Fr.Shay CullenIt struck at 3.35 AM last week, in the darkness of the night,a loud rattling grew in intensity as the roof tiles went off like castanets clacking and clicking rising to a crescendo as the building shook violently.

It was another earthquake,a strong one,5.9 on the Richter scale and
I leapt from sleep and called on all in the house to evacuate. Then the  violent shaking stopped as suddenly as it had begun. It was over but taking no chances the volunteers hurried out side. A second quake could strike but mercifully it did not .

Standing a safe distance from the sturdy building the earthquake reminded us all of the powerful destructive forces of nature on this planet on which we came and live and depend for our every existence. An earth that we need to respect and care for.

The heaving and trembling of the earth, the rattling roof,the shaking  buildings was a vivid reminder of that shocking and terrible day that Mount Pinatubo began its eruption in 1991.It began with a violent earth tremor that grew in strength.  I was  trying to stay standing upright as the ground shook and then whopping bang  Mount  Pinatubo, thirty kilometers away, blew it’s top with mighty boom.Within seconds it was belching and blasting what seemed like a billion cubic meters of ash and smoke and a thousand tons of rock half a kilometer into the sky.

I was stunned,awe-struck, amazed and stood transfixed in wonder while gazing at this spectacular display of celestial fireworks. Huge burning volcanic debris continued to shoot upwards like a New year’s fireworks display.Great booms were heard  as if an arsenal exploded.

The black thick clouds of ash and smoke that billowed upwards crept across the face of the blazing tropical sun and quickly covered it  turning day onto night. The lightening was continuous, the bolts shot through the darkness burning a flaming path through the sulphur laden clouds.It was a sight to behold and never to forget.

This planet, a place of wonders and incredible beauty is but a tiny speck of dust in the vast expanse of the galaxy,one of billions of galaxies,it makes us ask, why? Why are we humans the only conscious self-aware life form here that contemplates the universe asking where  it came from and wondering how something so grand came from nothing but a big bang. Since we are of the universe ,have come form it and are part of it ,it is like the universe contemplating itself through us. The creator is in the universe and we can be one when we love and protect creation.

Here on earth the planet was showing its power and majesty against which the human species, the one with the big brains,stupidly and arrogance has set out to challenge. The voracious appetite and overwhelming greed of the human species is changing the  atmosphere to such an extent that the planet’s fragile climate and ecosystem is changing too.

Burn burn burn is the cry of the capitalist and the communists and all the money making moguls who,drill,dig,bore,pump and excavate the  fossil fuels that create a human volcano.  We are burning of coal ,oil
wood and belching clouds of fire and smoke into the environment. This is heating the planet to the point of no return.The tipping point is too close, there can be no going back if we don’t act now.

There will be no safe future for the next generations. We see droughts and floods, climate extremes that cause massive forest and bush fires raging across the earth,pumping clouds of polluting acrid fog of co2  that chokes and poisons every one who breaths.

The oceans absorb some of the CO2 that turns the waters into a   acidic bath. Plankton is the food whales and many fish and it si diminishing.  Fish species are threatened with extinction never to swim and swarm in the oceans of the planet. What are left are scooped up in huge nets for the tables of the moguls while a billion people go without.

What is happening? The planet is covered in a shroud of CO2 and methane gas, the sun is beating down and heats the earth,the hot air cannot escape trapped beneath the shroud of gases. The ice sheets are melting fast, the sun’s rays cannot be now reflected back into space and instead they heat the oceans and waters rise up to flood millions of homes.

The waters of rivers and seas warm up,the fish cannot adapt and  they die.The coral reefs,the feeding grounds of fish are dying too. Its a real scenario of doom and gloom. But its is not fiction as some tycoons and their paid scientists would have us believe.We can stop it.With a warmer world the more ocean water will evaporate to fill the  skies, the cold and hot air streams collide and gigantic rain and wind storms -typhoons come raging in destroying everything and everybody in their deadly paths.

This is what the global conferences on climate change is all about ,now to stop the burning and heating and use renewable source of energy like wind  and solar power. Later this year the next conference in Paris is crucial, there has to be a binding agreement between nations to limit the burning of fossil fuels and hold down the planets temperature.

In Tacloban, Pope Francis will hopefully, refer to this terrible dangerous situation of climate change and global warming which created the greatest storm ever to hit landfall last November 2013 in Tacloban.He comes to heal the wounded,comfort the bereaved, call for justice for the most vulnerable of all -the poor and the jobless,the  hovel dwellers and the downtrodden. We all need to put our faith into action and be fully alert,aware and alive, to save the planet,the poor and ourselves.  [email protected]