ISSUE ANALYSIS No. 15
August 9 , 2007

Global Warming and the Threats to ‘Human Security’

Blaming the global warming tends to dilute and conceal the accountability of the government for the destruction of the country’s ecosystem, previously considered as one of the richest in the world.

The phenomenon of global warming has been a convenient scapegoat for taking the heat off the government as the whole country braces with the effects of the dry spell and the continuing floods and droughts. Global warming, a result of the emission of carbon dioxide, burning of fossil fuel, and other air pollution, has been blamed by government policy makers for the recent power outages, water crisis, low agricultural production, and other indications of forthcoming economic woes.

Considering that global warming is expected to deteriorate for the rest of the century with devastating effects on the Philippine population and economy – as in the rest of the world - it could even be used to legitimize the resort to “emergency powers” as a permanent fixture. Because the dire economic consequences such as threats to food security could fuel massive street protests and rural unrest, it wouldn’t be a surprise if global warming may earn the “terrorist” tag thus providing teeth for the full-blast implementation of the Human Security Act of 2007.

Blaming the global warming tends to dilute and conceal the accountability of the government for the destruction of the country’s ecosystem, previously considered as one of the richest in the world. Early signs of widespread floods, dangers to the water reservoirs, droughts, landslides, and desertification had been noted as early as the 1970s when parts of the country were inundated by flashfloods even as power failures, air and water pollution, the biological death of rich marine grounds, periodic droughts, and other disasters were taking place.

At that time and even earlier, warnings had been raised with regard to the destruction of the country’s watersheds as a result of deforestation, and the comprehensive losses suffered by the rest of the ecosystem wrought by mining operations and other forms of development aggression. A couple of years ago, the country’s forest cover which once comprised 36 million hectares of the land system further dwindled to just below 6 million hectares with the remaining forests disappearing completely by 2025 if logging is not completely banned.

Export policies

In recent decades, the depletion of the country’s natural wealth was aggravated by export policies that relied on commercial crop production and extraction of mineral resources. The introduction of the “Green Revolution” turned many of the country’s once self-sufficient farms into wastelands owing to massive use of imported fertilizer and pesticides.

Agricultural production, food security and rural/urban employment were further doomed by neo-liberal policies that opened up the country’s economy to cheap farm commodities and other imports, the adoption of labor contractualization, and the privatization of key strategic state services. The privatization of major water and power distribution systems has only led to new taxes, higher consumption rates, and more corporate wealth. The scheme never proved to be for the benefit of consumers and taxpayers.

Indeed, global warming has ferocious effects on the country’s remaining ecosystem, economy, and food security. Reports by the World Wide Fund (WWF), climate and agricultural scientists have pointed to the deterioration of the country’s watersheds and water reservoirs in the midst of global warming. Rice yields have fallen by as much as 15 percent for every 1 percent increase in temperature.

Long before the country began to face the dire consequences of global warming, however, the ecology and economic production have been threatened by government mismanagement, neo-liberal policies, flawed legislation, and corruption with incredible consequences to human and food security, employment, and the nation’s future as a whole. Such whole-scale destruction makes the environment and economy greatly vulnerable to the effects of global warming so that short-term remedies will not suffice anymore.

In many countries, such threats including unsound development policies would constitute the real threats to human security, and not the “terrorism” or “insurgency” that the likes of President Gloria M. Arroyo have consistently hyped about.