations and individuals that have vested interest in\nresisting the reforms that we want to be introduced. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And in the last 40 years, profit-seeking has been facilitated by\nneoliberalism. We have seen the unbridled utilization of ecosystems in the name\nof the market, in the name of profits. The systematic onslaught of neoliberal\npolicies that liberalize foreign trade and investment has unfortunately\noccurred simultaneously with our so-called sustainable development discourse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Neoliberalism has devastated our environment and impoverished\nour people, leading to our vulnerabilities to natural hazards and pandemics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unrepentant neoliberalism<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Scientists point to several environmental changes that have\ncategorically caused the outbreaks of pandemics. For instance, forest clearing\nfor other economic uses has disturbed the habitat of various species and\nunleashed various pathogens. The loss of ecological integrity reduces our\nchances for healthy living and capacities to cope with diseases, aside from having\nitself created new diseases and mutations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Philippines is a hotspot of all of these. Deforestation,\nland-use changes and coastal reclamation are being done to give way to real\nestate and infrastructure development, industrial plantations and corporate\nagriculture. Economic activities that undermine ecological integrity such as foreign\nlarge-scale mining and the use of coal for energy are being promoted and\nliberalized. The kind of urbanization the country has is more associated with\npoverty rather than human development, as displaced and poor rural folk flock\nto the cities for survival. The Philippines is also among the top five\ncountries that are most vulnerable to climate risks and disasters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Philippine environment is critical, because government\npolicies remain to be hopelessly neoliberal. The Duterte administration for\ninstance is centered on the promotion of real estate, construction,\ninfrastructure development, natural resource extraction, and privatization of\nthe commons, to name a few of its unrepentant neoliberal policies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Fight on<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n COVID-19 is a health crisis as well as an environmental crisis \u2013\nboth only showing a crisis of the system that we have not yet resolved. This is\nwhy when we commemorate this day, we vow that indeed it is a movement.\n\nNo matter how we put emphasis on the climb, the\nsummit remains the most rewarding part. But as they say in mountaineering, there\ncan always be several approaches to the summit \u2013 a gradual meandering ascent or\na direct assault. Whichever we choose, as we commemorate this day, we\ndefinitely commit that it is going to be a view of a better future.\n\n\n\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today marks the 50th year of the commemoration of Earth Day. Environmental activists vow that it will not just be a day but a movement. But in as much as we would want to manifest this human solidarity in a rally and mass gathering, we cannot \u2013 we are on our sixth week of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":9446,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-withbanner.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_expiration-date-status":"saved","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[2048,2049],"tags":[2237,2238,2236,2199,347,2235,223],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9444"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9444"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9445,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9444\/revisions\/9445"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}