Something Is Rotten In Sonar (Golden) Bangladesh
nkdat...@bigmailbox.net
cyclones and eight major floods. Over 140,000 people were killed and
about 11 million people affected by a cyclone in April 1991. Floods in
1998 were one of the worst natural disasters experienced by the country
in the 20th century. More than half of Bangladesh's surface area was
flooded, affecting over 30 million people and damaging property worth
over $3 billion. In 2005, once again, floods inundated 38 per cent of
the country, killing over 800 people, while millions of people in
northern Bangladesh were experiencing a drought]
http://www.newagebd.com/2006/nov/28/edit.html#2
New Age, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
EDITORIAL
Bangladesh and climate change
Since the late-1990s Bangladesh's weather patterns have been
changing: on this there seems to be little scope for debate. The
winters are getting shorter and milder, the monsoons drier in some
parts of the country and coming in intense bursts in other parts, while
the frequency of tropical cyclones seems to be on the rise. This year
we have had one of our driest monsoons, with a few intense but once
more short bursts of rainfall, with the long-drawn-out weeks of
continuous rainfall - a mainstay of the monsoon - coming very late,
posing a serious risk to aus. Meanwhile, in keeping with last year's
trend, during the monsoon the northern districts were faced with a
drought, a phenomenon unheard of in the collective agricultural memory
of our farmers that spans hundreds of years. While Bangladesh, due to
its geographical position, has experienced floods and cyclones for
centuries, climate scientists are seeing something amiss in the latest
statistics.
Between 1961 and 1998 Bangladesh has suffered an onslaught of 30
cyclones and eight major floods. Over 140,000 people were killed and
about 11 million people affected by a cyclone in April 1991. Floods in
1998 were one of the worst natural disasters experienced by the country
in the 20th century. More than half of Bangladesh's surface area was
flooded, affecting over 30 million people and damaging property worth
over $3 billion. In 2005, once again, floods inundated 38 per cent of
the country, killing over 800 people, while millions of people in
northern Bangladesh were experiencing a drought.
These are not numbers that can be ignored. With every year that
passes, it is increasingly clear that these phenomena are not isolated
events but weaving into a new climate pattern for the region. While
Bangladesh, as a deltaic region has always experienced flooding,
scientists say the frequency of high-magnitude floods has risen
fourfold, meaning damaging floods that occurred once every twenty years
are now four times as frequent. As the leaders of the G7 group of
powerful nations continue to wrangle over the veracity of the evidence
on climate change, people in some of the poorest corners of the world
are already bearing the brunt of changing climate patterns.
Last year, when I was in Nepal, members of a scientific team that
visited the uppermost reaches of the Manang Valley in the Annapurna
Himal, had just returned to report that its inhabitants were already
experiencing the impacts of melting glaciers. They were changing the
traditional crop of potatoes and buckwheat to tomatoes, cauliflower and
cabbage - unheard of in the times of their forefathers, because the
daily deposit of frost would have killed such vegetables in the past.
But this rising annual trend in temperatures is also exposing the
communities that live in the Himalayan valleys to GLOFS or glacial lake
outburst floods which occur when glacial lakes melt to a point that the
debris and moraine that dams them in, give way, sending trillions of
tonnes of water rushing downstream.
A GLOF at Nepal's Dig Tsho glacier in 1985 destroyed a
hydroelectric project near Namche Bazaar, as well as bridges, houses
and farmlands worth $4 million. And it isn't just water that crashes
down into the valleys. Boulders and debris come crashing down through
the valleys destroying crops, and razing villages in their wake. There
are over 5,000 glacial lakes between Bhutan, Pakistan, India, Nepal and
Tibet/China, and scientists regard at least 90 of these to be
potentially dangerous. In 1964, one such GLOF destroyed entire
stretches of highway in China and washed 12 timber trucks more than 70
kilometres downstream.
According to a 2005 report by the World Wildlife Fund, 67 per cent
of the Himalayan glaciers are melting at a startling rate and 'the
major causal factor has been identified as climate change'. The
Kumbhu Glacier, from where Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary began
their historic ascent of Mt Everest, has retreated more than five
kilometres since they climbed the mountain in 1953. The 30-kilometre
Gangotri Glacier in India, near the Badrinath pilgrimage centre, has
been receding over the last three decades at more than three times the
rate of the previous two centuries.
It is against this backdrop that Nicholas Stern, a former chief
economist at the World Bank, reported on climate change to the UK
government in October this year, delivering what has become the most
damning verdict on the West's policy of inaction against the causes
of climate change, to date.
The reason the Stern Review is likely to influence Western
policymakers more than anything else that has till now been in print is
that it breaks down the impacts of climate change into a series of
economic perils. According to Stern, there is still time to act, in
order to avoid a global economic cataclysm in which millions will lose
their lives or livelihoods because of rising sea levels and global
temperatures.
By Stern's calculations, the cost of not acting is a gradual
corrosion of global GDP by a massive 5 per cent each year 'now and
forever', meaning we as a world will be collectively worse off with
every year that passes. 'If a wider range of risks and impacts is
taken into account, the estimates of damage could rise to 20 [per cent]
of GDP or more,' the report warns.
The Stern review also notes: 'If no action is taken to reduce
emissions, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
could reach double its pre-industrial level as early as 2035, virtually
committing us to a global average temperature rise of over 2°C. In the
longer term, there would be more than a 50 [per cent] chance that the
temperature rise would exceed 5°C. This rise would be very dangerous
indeed; it is equivalent to the change in average temperatures from the
last ice age to today. Such a radical change in the physical geography
of the world must lead to major changes in the human geography -
where people live and how they live their lives.'
And if action is taken by the G7 to try and reduce emissions of the
harmful greenhouse gases, which are the major cause behind global
warming, the costs - and there will undoubtedly be heavy costs -
can be limited to a resulting loss of roughly 1 per cent of global GDP
- a no brainer by Stern's reckoning.
To conclude, Stern urges the creation of an international framework,
much like the Kyoto Protocol, that is accepted by everyone and whose
standards for emission cuts are abided by even if they run contrary to
national interest. It is important to note that the US has been the
principal fly in the ointment for the effectiveness of the Kyoto
Protocol since the neocons rejected the protocol within the first year
of Bush's presidency. The US' real fear on climate change action is
that it will have to rein in its energy sector by encouraging consumers
to save energy rather than spend it, a move that could snowball into an
economic slowdown at a time when its fiscal and budgetary deficits are
already at an all time high.
Bangladesh is thought to have little role to play in what is
becoming a global power play involving the G7. Perhaps this is only a
little true. Bangladesh, as mentioned earlier is going to be one of the
nations worst affected by rising sea levels, as it is a settling delta
and the country's average position above sea level is still falling.
In the mitigation and adaptation efforts that are ongoing at the
moment, Bangladesh needs to be a flag-bearer for the climate change
action lobby. International climate change conferences, like all
international conferences, are treated as foreign picnics by the
Ministry of Environment and Forests. While a number of Bangladeshi
climate change experts are frequently consulted by the powerful
Interdisciplinary Panel on Climate Change, the government refuses to
engage with any of them when they send delegations to these
conferences. Representatives are picked on the basis of 'you went
last year, so this year it is my turn,' psychology, and enthusiastic
but ignorant ministers' wives are happily made delegation heads. If
ministers' wives want to visit Montreal, by all means, the ministry
should find less consequential summits for them to attend suiting their
ignorance and national interest a little better.
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Bangladesh's Days All But Over With Global Warming .....
[... many Bangladeshi families escaping floods and droughts have
already slipped over the Indian border to swell the shanty towns of
Delhi, Bombay and Calcutta. ... as sea level rises by up to a metre
this century (the very top of the forecast range), as many as 30
million Bangladeshis could become climate refugees]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5344002.stm
BBC News
Thursday, 14 September 2006, 08:39 GMT 09:39 UK
Climate fears for Bangladesh's future
By Roger Harrabin, Environment analyst
Masuma's home is a bamboo and polythene shack in one of the hundreds of
slums colonising every square metre of unbuilt land in Dhaka, the
capital of Bangladesh.
Masuma is an environmental refugee, fleeing from the floods which have
always beset her homeland but which are predicted to strike more
severely with climate change.
She has found her way to the city from the rural district of Bogra - a
low-lying area originally formed from Himalayan silt where the
landscape is still being shaped by the mighty Brahmaputra river as it
snakes and carves through the soft sandy soil.
"In Bogra we had a straw-made house that was nice. When the flood came
there was a big sucking of water and everything went down," Masuma
says.
"Water was rising in the house and my sister left her baby upon the
bed. When she came back in, the baby was gone. The baby had been washed
away and later on we found the body," she recalls.
'Climate refugees'
Masuma's story is already commonplace in Dhaka, the fastest-growing
city in the world. Its infrastructure is creaking under the weight of
the new arrivals. Climate change is likely to increase the risks to
people like her.
Climate modellers forecast that as the world warms, the monsoon rains
in the region will concentrate into a shorter period, causing a cruel
combination of more extreme floods and longer periods of drought.
They also forecast that as sea level rises by up to a metre this
century (the very top of the forecast range), as many as 30 million
Bangladeshis could become climate refugees.
Harsh conditions await those who are forced to move to the slums
"Climate refugees is a term we are going to hear much more of in the
future," observes Saleem-ul Huq, a fellow at the London-based
International Institute of Environment and Development (IIED).
He says many Bangladeshi families escaping floods and droughts have
already slipped over the Indian border to swell the shanty towns of
Delhi, Bombay and Calcutta.
"The problem is hidden at the moment but it will inevitably come to the
fore as climate change forces more and more people out of their homes.
"There will be a high economic cost - and countries that have to bear
that cost are likely to be demanding compensation from rich nations for
a problem they have not themselves caused," Mr Huq predicts.
It is a problem that incenses informed politicians in countries like
Bangladesh, which are at the sharp end of climate change.
Environment Minister Jafrul Islam Chowdhury demands that rich nations
should take responsibility for a problem they have caused.
"I feel angry, because we are suffering for their activities. They are
responsible for our losses, for the damage to our economy, the
displacement of our people."
The UK government is taking something of a lead in helping Bangladesh
try to cope, by conducting a review aimed at ensuring that its
international aid programme takes account of a changing climate.
The Department for International Development (DfID) believes that up to
half its aid projects in the country could be compromised by climate
change.
Tom Tanner, climate and development fellow at the Institute of
Development Studies, Sussex, UK, is in Dhaka reviewing UK aid.
"We estimate that up to 50% of the (British) donor investment in a
country like Bangladesh is at risk from the impacts of climate change,"
he says.
Shifting sands
DfID is already starting to modify some aid programmes for the poorest
of the poor who make their homes on shifting silt islands in the great
rivers of Bangladesh.
The islands - known as choars - last on average about 20 years. Then
the inhabitants are flooded out, and need to seek new land created
elsewhere by the highly-dynamic rivers.
Locals say siltation levels appear to have diminished, so less new land
is being created.
For Pulmala Begum, who lives on an embankment on the Brahmaputra,
rebuilding has become commonplace; but each time she loses more. She
has been displaced by flood waters six times.
"We used to have a house and cattle and now we've got no land where we
can move to. This time we don't have any money to make another start,
or to educate our children," she laments.
"We have nothing left, but we have to survive, so we've had to build
our house from reeds."
The UK government is the biggest donor to Bangladesh, but its current
annual aid package of £125m cannot hope to tackle the scale of the
challenge now, let alone the problems that will come.
I understand that a review by Sir Nicholas Stern, commissioned by the
UK's prime minister and chancellor to look at the economics of climate
change, will conclude that rich nations need to do far more to adapt to
the inevitable consequences of climate change.
It will also say developed countries must cut emissions immediately to
minimise the effects.
Engineering solutions
Sir Nicholas' approach is criticised by some economists who argue that
as climate change is beyond human control we should continue to
maximise economic growth so we will be able to afford to pay for
adaptation in the future.
In a recent article for the Spectator magazine, former chancellor Lord
Lawson argued: "Far and away the most cost-effective policy for the
world to adopt is to identify the most harmful consequences that may
flow from global warming and, if they start to occur, to take action to
counter them."
Lord Lawson suggests that a Dutch dyke-building engineer might solve
the problems of Bangladesh.
The Stern review is likely to insist that both mitigation and
adaptation are necessary, and will argue that economists have
under-estimated the costs that climate change will impose and
over-estimated the costs of cutting emissions.
The Dutch government itself rejects the optimistic view taken by Lord
Lawson. A spokesman for the Dutch Embassy in Bangladesh told BBC News
that it would be impossible to protect Bangladesh in the way Holland
had been protected.
He said there were 230 rivers, which were much more dynamic than
Holland's rivers, consistently undermining attempts to channel them
through the sandy soil.
Mr Huq goes further: "It is ridiculous for people who know nothing
about Bangladesh to make pronouncements on how much of it can or cannot
be saved.
"Bangladesh is extremely vulnerable, and there is a major moral issue
because this is not a problem that people here have caused," he said.
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sir.jp...@neuf.fr
nkdat...@bigmailbox.net a écrit :
======================================================
Most interesting article and I thank you for it, Sir.
However one should look at the aspect of things not seen at first
sight.
Firstly, that country is completely unaware of the need to curb its
population and give to such indeed a proper education & future.
Secondly such country belongs to the realm of that Islamist sect which
mutilate its own children, killing in the egg then the possibility of
invention, creation and finding of new ways of durable development.
Thirdly as consequence the futile & wrong research of higher yields in
agriculture has lead to the poisonning by arsenic of all the water
ressources of such country and moreover of the destruction of forests
which are the mediator in the control of weather ( unknown by the
fraudulent University alleged sci000nce of fools )
Please read now down below that reply I provided on some aus.ng to a
thread presenting some US women as US leader in the promotion of the
Islam sect there.
QUOTE
In fact she is not Islamist at all since being Islamist implies a
genetic modification....
Like all converts to that sect of Ignorance and Irresponsibility, she
is totally unaware of the genetic modifications induced by the
Endocrinal Mutilation of young males on the 2nd puberty and
misleadingly called Circumcision.
If that pretending Islamist female was really so, she would be like
all Islamists females i.e. dull, submissive and indeed completely
passive to the Islamists males ' will.
The genetic manipulations of the 3 Semite sects ( JIC or
Judeo-Islamic-Christian ) is the most noticeable although completely
unknown aspect of such. The infantile beuuuliefs of such JIC sects are
of no importance, since only that destruction of the Pineal &
enforcing of the Surenales, Genital extern and Hypophyse consecutive to
the genetic degeneration makes such childish creeds acceptable.
One element of importance indeed and to be noted is the fact the Dow
syndrome can be cured completely in children diagnosed with such and
healed thanks to knowledge I hold ( based on the endocrinal system as
opposed to the nervous system as main control over Mankind ) ... as
well as the total ignorance of islamists as well for that matter by the
other JIC sects of the easy way to cure brain tumour & other cancer ( +
other dizeezezzz ) in 5 days flat, as well as Tetanus in one second
flat etc ( but such knowledge must not be made available to people who
have so little regard to the Almighty Creator 's Laws of life to the
point indeed of mutilating their own children )
ENQUOTE
Yours faithtully
Sir Jean-Paul Turcaud
Exploration Geologist & Offshore Consultant
Mobile +33 650 171 464
Australia Mining Pioneer
Founder of the True Geology
http://www.tnet.com.au/~warrigal/grule.html
http://users.indigo.net.au/don/tel/index.html
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~hubbca/turcaud.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/stories/s28534.htm