THE ‘ber’ months have started. Thank God here at least in Bacolod and other parts of Negros Occidental, we are still experiencing rains. The local government is rightfully preparing for the expected dry spell or even drought. That means public investment in cloud seeding and private investments on air conditioning.
The problem with climate change is that the problem is global. We can run, even hide, but we cannot escape its dire effects. The current El Niño weather phenomenon could be one of the strongest on record, warned the World Meteorological Organization. International researchers say parts of the Pacific are likely to be 2º Celsius warmer than usual.
Still, we can count our blessings. Bacolod City Water District (Baciwa) has not yet started water rationing. But in Metro Manila, people are getting ready for 12-hour water interruptions. In Angat Dam, the metropolis’s main source of its freshwater, the situation is already way below normal rainfall, or less than 40 percent of average monthly rainfall.
Because Angat supplies almost 97 percent of Metro Manila’s water demand, water service concessionaires Maynilad Water Services Inc. and Manila Water Company Inc. and the National Water Resources Board recently agreed to reduce the water allocation for Metro Manila from 41 cubic meters per second in August to 38 cms this September to conserve the remaining water at Angat Dam.
This is the second time this year that the NWRB reduced the water allocation of Metro Manila households. In 2010, the El Niño deprived several cities of water supplies for 24 hours.
Can Filipinos simply leave our tropical country for more benign climes? Well, California, where most Fil-Ams live in the United States, is experiencing a prolonged drought from meteorological, hydrological, agricultural, and socioeconomic causes. That means reduced precipitation and streamflows, irrigation water cutbacks, and communities without running water.
The Golden State suffers from agricultural drought that links various characteristics of meteorological (or hydrological) drought to agricultural impacts, focusing on precipitation shortages, differences between actual and potential evapotranspiration, soil water deficits, reduced groundwater, or reservoir levels.
The waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean are heating up, climate scientists warn, building toward a strong El Niño event that could rival the intensity of the record 1997 event that wreaked weather-related havoc across the globe, from mudslides in California to fires in Australia.
Quite possibly one of the strongest on record, El Niño could finally bring the much-needed in California, but droughts in Australia, destructive floods in Peru, devastating flooding in the western US and drought in Southeast Asia, blamed for spreading deadly virus outbreaks in Africa, and rising coffee prices around the world.
Climate change can trump other local issues. If the December Paris Summit fails to come up with drastic agreement, we can expect more and more bad. And citizens of the world will find out there’s no escape from extreme weather events.
(bqsanc@yahoo.com)