Our children’s Mother Earth

By Klaus Döring

Earth is our beautiful home and the third planet from the sun. It is the only known planet with living creatures, breathable air, and liquid water.

Yes, it’s again the topic we should really think about. Also here in the Philippines. OK, here’s a new string of examples, my dear readers. But don’t expect good news.

The life we live today will set the foundation for how the next generation will live their lives. Our actions have an effect on this planet that we call home, and we need to be mindful of the consequences of living without consideration for the future. It is the need of the hour to cultivate a means of living that will enable future generations to live viably. To that end, awareness, in the form of environmental studies, can play a key role in ensuring that current and future generations can create a sustainable future.

Environmental studies can be considered a catalyst for change. It provides us with the knowledge to think critically and the power to understand the impact of our actions. But are we doing enough to ensure that this information and knowledge is being imparted efficiently enough to empower the next generation?

Greenland, the great island, is being called the Land of Ice being on fire. Why? A recent report says the Arctic may be ice-free by 2040. The Antarctic is also melting, albeit far slower and in a less regular pattern.

The Arctic is melting much faster than expected and could even be ice-free in summer by the late 2030s, a report from the Arctic Council’s Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program suggests. Previous studies had forecast an ice-free North Pole in summer by midcentury. Wow.

While the outlook is bleak for the Arctic, there is a silver lining for the Antarctic: As I said before, the ice is melting at a slower rate than previously thought. Although glacier flow has increased since the 1990s, scientists from the University of Leeds have found the melting rate to be only around a third of what was previously projected. A section of a glacier in Greenland is seen from NASA’s Operation IceBridge research aircraft along the Upper Baffin Bay coast.

Operation IceBridge studies the processes that link the polar regions with Earth’s climate system. Rapidly changing polar ice means researchers need to use highly sophisticated airborne technology to measure annual changes in thickness and movement — onboard a retrofitted 1966 Lockheed P-3 aircraft.

But the Antarctic is still melting. And a rapidly advancing crack in its fourth-largest ice shelf could soon see one of the largest icebergs ever recorded in human history break off into the sea. Scientists agree that global warming causes the ice in both the North and South poles to melt. Air temperatures are climbing, and so are water temperatures. This makes the ice melt faster. The period of winter when the water is actually cold enough to freeze is getting shorter, which means ice floes are getting smaller.

Greenland, home to the world’s largest permanent ice sheet outside Antarctica, is being swept by wildfires. Yes, the land of ice is on fire. A truly breathtaking situation. Scientists say global warming and increased plant cover are likely factors. Since late July, wildfires have raged across an ever-larger area of the landmass.

Honestly, folks, it really scares me, although experts say it is too early to draw firm conclusions linking the fire to climate change because no long-term data is available to put the blaze in context. However, unusually hot and dry conditions this year could have been a factor.

Although the origin of the blaze is unclear — with lightning and a stray cigarette as possible suspects — what is clear is how it has been spreading across remote areas of grassland and low shrubs. Greenland is indeed getting greener and greener. It conjures images of white, frozen expanses. But global warming means it’s getting greener all the time. “There’s a shorter snow-cover season, and that allows the plant life to expand,” he explained.

In trying to prepare our kids for a sustainable future, we need to start taking action today. We need to be considerate of what we purchase, how we consume, and the waste we generate in the process. We can change why and how we educate our children to embrace a sustainable-growth mindset.

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