After a recently hit super typhoon, Typhoon Haiyan  (also known as "Typhoon Yolanda"), many Filipinos and citizens in the Philippines have been very severely affected. In fact, according to United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, about 14.4 million people have been affected and 3.62 million people have been displaced due to Typhoon Haiyan.

In response to this, many people have been making great efforts to relieve the catastrophic aftermath of this natural disaster.

Many schools in the Philippines have made great effort to provide relief funds to the afflicted Filipinos by creating events, bake sales, selling T-shirts (also used as a method to promote people to relieve the disastrous effects of typhoon), charity donations, and emergency food drive. Many institutions and small groups of people are still continuing to build up their relief efforts to support the affected Filipinos.

These efforts will definitely help those in need in the short run and provide temporary safe shelter for people. However, the question that we, global citizens, have to tackle and face is: How can we prevent such catastrophic natural disasters from happening and affecting the innocent people?

According to the Philippine lead climate negotiator Yeb Sano, Typhoon Haiyan was a ?sobering reminder to the international community that we cannot afford to procrastinate on climate action?. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated that Typhoon Haiyan ?puts an anguished human face on climate change? and he wished that ?all tragic devastation would really give us a wake-up call.?

Although there may be natural causes of climate change, we as humans too have caused and aggravated the effects of climate change. Deforestation, emission of carbon dioxide, littering, transportations, and wasting electricity are some of the causes that contributed to climate change.

My point is NOT that we should stop providing relief efforts to the afflicted Filipino, but we should also plan ahead to prevent any future possible natural disasters from occurring and affecting innocent people.

In response to the bolded question, we should think of ways that we can do to lessen the extent of climate change:

  1. Consume less electricity. This can be achieved in many ways, such as by turning off lights when not using.

  2. Use public transportation such as subways of buses, as opposed to riding cars.

  3.  Don?t litter trash anywhere. Instead, reuse, reduce, and recycle!

These are some small steps that we all can do. So, why not try and act upon these steps?