EDITORIAL - Reaping what we have sown

Because typhoon Gener proved much stronger than previously forecast, and whose effects therefore came largely unexpected (heavier rains, wider floods), critical eyes began yet again to focus on the poor Pagasa.

Maybe it is because of the personal tragedies, business losses, routine disruptions, and general inconveniences that require everyone to make great sacrifices that the popular mood turns to finding someone to blame.

And of course what more looming target is there than the Pagasa even if there is never any blaming it completely. No matter how many instances can be cited in which the Pagasa may have apparently erred, the fact is there is never any predicting the weather.

That is why even the best meteorological services in the most advances countries in the world can only make weather forecasts but never weather predictions. Forecasts are approximations and estimations. They are not precise conclusions.

Even storm tracking is based on past models and prior experiences, not accurate mapping of direction. So while all of these are helpful, they are only helpful to a certain degree, and only if we respond to them prudently.

In the end, however, we are all still at the mercy of the weather. And if the weather chooses to be cruel, it will be as if there was never any warning at all, whether by conventional wisdom or by professionals.

And because of man’s abuses of nature, we have skewed climate patterns to such an extent that the weather now has gone haywire and totally uncooperative. The great technological advances made in the past several decades are no match for the extreme mood swings of the weather.

Thus, while it is now possible to forecast rain with greater reliability (meteorologists have taken to using percentages, as in 90 percent chance of rain in, say Metro Cebu) it has become exponentially harder to say just how hard the rain will fall.

The weather has become testy and we are no match against it, making it useless and pointless to turn such institutions as Pagasa into needless scapegoats. We are reaping the fruits of our own carelessness and disregard for the earth and its environment.