Maria Ressa At Harvard U Graduation: “Where You Have Been Forced To Turn (A) Crisis Into An Opportunity” – Frank A Hilario: “What Crisis? What Opportunity?”
On May 23, Ms Ressa
receives her Doctor of Laws
honorary degree from Harvard University;
she addresses the estimated 30,000 graduates of Harvard Class of 2024 in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. Before that date, the Harvard campus has been the
site of a 20-day pro–Palestine encampment.
“The campus protests are testing everyone in
America. Protests are healthy; they shouldn’t be violent. Protests give voice;
they shouldn’t be silenced.”
I self-declared Development Journalist agree with Ms
Ressa 100% – but I can see that with her Nobel Peace Prize attitude, she is
helping advance the cause/s of protests but not of progresses – I
mean, where do we go from here to be in pursuit of the good of all and not simply to be anti? (I’m calling the
attention of the Nobel Peace Prize
committee and urge those minds to reward more the positive and less
the negative.)
Creative Thinking before
Critical Thinking!
Certainly, we have to be careful about being
positive. The whole of the Philippine Department of Agriculture (DA) is
positive about “Chemical Agriculture” (CA) and continue to push more and more
CA, while this CA is wreaking havoc in the country, not to mention the whole
world, generating greenhouse gases (GHGs) that generate Climate Change.
As far as I have been
googling since 1991, when the Internet came to my country the Philippines,
except me, there are no journalists in print and digital media who espouse any
of the alternatives to CA: Regenerative
Agriculture (RA), Organic
Agriculture (OA), Sustainable Agriculture
(SA), and Nature Friendly Farming (NFF)
(NFFN, NFFN). I say now, Ms Maria, following your Harvard
address:
Climate Change is testing everyone. The
alternatives to chemical agriculture are healthy ground-wise & people-wise;
they should be pursued. Pursuers should be given voice; they should not be
silenced!
Ms Ressa is CEO of Rappler
– why is she not encouraging Rappler staff to professionally pursue constructive
journalism on any of the alternatives to CA that I meantioned above?
The battlefields are
the farms – Why not Rappler journalists featuring people engaged in and
processes involved in those CA alternatives?
Ms Ressa told the
Harvard graduates: “Our world is on fire. Welcome to the battlefield.” The
battlefield that Rappler ignores comprises the millions of hectare of farmlands
in the Philippines.
Agricultural activity (is) generating around half
of all anthropogenic methane emissions and around three-quarters of
anthropogenic (nitrous oxide) in 2021 (John
Lynch, Michelle Cain, David Frame & Raymond
Pierrehumbert (Frontiers).
Our world is on fire. Welcome to the battlefield! Now,
what gears for battling are our journalists wearing?
Generalizing: Journalists
do not know much about climate change and those GHGs
– that’s why they should study how to understand and report about these
phenomena! Because journalists must serve their country, not only themselves!@517
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