WHICH IS WHAT? Is it climate change that causes Earth change? Is it Earth change that affects climate change? Or is one simply giving rise to the other? Or are they in fact one and the same composite natural phenomenon?
This issue is not really unlike the interesting – and allegedly – profound century old question: Which is first, the hen or the egg? Round and round the answers go. If the chicken is first, then where is the egg it came from? If the egg is first, then where is the chicken that laid it?
The matter of climate change has been long since hugging the attention of people the world over. Foreign and local media continuously bring to focus either the great wonder of or the big fear about the changing climate all over the globe. Initiated by a known and familiar political figure in North America, he said that on-going change in the climate has been the origin of the large and significant movements of the soil – specially in form of frequent strong earthquakes – not to mention the frequent deluge of water that causes frequent and destructive floods which in turn annihilates rice fields, roads, bridges and so on.
The Philippines is certainly not excluded from the destructive impact of climate change. It is good to note that the natural damages caused by the change of the climate are different from the destruction of nature brought about by human greed as well as by poisonous industrial ventures.
The truth of the matter is that even long before the mention of climate change and the affirmation of its pervasive and profound ruinous consequence, the different upheavals of nature have long been taking place in this and that continent, in this and that part of the globe.
It is worth asking: Is it really climate change that brings about changes on earth as whole – or is it Earth change that forwards changes in the world climate?
To somehow appreciate the relevance and merit of the question, it might help to ask other questions: Is it actually the change in the climate that brought about the formation of mountains and the eruption of volcanoes, that causes land movements especially in terms of earthquakes, that in turn makes islands/islets appear or disappear? Interestingly, is it in fact, climate change that made the high mountains of Baguio rise that much and that high?
Is it not possible – just possible – that it is the change on earth that in fact promotes or brings about the change in the climate – not the other way around? Is it not said that the earth is a cooled and still cooling star or something? Is it not said that cooling of the earth is precisely what causes volcanoes to explode, blowing out burning lava from the center of the earth as this becomes cooler and smaller.
Again: Which causes what? Is it the changes in the climate that bring about the changes on earth – or it is the other way around, viz., the changes on earth instead bring about the changes in the climate? Just asking?/PN
