As everyone swelters with temperatures reaching 37.5 degrees celsius in Manila at the end of El Niño, and we must not forget that La Niña is coming, how do we work in society to act? This involves mitigating our energy consumption, supporting people through a period of crop failure, and moving our people out of high-risk areas while they hold on to a livelihood.

Climate change is happening. More than 90% of scientists reporting are saying it is influenced by the increased release of carbon by humans into the atmosphere, with all having different emphasis and levels of urgency. The few scientists who interpret the analyses otherwise and half the public media reporting skepticism seem to give people the "right" to dismiss the whole climate change debate and ignore any active responsibility in how we live. "Why change? The scientists can't even agree and I just want to get on with my life," is a response often heard. What is the way to get climate discussions going beyond playing the skeptic AND opting out of any responsibility to understand threats to our environment and to act.

Political and psychological distrust seem to be at the heart of some of the non-engagement.

In teaching a brief course this summer on Sustainable Development and Environmental Security, one of the requirements I asked my students is to watch "An Inconvenient Truth". There have been nine objections to Gore's presentation and these have been scientifically acknowledged and argued.

Even with seven flaws and two errors, Al Gore did well in 2006; he passes the test of being serious and not a spin-doctor. The most used 111 skeptical arguments   are laid out on the same site and if studied, give a further understanding. Hopefully, those willing to debate it over some bottles of San Miguel beers will be a little more conscious of the complexity and not just let the media interpret everything.

Outside of the film being an hour and a half long, it is one of the most comprehensive treatments of the topic for public consumption. But with the present public skepticism and forgetfulness, it is hard to get attention focused on the realities of change and the need to change. What nuancing of the present argumentation can be presented so that it does not appear there are two radical lines perpetually debunking each other?

The Stern Report  could be the basic reading material but when the readers are not primarily of a scientific understanding, it is not likely acceptable reading, and certainly not for general public engagement. The Stern Report has also been critiqued , but unless this is followed and further evaluated, the core value of the work is lost.

So we are back to the skeptics as the general point of review and social accountability. The general public can again breathe easy and stay within its conservative walls of comfort and deny the need for any responsible action.

Where is the media these days after the leakages in November 2009 coming from different scientists' emails?

Someday, when it is too late, we will wake up and realize we are part of this thriller movie and we will wonder at our innocence and why we did not see it coming out of human, natural, or divine origin. Maybe we can ask Gore's frog? The controversy seems more important than the content and levels of impact.

I asked a friend, Wendy Clavano, who is a Filipina remote sensing scientist working in the Antarctic on ice densities, what her response is on the "denial" to engage in climate change responsibility. Wendy's comments are interesting:

"Any refusal to be exposed to something you might not agree with is a closed-minded approach that I think leads to the kind of radicalism that is not constructive. Besides, if one is hesitant to the point of fear of being muddled or affected psychologically, and to rule out dialogue at the onset, then that to me only shows a serious lack of confidence in one's self or worse, an incapacity to trust someone else.

"We can talk about science and its miscommunication, but that is not what the film was about. I believe that there was an honest effort to present the facts as clearly as possible to a wide audience. I don't even think that the message was meant for people who already understand THE science. In fact, there is nothing in there that one should not already know (perhaps not totally updated with, but...) if one were working in the scientific fields. If there is anything that one finds you might disagree with, well and good, go ahead and find out the (better, all pun intended) truth. If one finds something one has not ever heard of, then even better. Still, one better go find out. In the end, what An Inconvenient Truth managed to do was to reach out to a much wider audience than any scientist I know can. It laid out plainly, albeit to us stoics, too entertainingly, the things that we ALL need to be worrying about.

"Some science needs to seep in through the media. There is no way out of that, more and more so in this wired world. A younger culture is emerging that has a different way of doing interacting with the world and engaging it. So, we who think we understand more about bare-bone facts and are able to sift through what is artificial or not, need to acknowledge that our way is not the only way to live in this planet. Our way is probably a very unusual way. And in that acceptance is our strength. Yes, all the more so when we have to face that which makes our blood boil."

Bjørn Lomborg in his book "The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World" takes up some issues with Greenpeace and others in how they apportioned blame.

These are the same things I am trying to do in explaining that most of the landslides and flooding disasters in the Philippines, including and since Ormoc in1991, are not primarily as a result of a history of logging: legal, illegal, or subsistence. This has probably lost me many friends in the environmental NGOs. Logging continues to be destructive of our biodiversity, degrading of our environment, and doubtfully contributed proportionally to our human security of rural marginal communities. And though morally found lacking in these areas, logging is not to be condemned lock, stock, and barrel for landslide disasters, just because it is morally convenient. We must know the actual factors and triggers so we know what best to do.

It may be good to start my class by watching Wendy's interview with Elmo and see if we can acknowledge some household basics.