Bapor! Paris!
Strands of Philippine history and climate change are more tangled than you think.
Many Filipinos still use the word “bapor” when they see huge sea-faring vessels, but most are not aware of the word’s origins. Bapor is from “vapor” which is another way to describe “steam” that powers up engines fueled by the dirtiest of fossil fuels: coal.
The new introduction to the 50th anniversary edition of The Philippines: A Past Revisited shows how closely intertwined our past is with the climate crisis. It was coal, for instance, that enabled British textile factories to produce the flood of super cheap cotton fabrics in the 19th century that decimated Filipino sinamay, jusi, and piña industries.
Coal is also what powered warships of the United States when it annexed and invaded the Philippines when Filipino revolutionaries had just defeated Spanish colonial rule.
U.S. steamers would bombard defenders of the Philippine republic then off-load American imperial troops across the archipelago [READ]
