How hot do we want to get?

Climate change has caused a 60-fold increase in purple sea urchins, which eat kelp forests. The kelp forests are as important to the ocean as trees are to the land. Like trees, they absorb carbon emissions and provide critical habitats and food for a wide range of species.

Without kelp, red urchins die. Without kelp, the oceans’ food chain is affected. Otters and starfish used to feed on the purple urchins, but their number has dwindled, multiplying the urchins’ population. This was reported by the Financial Times in its October 2018 issue.

The marine heat wave is warmer than what humans have ever recorded. Over 90 percent of the heat trapped on earth is caused by greenhouse emissions produced by humans, and is absorbed by the oceans, increasing its temperature.

As I write this, a super typhoon is hitting Luzon. We have received many typhoons this year, and we have been victims of the war against climate change. Japan has also been a victim of the worst typhoons in its history.

We are running out of food and our dying natural resource capital cannot support our increasing population. Already, we are running out of rice and fish, and soon our water resources will dwindle.

We cannot survive anymore the rise in temperature and the effects of climate change.

The US has had its share of hurricanes while Europe its share of droughts as the rivers dry out. The world temperature continues to rise, while the seas are heating up.

Climate change, the acknowledged biggest threat of our time, goes on unabated.

First-world countries continue their infrastructure mitigation to keep the waters away, but nothing truly concrete has been done to mitigate climate change. Our people and planet continue to suffer and, yes, we are reaching the tipping point. The polar bears are out of ice as the Arctic continues to melt.

How many more Super Typhoon Haiyans/Yolandas do we need? How many more people must die? Are we waiting for the day that our soil can no longer be planted or our oceans no longer have life? How hot do we want the earth to get? How high do we want our oceans to reach before we stop the cancer that is killing us all?

The Paris accord calls for a rise in temperature of less than 1.5-percent above pre- industrial levels. However, this is not being followed.

I call on the United States of America and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and all governments and corporations to do their part and help mitigate climate change and stop greenhouse gas emissions once and for all, or face the world as criminals of the highest order.

It’s the same old song, and I am infuriated and filled with disgust, as conservation has not just become a game of socialites, but a business. – Antonio M. Claparols, President, Ecological Society of the Philippines