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"In Bangladesh, 'the future has arrived.' "
This entry was posted on 3/9/2007 11:04 PM and is filed under Global Warming.
How urgently do we need to address global warming? Now. Here are excerpts from a February 21, 2007 Los Angeles Times article by Henry Chu:
Now
"Thirty years ago, an embankment built to hem in the tidal rivers around them was sufficient to protect villagers from major inundations. Now they estimate that the high-tide mark has climbed 10 feet, and breaches such as one that happened in September, which swamped hundreds of homes, have become depressingly common."
" 'The water came up to here,' said Iman Ali Gain, sweeping his hand up to his chest as scores of men behind him hauled baskets of gloppy gray soil to repair the dike. 'We were afraid when we saw it.' "
"But Gain knows how his life has changed over the last several years because of new environmental conditions. He once grew rice to support himself and his family, but his harvests started shrinking as the salinity of the water increased. To cope, he followed the example of many of his neighbors and switched to shrimp farming, a way to take advantage of the salty water washing over the fields."
"For the first time in Munshiganj, shrimp farming occupies more of the cultivable land than do traditional crops."
"Though the shift has enabled some villagers to survive, it has created other headaches. Because it is less labor-intensive, shrimp farming has boosted unemployment. Thousands of residents have migrated to other parts of Bangladesh or India in search of work."
"Worse yet, deliberately trapping so much briny water to raise shrimp has increased the sodium concentration in the soil, which aggravates the salinity creeping into drinking-water supplies."
Future
"This month, a long-awaited report by the United Nations said global warming fueled by human activity could lift temperatures by 8 degrees and the ocean's surface by 23 inches by 2100."
"If sea levels continue to rise at their present rate, by the time Biswas, 35, retires from his job as a teacher, the only home he has known will be swamped, overrun by the ocean with the force of an unstoppable army. That, in turn, will trigger another kind of flood: millions of displaced residents desperate for a place to live."
" 'It will be a disaster,' Biswas said."
"Bangladesh, a densely crowded and painfully poor nation, contributes only a minuscule amount to the greenhouse gases slowly smothering the planet. But a combination of geography and demography puts it among the countries experts predict will be hit hardest as Earth heats up."
"Nearly 150 million people, the equivalent of about half the U.S. population, live packed in an area the size of Iowa and about as flat."
"'I request people, please understand the situation of the Earth. Please make your decisions according to the situation.' And please think of poor people like us, who have not created greenhouse gases. Please think of our situation.' Mohon Kumar Mondal, a local environmental activist"    
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