Global Warming in Philippines
Global Warming Threatens to Sink Half of Navotas - 4/30/07
Global warming threatens to submerge parts of Manila and wipe out entire islands, a conservation group warned, as it brought its campaign to cut carbon dioxide emissions to the Philippines.
"The Philippines is extremely vulnerable to the ravages of climate change," the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said. "Food and freshwater shortages, receding coastlines and an increase in political and economic turmoil is the bleak picture that climate change paints for the country."
The WWF is now negotiating with several companies in the country to adopt energy-efficient saving measures in their operations to help in the global effort to cut CO2 emissions, the leading cause of global warming.
The WWF is proposing that firms work at increasing their efficiency in operations at low cost, purchasing power from renewable energy sources, integrating next-generation efficiency measures into the design of buildings, factories and products, among other things.
Southeast Asian nations, including the Philippines, are the third largest emitters of carbon among developing countries.
Activists Attacked in Philippines Global Warming Protest - 10/10/05
German volunteer Jens Loewe, 36, has been taken to a hospital after being beaten with a metal pipe. Filipinos Janine Mercado, Tomás Leonor, Pam Palma, and New Zealander Debra Gay Pristor have also been taken to hospital after they were pelted with stones.
Unfortunately this is not the first violent reaction to a peaceful Greenpeace protest in the Philippines. In 2002 during a protest against the biggest coal-fired power station in the Philippines a security guard fired a warning shot over the heads of the activists.
"Greenpeace condemns this violent attack to a peaceful protest," said Greenpeace Southeast Asia Energy Campaigner Red Constantino. "It is disproportionate to the nature of the protest which is a peaceful, non violent protest.
"We're outraged that the Filipino plant personnel prefers to protect the interests of a power plant that brings more harm than good to people. Coal is the culprit here, not peaceful protest."
Greenpeace activists were at the plant to draw attention to Australian and Japanese backing of the expansion of climate changing coal dependency in Asia. "The Masinloc power plant displays the very worst excesses of the Philippine and Asian coal industry," said Constantino at the plant site.
Volcano's Eruption in Philippines May Counteract Global Warming - 6/30/91
A global warming trend that began in the 1980's and has continued into 1991 could be offset over the next few years by atmospheric cooling caused by the eruption this month of the Mount Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines, scientists say.
The major factor at work in the climatic effect is not the familiar dust cloud, but a chemical reaction. Volcanic eruptions spew out vast quantities of sulfur dioxide gas that later combine with water to form tiny supercooled droplets.
The droplets constitute a long-lasting global haze that reflects and scatters sunlight, causing the earth to cool. This last occurred in 1982, when haze from the eruption of El Chichon volcano in Mexico depressed global temperatures for about four years before a warming trend that began around 1980 resumed in late 1986. Decline Seen for Several Years
Experts believe that the haze it is producing could lower the average global temperature by more than half a degree Fahrenheit for three or four years, countering the global warming. A number of scientists expect the warming of the last few years to resume after the mid-1990's, once the haze disperses.
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