Masinag, Marikina Marcos Highway

> Land uses present in Masinag, Marikina Marcos Highway.
- Commercial
- Institutional
- Residential


> Cause of Problem

Marikina is primarily a valley nestled between mountain ranges and rolling hills, its topography is generally characterized to be level, with only a mildly sloping portion. Type A slopes cover about 1,569 hectares or 71% of the total land area of Marikina, which is highly suitable for and tolerant to mechanized farming and urban development in the western and central sections of the city. The rest of the slopes are fairly tolerant to development although prone to erosion and land slippage.


> Solution

The city government of Marikina is up for the solutions to the problem regarding flood.  
They start city-wide declogging operations removing silt, waste and debris deposited in its 
drainages. This   procedure will therefore loosen the flow of waste water coming from the 
households and factories,  as well as rain water during a heavy downpour. This will significantly prevent the reccurrence of flooding. 

And also some of the establishment in the area along Marcos Highway has elevated to a 4 feet higher above the ground. 

Seveso Disaster

Around midday on Saturday July 10, 1976, an explosion occurred in a TCP (2,4,5-trichlorophenol) reactor of the ICMESA chemical plant on the outskirts of Meda, a small town about 20 kilometres north of Milan, Italy. A toxic cloud containing TCDD (2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin), then widely believed to be one of the most toxic man-made chemicals , was accidentally released into the atmosphere. The dioxin cloud contaminated a densely populated area about six kilometres long and one kilometre wide, lying downwind from the site . This event became internationally known as the Seveso disaster, after the name of a neighbouring municipality that was most severely affected 

* Release Assessment

> TCDD (2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin)

- it is a polychlorinated dibenzodioxin (dioxin)

- an organic compound

- one of the most toxic chemical man- made chemicals.

* Exposure Assessment

 > An explosion of TCDD (2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin) was accidentally released in th environment.

 >  The dioxin cloud contaminated a densely populated area about six kilometres long and one kilometre    
     wide,   lying downwind from the site.

> 6 tonnes of material were distributed over an 18 km^2 area.
>  The four most impacted municipalities included Seveso (1976 population 17,000), Meda (19,000), Desio     

     (33,000), and Cesano Maderno (34,000).

 > Acute illness among affected workers and added to the burden of existing chronic sickness caused by   

     prolonged exposure to the same chemicals under unsanitary conditions.

Evaluating Condominium Buildings

Tall, glamorous looking , what can you ask for? These are some of the qualities that a condominium buildings have. But it's other sides are being ignored. Our government is only focusing in the economy and disregarded environmental aspects. In economy aspects, occurrence of tall buildings in our country signifies the high soaring of our economy. But in the environmental aspect, it is a sign of continuing environment deterioration. 


Conversion of agricultural/ natural environment into a semi commercial uses has many impacts to the environment. Wild life loss their home resulting for their extinction. The vegetation starts to deplete and as we all know that some of the vegetations are one of the source of our basic needs .


Construction of condominium building has a high risk in the safeness's of people. First, it blocks the wind direction. Second, the solar orientation is not being properly maximize, it should be  east-west to facilitate a north-south orientation. And when an earthquake  take place, safety of people will be in threat. 


In the brighter side, condominium buildings are one of the salvation when it comes in flood. After the devastation of Ondoy in the Philippines, some of rich people got a condominium units for the future when a great flood occur again, they have assurance of their safety.  

Global Warming: A Consuemerist Idea or a Fact?

September 26, 2009, the date when typhoon Ondoy devastated Metro Manila. Saturday morning, everybody thought that it’s just a gloomy morning. But when the hard rain started to fall endlessly the flood continue to rise. And few hours passed, some of the towns were submerged from the flood. Some of my classmates were stranded for 24 hours because some of the roads are in-accessible  because of the flood. Ondoy brought the worst rainfall to Metro Manila among recorded typhoons since the start of rainfall record keeping, according to PAGASA,  producing only moderate winds but hours of extremely heavy rain. President Gloria Arroyo declared a "state of calamity" encompassing most of Luzon after at least 86 people were initially reported dead in landslides and other incidents. Flood water levels reached a record 20 feet in rural areas. As of October 24, 2009, at least 464 deaths in the Philippines were officially reported from the typhoon. This tragic incident is one of the results of Global Warming.

Global warming/ climate change is the heating of earth because of the trap greenhouse gasses. Increasing of the temperature is associated. Green house gasses that traps on earth is the main cause of this problem. Because of the anthropologic activities regarding too much emission of carbon dioxide, earth’s temperature continues to rise. Effects are now being exhibited. 1.) The melting of polar caps in North and South Pole. 2.) The rising of sea level that some of the island sank. 3.) Increase of the magnitude and force of the typhoons. Those three effects are only some of the results that global warming offers.

This issue is not just a consumerist idea but rather a fact. Many scientists confirmed that this event is happening in our planet. Not only had the scientists concluded that this is real but also the signs/ effects are now being experienced. Also some of the international organization launched treaties regarding global warming. The famous treaty is the Kyoto Protocol in which the first world country must reduce the emission of their carbon dioxide. But sad to say one of the most industrialized countries is not appealing to the said treaty because they don’t want to reduce their production.

On the other side, some of the scientists concluded that this event is just cycle of our planet and normal. They said that the condition of earth will go back of time of ice age.

Scientists identified some solutions for the prevention of global warming. This is the usage of renewable energy. This energy does not emit carbon dioxide because of its natural property.

In the seminar of Al Gore held  here in the Philippines he said this statement. “An asteroid didn’t hit the earth, we did”! This Al Gore’s statement is very precise and real. When we heard it, we’re very afraid for the cause that might we experience. But we didn’t realize that little by little the human race is destroying mother earth.

People now must be aware on this serious situation because we’re now experiencing the consequences of our irresponsible act towards Mother Nature.

Evaluation of Risk in Synthetic Life

Lets's start what is synthetic life? It is a experimental design to show how life form and how life goes. The data's gathered by the scientists will be analyzed and scrutinize. Synthetic life is a good source of information for the life formation, but pursuing it to conduct experiments to recreate life from non-alive substances, it is a big no no.

Remember the protocols in th experiment when a study needs a animal for testing, the animal injected of lots of dugs/chemicals automatically killed after the data's were collected. Because this animals became mutant and can cause harm in the environment. 

Synthetic life can change the cycle of life, it can worsen the environmental problems that were experiencing 

Bad Zoning and Land Use of the Environment.

"Let every individual and institution now think and act as a responsible trustee of Earth, seeking choices in ecology, economics and ethics that will provide a sustainable future, eliminate pollution, poverty and violence, awaken the wonder of life and foster peaceful progress in the human adventure." This quote by Mc Connell is suitable in the present condition of our environment. The environment where we live, habitat of all organisms and sources of our natural resources.

As human modifies the natural environment by transforming it to fields, pastures and settlements, it’s called land use. Land use and land management practices have a major impact on natural resources including water, soil nutrients, plants and animals.

Proper use of land environment requires a grave responsibility for not degrading the natural resources even though it’s impossible. That’s why there are guidelines or proper steps in land use. Local Government Units has the authority for approving each transaction regarding land transformation. One of the goals of land use is to encourage the growth of the community that will ensure the general health, safety, welfare of the citizen and protect the integrity of the natural environment. A good land use considers environmental, economic, cultural and social factors.

Here in the Philippines, there’s an implementing law that states, each city must have a land portion which it was planted by trees.

One of the devices in land use planning is zoning. Zoning is derived from practice of designating permitted uses of land based on mapped zones which separate one set of land uses from another. By its very nature, zoning was used to separate residential, commercial, industrial and institutional land uses.

Zoning remains the most widely accepted land use control. It will continue to be an important tool to carry out plans.

Thru land use plan, natural environment is converted into a commercial, residential, agricultural, industrial and etc. Developers must follow the proper way and the right way. If the land use plan will not be followed, degradation of natural resources will occur. Human will also be affected , because as the industrialization continue to progress , the land portion of natural environment is decreasing. As we all know we get all the materials for industrialization in the natural environment. That’s why people must take note about this.

Bad zoning has many negative impacts in the environment and human health/ safety.

Let’s focus on the safety of human, in a residential area there should be, no near factories, because its production might cause danger to human health.

That’s why there are different kinds of land use for it will not affect each other.

Let’s talk about the solid waste. Solid waste is dispose in a landfill. A landfill is a place of disposal materials by burying the waste to the ground. Dumping site has many impacts to the environment and to human health. First fatal accident, scavengers whose getting garbage might bury alive when pile of garbage fall. Second is pollution, it will deteriorate the land, bodies of water and air. Contamination of ground water and soil contamination during the usage of landfill. The other one is the release of methane gas from decaying of organic wastes. Methane can be explosive, remember the incident of bombing in Ayala, some people thought that incident is cause by suicide bomber. But the investigator found out that the explosion is caused by the methane coming from their storage room of their garbage.  Lastly it will be a toxic for the wildlife.

That’s why the government must operate a landfill where no one will be affected and no natural environment will be degraded. Proper usage of land and proper zoning must be execute for all of us to live safe and harmoniously.