Republic of the Philippines

State Universities and Colleges

GUIMARAS STATE COLLEGE
Buenavista, Guimaras

GRADUATE SCHOOL
Green Education

1. Can the COVID 19 pandemic raise awareness of climate and

environmental emergencies?

WHO has been assessing this outbreak around the clock and we are deeply

concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming

levels of [Link]-19 can be characterized as a pandemic. Pandemic is not a

word to use lightly or carelessly. It is a word that, if misused, can cause

unreasonable fear, or unjustified acceptance that the fight is over, leading to

unnecessary suffering and death. With a handful of cases can prevent those cases

becoming clusters, and those clusters becoming community transmission. Even

those countries with community transmission or large clusters can turn the tide on

this virus. Several countries have demonstrated that this virus can be suppressed

and controlled. The challenge for many countries who are now dealing with large

clusters or community transmission is not whether they can do the same – it’s

whether they will.

a. Some countries are struggling with a lack of capacity.

[Link] countries are struggling with a lack of resources.

c. Some countries are struggling with a lack of resolve.

 This pandemic raised awareness that all countries must strike a fine balance

between protecting health, minimizing economic and social disruption, and

respecting human rights. WHO’s mandate is public health. But we’re working with

many partners across all sectors to mitigate the social and economic consequences

of this pandemic. This is not just a public health crisis, it is a crisis that will touch

every sector – so every sector and every individual must be involved in the fight.

With these t countries must take a whole-of-government, whole-of-society approach,

built around a comprehensive strategy to prevent infections, save lives and minimize

impact.

With the advancement of technology as well as live telecast people from all

over the world, all walks of life were educated and aware to: prepare and be ready,

detect, protect and treat, reduce transmission by staying at home and innovate and

learn. With that many of us experienced what we call lockdowns and home

quarantines, people tend to conserve available resource so as to use them in the

duration of the lockdown. As we can see streets were closed as well as huge

factories .The skies were bluer because of the fact that no vehicles are outnumbered

on the streets as well as our seas. As they say,with the pandemic Mother nature on

the other hand heals itself.

2. Can COVID 19 be understood as possible basis for an environmental

experiment?

No, Scientifically the analysis of public genome sequence data from SARS-

CoV-2 and related viruses found no evidence that the virus was made in a laboratory
or otherwise engineered. By comparing the available genome sequence data for

known coronavirus strains, we can firmly determine that SARS-CoV-2 originated

through natural processes," said Kristian Andersen, PhD, an associate professor of

immunology and microbiology at Scripps Research and corresponding author on the

paper. In addition to Andersen, authors on the paper, "The proximal origin of SARS-

CoV-2," include Robert F. Garry, of Tulane University; Edward Holmes, of the

University of Sydney; Andrew Rambaut, of University of Edinburgh; W. Ian Lipkin, of

Columbia University. Corona viruses are a large family of viruses that can cause

illnesses ranging widely in severity. The first known severe illness caused by a

coronavirus emerged with the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)

epidemic in China. A second outbreak of severe illness began in 2012 in Saudi Arabia

with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome.

On the other hand not knowing the real score some may continuesly say that it is

some sort of biological warfare originated as an experiment. Some says it is a way to

lessen the outnumbered people in a specific country that eventually caused harm to

humanity.

3. What is the difference between resource pollution and resource

contamination?

Resource Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural

environment that cause adverse change especially in the resources that the

humanity is [Link] can also take the form of chemical substances or energy,

such as noise, heat or light. Pollutants, the components of pollution, can be either

foreign substances/energies or naturally occurring contaminants. Pollution is often

classed as point source or nonpoint source pollution. In 2015, pollution killed 9

million people in the world. Major forms of pollution include: Air pollution, light

pollution, littering, noise pollution, plastic pollution, soil contamination, radioactive

contamination, thermal pollution, visual pollution, water pollution that causes

depletion and harmful effects to people.

On the other hand, resource contamination means the presence of a substance

that should not be present naturally. Generally contaminant is an undesired material

released during human activities, however it is regarded as pollutant when it exerts

determinant effects.

Contaminants in the environment can look and smell pretty nasty, but their

impacts go beyond just aesthetics. Some pollutants resist breakdown and

accumulate in the food chain. These pollutants can be consumed or absorbed by fish

and wildlife, which in turn may be eaten by us. Chemicals can also get into

sediments, impacting large coastal areas, threatening human health, and reducing

the economic well being of regions that depend on a healthy coastal environment.

4. What are the environmental risk factors in the causion of Psoriasis?

Psoriasis is a common, chronic, immune-mediated skin disease with systemic

pro-inflammatory activation, where both environmental and genetic factors

contribute to its pathogenesis. Among the risk factors for psoriasis, evidence is

accumulating that nutrition plays a major role, per se, in psoriasis pathogenesis. In

particular, body weight, nutrition, and diet may exacerbate the clinical

manifestations, or even trigger the disease. Understanding the epidemiological

relationship between obesity and psoriasis is also important for delineating the risk
profile for the obesity-related comorbidities commonly found among psoriatic

patients. Moreover, obesity can affect both drug’s pharmacokinetics and

pharmacodynamics

Example of Environmental Risk Factor:

Air Pollutants and Sun Exposure

The increase in air pollution over the years has had major effects on the

human skin, and various air pollutants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons,

volatile organic compounds, oxides, particulate matter, ozone, heavy metals, and UV

damage the skin by inducing oxidative stress . Cadmium is one of the air pollutants

which affect the pathogenesis of psoriasis. Patients with severe psoriasis had higher

blood cadmium when compared with the general population .

Environmental exposure to cadmium may compromise immunity, and micro-

environmental perturbation can predispose one to the worsening of psoriasis. The

UV radiation that reaches the Earth’s surface is divided into two subtypes: more than

95% UVA (315–400 nm) and 1%–5% UVB (280–315 nm). In the past several

decades, phototherapy has been widely used to treat psoriasis. Both narrowband

UVB (311 nm) and excimer laser (308 nm) are currently used as the first-line

therapy for psoriasis, and psoralen UVA (PUVA) is also used as the second-line

therapy with preference to refractory psoriatic plaques .

There is a subset of patients with severely photosensitive psoriasis in whom the

condition is predominantly photo distributed and is severe in the summer months ,

patients with photosensitive psoriasis showed striking female predominance, very

low mean age of psoriasis onset, family history of psoriasis, a strong HLA-Cw*0602

association, and a rapid abnormal clinical response to broadband UVA, comprising

erythema and/or scaling plaques .A phenotypically distinct subset of psoriasis was

characterized by histopathological analysis. In a certain group, psoriasis can develop

after UV exposure.

5. Is the new scientific invention take the world towards rapid

destruction?

Technology as well as the advancement of scientific inventions bring about a

drastic change in our lives. It makes life easy, but alongside its benifits and

advantages, technological breakthroughs also bring challenges, particularly by

disrupting established patterns of work and skills, and introducing new dynamics in

business environments. In some sectors, we are seeing growing concentration and

winner take most dynamics ─ aided at times by AI that is used as a tool for

undetectable or unintentional collusion.

This is happening alongside a general trend towards productivity divergence,

with global leaders outstripping laggards. For instance, the 2000s saw labour

productivity at the global technological frontier increase at an average annual rate of

3.5% in the manufacturing sector, compared to just 0.5% for non-frontier firms.

In addition, the breakneck speed at which our economies and societies are

changing has given rise to a “Technology 4.0 - Policy 1.0” gap. Unless we close this

gap, we will miss out on the many benefits that digital and other technologies can

bring, and the digital divide that already exists between certain groups (such as

developed vs. emerging countries, large vs. small firms, and young vs. older people)
will widen. Here in China, there is also an urgent need to upgrade and restructure

productive capacity to make the most of technological and innovation

breakthroughs.

6. What are the challenges facing developing countries to transfer

environmental friendly technologies?

The transfer of environmentally sound technology play a crucial role in the

global response to climate [Link]-fourth of the world’s population—currently

live without electricity and this number has hardly changed in absolute terms since

1970. And yet, the electricity required for people to read at night, pump a minimal

amount of drinking water and listen to radio broadcasts would amount to less than 1

percent of overall global energy demand.

Developing and emerging economies face thus a two-fold energy challenge

in the 21st century: Meeting the needs of billions of people who still lack access to

basic, modern energy services while simultaneously participating in a global

transition to clean, low-carbon energy systems. And historic rates of progress toward

increased efficiency, de-carbonization, greater fuel diversity and lower pollutant

emissions need to be greatly accelerated in order to do so.

To a significant extent, fortunately, the goal of reducing greenhouse gas

emissions may be aligned with the pursuit of other energy-related objectives, such

as developing indigenous renewable resources and reducing local forms of pollution.

In the near term, however, there will be tensions. Sustainable energy policies are

more likely to succeed if they also contribute toward other societal and economic
development objectives. Governments should look across policies to maximize

positive synergies where they exist and avoid creating cost-cutting incentives.

Technology transfer barriers were divided into four groups: organisation-ware,

information-ware, technique-ware, and human-ware. It also uses a four-group

classification; however, the categories they use are different and include technical,

attitudinal, cultural, and market barriers. Some listed were lack of pool of scientist

and researchers in scientific domains, brain drain, small market size, bureaucratic

climate and inability to make public investments in appropriate researches and

infrastructures.

7. What is green product, sustainable product and organic product?

A. The terms “green” often refer to products, services or practices that allow

for economic development while conserving for future generations. We prefer to

describe a green product as one that has less of an environmental impact or is less

detrimental to human health than the traditional product equivalent. While on the

topic of defining a green product, you must realize that almost no product will ever

be 100% “green,” since all product development will have some impact on the

surrounding environment. It all comes down to degrees of impact and as we

discussed above, trading off between impacts.

To understand the trade-offs you should realize that there are select attributes

that describe green products and services; we list them below to help you further

understand what a green product truly is. Green products are…

1Energy efficient, durable and often have low maintenance requirements.

[Link] of Ozone depleting chemicals, toxic compounds and don’t produce toxic by-

products.

3. Often made of recycled materials or content or from renewable and sustainable

sources.

4. Obtained from local manufacturers or resources.

[Link] or easily reused either in part or as a whole.

B. Sustainable Product

According to Belz, Frank-Martin,the definition of sustainable product has six

characteristics:

[Link] satisfaction: any products or services that do not meet customer needs

will not survive in the market in a long term.

[Link] focus: compared with purely environmental products, sustainable products

focus both on ecological and social significance.

[Link]-cycle orientation: sustainable product is constantly environmental-friendly

during its entire life. That is, from the moment the raw materials are extracted to

the moment the final product is disposed of, there must be no permanent damage to

the environment.

4. Significant improvements: sustainable products have to contribute to dealing with

socio-ecological problems on a global level, or provide measurable improvements in

socio-ecological product performance.

[Link] improvement: since the state of knowledge, technologies and societal

expectation keep on developing, so sustainable products should also be continuously

improved regarding social and environmental variation.

[Link] offers: sustainable products may still lag behind competing offers,

therefore, the competing offers may serve as a benchmark regarding social and

ecological performance.

[Link] Product

An organic product is made from materials produced by organic agriculture.

There are different types of organic products. However organic product is more

known for food items like organic grocery, organic vegetables, organic certified food

etc. Most appropriately organic products can be explained as any products that is

made or cultivated organically should be treated as an organic product.

Most of the country has very strict food safety and security guidelines to protect

consumers from consuming harmful products. Most of the country has its own

standard to define products as organic. USA uses USDA certification - NOP National

Organic Program to defined a cultivated products as [Link] Organic - NPOP

(National Program for Organic Production). According to USDA, in order for a

product to be considered organic, organic standards must be met. Operations

involving these organic products must be "protecting natural resources, conserving

biodiversity, and using only approved substances."

To be marketed as "organic" products require certification and must comply

with certain guidelines. In the United States the National List of Allowed and
Prohibited Substances details synthetic and non-synthetic substances that can be

used in the process of producing organic products. This list involves specific

substances that can be used to produce organic material involving crops and

livestock.

To sum it up.,a green product means that it is biodegradable, that in general it

does not pollute the environment, a sustainable product means that when we

produce it or sell it, the future generations will still have the same possibility of

producing it for their benefit, and an organic product means that they not used

hormones or pesticides in their production, it is produced in the old way.

8. Is corona virus a cause or a vector of the disease?

Coronaviruses are pathogens with a serious impact on human and animal

health. They mostly cause enteric or respiratory disease, which can be severe and

life threatening, e.g., in the case of the zoonotic coronaviruses causing severe acute

respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in

humans. Despite the economic and societal impact of such coronavirus infections,

and the likelihood of future outbreaks of additional pathogenic coronaviruses, our

options to prevent or treat coronavirus infections remain very limited. This highlights

the importance of advancing our knowledge on the replication of these viruses and

their interactions with the host.

Compared to other +RNA viruses, coronaviruses have an exceptionally large

genome and employ a complex genome expression strategy. Next to a role in basic

virus replication or virus assembly, many of the coronavirus proteins expressed in

the infected cell contribute to the coronavirus-host interplay. For example, by

interacting with the host cell to create an optimal environment for coronavirus

replication, by altering host gene expression or by counteracting the host's antiviral

defenses. These coronavirus-host interactions are key to viral pathogenesis and will

ultimately determine the outcome of infection. Due to the complexity of the

coronavirus proteome and replication cycle, our knowledge of host factors involved

in coronavirus replication is still in an early stage compared to what is known for

some other +RNA viruses.

This review summarizes our current understanding of coronavirus-host

interactions at the level of the infected cell, with special attention for the assembly

and function of the viral RNA-synthesising machinery and the evasion of cellular

innate immune responses.