“Heal the worldmake it a better place,

for you and for me and the entire human race…”

So goes the song popularized by all-time favorite icon Michael Jackson. It may sound cliché to some, but hey, every lyric implies something; echoes of plea seem to reverberate from someone who’s in dire need of help amidst adversity.

Ages ago, she was once robed with elegantly dazzling features of greenery. Dense was her hair with lush emeralds falling perfectly, with color symbolizing the sign of hope. Her eyes were glinting like crystal-clear waters which aren’t perturbed by the plates beneath the ocean floor. As she exhales, her breath whispers fresh, thin air of oxygen soothing every living creature. With her rounded face eternal as the heavens above, her children’s nothing more to ask than to live in that serene and peaceful motherly arms of hers embracing them.

With the tides of fleeting time however, everything turned out differently. There she is on one nook left alone, singing the lyrics above, but only few cares. Gone are the days where she beams that tranquil aura. Nowadays, you’ll see her poised with ferocious glare of madness, of anger. She’s always drowning herself in the oceans of fear and uncertainty. This time, her every breath surges with thick fuming gases of bitterness, of frustrations. Devastated.

The glinting rays of the sun seeped through my seemingly half-burnt skin from the community medicine immersion we were in. It was a far-flung coastal barangay devoid of fast connections from the cyberspace perfect to recollect with oneself. Echoes of serenity from the calming waves of the sea lightens my weary soul every morning while the melodious rustling of leaves lull me to sleep at night. For one month I was immersed in a foreign land with unknown people and the routine of spending moments by the shore offer me refuge.

And there goes one humid afternoon. Seeing the vast horizons, I settled on the fine beach sand while leaning behind the “bangka” or a small fishing boat for a little time to introspect. The fresh breeze of the sea rejuvenates my inner recesses and seeing the clean, cerulean waters makes me ponder:

Does the calmness I see from above reflect what lurks underneath?

From there I tread the path and submerged myself to the inviting thought. As I inched my way farther to the deep, I feel abrasive pains under my feet. The rock bottom is literally encompassed with spiny rocks which caused me little cuts in the toes. Striding beyond the passing currents, plastic trashes swam midway the crest and troughs on their way back to the shore. I suddenly have withdrawn from it and went back to the nook I was on.

Sometimes, we are obsessed to the wonders of everything we see above or the ground. Deceptively they may look as fine but deep down under, it says otherwise. With the fast-pacing world today, it seems that majority has already neglected a pearl which is imperative to our responsibility as stewards of creation: tending our nature’s wonders, our sanctuary.Yes, the woman I’m referring to above is no ordinary woman; she is but Mother Earth whom in her arms nestled the very life of every living creature and humankind.

It is sad to note that we human beings, the major species who benefit the most, are the ones who destroy the environment. Global climate change altered the way we live and connect with nature which posed hazardousthreats in the generations to come. Apathetic, humans generated the highest cause of inflicting irreversible damage on the sustainability of our ecosystems.

So the Earth’s average warming of global temperatures has increased about two degrees according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Two degrees may be negligible at first thought, but contrary to what we know, small changes in temperature correspond to massive, perilous changes in our environment. In almost two degrees, global sea level has risen to up to 8 inches, Arctic Ocean is likely to become ice-free as glaciers have shrunk,there are more occurrences of drought seasons and changes in precipitation patterns and so to note affecting the usual habitat of living creatures.Two degrees but with its constant rise in decades, chiefly due to human culture that bring about greenhouse gases, life may be halted.

Afloat the Water’s Ferocity

In the Philippines, an average of 20 typhoons visit us yearly (with super ones resulting to massive flashfloods) considering our archipelagic doctrine where Pacific Ocean bound us. It was June 2008, I was still starting to adapt living independently in the metro when typhoon named “Frank” hit us intently, as though punishing me personally. Two nights and three days I’ve lived alone in my dorm- no water, no electricity neither pennies to buy candles or ample food for survival. Phone lines were also disabled; I had no batteries to connect with my parents back home in the province. I starved, felt hopeless, but all I’ve got to do was sleep in order not to feel anything. As “Frank” gradually ceased, I struggled to travel home. Unfortunately, in the middle of my journey, I was stuck in a bridge where vehicles can’t pass through due to the waist-level-high flash floods. With persistence to go home, I hurdled the angry flood on foot, swam against the currents while snapping elbows together with other folks who also wanted to cross. We’re stuck to no-chance-of-coming-back not to mention seeing two people who’re crossing the currents being taken away by flood to death.The next time I see myself was already at home. “I survived.”

Wayback November 2013, different stories also surfaced the globe when Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan), one of the strongest tropical cyclones ever recorded, devastated portions of Southeast Asia and predominantlyhit the central Philippines and caused early demise of over 6,000 lives and displaced over four million people. As a result of typhoon environmentally, oil spills became afloat from knocked down barges, mangroves and other natural resources were destroyed, and residents were asked to evacuate affected areas as benzene levels in the air had reached maximum amounts, not to mention the looting and violent incidents that had happened by the side. During Haiyan’s aftermath thatspurted us with strong, storm surges and towering-high flashfloods, it turned the once peaceful provinces of hope into a sepulcher of depression, where corpses scattered and decayed everywhere in the streets seeming to reverberate their stories and a call for everyone to heed and change.

These and other hurricanes in all parts of the world are signifying cyphers that continue to keep afloat for us to take preventive actions in the years to come. Reforestation or a simple tree planting routine may help rebuild the wounds of the earth and prevent more of these calamities to strike harmfully.

Through the Fire

Currently, I am taking up a joint degree of medicine and a master in public administration major in health emergency and disaster at a state university in the province where its human development index (HDI) is at par with India’s and where the active stratovolcanoMayon, renowned for its ‘perfect cone’ shape resides. For the past 500 years, this alone has already erupted 47 times not to mention the other 500 active volcanoes in our planet that cause some 50 ruptures in a year. Early this January, I witnessed one of its phreatic eruptions that propelled a grayish steam and ash plume while holding classes in school – it was dangerous as it was majestic. Early nightfall seem to occur in broad daylight as darkness engulfed the atmosphere due to ashfall. The month-long rumbling every night that caused me sleepless nights and anxiety was disheartening, making me realize that indeed we, humans must take immediate action in order to save our planet.

Together with Mayon that sparked interest in worldwide media were the powerful quake that caused avalanche and hit the Gulf of Alaska in the early morning, the relatively shallow magnitude quake of Indonesia’s Java in the afternoon, not to mention the sudden eruption of Mount Kasatsu-Shirane in Japan. This is because what is stretching along the pacific coastlines is the Ring of Fire, where the Pacific plate is grinding against other plates that form the Earth’s crust. Though unlike other Earth’s elements disaster abovementioned, volcanic spurts may purely be naturally-mediated more than human activity-caused, however we are already called upon by Mother Earth to awaken and learn how to take care of her precious gems. Let us not wait for more unrests to come to life before we begin to ponder and move.

When the Air strikes a Blow

As future physician, I am aware that lung and respiratory diseases have been consistent in the top five causes of morbidity in the world for years. However, in several nations even to ours, more coal-fired power plants are set to build amidst the fact that coal is becoming obsolete and poses significant harmful effects on public health. Despite the Paris Agreement, the first global climate treaty that seeks to address climate change by cutting carbon emissions, our country is unfaltering in its designs to continuously rely on coal for energy.

For the record, burning coal is the biggest single source of carbon dioxide emissions from human activity. Moreover, the World Health Organization recently estimated that one in nine deaths in 2012 were attributable to diseases caused by carcinogens and other poisons in polluted air. Isn’t this alarming? Inhaling polluted air regularly increases one’s risk of contracting cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, which could lead to paralysis or death.Maybe one or two may not experience the effects for now, but are we going to wait for our bodies to bag down?

Air pollution and stratospheric ozone depletion causing enhanced ultra-violet radiation at the earth’s surface, are causing widespread injury to both human and animal populations, forests and crops. Carbon loading is the culprit and reducing carbon footprints is the key. Halting the cause could minimize the risks, a simple walk or cut-down with our day-to-day vehicle use may be a micro-effort but soon its greater effects would bring forth remedy to our sick environment. Let us not wait for the day to come when even fresh oxygen can only be available sold in bottles as we have with our waters nowadays.

The Fangs of the Earth

Going back to where I was during my lone-time connection with nature in the community I was in for a month, one neglected problem of the world today that I’ve also seen there continues to be about garbage. Indiscriminate and improper disposal of trashes seem to have created another planet which ravages and slowly degrades the vitality of life and creation.Dumping of toxic, nuclear, and biomedical waste and environmental disasters of enormous scale have begun to cut deep scars into the Earth’s ecosystem, degrade a large portion of its vegetated surface and disrupt its delicate ecological balance.

It was October 2013 when a 7.2 magnitude earthquake shook the Central Philippines again and turned it into muddy, fractured pieces of terrain ruining the region where my family exactly resides. That deadliest earthquake equivalent to 32 Hiroshima bombs engulfed two hundreds of Filipino’s loved ones. In just minutes of tectonic tremble and 72 aftershocks, simple dreams were broken into hopeless pieces of despair and tragedy. The earthquake activity in the Himalayas in 2015 Nepal earthquake also took close to 9,000 lives. Rethink. Embrace a greener lifestyle. Recycling is the simplest solution that unleashes our creativity to set purpose on things that we often consider as trash.

We are fast approaching many of the earth’s limits; its ability to provide for growing numbers of people, to provide food and energy, and to absorb wastes and destructive effluent. Current human culturedamages the environment beyond repair. We only have a little time remaining before we still have the chance to avert the threats we now confront.Putting awareness into action is of highly essential value in this time and age. Environmentally, what we have done may be reversed by beginning to bring these damages under control through focusing on the preventive aspect in order to restore and protect the integrity of the earth’s ecosystems. If we are not to act on now, we could be dangerously trapped in twists of environmental unrest and decline which would hardly make us realize this millennium’s sustainable development goals leading to worldwide environmental collapse. We may be the cause of these catastrophes that are happening, but in our very hands lie the cure to alleviate, if not end, the earth’s suffering after all.

In two degrees, we suffer the toll of our own wrongdoings. In more than two degrees, we could barely see the beauty of Mother Earth. But more than just two degrees, let’s not wait for “Sorrys” to be late before more of these catastrophes come and hit our lives- it’s best to start from simple things and undo our old ways before we will unable to sustain life as we know it: Recycle. Plant trees. Conserve water. Respect her.

(Chosen as Finalist, World Youth Essay Competition 2018)