For better or for worse, online shopping and social media usage have skyrocketed since the pandemic started. Aggravated by social isolation and the monotony it brings, what used to be viewed as a luxury is now the norm—purchasing products and goods, from the most basic to the most frivolous, are...
How can Filipino farmers deal with global fertilizer shock and climate change, and continue to feed us? Last week, the European Union’s earth observation program Copernicus released new data that 2021 was the fifth warmest year on record, with the last seven years as the hottest years while...
Imagine living your life with no lights, no phones, and no internet connection. As tragic as it may sound, this is the reality of about 1.6 million Filipino households and around 12,000 sitios (small communities) in the country with no access to electricity. These unelectrified communities are part...
Being in nature, reconnecting with the wisdom of the land, and eating healthy food, fresh from the farm—what more can you ask for? I was able to experience these when I spent a month in the Stanford Hall Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm in Leicestershire, United Kingdom—living off the...
Typhoon Frank, which struck our municipality in Iloilo in 2008, still lives vividly in my mind. I remember how the night before the flood, my sisters and I, one of whom is a differently abled person, were nonchalant about what was happening outside. The blackout did not bother us because that meant...
As restrictions loosen up and the travel industry slowly recovers from the unprecedented effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are faced with another pressing crisis and that is the climate emergency. We are in the most decisive decade of human history—code red as science and environmental experts...
Writing and reflecting on each Conference of the Parties (COP) since Paris has always been such an exercise of awareness. It is always a struggle of balancing personal frustrations and beliefs with how the process is going, while also recognizing the many complexities of multi-country negotiations...
In the discussion of the circular economy in the Philippines, where are we headed? The conversation on the circular economy in the Philippines is growing in momentum, especially in small circles. As a practitioner myself, it’s interesting to see the conversation evolve into practice. The past few...
November is declared as a month for various environment-related concerns here in the Philippines. It is the Environmental Awareness Month (Republic Act No. 9512 or National Environmental Awareness Act of 2008), the Clean Air Month Through National Vehicle Inspection and Maintenance Consciousness...
When we think of farmers, the first image that usually comes to mind is a middle-aged man who is transplanting seedlings to the field. Very little attention is given to women farmers because of age-old traditions and stereotypes in farming. Around a quarter of the agricultural workforce in the...
Dear leader, As I write to you, leaders of all kinds are at Glasgow, oceans away in the United Kingdom for the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference. It’s dubbed as “the most important climate event of the century.” COP, for the readers, stands for the “Conference of the Parties.”...
A few years ago, this statement was splashed all over newspapers, magazines, and social media: “A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use, and water use.” It came from...
