14 Natural Science Books in celebration of Earth Day April 22, 2026

Earth Day April 22, 2026

14 Natural Science Books 

Living with Nature Home Library

San Vicente, Ilocos Sur

Verses by Dr Abe V Rotor

Earth Day is a time to reflect on our responsibility to the planet.

Books are back in school, our home and community;

     take the backseat electronic learning, we pray;

knowledge gained through short cut and easy way,

     is like clouds over parched land drifting away. 

 "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed." - Mahatma Gandhi

 

The more senses we use in our study,

arduous and tough the lesson may be;

see, hear, touch, taste, smell to the full

with our mind, heart, body and soul.

“If the environment is happy, people will laugh and your grief will go away.”- Srinivas Mishra

Nature is the greatest teacher, 

and she is everywhere,

  ready to guide us to the answer;

   with tender love and care.

“The earth is always changing...readjusting to our existence. Each era is full of unique challenges”- Val Uchendu

  

“You don’t live on earth, you are passing through.”- Rumi

 

Science and literature make a loving pair,

     with the left and right brains together;

reason and creativity make an adventure

     exciting outdoor or in an armchair.

“We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us.”- Albert Einstein

 

These science books are classics:

non-fiction, based on true story;

move over Rowling, Jules Verne;

welcome Teale, Fabre, Peattie.

 

“We are on Earth to take care of life. We are on Earth to take care of each other.”- Xiye Bastida

  

“The time to answer the greatest challenge of our existence on this planet is now. You can make history or be vilified by it.”- Leonardo DiCaprio

“I firmly believe nature brings solace in all troubles.” —Anne Frank

Who owns life but the Great Creator,

     humble and benevolent to all?

And man, self-anointed guardian,

     claims his own, even after his Fall.

“To leave the world better than you found it, sometimes you have to pick up other people’s trash.” - Bill Nye ~

12 Practical Household Tips

12 Practical Household Tips

Dr Abe V Rotor

This is a continuing list of practical household management tips, which can be followed easily, and shared with the members of the family, friends, in the school and community. Learn and perfect each tip through demonstration. Illustrate or photograph each tip. Compile these tips into a manual.

1. Smudging of mango induces flowering early or out of season. This is of course advantageous to the grower, but it may do some physiological harm to the tree. This is likened to humans and animals that are induced to produce more progeny, or to change the normal life cycle of the organisms.

Smudging may also drive away pest, but at the same time pollutes the air. Right, Smudging-induced inflorescence of mango. (Acknowledgement: Internet)

2. Don't dispose used cooking oil in sink. It reacts with detergent and solidifies like soap - the same process called saponification, blocking drainage canal and sewer.

3. Cut spent toothpaste tube and glean on remaining content. You can have as much as five brushing. Use remaining paste as hand-wash to remove grease and fishy odor.

4. Make your own hand wash detergent. Scrape soap with knife, dissolve in water. Presto! You can have all the hand wash you need. Use your formula to refill empty dispensers. Label with the soap you used and the dilution you made. Avoid commercial concentrated brands - they are too strong, and dangerous to children.

5. Protect tip of pencil with rolled paper. This serves as cap to extend the life of the pencil, and prevent accident. Use gloss, colored paper - the kind used as promo leaflets. Instead of refusing, or throwing it away, you can make a beautiful pencil cap. You can also roll it as extender when the pencil becomes too short, thus maximizing its use.

6. Garden pots from PET bottles (1- to 2-li). It’s free, whereas commercial garden pots are expensive. Cut at midsection with a sharp knife or blade; puncture three equidistant holes on the side, an inch from the base, not at the bottom. This is to keep reserve water for the plant. Plant one kind per pot: oregano, alugbati, kamote, kangkong, ginger, onion, garlic, mustard, pechay, and the like. Scrape some topsoil for your planting medium. There’s no need of fertilizer and pesticide. Keep a pot or two of growing garlic or onion, also ginger; they are insect repellants.

Rice Weevil (Sitiphilus oryza)

7. Rice weevil can be controlled by placing crushed bulb of garlic in the stored rice. Loosely wrap garlic with cloth or paper. Cover the box. In a day or two, the weevils succumb to the garlic odor. Others simply escape.

8. Sugar solution extends the life of cut flowers.
In horticulture, they call this pulsing, a technique of providing nourishment and extending the shelf life of cut flowers. This technique lengthens vase life twice as much. It allows buds to open and postpones stem collapse, while it enhances freshness of the opened flowers.

Pulsing for roses is done by immersing the stem ends for one to three hours in 10% sugar solution, and for gladiolus 12 to 24 hours in 20% sugar solution. Daisies, carnation, chrysanthemums, and the like are better handled if harvested and transported in their immature stage, then opened by pulsing. It is best to cut the stem at an angle, dipped 6 to 12 hours in 10% sugar solution compounded with 200 ppm of 8-hydroxyquinoline sulfate, 100 ppm citric acid. Best results are obtained at cool temperature and low relative humidity.

9. Press the base of the jaw joint to relieve toothache. There’s a saying that when your tooth aches, there’s nothing you can do about it except to take painkiller. Mabuti pa ang sakit ng tiyan. At least for stomach ache you can manage to find a comfortable position, or press the painful part to secure relief.

But here is a simple remedy Dr. Vanda Hernandez, school dentist of St. Paul University QC, demonstrated which I found to be effective. There is a mass of nerve cells called Gasserian ganglion that connects the nerves of the gums and teeth, and their surroundings. Now this is how the simple remedy works. Open your mouth wide, feel where the joint of the jaw is located. Now close your mouth and press this nerve center with the finger until you obtain relief. Do this along the side of the affected tooth. Repeat until pain subsides. Once you have practiced the technique, you can do it discreetly even with people around when the need arises.

10. Smoke therapy (suob) – old folks’ aroma therapy. smudging of mango to induce flowering photos
Basang, my auntie who took care of me when I was a child, was sick and dying. Doctor Catalino, our rural physician, gave her injection but her condition did not improve, and now she was in a pit of convulsion. As a last ditch Cousin Bistra who knew something about herbal cure gathered leaves of kamias (Averrhoa balimbi) and roasted it on charcoal until a characteristic aroma began to fill the room. Fanning it over the patient face, with prayers chanted, Basang began to calm down, the color of her skin improved, and soon fell into deep sleep.

Dr Precila Delima related a practice among the Ibanag of Cagayan of using suob by mothers who have just given birth. Garlic and shallot onion (sibuyas tagalog) are roasted on charcoal, and packed with cloth. While still warm the patient sits on the pack for several minutes, with her whole body covered with blanket. She perspires profusely, eliminating wastes and toxins from her body. The whole procedure is closely attended to by the “olds” in the family with the direction of the village manghihilot or homegrown midwife (comadrona or partera Ilk.). Old folks believe that this practice is important because it drives out evil spirits or wards them off in order to prepare the way the mother faces the crucial responsibility of motherhood – after child bearing follows the bigger task - child rearing.

11. If the father or mother leaves the house, place the clothes he or she last worn beside the sleeping child so that he goes into deep sleep. This is pheromones in action. Pheromones are chemical signals for bonding in the animal world, and among humans. Like the queen bee that keeps its colony intact through pheromones, so we are attracted by a similar odor, although of a less specific one. People are compatible through smell. Pheromones are left in clothes and other belongings, so that a baby may remain fast asleep as if he were in his mother’s or father’s arms.

12. Don’t eat between meals, old folks advise.
Coffee break is a corporate invention, and snacks are the first version of fast food, thanks to capitalism. So why take heed of the old advice?

Well, let’s look at it this way. Our old folks take heavy meals, mainly rice or corn, depending on the region they live, and they do not eat anything in between meals. Yet they work for long hours, and are healthy. How is that?

Starch in cereals is polysaccharide, which means that it has to be broken down into simple sugar before it is “burned” by the body to release energy. Starch has to be hydrolyzed with the aid of enzyme (amylase) found in our digestive system. Glucose, the ultimate product is broken down through oxidation (respiration), providing the needed energy for various body functions. This transformation takes hours, releasing energy throughout the process, and by the time the fuel is exhausted, it is time for the next meal. This is a simple test. Have you experienced having a grain of rice unknowingly tucked between the gums and teeth? After an hour of so, the grain taste sweet. It means that the grain is undergoing hydrolysis – from starch to sugar.

White sugar (sucrose), on the other hand is directly burned, after it has been split into two monosaccharides. That is why too much white sugar leads to high blood sugar – if we do not burn it – and may in the long run become the cause of diabetes.

This eating regimen of old folks may apply to manual workers, principally in the field. Today we find this virtually impossible to follow. First, we need a lot of energy, mainly for the brain, and secondly, we are already accustomed to having snacks. In fact many of us never stop eating. A foreigner once commented, “Filipinos are always eating.” What with all the advertisements - from TV commercials to giant billboards - and the proliferation of food carts and stores. ~

Your first work is a masterpiece

Your first work is a masterpiece

Dr Abe V Rotor

Old photograph of one of my earliest paintings. I never saw

this painting again. (oil on plywood, 10" x 12") circa 1965

Don't throw away your early work

if not in favor of your judgment

or of others; you are not the critic

nor they, but time and art,

for it could be your masterpiece,

the window of your soul,

its expression at the break of dawn,

when light is fresh and pure.

and through the years to old age,

your work unfolds to the world,

the stirrings of your youth

seeking perfection in dream.

And imperfection is all it shows,

a felled tree half buried lives on

in a hill of flowering weeds,

eternal and beautiful.~

Green Madonna and Child

Earth Day and Mothers' Day 2026*   

Green Madonna and Child      

"Our Holy Lady and Child, please help us
save our dying Mother Earth."- avr

Dr Abe V Rotor

Relief painting of Madonna and Child in acrylic AVR 2015 

  

Faceless, shrouded with smog, seated on a volcano,
    this Madonna and Child of my imagination
moved my fingers, and touched my heart and soul.
    Forgive me for my irreverent interpretation.

I am a humble artist seeking meaning of art to life,

     a new consciousness, a re-birth,
to bring prayer into action, our Lady and Holy Child
    in saving our dying Mother Earth.~

* Earth Day is an annual event on April 22, 2026 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First held on April 22, 1970, it now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally through earthday.org including 1 billion people in more than 193 countries. Wikipedia

* Mother’s Day is celebrated on different dates around the world. It falls on the second Sunday of May in the U.S, and the Philippines (May 10, 2026). It origins can be traced to ancient Greeks and Romans who held festivals to honor the mother goddess Rhea and Cybele. History.com. 

Living with Nature Garden: "It's a small world."

"It's a small world.*" 

Living with Nature Garden

San Vicente, Ilocos Sur

  

"There's so much that we share

That it's time we're aware

It's a small world after all.

It's a small world after all."

It's a small world after all

Photos and Text by Dr Abe V Rotor 

"In these trying times, be resourceful and practical. 

Go back to the basics at the grassroots." - avr

 

Onion and kutchai in plastic pots by the kitchen window. 

Kamote tops at arm's distance from the salad bowl.

Oregano - native and variegated- for cough.  Pick a pot (instead of cutting) 

and take it to the patient.

Colors and shadows make a perfect blend in a garden

Bamboo seedlings from cuttings, as simple as sticking a node into the soil.

  

Hanging vegetables.  Grow vegetables on fence like kangkong, 

kamote, alugbati

Limonsito fruit wine. Fermentation process applies to other 

local fruits, such as guyabano, guava, mango, etc 

Homemade recipes: pickles of green papaya, bell pepper, raisin and sukang Iloko (Ilocos vinegar); laing - gabi stalks and runners, coconut (gata'), 

and tinapa (dried fish)

 

Dahon ng sili (pepper tops) completes the best tinola (chicken stew).  

Yellowing leaves? Transfer to a bigger pot and change the soil with new. 

 

Homemade salted eggs in 28 days. Just brine water, no dye or mud.

Local fruits - banana, avocado, mango - instead of apple or imported grape.

 

Preserving indigenous species (native genetic conservation),

bastion of natural resistance and immunity.

Sterilize clean bottles in sunlight, a practical technology..

A night of Nature's music (chirping, croaking, hissing,

or simply the passing of breeze).

                         * Based on a song 

It's a Small World

By Robert B. Sherman, Richard M. Sherman

It's a world of laughter

A world of tears

It's a world of hopes

And a world of fears

There's so much that we share

That it's time we're aware

It's a small world after all (3x)

It's a small, small world

There is just one moon

And one golden sun

And a smile means

Friendship to ev'ryone

Though the mountains divide

And the oceans are wide

It's a small world after all (3x)

It's a small, small world

Source: LyricFind ~

April is National Stress Awareness month: Stop Before You Reach DEAD END!*

Stop Before You Reach DEAD END!*

Dr Abe V Rotor

Do you see a face at the center of this painting? 

If yes, stop with what you are doing and read this article.

Light in the Woods, painting in acrylic by AV Rotor, 1994

The road is fine all right and you are running fast because you want to reach your destination – or your goal. Then all of a sudden a signboard appears. Dead End.

Shocking. You are in your prime. You have a happy family, good breeding, good company, and bright future. Good life – oh, the malls, Internet, travel, medals, rubbing elbows with personalities, greetings everywhere you go.

What happened? Were you moving too fast in life because you want more? More money, honor, acquaintances, possessions, or just keeping up ahead? Or you are trying to escape? Escape from criticism, inadequacies? For not being able to cope up with the Joneses? Escape from tradition, because everything today must be modern? Escape from rural life because in the urban lies the golden city?

POM (Peace of Mind) Square

Of course you do not think of these while you are running. Then you start to walk, exhausted, and you look around. You are back to your senses. You realized you have not been a “square”. Your sense of dimension is lost and you did not care what shape you are in. Because you lost the integrated balance of the four pillars of a happy, fulfilled life.

• Intellectual/mental
• Spiritual
• Physical
• Psychological/Emotional

1. Physical – It's your health, body physiology, the machine and prime mover that keeps you going biologically. When was the last time you visited your doctor? Is your food balance? Maybe you are not getting enough exercise. Driving for hours does not constitute an exercise. Are you having difficulty to sleep, even only to rest? Imagine a machine breaking down because of strain.

2. Intellectual or mental – Your thoughts are assigned to two parts – the left for reasoning and the right for creativity. Either you have overtaxed the whole of your brain, or you failed to balance the two hemispheres. That's why it is important to attend to hobbies like painting and music (right brain) to balance the left which you use more often in office and home. As the body is subject to fatigue, so with the brain. A fatigued brain may lead to psychiatric condition that can not be relieved as easy as that of the body. Quite often extreme conditions are irreversible.

3. Psychological or emotional – Our psyche absorbs the impact of stress coming from the body and the mind – and from our spiritual being. Like a funnel the residues are accumulated here. Imagine a man staring at an artificial waterfall at a New York park. How many promising people are ruined by emotional problems? Jungian psychology explains that as we continue to repress our thoughts, our feelings, particularly those that are negative, the more we bury them deeper, storing them in our sub-conscious.

It means two things. First, we thought we have eliminated them. No, they come out in our dreams, they seep out into the unconscious in trickles that spoil many happy thoughts. Second, as we keep filling up the unconscious with more repressed thoughts, there comes a time that the tank so to speak, is likely to burst. There on a couch the potential victim, with the help of a psychiatrist, releases the pressure by withdrawing from the unconscious into the conscious chamber of the brain and flows out to his relief. Such rehabilitation requires rest and expurgation of the negative thoughts and experiences. It is only through this process that the psychiatric symptoms begin to cease.

4. Spiritual – The biblical Seventh Day is one for the spirit, a day of communication with our Creature, with Nature. It is a renewal of relationship between man and God, a re-invigoration of the soul. Emptiness can be easily felt, but quite often, it mingles with the kind of emptiness that is hard to fill. 

Our spiritual life suffers every time we act on something against our conscience. It becomes dull when we fail to do the things we should in accordance with our faith. I have heard of people complaining about the lack of “meaning in life.” For me, the answer lies not in our rationale thoughts, in our physical power or emotional or psychological makeup. In fact I believe that the lack of meaning is in the emptiness of the spirit. I recommend reading of A Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl, founder of logotherapy - a field of psychology which helped prisoners in German prison camps in World War II to survive.

As I continue to write this article at Room 3031 at the UST hospital (September 20, 2001) I glimpse upon a Newsweek story about 30,000 Japanese a year have been killing themselves. The title of the article is “Death by Conformity.” It is about an epidemic of young Japanese pulling back from the world."

Take the case of a 29-year old salaryman. He described how he secluded himself for three years after resigning from his company. “I didn’t even know if it was day or night,” he confessed.

Another case is about a “corporate warrior” who became a victim of economic slump affecting his company in the late 1998. He became “spiritually” weakened by an anxiety he couldn’t comprehend. This is how the report pictured the fiftyish company executive.

“At first he couldn’t sleep. Then he grew physically weak each time the train neared the station nearest his office. On several occasions he rode to the end of the line. At one point, speaking on condition that he not be identified, he went to buy a rope, then put it in the trunk of his car to be prepared for the day when he would hang himself. Fortunately the day didn’t come. A doctor helped him from overcoming his depression.”

Hikikomori Syndrome 

Photo of a potential hikikomori victim (internet)

This malady is called in Japan hikikomori or social withdrawal, a debilitating syndrome, which affects as many as 1.2 million young people – 7 out of 10 of them are male.

Symptoms include

• Agoraphobia - Fear of places and situations that might cause panic, helplessness, or embarrassment. It is common, there are 200,000 to 3 million US cases per year

• Paranoia - Paranoia involves feelings of persecution and an exaggerated sense of self-importance. Paranoia occurs in many mental disorders and is rare as an isolated mental illness, persons with paranoia can usually work and function in everyday life, however, their lives may be limited and isolated.

• Aversion to sunlight

• Severe anxiety

• Antisocial

• Fear they are being watched

• Think they are ugly, they smell, etc.

• Loner

• Uncommunicative

• Sullen, sometimes even violent

   

“People who suffer from hikikomori are at the top of a mountain – and that mountain is all of Japan’s problems."  Newsweek August 20, 2001

Hikikomori begins with adolescent trauma that causes the afflicted to “stop growing up.” It is a social phenomenon, not a specific mental-health disorder. A certain Tamaki Saito who runs an outpatient program at Sasaki Hospital in Chiba, blames the problem on Japan’s efficiency first value system, which promotes conformity among workers, and students. So with the company workers who are expected to render efficient performance as Japanese culture has built standards of performance in return to security and compensation.

Hope for the Flowers

Hope for the Flowers has helped people gain the courage to leave jobs, change their lives and explore their love for another human being.

Anyone who has read Trina Paulus’ illustrated book, Hope for the Flowers, is certainly convinced that there is “nothing out there at the top.”

The story goes like this. Caterpillars scrambled up to the top, each outsmarting and climbing over one another, and forming a living pyramid. Each caterpillar wanted to be at the top.

Imagine a whole mass of living, dynamic bodies, writhing, shaking, in the like of the Tower of Babel. At the top each one thought must be beautiful. To be at the top is honor. The higher one goes the more the risk to slide and fall off to its death.

“But there is nothing up there.” The caterpillar, which had reached the top, said. But the others did not believe. A female caterpillar gave up and turned into a pupa hanging peacefully on a branch of a tree. Then one morning she metamorphosed into a beautiful butterfly. Meantime her colleague continued on to struggle to the top of the pyramid.

She fluttered her wings in the morning sunshine and whispered something to someone she had met earlier. And the latter withdrew from the crowd, and followed the same thing she did. Then one morning he too, metamorphosed into a beautiful butterfly, while his colleagues were still struggling in the pyramid.

And the two butterflies lived happily ever after.

People are like caterpillars. They are gregarious. They form columns and pyramids. They step on one another just to be at the top. Many are frustrated, many get injured or even killed. Irony is that there is nothing at the top but space far from heaven. ~

---------------

* Reprint on popular requests from Living with Nature in Our Home and Community, by AV Rotor 285pp. Sadiri Publication 2023

Visit avrotor.blogspot.com Living with Nature - School on Blog; Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) 738 DZRB AM, evening class 8 to 9, with Ms Grace Velasco August 11, 2015

Earth Day April 22, 2026: Bioethics and Environment - Quest for Quality of Life

Bioethics and Environment -

Quest for Quality of Life

Ethics is the foundation of aesthetics; it is something very difficult to explain that makes beautiful more beautiful, rising to the highest level of philosophy where man finds hope, inspiration, and peace. It is a beacon. While ethics sets the direction of moral life, aesthetics is its beautiful goal.

                                                              Dr Abe V Rotor 

Living with Nature - School on Blog

 Concept of Nature as the whole universe, painting by the author 

1. Man has emboldened the causative agents of human diseases – both old and new - into epidemic and pandemic proportions, which include HIV-AIDS, SARS, Ebola, Avian flu (caused by a new virus H5N1, a hybrid of the human flu virus and the bird flu virus), obesity (caused by Ad36 virus) - and the most recent MERS-CoV (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Corona Virus), now tagged as Novel 2019 Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19)

2. Through biological specialization or mutation – natural and man-induced – causative agents have crossed natural barriers of transmission across species, such as bird to man (bird flu), civet cat to man (SARS), and primate to man (HIV-AIDS, and Ebola), wild animals like bat to man (COVID-19). Man has built bridges between the non-living to the living as well. We have paved the way for the Prion, an infectious protein, the causative agent of Mad Cow Disease or BSE (Bovine Spongiosform Encephalopathy) to cross from cattle to man and cause a similar disease affecting humans, the Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD). Viruses have acquired new ability to infect and spread not only among humans but also in animals and plants. Viral diseases of plants have been responsible for the decrease in agricultural production in many parts of the world.

The aesthetics of Nature, source of legends, songs and festivities, painting by the author 

3. In the midst of enjoying the good life in a postmodern world more and more people are victims of accidents, heart attacks and strokes, anxiety and depression – and various forms of psychosomatic disorder - that often lead to ruined lives and suicides. Cancer, diabetes, and the deleterious consequences of vices (tobacco and alcohol), are on the rise among other modern diseases. Surprisingly, the number of years a person is healthy in proportion to his life span is not significantly longer than that of his predecessors, and that a person’s life span has not significantly increased at all. It is the average longevity of a population that has increased, not the individual’s. The fact is that modern medicine has increased survival of infants and young people, most of them are now in their past fifties, thus gross longevity appears to have increased, up to 78 years in some countries. On the contrary, more and more young people are getting sick and dying.

4. Modern society and science and technology no longer fit into the Darwinian theory of natural selection. There is a growing burden placed on the shoulders of the able and fit in our society who, without choice, is responsible in taking care of the growing number of dependents – many are the infirmed and the aged.

All these lead us to re-examine our values. It challenges us to look deeper into a paradigm of salvation through our concern for the environment. The prolificacy of the human species sans war and pestilence, plus growing affluence of our society has led to a population explosion which had doubled in less than fifty years. We are now more than 7.5 billion. Under this paradigm, there is no master and subject. All must join hands to prevent the exploitation of the earth’s finite resources. Today’s economists must also be good housekeepers of Nature, so with those in the other professions. While man’s aim is directed at the Good Life, he has unwittingly reduced the very foundation of that good life – the productivity and beauty of Mother Earth.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are few frontiers of production left today. We have virtually pushed back the sea and leveled off the mountain. Prime lands have all been taken, swamps have been drained, and even deserts are being reclaimed. But as we continue to explore the marginal edges of these frontiers the more we are confronted with high cost of production that is levied on the consumer, and more importantly, the danger of destroying the fragile environment. AVR

-----------------------------------------------------------Nature as socio-economic base in agrarian society, painting by the author

Ecological paradigm endorses an ecocentric approach where all forms of life and non-life are important to human life. Spirituality points out to a unitive force: the sacredness of everything. God’s divinity flows in everything. There is integration in the universe. And we are part of that integration, exceedingly small as we are, notwithstanding. Under ecological paradigm of salvation, the one responsible in the destruction of the environment leading to loss of lives and properties should be held accountable for it to God, nature and fellowmen.

The environment and the economy need not be viewed as opposites. It is possible to have a healthy environment and a healthy economy at the same time. More and more businesses have begun adopting this concept as a business philosophy. People behind business organizations are becoming more aware of the ethical decisions they face, and their responsibility for their consequences.

Industrialization and urbanization are akin to each other. Industrial growth spurred the building of cities all over the world. Today there are as many people living in cities as those living the rural places. A mega-city like Tokyo has a population of 15 million people. We are 10 million in Metro Manila. Cities are fragile environments. Cities are more prone to epidemics such as the bubonic plague that killed one-third of the population of Europe in the 13th century. Now we are confronted with HIV-AID, SARs, Meningo cochcimia, Avian flu, and now the dreaded CORID-15 which is gripping the world today as the worst human pandemic disease in recent history. AVR

There are organizations that have set some rules of governance of the environment, among them, GRI (Global Reporting Initiative), CERES (Coalition of Environmental Responsible Economies), and UNEP (United Nations Environmental Program). In line with these a multi- national corporation came up with the following thrusts:

 Nature defiled by genetic engineering, painting by the author

• Restore and preserve the environment

• Reduce waste and pollution

• Education of the public on environmental conservation

• Work with government for sound and responsible environmental program

• Assess impact of business on the environment and communities.

This approach is gaining respect and more and more businesses are looking at this model with great interest and favor.

The Question of Governance

One of the resource speakers of the 2010 International Congress on Bioethics,
Dr. Tai cited three themes in order that man can live in harmony with nature. Man is part of the ecosystem, Man is steward of the earth, and Man is finite. Dr. Tai cited models with which man can change his views about the environment and change his style of living. We have also models in the business world, in the church, and in the government, in fact all sectors of society. There are models everywhere in this or that part of the world, whether developed or underdeveloped. There are as many models in less developed countries as in highly industrialized countries. It could be that the less developed are closer to tradition, and still have strong ethnic roots, like the old civilizations mentioned in the paper – the native cultures of America and Africa.

But the world has never been one. It has become more diverse in views and interests though in many respects share the same aspirations towards progress and development. And this is the problem. Man is always in a race. In that race awaits at the end not a prize mankind is proud of and honorable. It is tragedy, which Garett Hardin calls, the tragedy of the commons. It is a greedy competition for a finite resource, each his own, until it is gone. The forests are disappearing today, the lake are dying, the fields are getting marginal, the pastures are overgrazed, the air is loaded with destructive gases, the sea  is over fished. All these point out to the syndrome - tragedy of the commons. And because time is of the essence, many believe that the world needs a new revolution now? Is revolution the only way to solve global problems of the environment today?

Definitely, while we need to reform to save our environment, any means that is contrary to peace and unity, is definitely unacceptable. And we would not adhere to the rule of force or violence just to be able to succeed. It is said, that revolution starts in a small corner. It starts in this congress.

Ethics is the foundation of aesthetics; it is something very difficult to explain that makes beautiful more beautiful, rising to the highest level of philosophy where man find hope, inspiration, and peace. It is a beacon. While ethics sets the direction, aesthetics is its beautiful goal.

In closing I would like to thank Dr. Tai, for his scholarly and incisive paper from which I was not only able to prepare myself as a member of the panel of reactors, but found an opportunity to review and expand my current research works in ecology as well. 

Lastly, I would like to recite this short prayer I made for this International Congress on Bioethics, and dedicate it through the little child who visited the two workshops in the village and exclaimed. “But there are no neighbors! But there are no trees, birds, fields and mountains!”

Ecology Prayer

By Dr Abe V Rotor

When my days are over,

Let me lie down to sleep

on sweet breeze and earth,

in the shade of trees

I planted in my youth;

since I had not done enough,

make, make my kind live

to carry on the torch,

while my dusts fall

to where new life begins –

even only an atom I shall be,

let me be with you,

dear Mother Earth.

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There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings…Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change …Mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens, the cattle and chicken sickened and died …There was a strange stillness… The Few birds seen anywhere were moribund, they trembled violently and could not fly. It is a spring without voices.

Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

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