Obama's phone call shows Filipinos in the age of stupid

Described as an Eco-film, “The age of stupid” premiered in London last March 14. Set in the year 2025, the docu-drama expounds on the damage our planet faces if we, the generation that can do something about Climate Change, opt to remain stupid and do nothing.

“The age of stupid” is referred to by its producers as more of a crusade rather than just a film. Technically-speaking, it can be considered fiction but the projected 2025 ecological scenarios of planet devastation are based on scientific facts, the film producers claimed.

“The age of stupid” is an independent production that’s said to have been funded by donations from eco-supporters. The art dealer, Frederick Mulder, was one of the mentioned donors of the film project, said to have given 12,000 British Pounds. The film is directed by Franny Armstrong and stars Oscar-nominated British actor Peter Postlethwaite.

In its website (www.theageofstupid.net/premiere), the producers claimed that their premiere will be the world’s first-ever, 100% eco-friendly film launch. Among its eco-friendly features are a full eco audit of emissions, use of a solar-powered projector, use of a pedal powered popcorn machine, use of a re-used and reusable green carpet, use of bicycles and electric powered vehicles charged with renewable energy for the film celebrities, use of bio-diesel for the other vehicles and the sale of organic chocolate, beer and soft drinks.

In a recent televised debate on climate change staged by the BBC, one professor defending the position that there is no real danger faced — advanced the reasoning that climate change is a scientific hoax, a fallacy.

His basis for stating that climate change is a hoax is that the world spans a wide variance of climactic conditions, from minus 40 degrees in the colder north to plus 40 degrees (and hotter) in the warmer south of our planet. He concluded that a few degrees of climate warming cannot be as devastating as climate change advocates are warning.

Now, only the stupid will buy that rather idiotic remark. Obviously, that professor does not know what he is talking about. Place the North Pole and Antarctica under plus 40 degrees of warmth and we’ll all be deluged by 100-foot tidal waves that will make the great East Asian tsunami a few years ago look like a bathtub ripple.

In the case of that professor that was a participant in the BBC climate change debate, the stupidity is easily detected. In many other cases of mass stupidity, it goes undetected for many years and can even be passed on to several generations.

A good example is us Filipinos — how we are proceeding with our daily lives as if we do not have a serious danger facing our nation. How else do we call it but mass stupidity when our nation wastes its energies on the most worthless of issues while totally oblivious to the real threat to its very existence?

Here are our so-called leaders wasting their energies over that telephone call last weekend that US President Barack Obama made to Madame Gloria Macapagal Arroyo — FINALLY! Madame Arroyo’s Office of the Panegyric Secretary, oops, we mean Office of the Press Secretary, makes a mountain out of a simple phone call, as if trying to erase the three previous snubs Obama gave the current Malacanang Palace occupant.

Not to be outdone in stupidity, the members of the Opposition try to downplay the Obama phone call as if that call was the all-important historic event that could save the long despised administration from imminent collapse.

Both the administration and the Opposition are oblivious of the fact that Obama’s phone call comes at a time when there is a developing tension in the South China Sea between the US and China. Now, that is stupid.

Both the administration and the Opposition are oblivious of the fact that this escalating tension between the 20th century superpower (the US) and looming 21st century superpower (China) are converging on the Philippines over the control of the sea lanes of the South China Sea and the vast reserves of oil in the Spratlys. Now, that is really very stupid.

According to the CIA Fact Book, the US can mobilize a total military personnel force of 118 million while China can mobilize a total of 720 million. Both military forces are capable of waging wide scale nuclear warfare.

Both are desperately running out of oil. The US runs out of its oil reserves in 11 years while China runs out in 14 years (Source: Oil and Gas Journal, December 2006). Both will need the oil reserves in the South China Sea — believed to equal the reserves of Iran or Iraq, the third and fourth biggest oil reserves in the world after Saudi Arabia and Canada.

It so happens that the Philippines is strategic to the future of both the US and China and this developing tension in the South China Sea between the two superpowers places us, like ants, in the middle of the two dueling elephants.

Caught in the vortex of a fast developing US-China confrontation and all we can focus on is the social aspect of Barack Obama’s telephone call. Now, that is really very stupid, don’t you agree?

*      *      *

Chair Wrecker e-mail and website: [email protected] and www.chairwrecker.com