Our Green Minds To Triumph Over Climate Change Right Where We Are!

As climate changers, we must pay attention beyond rice only, beyond trees only, and beyond vegetables only – we must cover all. I took the above image at 6:24 AM in my hometown Asingan, Pangasinan, before the 8th National Rice Technology Forum held that day, 20 March 2019 – here is a selfie that is not a selfie!

In the face of climate change, it may not be obvious, but I am challenging the information workers, communicators and news or views contributors public & private in my country the Philippines for their journalism to work for the Inclusive Development of Agriculture in Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao. "Inclusive development" means you include the poor as active contributors, not simply remember them when you are ready with your alms or, as practiced by the PH government, ready with the 4Ps: Pray Pay Poor People! This is not cultivating people; not cultivating progress.

Actually, I started this call with my essay "Narrow View On Press Freedom – Joel Salud & Jiggy Manicad's. This Is A Journalist Speaking" (30 January 2019, Journalism for Development, blogspot.com). I say there that Mr Salud and Mr Manicad both have a limited view on press freedom; they are talking only of limitations, not expressions of that freedom towards social progress.

Yes, our journalists hardly talk about climate change and then, when they do, only superficially. It is the greatest challenge in our times, and they are largely ignoring it!

No, our journalists are not ignorant people – they just don't care about climate change except to quote a government official, who in turn says it because he is expected to say it. No, there are no concrete plans of the Philippine government to fight climate change. Or, which is the same thing, no program to help our farmers fight climate change.

Now then, if we marry the Sciences of Forestry, Agriculture and Horticulture, we must be engaged in what I call The Greening Revolution – on the mountains, in the fields, and in the gardens, we must have Green Minds.

This is how to marry those 3 sciences to fight climate change – Think Green to absorb carbon dioxide from the air. So, Think Green when you think:

Forestry.
Agriculture.
Horticulture.

Forestry – Protect the forests as much as you can. When replanting for trees, keep bare soil covered with forest vegetation. Agroforestry? Same thing – Think Green!

Agriculture – Keep the ground covered with green: green manure, intercrops. And no plowing! Some 74 years ago, the foolishness of plowing was exposed by Ohio farmer Edward H Faulkner in his book Plowman's Folly published in 1945, where he said, "The fact is that no one has ever advanced a scientific reason for plowing" (amazon.com). Instead, rotavate the soil to enrich the brown with green. Think Green!

Horticulture – I can see rows and rows of flowers, vegetables, fruits and trees with bare soils in between. Instead, gardeners should be covering the soil with productive crops – you get your produce, and you get to fight climate change on the winning side. Think Green!517