Blogs
Environmental Issues have been destroying a lot of properties, infrastructures, and even taking lives people but why did this even start in the first place? The answer is Man. Man has caused many scars to Mother Earth which led us to this state. It was the thinking that Man is the greatest being that God created, anthropocentrism, which caused us to think that we can exploit everything we find on earth. At the start of Creation, we were given the intelligence not to abuse the resources of Mother Earth but so that we could use this to enhance and better nature without harming it. I, as a person thought all hope was lost since in the Philippines alone accumulates a lot of trash which we can find everywhere. I thought that the Philippines, as a country, would suffer the constant changes that is happening to our world; that we would never be able to adapt and realize that all these things are happening because of our ignorance towards the purpose of nature and how humans are the ones dependent on Mother Nature. All these thoughts have been running through my mind every time I hear various news about how landslides due to lack of trees took hundreds of lives; how the once considered natural occurrences now considered calamities took millions and millions of lives.
All these thoughts may have been running through my mind for a very long time but upon experiencing and exploring CELL I slowly changed my thinking, and my perspective towards the issues and how we address them. I saw that there was still hope for people to change. Seeing the wondrous and beautiful parts of nature I realized that I, as a part of the human race, can’t give up on my fellow humans because the mere fact that there are reserves, there are parks, and other places where we experience the presence of Mother Earth only shows that we still see nature as a great part of our lives. The fact that people have been trying and trying to find ways to solve ecological issues, despite failing, shows that we, humans, still care. Our actions may have been so little that we think that it was pointless to go on but little do we know that with our change of heart, our change in lifestyle, and our change as inhibitors of the Earth, in general, contributes to the many advances that would eventually reverse the destruction we once caused Mother Earth.
The CELL also known as the Center for Ecozoic Living and Learning was started by a group of monks the namely Columbian Missionaries. They started with the vision of humans being able to live in harmony with all of Creation in a just society. Their mission is to convert humans such that they would stop destroying nature and later on become the ones to enhance it for the better. With all these being said we could see that the simple Columbian Missionaries stated something revolutionary such that they left a great impact to everyone; this would help us realize that nature is finite and if we continue to live extravagantly and continue to waste every resources we have we would eventually use up everything. The CELL was not a boring place where we just walk around looking at trees having orientations; no, it was a fun place where we could see the connection between humans and nature. It was said that one tree where their altar was located once one of the monks dies the tree also died, this scenario alone shows that we also somewhat connected to nature. While touring around we picked different fruits such as the cocoa and the Rambutan which we ate while continuing to tour around. We learned that the waste we produce, our feces, can be used as fuel or it can be recycled and turned into clean water. Lastly we learned the cycle of life in the CELL and how each animal had a certain purpose it must do, like how certain earthworms are used to produce natural fertilizer that would not harm the soil and cause intoxication of soil.
The youth in general is part of the new generation such that we have new technology and better knowledge of our surroundings. We face a world full of new technology but we not be blinded of these shiny things but instead use these as tools to would reverse our past mistakes that caused the continuous destruction of the Earth. Being part of the youth we have to remove our anthropocentric thinking and avoid being materialistic. We have to stop being ignorant and being selfish and start thinking about others and how Climate Change, Global Warming, and other calamities affect them mentally, emotionally, and physically. As seen in the CELL we can use our biological waste to generate energy that can be used or converted to other different resources. We could also use solar energy to generate different communities. Furthermore instead of using pesticides we could use plants that can emit a smell that would repel insects from coming to our gardens. Let us all stop for a while, reflect on our actions and reconnect with nature.
