Most students live not far from campus, yet instead of bicycles and walking paths in this perfect cycling-sized burg, you see motorcycles. Everywhere. A lot of pollution and smells––an equal number of calm, tree-rich areas that seem to be disappearing without much planning. Waste water flows untreated into the harbor.
Santa Cruz, CA, what did you do right? Is there a way to create urban paradise/sustainability in Dumaguete* without making it expensive, closed to outsiders? Is there a way to access renewable energy from an existing local geothermal plant (Pulambato), rather than importing low-grade (dirty) Cebu coal?
Leapfrogging levels of awareness, Can Gross National Happiness be prioritised first and foremost in the developing world, where it must occur for sustainability to happen?
For starters, I would pose these GNH questions to the incoming Philippine President Duterte and to our (as yet undecided) US leader.
Cloud novel update: Arisugawa Park 1.25 - Peach coming soon.
#endwriter
All Rights Reserved Damon Shulenberger.