The Genesis

Kattleya Fay Brutas

"Katoy"

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Dengue and Climate Change

Written by Kattlleya Fay B. Brutas

BS Biology 4A

     Major current environmental issues may include climate change, pollution, environmental degradation, and resource depletion .The conservation movement lobbies for protection of endangered species and protection of any ecologically valuable natural areas.

     In 2008, WHO warned that climate change was increasing the incidence of dengue fever and other infectious diseases in the country. Within that year, global warming may have contributed to a 43 percent rise in the number of dengue cases in the Philippines for the first half of the year. Noted that the increase in the number of dengue cases may be attributed to the constantly changing climate brought by global warming as well as congestion in urban areas". ongestion in urban areas". The upsurge in dengue is one of the clearest manifestations of climate change. In the past, dengue peaked only during the rainy season. However, the unpredictable weather condition brought about by climate change has made the deadly disease a year-round occurrence in our country. It is dumbfounding also to know that the virus brought by the Aedes aegypti, the dengue-carrying mosquito, has mutated. The disease no longer follows a regular predictable pattern. The patients have different symptoms and responses. Being unpredictable, dengue can be treacherous.

      The warming of the global temperature definitely impacts our lives, livelihood and our health and that of the various species and our planet. It should not be seen as a battle royale between the environmental crusaders and the government focused more on economic, rather than, sustainable development. We should already initiate and participate in strategizing adaptation measures to enhance our capacity to deal with its numerous negative impacts. Let us move and act together, before earth-shaking events overtake us-again.

Pollution and global warming
Climate Change in black and white
Written by Kattlleya Fay B. Brutas
BS Biology 4A

     When air pollution hurts people’s health and heats up the climate it makes sense to do something about it. But what about pollution that cools the planet?

      An ideal fossil-fuel power-plant would produce power, carbon dioxide and nothing more. Less-than-ideal ones not to mention other devices for the combustion of carbon, from diesel generators to brick kilns and stoves burning dung also emit various gases and gunk. These often cause local environmental problems, damaging lungs, hurting crops and shortening lives. And some of the gunk, notably soot or “black carbon”, can warm the planet, too. 

      The summary makes a powerful case for acting on two short-lived climate “forcings”, factors that change the amount of energy the atmosphere absorbs, as carbon dioxide does, but stay in it only briefly. One is black carbon and the other is ozone, which is vital for blocking ultraviolet rays in the stratosphere but hazardous in the bits of the atmosphere where plants live and people have to breathe.

      Implementing measures known to be effective against these two pollutants over the next 20 years would have “immediate and multiple” benefits, including temperatures between 0.2°C and 0.7°C lower than they would otherwise be by 2050 and the saving of between 0.7m and 4.6m lives with improved air quality. For black carbon the measures are largely in the form of more efficient ways of burning things for ozone they mostly involve reducing emissions of methane, which encourages reactions in the atmosphere that make ozone. The black-carbon measures save a lot more lives than ozone control, but are trickier to assess in terms of climate.
If the Arctic is warming faster than might be expected, other parts of the world are warming slower. One reason for this, widely accepted by scientists but little appreciated by policymakers, is the sulphur given off by coal-fired power stations and some other industrial fossil-fuel use. Sulphur is very good at forming reflecting aerosols that can also make natural clouds both whiter and possibly longer-lasting, which provides an added cooling effect.