Save our world first

Astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that they claim possesses Earth-like temperatures, making it potentially habitable by humans. But before you get your hopes up, please read on: It is 193 trillion kilometers away.

I like the comment that a CNN viewer texted the network, which was, in effect, that we seem to be wasting too much of our precious time bothering about distant possibilities when there is so much that needs to be done about the planet that we already have.

Yes, why grow teary-eyed imagining possibilities among the stars when our own Mother Earth is agonizing for immediate sympathy? Our world is in a bad shape and we need to take care of it first.

To be sure, all is not entirely lost or wasted in our dedicated and well-funded longing for evidence of extra-terrestrial life. What we learn of distant blips in the sky can add to our understanding of the universe that we live in.

But don''t you think we need to take care of our backyards first? What profits us if exciting discoveries in space fall onto our laps everyday if we suffer the steady degradation of every known habitat that we already have for ages?

Right now there are increasing evidences that climate change, no doubt brought on by human profligacy in the use of natural resources, is beginning to manifest itself in a variety of discomforts for human living.

In the Philippines for instance, which does not possess the voice to prod more powerful industrialized nations to go slow on greenhouse gas emissions, increasingly unbearable heat has been experienced for the past several weeks.

Worse, the experts are predicting that the heat will grow worse as the summer intensifies in May and early June. While before the country only experienced highs of only 33 or 34 degrees Celsius, now it has been quite common and consistent for 36 and 37 degrees to bear on us.

Even without benefit of scientific knowledge or academic know-how, Filipinos know the heat being felt this year is out of the ordinary and that it is not occurring out of happenstance. They may not be able to put their finger on anything, but they know it is there. But of course it is there. It only appears to be remote because the Philippines is not a major contributor or producer of the factors that affect the weather. The real culprits are those who, ironically, are in the forefront of the mad search for newer life in the heavens.

The United States, for instance, has always been in the forefront of such research. It is a leading exponent of extra-terrestrial search for life or its possibilities. It is one of the few countries that possess the ability for inter-galactic travel.

Yet despite the advances it has made, along with those of other nations, the fact remains that their successes taken together have barely scratched the surface of what it is they are really after.

In other words, the effort to find the possibilities of new life and what has been achieved out of that effort do not match the more imperative need to protect and preserve what we already have.

And even if we do gain breath-taking achievements in the search for new life, I do not think it will be of any immediate and practical use for the hapless Earth-bound citizens who are quickly running out habitable environs right now even as we speak.