Our fading shield: Why a dimmer planet spells danger for every Filipino

By Michael F. Rellosa

Weeks of rain drove me indoors and gave me time to read and watch. I came across an article on the scientific community’s raising the alarm on our drastically diminishing albedo. To help explain this, have you ever walked barefoot in Manila on a scorching May afternoon? You instinctively know to avoid the dark asphalt that blisters your feet and seek the relative cool of a lighter-colored pavement. In a way, we’ve all understood the basic science of albedo our entire lives. It’s the simple idea that light surfaces reflect heat, while dark surfaces absorb it.

Now, imagine this simple principle playing out on a planetary scale. Earth has its own “white shirt”— the vast, bright ice caps of the Arctic and Antarctic, the sprawling glaciers, and our ever-present clouds. This natural shield reflects a portion of the sun’s energy back into space, acting as a global cooling system that has kept our climate stable for millennia.

But our planet’s white shirt is becoming stained and tattered. Decades of warming have caused a catastrophic loss of this reflective ice, exposing the dark, heat-hungry ocean beneath. It’s a terrifying feedback loop: as the planet warms, more ice melts. As more ice melts, less sunlight is reflected and more heat is absorbed. This absorbed heat warms the planet further, melting even more ice. Scientists call this a decline in Earth’s albedo, but for us, it’s the dimming of our planet’s primary defense system. And for Filipinos, standing on the front lines of the climate crisis, the consequences are deeply personal.

The supercharging of our typhoon season

Every year, as the “ber” months approach, a familiar sense of dread settles over the nation. We know the rhythm of the typhoon season. We know the names that have become etched into our history: Ondoy, Sendong and the unforgettable Yolanda (Haiyan). A declining global albedo is like pouring gasoline on that fire.

The primary ingredient for a typhoon is a warm ocean. The extra heat our planet is now absorbing, because its shield is failing, is being stored in the vast Pacific Ocean — the very birthplace of our storms. This means that developing storms are feeding on superheated water, allowing them to intensify with terrifying speed and devastating power. We are no longer just facing typhoons; we are facing a future of super typhoons becoming the norm, bringing with them winds that can level cities and rainfall that can trigger widespread, deadly floods. The fight to protect our homes and families during storm season is getting harder because of a phenomenon happening thousands of kilometers away in the melting Arctic.

A nation of islands on a rising sea

Our identity as Filipinos is inseparable from the sea. From the fishing barangay of lore to the bustling ports of Manila, Batangas, Subic, Cebu, Cagayan de Oro, Davao and General Santos, our life, culture and economy are tied to our 36,289 kilometers of coastline. That very coastline is now under direct threat.

The excess heat absorbed by the planet is causing the oceans to warm and expand, a process called thermal expansion. At the same time, the melting of land-based glaciers in places like Greenland is pouring trillions of tons of water into the sea. For us, this isn’t just a statistic in a report; it’s the slow-motion crisis of our shores disappearing. It’s the saltwater seeping into the farmland of coastal communities. It’s the foundations of homes in coastal Metro Manila and its adjacent provinces becoming permanently inundated. For a nation of over 7,600 islands, rising seas aren’t just an environmental problem — they are an existential threat to our communities and our national territory.

The threat to our dinner table

Beneath the waves, another catastrophe is unfolding. The Philippines is the heart of the Coral Triangle, the “Amazon of the ocean.” These vibrant reefs are the foundation of our marine life and, by extension, the source of food and livelihood for millions. But corals are incredibly sensitive to heat. The same absorbed ocean heat that fuels typhoons is causing mass coral bleaching, turning our kaleidoscopic reefs into ghostly white graveyards.

When the corals die, the fish leave. For the local “mangingisda” (fisherman), this means sailing farther out for a smaller catch. For families across the country, it means the rising price of galunggong (mackerel scad) and other staple fish at the market. The dimming of our planet directly threatens the food on our table and the stability of the communities that feed us.

This isn’t a distant future problem. This is our reality now. The failing albedo is a global crisis, but it hits home in the most intimate ways — in the strength of the next typhoon, the water lapping at our shores and the food we eat. The fight to restore our planet’s reflective shield through global action is, for every Filipino, a fight for our survival.

Source: manilatimes.net