Greencaviar Travel

To the Places I have Been Before Almost two weeks after the typhoon disaster, the resilience of the Filipino people is being debated by the netizens. I will not go into that debate.  Nature has the capacity to repair itself, but one thing for sure : It will be a struggle for the victims of typhoon Haiyan to rebuild their lives , especially those who lost their loved ones . So let's not forget the victims when the news about this calamity starts to fade . I found the lyrics to Jason Mraz, "93 Thousand Miles" ( background music to the video I created a year ago ) somewhat serendipitous. "Sometimes it may seem dark, but the absence of the light is a necessary part. Just know, you're never alone, you can always come back home... There is always a hand that you can hold on to. Looking deeper through the telescope You can see that your home’s inside of you .” The Philippines is a part of the so-called "Ring o

Coron, Palawan, Philippines (background image on this blog - a top destination for scuba divers for its coral and WWII shipwrecks) the place I visited last year was the last island hit by typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda). Although the devastation is not as bad as in Tacloban City, Coron is left with no electricity, no water and food supply.  The typhoon victims are in urgent need of food, drinking water; medicines (antibiotics, medicines for cough, fever), mosquito nets, blankets, clothes. As an average person, I could not do anything to help but watch the news and give to humanitarian agencies and charitable organizations that have immediate access to the devastated areas.   Also, this calamity begs the question: Is climate change to blame for superstorm like Haiyan that hit the Philippines? We don’t know. To gain some perspective, I went to read on Climate Change from the National Academy of Science website. Here's the link: http://nas-sites.org/americasclimatechoices/sample-page/

I attended a ‘Climate One” discussion with the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Sally Jewell on Thursday. “Climate One” is a special project of the Commonwealth Club, seeking to foster wide-ranging discussions on environmental, energy, and climate change issues, and making the discussions available to a broad range of people around the world. It was a privileged to hear and ask the head of the Department of the Interior, which is responsible for extracting resources from public lands and protecting the landscapes, herself. The whole program will be broadcast on NPR (KQED in Northern California) so I’ll just summarize the key points. Secretary Jewell started out by giving a background on the role of her department, which has the responsibility of the US owned public lands and natural resources, protecting water resources and wildlife, and preserving the environmental and cultural values of national historic places, promoting clean air and breathing space. She expl