EL DIA ES HOY
RENATO REDENTOR CONSTANTINO
Op-Ed, TODAY/abs-cbnnews.com
May 31, 2004

Climate change.

Suddenly, because of a movie, so many are now talking about the greatest threat that the planet has ever faced.

The Day after Tomorrow is science fiction but global warming is real. Will the movie end up trivializing the impacts of climate change and thus increase indifference? Or will it spur more people to take action? Too early to tell.

Is reality more frightening than Hollywood? With nature there are no special effects; only consequences.

In China, up to 64 percent of glaciers are projected to disappear by 2050, putting at risk up to a quarter of China's population who are dependent on the water released from the glaciers.

Today in the Arctic, ice thickness has declined by over 40 percent and "an area larger than the Netherlands is disappearing every year." According to scientists, Arctic sea ice could melt entirely by the end of the century.

Ice cores from Svalbard glaciers in the Arctic region show that the 1900s "were by far the warmest century" in the last 800 years.

Between 1998 and 2001, the Qori Kalis glacier in Peru has retreated an average of 155 meters annually - a rate three times faster than the average yearly retreat from 1995 to 1998, and 32 times faster than the averae yearly retreat from 1963 to 1978.

Just southeast of Mount Everest, in the Himalayan Khumbu Range of Eastern Nepal, the Imja Glacier has been retreating at a rate of close to 10 meters annually. It is but one among many glaciers currently in rapid retreat. According to Syed Iqbal Hasnain of the International Commission for Snow and Ice, "Glaciers in the Himalayas are receding faster than in any other part of the world. If the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 is very high." Over two billion people depend on the glacier-fed flow of the rivers from the Himalayan mountains.

In the region of Patagonia, icefields have lost 42 cubic kilometers of ice every year for the last seven years - the equivalent to the volume of ten thousand large football stadiums the size of Wembley stadium.

The scientific journal Nature published this year the findings of 19 eminent biological scientists - climate change will "commit to extinction" between 18 to 35 percent of all land-based animal and plant species.

According to leading reinsurance companies such as Munich Re and Swiss Re, climate change related damages will cost $150 billion annually within a decade. The companies warn that unless action is taken today, the insurance industry could go bankrupt as extreme weather events such as storms and droughts increase in severity and frequency.

Over 20,000 people died in Europe last year as a result of an extreme heat wave.

In Alaska, average annual temperatures have risen by 5 degrees since the 1960s.

The incidence of diseases such as malaria and dengue borne by insects that thrive in warm temperatures are anticipated to register manifold increases in a number of years.

An eight-year study conducted by 100 scientists showed that in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, sea levels are projected to rise by 30 centimeters by 2030. According to another study, sea levels may rise by 30 to 70 centimeters by the end of this century. The long coastline of China forms the base for about 70 percent of its large cities, where nearly 60 percent of the national economy is located. Some studies suggest that a 30-centimeter rise in sea levels will typically result in a 30-meter retreat in shoreline. How serious will the effect be on archipelagic countries such as the Philippines?

"Climate change," said Sir David King, Chief Scientific Adviser to UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, "is the most severe problem that we are facing today - more serious even than the threat of terrorism."

Great as the problem of climate change is, what is most often neglected is the fact that solutions are readily available. Solutions that, sadly, are just not being used. Solutions that can prevent climate change from taking a more deadly and unpredictable course. Solutions that are not only immediately beneficial to the environment but immensely economically advantageous as well. The global wind industry alone, for instance, has been enjoying growth rates of over 30 percent per year for the last five years.

We all know what the problem is - burning fossil fuels such as coal and oil. And we know what we have to do - generate our energy from clean, safe renewable energy.

The time for indifference is over.

We should no longer tolerate the lie that the Philippine government is doing its part in fighting climate change because, it says, compared to other countries, the Philippines today supposedly has one of the highest shares of renewable energy in its total energy mix. Our government will not volunteer the fact that this is so only because the Department of Energy continues to count twigs and charcoal as "new and renewable energy."

We must demand real change, beginning with the displacement of polluting coal with clean energy.

Measurable, time-bound development of renewable energy with real and ambitious targets are needed today if we are to contribute to saving the global commons and if we wish to avoid the devastating impacts of climate change. We must demand nothing less than an energy revolution.

Taking action the day after tomorrow may well be too late. Actua ya. Act now. El dia es hoy.

The day for action is today.


NOTES:
1. "Scientists probe fall of Yulong glacier," Tang Min, China Daily, May 13, 2004. According to the report, the Chinese Academy of Sciences "concluded in a research report that the [glacial] shrinkage is a direct result of global warming ... There are 8,600-odd glaciers of various scales in the country's temperate zones, of which the one on the Yulong Snow Mountain is of the smallest scale and the lowest latitude, and therefore, should be the most sensitive to temperature changes. If the shrinkage of the Yulong glacier speeds up, so will a number of Chinese glaciers in the near future."
2. "Rising Sea Level Threatens Pearl River Delta," Shenzhen Daily, July 29, 2003.
3. "Global Warming Accelerates China's Sea Level Rise," Xinhua News Agency, April 12, 2002.
4. For a good introduction to glacier-related impacts, go to the impacts page of the Greenpeace climate campaign at the Greenpeace International website. Click on Svalbard and Patagonia URLs concerning recent Greenpeace expeditions.
5. For references to the Philippine Department of Energy's (DOE) laughable "renewable energy" twigs and charcoal, see the Philippine Energy Plans issued by the DOE in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004. A minor Philippine irony is that Vince Perez, the man sitting today at the helm of the DOE and who is at present the most aggressive coal peddler in the country, once upon a time fashioned himself as an environmental supporter. On the other hand, beneath Perez is DOE Undersecretary Ed Manalac, a former oilman who worked as an executive of the U.S. oil industry for a number of years and who is now the biggest supporter of renewable energy in the Philippine government.

THE TWENTY FOURTH OF MAY
RENATO REDENTOR CONSTANTINO
Op-Ed, TODAY/abs-cbnnews.com
May 24, 2004

Competing legacies of a single day. Infamous and immaculate: the bequests of the twenty fourth of May.

On the 24th of May 2004 issue of The Weekly Standard, the neocon wellspring of imperial wet dreams, chicken hawk editor general William Kristol asks a Bush administration reeling from the Abu Ghraib Prison body blow: "Are you a man or a mouse? Squeak up." At the White House, officials tuned in to Kristol's crystal clear prose stiffen their spines and respond: "We will not be cowed. We're staying the course!" Along with Richard Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and other Bush administration stalwarts, Kristol was a signatory to the Project New American Century document issued in 1998 calling for America to invade Iraq.

"[S]end 50,000 more troops to Iraq to win the war," huffs Kristol. Declare that "any site where Americans are attacked will be regarded as a combat zone, and anyone who chooses to go there to celebrate will be subject to attack." Vrrrrmmm! said the toy tanks in the White House sandbox.

On May 24 many years ago, the death of Shoichi James Okamoto was recorded. Okamoto was "driving Truck #100-41 at the order of the construction supervisor ... to get lumber piled across the highway from the old main gate, which is called Gate #4." At the gate, Okamoto was refused permission to pass by Private Bernard Goe, who did not like Asians. Goe takes a few steps back, lifts his shotgun and, "at approximately 2:20 p.m.," fires it at Okamoto, who died at the age of 30 years old. Goe is charged and fined a dollar for "unauthorized use of government property" - a bullet. The year is 1944, and the site is Tule Lake, America's concentration camp for Japanese-Americans. Okamoto is one of the camp's 'prisoners.' Okamoto was born in Garden Grove, California and had never been abroad.

In 1968, on May 24, while American-made gunships were vigorously spilling blood in Southeast Asia, four American protesters, including peace icon Philip Berrigan, were jailed six years each "for pouring blood on draft cards" in Baltimore, Maryland.

At Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on May 24, 1971, an antiwar newspaper advertisement signed by 29 US soldiers supporting the Concerned Officers Movement is published. The movement had been formed in 1970 in Washington, D.C. by a group of naval officers opposed to the war.

Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater proposed the use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam in an interview on May 24, 1964. According to The Daily Bleed, Goldwater "sees a brighter light at the end of the tunnel." Lyndon Johnson destroys Goldwater at the polls thanks largely, according to some pundits, to Goldwater's publicly professed nukie solution. After his win, Johnson goes ahead and destroys Vietnam conventionally.

In his 1964 interview, Goldwater discusses "the use of low-yield atomic bombs in North Vietnam to defoliate forests and destroy bridges, roads, and railroad lines." Four decades later, the US Congress ends restrictions on programs which will likely lead to the production of new "low-yield" nuclear weapons - mini-nukes. The lifting of the restrictions is tantamount to an order to weapons labs to proceed with dispatch in nuclear weapons research that include enhanced "agent defeat" capacity (killing soldiers) and "reduced collateral damage" (not killing too many civilians). In fact, the Bush administration plans to hold this year a "subcritical nuclear experiment" which US officials acknowledge will be a "full-blown nuclear explosion." This, despite a global treaty which commits nations of the world to forego nuclear weapons test explosions and despite the 1992 US moratorium on nuclear weapons testing. Poor Barry Goldwater, he lived ahead of his time.

The United Kingdom celebrated its first Empire Day on May 24, 1902. Years later, on May 24, 1959, Empire Day is renamed Commonwealth Day. On May 24, 2004, a Filipino proposes to rename July 4 as Empire Day.

May 24: a day of distinction. On this day in 1980, hundreds are arrested as protesters occupy a nuclear power plant construction site in Seabrook, New Hampshire. On the same day, in 1981, the First International Women's Day for Disarmament is launched. A year later, in 1982, over 200,000 people participate in a massive anti-nuclear demonstration in Tokyo.

May 24, a day of infamy. On this day in 1951: the US performs an atmospheric nuclear test at Enwetak. On the same day in 1972: the US performs a nuclear test at a Nevada Test Site. On May 24, 1979: the USSR performs a nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk.

On May 24, 2003, CommonDreams.org, an online news center, reported the eagerness of the Bush administration to expand America's nuclear arsenal even as it orders other nations to disarm. The same article reported US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's moving defense of the Bush administration's pristine intentions to develop new nuclear weapons: "It's not 'pursuing.' And it's not 'developing,'" said Rumsfeld. "It is not 'building.' It is not 'manufacturing.' And it's not 'deploying.' And it is not 'using,.'" Yup. We believe you Donald.

On May 24 in 1844, the first Morse Code message inaugurating America's telegraph industry was transmitted by Samuel F.B. Morse from Washington D.C. to Baltimore, Maryland. Curiously, the message was the Biblical quotation "What hath God wrought?"

Not God but man. Mini-nukes, more war, increasing imperial ambitions. The world today asks the same question asked by the first telegraph message. And sends its response through the most famous Morse Code signal of all time.

... --- ...

SOS.

World in distress. Save our world.


NOTES:

1. "Of Mice and Men," William Kristol, Volume 009, Issue 35, The Weekly Standard, May 24, 2004.
2. See http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8420/shootings.html
3. From chronologist Robert Braunwart, in The Daily Bleed, http://www.eskimo.com/~recall/bleed/. See also http://www.safran-arts.com/42day/history/h4may/h4may24.html
4. "Remembering Barry Goldwater," Howard Gleckman Business Week Online, June 1, 1998. http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/june1998/nf80601d.htm
5. "U.S. rearms while telling others to disarm," Helen Thomas, May 24, 2004. http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0524-04.htm.

THE POVERTY OF MEMORY
RENATO REDENTOR CONSTANTINO
Op-Ed, TODAY/abs-cbnnews.com
May 3, 2004

The poverty of memory - this is our collective quagmire, its alleviation our common hope.

In a photograph taken "for historical purposes," ten US soldiers dressed in camouflage are handling coffins covered with the American flag. The coffins are in the Dover airbase in Delaware. They contain the remains of US soldiers - new casualties of America's occupation of Iraq.

The photo - along with 300 others - was released in April after a website called the Memory Hole filed a Freedom of Information Act request for pictures of coffins arriving from Iraq at the Dover base. A small veil is lifted and Americans react with shock, anger and sadness.

Releasing the photos is wrong, the Bush administration huffs, even as it tries to stamp out sparks of public reaction. "We must pay attention," hectors the White House spokesman, "to the privacy and to the sensitivity of the families of the fallen." A ban on the coverage of the arrival of remains at Dover, an airbase which houses the US military's largest mortuary, has been in force since 1991.

And yet ironically, as recent as last November, the US Defense Department itself released a photo of a casket containing an American casualty of the Korean War being carried off an aircraft by an honor guard at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii, "an image almost identical to what takes place at Dover."

The difference? Slight but terribly significant.

Past American presidents "have never attended memorial services for US troops killed during a war and the ban on pictures from Dover and other military facilities does not extend to recovering the remains of troops killed in previous wars."

"Photographs and film footage of coffins coming home from battlefields have been a stark reminder for Americans of the toll of war," wrote Gregg Zoroya of USA Today. "During the Vietnam War, the image of caskets arriving at Dover became a staple of the nightly news."

"They don't want the public to see what the great difficulties are," said Robert Dallek, a historian of Boston University. "They're fearful that the public [may turn] against the war because it's frustrated by the losses of blood and treasure, in this case Iraq and earlier in Vietnam."

This should all sound familiar to Americans as well as Filipinos. Unfortunately, it is not and therein lies the problem.

We have forgotten so much.

"Why is it that the American outlook is blacker now than it has been since the beginning of the war?," wrote John Bass of Harper's Weekly in June 1899 regarding America's annexation of the Philippines. "First the whole population of the islands sympathizes with the insurgents; only those natives whose immediate self-interest requires it are friendly to us ... The sooner the people of the United States find out that the people of the Philippines do not wish to be governed by us the better."

John Bass' dispatch almost doesn't make it to the US. There is an active US military censorship in place in the Philippines to prevent all too accurate coverage concerning US atrocities and Filipino resistance from reaching America's shores.

"We all know that we are in a terrible mess out here, but we don't want the people to get excited about it. If you fellows will only keep quiet now we will pull through in time without any fuss at home ... My instructions are to shut off everything that could hurt McKinley's administration," said the censorship regime presided over by the over-all military commander of the US invasion army in the Philippines, Gen. Elwell Otis, who did not deny suppressing facts in his meeting with members of the media.

A joint letter of protest led by Robert Collins of the Associated Press is drawn up by American reporters concerning US military censorship of the US invasion: "We believe that, owing to official dispatches from Manila made public in Washington, the people of the United States have not received a correct impression of the situation in the Philippines, but that these dispatches have presented an ultra-optimistic view that is not shared by the general officers in the field ... We believe the dispatches err in the declaration that 'the situation is well in hand,' and in the assumption that the insurrection can be speedily ended without a greatly increased force. We think the tenacity of the Filipino purpose has been under-estimated."

A tenacity to resist the invasion that snuffed out the nascent Philippine republic, the product of a national revolution that had just thrown off the yoke of Spanish colonial rule. An invasion that met with such fierce Filipino resistance that, by the time the last armed group opposing US rule had been put down, the war had already claimed the lives of at least 250,000 Filipinos. So brutal was America's annexation of the Philippines that, according to a US War Department official, just around the first year after the US invasion, "14,643 Filipinos had been killed and 3,297 wounded." Meaning, for every five Filipinos killed, one was wounded.

The reporters led by Collins delivered their letter in person to Gen. Otis and explained to him that it was their intention to publish their protest in the US. Gen. Otis lashed out at the reporters: "You have served a paper on me-a most extraordinary document. Are you aware that this constitutes a conspiracy against the government?" I should have you all summoned to "a general court martial and have you tried for conspiracy."

Fall in line. Toe the line. Ten-hut!

"The US record is not one of imperialism," said US Secretary of State Colin Powell in February last year. "It is one of doing the job, bringing the peace, restoring order and helping a responsible government take its place in leading the country ... We are going to Iraq not to destroy the place but to make it better."

US record? Before Afghanistan, before Nicaragua, Indonesia, and Vietnam; before all these and much more - it was the Philippines. And what a start it was.

"We will not renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustees under God, of the civilization of the world," said US Senator Albert Beveridge, an articulate luminary of America's imperial ambitions who called for the annexation of the Philippines over a hundred years ago. "God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self-admiration. No! He has made us the master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns."

Our collective deliverance we will find in our common past. And the task to begin this search must begin today. "To look always for an answer," said Stuart T. Hess, "a solution to the ever-puzzling riddles that confront us: that is our responsibility, our curse and our blessing."

NOTES:
1. AP photo, TODAY, April 25, 2004.
2. "Bush criticizes release of photos of soldier coffins," Thom Shanker and Bill Carter, TODAY, April 25, 2004.
3. "Return of U.S. war dead kept solemn, secret," Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY, December 31, 2003.
4. Leon Wolff, Little Brown Brother: How the United States purchased and pacified the Philippines, Doubleday & Company, Inc., New York, 1961.
5. "Powell: We'll make Iraq a good neighbour," Bangkok Post, February 22, 2003.
6. Joseph L. Schott, The ordeal of Samar, Bobbs-Merrill, 1964.