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AS a manager, I believe I should be up on my toes to do something
out of the ordinary or to put it in a management, business-like,
expert way—to think outside-of-the-box.
So when I got to visit National Book Store, my
knee-jerk reaction was to surreptitiously stare at the latest cover
of FHM, until I was distracted by the Time magazine March 24, 2008
cover story bantering “10 Ideas That Are Changing the World.”
Immediately, I shelled out P120 and proudly
displayed my “Laking National” loyalty card to the cashier as I
mentally computed the hefty 40 percent margin that National should
probably earn in the process.
Flipping through the color pages of Time, I
readily concluded as expected, that its editorial team is worth
emulating as it dishes out another exhaustive story that makes you
feel, work, and think updated on current events around the world.
Unfortunately, it is not enough for me to become
a regular Time subscriber because new ideas on how to deliver my
copies promptly and immaculately clean without boogers on its cover
appear to be lost on the magazine’s local distributor.
I ignored this monumental personal problem for a
while because I was dumb fixated on an article about
“geo-engineering”—as the No. 6 idea on the Time’s list. As
I’ve gathered from Time, the basic idea behind geoengineering is
man’s deliberate, systematic, and large-scale attempt to modify
the Earth’s environment to suit human needs and promote
habitability.
Geoengineering intends to solve problems such as
global warming, precipitated in part by the record melting of ice in
the Artic Ocean, which is foreseen to be ice-free in summer 2013,
according to Bryan Walsh, author of the said Time article.
The principle behind geoengi-neering is
straightforward. Global warming could be cured by “an intensified
greenhouse effect by reducing the amount of solar radiation reaching
the earth,” says Walsh.
Except that he bandies about that the solutions
are “pure science fiction” such as using orbital mirrors to
bounce the sunlight back into space, fertilizing the oceans with
iron to amplify their ability to absorb carbon, and painting our
roofs with white to increase solar reflection.
These ideas may appear comical, if not
far-fetched, but not to Paul Crutzen, the Nobel Prize winner who
published an editorial examining the possibility of releasing vast
amounts of sulfurous debris into the atmosphere “to create a haze
that would keep the planet cool.”
I thought that Crutzen piggy-backed on my idea.
When I was in kindergarten, I spent many hours outside of school on
a dirt pile next to our house in Laguna, making roads and stuff with
yellow and black plastic toy trucks and bulldozers, which were
considered poor imitation of Caterpillar equipment.
Like Crutzen, I endured hard work paving our
backyard with plastic earth-moving equipment. It was doubly
hard because I had to make the motor noise with my mouth and strong
lungs (BRRRMMMMMMM) for countless hours, while keeping a fine mist
of spit raining down the construction site.
Almost all boys my age did it except that they
were reduced to using only sardine cans and Coca-Cola tansan (bottle
caps) as wheels to help me realize my own field of dreams like what
you can imagine in geoengineering.
These days, my friends and I can no longer be
forced to do it again except to operate a piece of equipment
scientifically known as a nose hair trimmer.
That’s why we can only hope to be as
influential as Crutzen writing this column while some of my old
friends are back playing the old game with their grandsons while
using the same melody found in a Caterpillar bulldozer, now powered
by tobacco smoke, and showered by yellow rain.
Now if you don’t think global warming is not a
serious problem, I’d like to conclude that you are indeed—with a
deliberate offense—is a dirty, no-caring politician whose idea of
funding is none other than lining it into your own pocket.
Rey Elbo is a consultant specializing in
human resources and total quality management as a fused specialty.
Reader’s feedback may be sent to kairoshq@info.com.ph.
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