A Threatened Future (Chapter 1) of Our Common Future

            As societies continue to evolve through time, there have been efforts done by countries to achieve prosperity and development in their own terms. However, striving for prosperity can have serious consequences for the other sectors such as the environment. For instance, people nowadays give little importance to how they can maximize the use of Earth’s resources for future generations. Often than not, they try to abuse those resources for their own benefit without thinking much of the future generations that could have also benefitted from those resources. Nevertheless, with the evolution and modernization happening around the world, progress has already been evident in the lives of human beings. Progress is in terms of higher life expectancy, lower child mortality rate, improved standards of living and better educated people.  Furthermore, through this progress, we are able to see hope in finding ways to undertake the necessary improvements and to reflect on our mistakes in order to attain a safer and sounder home for us and future generations here on Earth. But with the presence of poverty that continues to put pressure on countries that are succumbed to further environmental damage to achieve prosperity, the basis for human progress now becomes threatened. Thus, in order to attain progress that countries have wanted to achieve without compromising the environment, there must have be cooperation among the people to build a secure, prosperous and just future; as well as policies that will sustain the Earth’s resources that will also result to economic growth of countries.

            There is a need to understand the symptoms and causes of environmental stress in order to realize what has to be done to achieve progress. The three main factors of environmental stress are poverty, economic growth and survival. In terms of poverty, the symptoms would be seen through the continuing rise in the number of people who are experiencing hunger, rise in the number of people living in slums and shanty towns, increase in the lack of access to potable water and sanitation that would then lead to higher risks on diseases and also the continuous widening gap between the rich and poor countries in terms of per capita income. Through these, more and more people have been caught in the vicious cycle of poverty. But what hindered them from improving their standards of living? One of which is the dependence of poor countries on export earnings on agricultural products that are subject to fluctuation and decline in trade. However, expanding this industry will ultimately give rise to ecological stress. But due to the disadvantageous conditions of technology transfers, protectionist laws, and declining financial flows, the ways in which poverty and ecological stress can be alleviated are restrained. Furthermore, the unequal distribution of land and assets has exacerbated the situation of poverty. The rise in number of population made it difficult to raise the standards of living and also the use of good land for crops being exported has forced subsistence farmers to work on arid lands. It has affected the practice of traditional shifting cultivators wherein they usually cut forests, grew crops on it and gave it time to recover. But now there are no more enough lands available or time to let the forests recover from the activity. Moreover, due to the lack of lands, farmers are forced to cultivate onto steep slopes that increase the likelihood of soil erosions in hill sections to happen. Because of these pressures, it has led to the disasters and natural calamities that often attack the impoverished people in poor countries. Indeed, a country that has been trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty will be committing more environmental degradation that will inevitably lead to greater poverty.   

                        Learning from these, we must understand that we live in a world wherein our actions are inevitably linked to other living things. All living things in this biosphere are all interconnected and we must therefore realize that whatever actions we take would definitely affect others. We must open our minds and wake up to the reality that the environment we live in is already threatened due to the fickleness of our actions. Although there is no a guaranteed solution on how we can stop the earth from experiencing its pitfall or how we can get back everything that was lost, we can surely mitigate the threat by changing our perspectives and really do something about it. Earth is the only planet where humans can live in and we must act now in order to take care of its surroundings because we may no longer have the luxury to pay for the damage done when it's already payback time.  

Reference:

Butlin, J. (1987). Our Common Future By World Commission on Environment and Development. Retrieved from http://habitat.igc.org/open-gates/ocf-01.htm

Commentary on Why are We Shallow

Reading or hearing something negative about us Filipinos makes us all react violently. We don't even process the criticism thrown at us because we do not want anyone to step on our ego or maybe because we are in denial that the criticism being told to us is true. We might end up getting into a fight because we Filipinos never liked to be seen as inferiors. We might also end up cursing the person telling the criticism and probably try to find any kind of flaw within that person so we could get even. This would probably our initial reaction if we read the article that Sionil Jose wrote about us Filipinos being so shallow. But if we read closely and try to absorb every detail without making any violent reactions, then maybe we can learn something from it. And certainly, we can have something to ponder on about ourselves.

He stated some of the reasons why he thinks that we Filipinos are shallow. He blamed it in our educational system in which the quality of excellence is now deteriorating through time. We no longer focus on humanities which could have made us think more deeply. The second thing he points out is that we Filipinos are naturally mayabang. We always think that we are better than others; that we know more and that we can do better than others. Hence, we drown ourselves in ignorance and arrogance that we fail to look at our own limitations as human beings. The third reason is also connected to the second one- we are shallow because we have failed to grasp the knowledge of knowing our own capacities and limitations. We tend to be too gullible with things happening around us that we end up letting those things change us. Fourth reason can be blamed in our shallow media which shows us nothing but pure shallowness. The author himself even said that there is so little to read in our newspapers and so little information to be gathered from our local TV channels which are filled with nonsense talkshows and telenovelas. We are shallow because we don't have the time to go to libraries or bookstores to read books. We do not think of the value of information that we can get from reading books. And lastly, the author pointed out that we are shallow because we have become prisoners of worldly materials. We are focused too much on grabbing those material goods because we think that it's the only way we can satisfy ourselves.

It always fascinates me that articles like this can make a person realize a lot of things (at least that's what happened to me). It opened my mind to a bigger perspective on being a Filipino. And I'd have to agree that we are indeed shallow. But what concerns me is that how did we even get so shallow in the first place? I couldn't think of any comprehensive answer to that but I think it lies in our history as Filipinos. I think that what made us who we are today lies in how we were brought up in this world. The events that happened with our ancestors in the past have molded us to be like this. It is like things fell into this place because some things in the past have made it fall into how it is now. Another possible reason could be seen in our culture. Since events in the past have become a big impact on who we are today, some of these traits were embedded in our culture too. Like we are shallow because it has become part of our culture. We have been raised in this kind of culture that is why our way of thinking and our way of acting are different. And we couldn't blame culture just because we ended up like this. We have to accept the fact that things turned out to be this way because history has allowed it to do so. And the only thing that we could ever do to fix it is to reflect deeply about ourselves and our actions so that we may not fall into the trap of being shallow forever. It is a big challenge for us especially that our culture will always affect our lives but we must prove to ourselves that we can always do better than settling for who we are now. Let us use those negative aspects and turn them into positive outlooks so that we may give ourselves the chance for improvement.

Reference:
Jose, S. (September 2011). Why we are shallow. Retrieved from http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=726155