Editor’s Note: Like it or not, but a 16-year-old girl got the world talking much about a problem (or not a problem) the world is facing today: Climate Change. Here’s an eloquent note in defense of Greta Thunberg and poem from Anthony Kintanar – a teacher, a biker and a poet from Cebu, Philippines – reminding us that we all live on one planet, and that there is no Planet B. The urgency is clear: saving our environment impacts on our health and safety.
Anthony Kintanar in defense of Greta: “The ones who are leading the destruction of the planet’s habitability are not autistic. And their speeches, rehearsed or not, are implacable. They went to the best schools, have the most awards. They are lauded and emulated, the epitome of success. They have the finest in everything. They move lives, mountains, societies, and governments like checkers on the board. They are textbook-perfect in their greed. Yet are they the apex of creation, or can people, humanity, dare to aspire for less possessions but be more humane, kinder, happier, individually and collectively?”
Hazetag #1
By Anthony Kintanar
It is the time of haze,
in the emptied lands and seas,
of this country of no returns,
no receipts, merely
debts and regrets.
There is haze in the air
and hazing in the schools.
Hurt. The lungs and the heart.
Grievous. The young maimed and killed.
Countless lives snuffed yet the air,
the cheerers, none the better.
More choking still the haze
in the minds and souls
of those blinding themselves
to reality in loving the maniacs
off the almanac. In the Palace,
in the halls and in the mansions,
in the courts and in the precincts,
in themselves. For pay or spite,
Hate and bullets in haste.
Better off the split-brained,
Purple hazes playing on the link.
