JOURNALISM

TRAINING KIT
DSPC 2024
Event: SCIENCE & HEALTH WRITING
Medium: English

Prepared by:

Michael Kevin A. Monforte

School Journalism Coordinator

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SCI-TECH WRITING EXERCISE #1

El Niño could make 2024 hotter than record 2023

GENEVA, Switzerland — This year could be hotter under El Niño's influence than the record-
shattering 2023, the United Nations warned Friday, as it urged drastic emissions cuts to combat
climate change.

The UN's World Meteorological Organization said new monthly temperature records were set
every month between June and December, and the pattern is likely to continue due to the
warming El Niño weather phenomenon.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicted there is a one in
three chance that 2024 will be warmer than 2023 -- and a 99% certainty that 2024 will rank
among the five warmest years ever.

NASA climatologist Gavin Schmidt, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies,
estimated the odds were even higher.

"I put it at about 50-50: 50% chance it'll be warmer, 50% chance it will be slightly cooler," he
told AFP, adding there were hints of "mysterious" changes to Earth's climate systems, that would
nonetheless require more data to confirm or refute.

The UN's WMO weather and climate agency said July and August last year were the two hottest
months ever recorded, as it officially confirmed 2023 had been the warmest year on record "by a
huge margin".

The 2015 Paris climate accords aimed to limit global warming to well below two degrees Celsius
above pre-industrial levels -- and 1.5C if possible.

The WMO said the 2023 annual average global temperature was 1.45 degrees Celsius above pre-
industrial levels (1850-1900) -- though one of the six datasets it relies on, the non-profit
research organization Berkeley Earth, placed the figure as high as 1.54C.

The WMO's new secretary-general Celeste Saulo warned that El Niño, which emerged mid-2023,
is likely to turn up the heat even further in 2024.

The naturally-occurring climate pattern, typically associated with increased heat worldwide,
usually increases global temperatures in the year after it develops.

"The shift from cooling La Nina to warming El Niño by the middle of 2023 is clearly reflected in
the rise in temperature," she said.

"Given that El Niño usually has the biggest impact on global temperatures after it peaks, 2024
could be even hotter."

Humanity's 'biggest challenge'

NOAA said the 2023 global surface temperature was 1.18C above the 20th-century average, and
was hotter than the next warmest year, 2016, by a record-setting margin of 0.15C.

The Arctic, northern North America, central Asia, the North Atlantic and the eastern tropical
Pacific were particularly hotter, it said.

Saulo said climate change was now "the biggest challenge that humanity faces".

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A WMO report in November found that concentrations of the three main heat-trapping
greenhouse gases -- carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide -- reached record high levels in
2022, with preliminary data indicating that the levels continued to grow in 2023.

"Climate change is escalating -- and this is unequivocally because of human activities," said
Saulo.

'Catastrophic future' awaits

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said humanity's actions were "scorching the Earth".

"2023 was a mere preview of the catastrophic future that awaits if we don't act now," he said.

The WMO said that since the 1980s, each decade has been warmer than the previous one --
while the warmest nine years on record had all been since 2015.

The EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service issued its 2023 temperature findings on Tuesday,
while NOAA and NASA released theirs simultaneously with the WMO on Friday.

The WMO consolidates figures from six major international datasets to provide an authoritative
temperature assessment.

It said the 10-year average temperature from 2014 to 2023 was 1.20C above the pre-industrial
average.

Even if Earth's average surface temperature breaches the 1.5C mark in 2024, it does not mean
the world has failed to meet the Paris Agreement target of capping global warming under that
threshold.

That would occur only after several successive years above the 1.5C benchmark, and even then
the 2015 treaty allows for the possibility of reducing Earth's temperature after a period of
"overshoot".

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SCI-TECH WRITING EXERCISE #2

Global warming pushes ocean temperatures off the charts — study

Agence France-Presse

PARIS, France — In 2023, the world's oceans took up an enormous amount of excess heat,
enough to "boil away billions of Olympic-sized swimming pools," according to an annual report
published Thursday.

Oceans cover 70 percent of the planet and have kept the Earth's surface livable by absorbing 90
percent of the excess heat produced by the carbon pollution from human activity since the dawn
of the industrial age.

In 2023, the oceans soaked up around 9 to 15 zettajoules more than in 2022, according to the
respective estimates from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and
the Chinese Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP).

One zettajoule of energy is roughly equivalent to ten times the electricity generated worldwide in
a year.

"Annually the entire globe consumes around half a zettajoule of energy to fuel our economies",
according to statement.

"Another way to think about this is 15 zettajoules is enough energy to boil away 2.3 billion
Olympic-sized swimming pools."

In 2023, sea surface temperature and the energy stored in the upper 2000 metres of the ocean
both reached record highs, according to the study published in the journal Advances in
Atmospheric Sciences.

The amount of energy stored in the oceans is a key indicator of global warming because it is less
affected by natural climate variability than sea surface temperature.

Some of the colossal amounts of energy stored in the ocean helped make 2023, a year rife with
heatwaves, droughts and wildfires, the hottest on record.

That's because the warmer the oceans gets, the more heat and moisture enters the atmosphere.
This leads to increasingly erratic weather, like fierce winds and powerful rain.

Warmer sea surface temperatures are driven mostly by global warming, caused mainly by the
burning of fossil fuels.

Every few years, a naturally occurring weather phenomenon, El Nino, warms the sea surface in
the southern Pacific, leading to hotter weather globally. The current El Nino is expected to peak
in 2024.

Conversely, a mirror phenomenon called La Nina periodically helps cool the surface of the ocean.

Increasing water temperatures and ocean salinity -- also at an all-time high -- directly contribute
to a process of "stratification", where water separates into layers that no longer mix.

This has wide-ranging implications because it affects the exchange of heat, oxygen and carbon
between the ocean and atmosphere, with effects including a loss of oxygen in the ocean.

Scientists are also concerned about the long-term capacity of the oceans to continue absorbing
90 percent of the excess heat from human activity.
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SCI-TECH WRITING EXERCISE #3

CLIMATE CHANGE

PARIS, France — The year of 2023 was the hottest on record, with the increase in Earth's
surface temperature nearly crossing the critical threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius, EU climate
monitors said Tuesday.

Climate change intensified heatwaves, droughts and wildfires across the planet, and pushed the
global thermometer 1.48 C above the preindustrial benchmark, the Copernicus Climate Change
Service (C3S) reported.

"It is also the first year with all days over one degree warmer than the pre-industrial period," said
Samantha Burgess, deputy head of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).
"Temperatures during 2023 likely exceed those of any period in at least the last 100,000 years."

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the year was a mere preview of the "catastrophic
future that awaits us if we don't act now", according to his spokesman.
Nearly half the year exceeded the 1.5C limit, beyond which climate impacts are more likely to
become self-reinforcing and catastrophic, according to scientists.
But even if Earth's average surface temperature breaches 1.5C in 2024, as some scientists
predict, it does not mean the world has failed to meet the Paris Agreement target of capping
global warming under that threshold.
That would occur only after several successive years above the 1.5C benchmark, and even then
the 2015 treaty allows for the possibility of reducing Earth's temperature after a period of
"overshoot".
2023 saw massive fires in Canada, extreme droughts in the Horn of Africa or the Middle East,
unprecedented summer heatwaves in Europe, the United States and China, along with record
winter warmth in Australia and South America.
"Such events will continue to get worse until we transition away from fossil fuels and reach net-
zero emissions," said University of Reading climate change professor Ed Hawkins, who did not
contribute to the report.
"We will continue to suffer the consequences of our inactions today for generations."
The Copernicus findings come one month after a climate agreement was reached at COP28 in
Dubai calling for the gradual transition away from fossil fuels, the main cause of climate
warming.
"We desperately need to rapidly cut fossil fuel use and reach net-zero to preserve the liveable
climate that we all depend on," said John Marsham, atmospheric science professor at the
University of Leeds.
The year saw another ominous record: two days in November 2023 exceeded the preindustrial
benchmark by more than two degrees Celsius.
Copernicus predicted that the 12-month period ending in January or February 2024 would
"exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level".

Oceans in overdrive
is also the first year with all days over one degree warmer than the pre-industrial period," said
Samantha Burgess, deputy head of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).
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Reliable weather records date back to 1850, but older proxy data for climate change—from tree
rings, ice cores and sediment—show that 2023 temperatures "exceed those of any period in at
least the last 100,000 years", Burgess said.
Records were broken on every continent. In Europe, 2023 was the second-warmest year on
record, at 0.17C cooler than in 2020.

2023 saw the beginning of a naturally occurring El Nino weather phenomenon, which warms
waters in the southern Pacific and stokes hotter weather beyond.
The phenomenon is expected to reach its peak in 2024, and is linked to the eight consecutive
months of record heat from June to December.
Ocean temperatures globally were also "persistently and unusually high", with many seasonal
records broken since April.

Soaring CO2 and methane

These unprecedented ocean temperatures caused marine heatwaves devastating to aquatic life
and boosted the intensity of storms.

Oceans absorb more than 90 percent of excess heat caused by human activity, and play a major
role in regulating Earth's climate.
Rising temperatures have also accelerated the melting of ice shelves—frozen ridges that help
prevent massive glaciers in Greenland and West Antarctica from slipping into the ocean and
raising sea levels.

Antarctic sea ice hit record-low levels in 2023.

"The extremes we have observed over the last few months provide a dramatic testimony of how
far we now are from the climate in which our civilisation developed," said Carlo Buontempo, C3S
director.
In 2023, carbon dioxide and methane concentrations reached record levels of 419 parts per
million and 1,902 parts per billion, respectively.

Methane is the second-largest contributor to global warming after CO2, and is responsible for
around 30 percent of the rise in global temperatures since the industrial revolution, according to
the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

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SCI-TECH WRITING EXERCISE #4
HOW DOES STEM CELL THERAPY WORK?

Human stem cells are essential for the growth and maintenance of our organs, bones, and
systems. They are also amazing tools of discovery for scientists at the Institute for Stem Cell and
Regenerative Medicine and researchers around the world studying how to stop diseases.
However, predatory businesses across the country are misusing the term stem cells to market
unapproved, unproven, and unsafe procedures that are often expensive and largely ineffective.
It’s important to understand what stem cell therapy really means.

What are the different types of stem cell therapy?

Let’s start by creating two categories of stem cell therapies – approved (by the FDA) and
unapproved. Whether a stem cell therapy is approved or unapproved has critical implications
for the science, effectiveness, and safety of the procedure.
At this point in time only a few FDA-approved stem cell-based therapies are available. The most
common such treatment is the blood stem cell transplant procedure in which blood stem cells
are used to treat patients with blood cancers, like leukemia. In this procedure, harmful cancer
cells are attacked with chemotherapy, then replaced with healthy stem cells that, hopefully,
proliferate and grow healthy tissue. Like all FDA-approved treatments, the blood stem cell
transplant procedure was the result of rigorous research and testing conducted over many years.
(In addition to blood stem cell transplants), the FDA lists a limited number of additional
approved products on its website.)
More recently, hundreds of businesses around the country referring to themselves as clinics
have begun marketing various versions of stem cell therapy that promise to help patients with
serious conditions like Parkinson’s disease and more common ailments like joint pain. In reality,
most of these types of stem cell therapy do not use stem cells at all. Rather, they remove tissues
that presumably contains adult stem cells from one body part and inject those cells into another
part of the body.
How long does it take for stem cell therapy to work?
Furthermore, there is no proof that any stem cell therapy offered by stem cell clinics is effective
or safe. Unlike FDA-approved procedures, which are subject to years of rigorous trials,
unapproved treatments marketed directly to patients are developed and performed with little
oversight. While stem cell clinics often tout testimonials from satisfied customers, there has
never been a large-scale clinical trial to demonstrate that the perceived benefits of a stem cell
therapy aren’t the result of a placebo effect. In recent years, the FDA has begun to expand
regulations and enforcement of these clinics.

Thanks to decades of data, we know much more about the effectiveness of blood stem cell
transplants. We also know they are not instant cures. While the procedure itself only lasts a few
hours, recovery can take weeks. During this period, patients are monitored closely by physicians
and nurses for side effects and for evidence of recovery.
What are the negative effects of stem cell therapy?
There are side effects associated with approved and unapproved stem cell therapies. The possible
side effects of blood stem cell transplants are detailed on the Cancer.org website. Patients
considering an unapproved stem cell therapy should be aware that these procedures carry
serious risks – and that these risks may not be managed by a qualified care team. Injecting even
a person’s own tissue in a different body part has resulted in severe illness and, in some cases,
blindness.
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Therapies offered by stem cell clinics come with financial risk as well. Because these procedures
are generally not covered by insurance, people seeking treatment are required to pay large out-
of-pocket fees with no guarantee of improved health.
How long does stem cell therapy last?
In their advertising, stem cell clinics promise unsubstantiated relief or even cures for everything
from knee pain to Parkinson’s disease, often taking advantage of vulnerable individuals who may
feel they have nowhere else to turn. In reality, there is no strong evidence to back up claims that
any stem cell therapy works – let alone has lasting benefits.

SOURCE 2
Woman dies after stem cell therapy

MANILA, Philippines — A 39-year-old woman died from alleged complications brought by stem
cell therapy.
A relative of the victim informed the police on Thursday about her death in a hospital in Quezon
City on Jan. 9, just hours after she underwent stem cell treatment in a clinic in Barangay Phil-
Am. The victim had a chronic kidney disease, according to police.
Probers said the victim suffered a seizure and became unconscious at around 1 p.m. after she
finished her stem cell treatment.
The woman was rushed to a hospital in Barangay West Triangle for medical treatment. She died
at around 2:34 p.m.
The victim’s death certificate stated her cause of death as anaphylactic shock as the immediate
cause, with glutathione and stem cell intravenous infusion as the antecedent cause.

It is unclear if the victim’s family will pursue charges against the clinic.

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SCI-TECH WRITING EXERCISE #5
A silent epidemic emerging: The rising mental health concern
MANILA, Philippines — As the world emerges from the shadows of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new
challenge looms large and clear: A silent and pervasive epidemic of mental health disorders is taking
shape.

Recent data reveals alarming statistics. Globally, The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that one
in eight individuals is living with a mental health condition.

In the Philippines, 41% of Filipino Prosumers (consumers who are at the forefront of emerging trends,
behaviors, beliefs and attitudes; making up 15 to 20% of the population) admit to be grappling with
mental health issues. This figure skyrockets to 73% among Filipino Gen-Zs, indicating that they are more
likely to experience mental health conditions than the average Filipino.

With 95% of Filipino Prosumers agreeing that mental health is one of the most pressing issues of our
times, and 91% saying that “mental health is as important as physical health,” it is urgent to address this
problem.

The bigger problem is that social stigmas and the fear of being misunderstood and judged is causing those
who are suffering from mental health issues to suffer in silence. Seventy percent of them tend to mask
their true emotions in order to fit in society and in work situations, presenting a facade of wellbeing
instead. Since they put up a front, people they interact with do not see how serious their problem is and
thus tend to dismiss mental health disorders as fleeting emotions or attribute them to a generation that is
“weak.”

The misguided notion that mental wellness is a choice, and that individuals can simply “suck it up” or
"will themselves to get better" further narrows the doors to an open dialogue. As a result, those who are
experiencing mental health problems end up feeling isolated and kept farther away from the help that they
need.

While world issues like inflation and socio-political climate contribute to mental stress, personal concerns
such as familial relationships, personal financial stability, and job security still affect people on a deeper
level. Close to half (49%) of Filipino Prosumers identify their personal and family situations as a factor
with the greatest impact on their personal wellbeing. In comparison, only 20% have identified the
economic situation as having the greatest impact on their mental health, and the COVID-19 pandemic was
only identified by 18% as causing them a lot of mental stress.

“The path forward requires collective action. Public and private entities establishing robust support
systems is one step closer to addressing mental health matters. At Havas Ortega, we open the
conversation on self-care and relaxation through our TALK Initiative. We also have an employee assistance
program that enables our people, who are living with mental health conditions, to not only survive at work
but to also thrive and grow,” said Jos Ortega, chairman and CEO of Havas Ortega.

For Filipino companies and brands, adherence to the Philippine Mental Health Law is the starting point.
But it is necessary to go beyond mere compliance to the law: Recognizing that employees have physical
and mental wellbeing needs is the foundation of helping them grow holistically as individuals.

Ortega added: “By fostering an environment that encourages mental health discussions through
advertising and marketing, businesses can be at the forefront of combating the silent pandemic of mental
health disorders — ensuring a brighter, healthier future for all Filipinos.”

This is true not only in the workplace, though. Proper intervention to directly address the problem of
mental health should come from family support groups, too, and, if need be, from mental health experts to
get to the root of the problem and make sure it is solved.

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