Sun 4 Mar 2007
How does such a small place hold so much? You worry that it will burst. But your worry is misplaced. You should worry that it will sink. For as the sea level rises, its waters will flow upward like fingers into a glove, turning the sweet river water into salt. The salt will destroy the crops and kill the fish and raze the forests. At the same time, the Himalayan peaks will melt, and they, too, will flow into the country. The rising sea and the melting mountains will meet on this tiny patch of the world, and the people who strain at its seams will drown with it, or be blown away to distant shores, casualties and refugees by the millions.
Full Article in New York Times by Tahmima
March 4th, 2007 at 9:15 am
I like the writing style! It might be a bit too early for comments on the book “A Golden Age” but having read bits of the book I have a feeling that a lot of prizes and applauds will come its way. Best wishes to Rose Anam.
As for climate change and its impact on Bangladesh, there are very few Bangladeshi organisations actually looking into this matter. BELA (primarily a legal rights enforcement organisation) and BAPA (dealing with urban ecological and environmental issues) are the only two that come to mind. We really need more environmentalists to raise their voices. Tahmima can be Bangladesh’s environmentalist voice to the world (…comparisons to Arundhati Roy?)!
March 5th, 2007 at 9:26 am
Wonderfully written article by Tahmima and very timely too.
March 5th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
Tahmima, great article - keep up the writing, you do it so well!!
March 6th, 2007 at 5:10 am
Dear all,
First, many thanks to Nazrul bhai for forwarding the news item on the latest IPCC Report. It agains shows the difficulty the present US Administration poses in taking some meaningful action to meet the challanges of global warming. Recently, I watched on news a US government spokesperson boasting how they were ahead of Europe and other parts of the planet in terms of activties like encouraging biofuels use (he was actually referring to the plant based ethanol production in the Mid-West which is hardly a panacea to the imminent problem of global warming); while poor people in Mexico are protesting the high costs of tortilla as imported corn prices have gone up with its use in corn-based ethanol production. This double standard is quite shocking as the high consumption US society is hardly facing the true effects of global warming while the poor in the developing countries are already bearing the brunt.
In this context, I would like to bring up my impressions at the recently held National Conference on Energy (NCE) in Dhaka. As a member of the Energy Panel I had the opportunity to be part of the team that prepared the Energy Strategy Report. However, attending the conference itself was indeed a rewarding experience. At the NCE, in the morning session, Prof Wahiuddin Mahmud very aptly made the point that while we are talking about the energy problem in our country, the so-called city dwellers (people who attend conferences like this) continues to live in nice high-rise apartment buildings and travel in air-conditioned cars (even if the traffic jams takes a while and thus makes it a bit inconvenient) to get from one place to another.
I found this point very timely, though of course this point has been made before. The high-maintenance lifestyle of urban dwellers is causing havoc on the limited natural resources of developed countries (and also the developing countries now) but we (the city dwellers) atleast are not affected by this. The ground water level in Dhaka city has gone down considerably in the recent past. In the afternoon session of the NCE, I tried to expand on this point instead of going into the details of my prepared presentation. I tried to emphasize the point that the poor people everywhere are the most vulnerable to global warming as they live in many cases more direct contact with nature and bear all the ill effects of unplanned development. We have a tendency to blame them for exploiting the nature as if we (the city based development wallahs) are the only ones that have the knowledge of cure and bear no responsibilty for the cause.
We all know that Dr. Md. Yunus has succesfully argued that the poor people in the world have been marginalized by the traditional banking systems even though the are not the ones that fail to repay loans (it is high income groups that default their large bank loans). In a similar vein, to be really pro-poor, we do not need to ‘target’ our limited resources on small projects for people living at the margins. A more effective way to spend our limited resouces would be on changing the consumption patterns of the urban rich. Some symbolic efforts targeting the poor will not produce any meaningful, long-term results.
To face the severe problem of global warming, we (the urban dwellers) need to change our lifestyles… which means becoming more energy efficient at home and at work place, travel less, live on locally produced materials and move away from consumerism in general. While it seems unfair, it is a hard fact that China and India cannot follow the same path of polluting, consumer-based development patterns that the Westerns countries did. The ensuing ecological disasters will be drastic and the signs are already there. We simply cannot afford our present lifestyles.While large battles in the policy arena remains to be won, this attitude towards so-called development does need to change now. Misguided efforts such as diverting poor people’s food (for example, corn) to produce ethanol so that the rich can drive their cars is hardly the way to meet global warming; what we need is to reduce dependency on cars, use public transportation, walk to the local shops or ride bicycles. Some major cities in the world are slowly waking up to such facts by making it prohibitavely expensive to drive cars in the city centres during rush hours (such as London), we can take similar measures in Dhaka. We need to move away from fossil fuel based energy generation to generation of energy from true renewables such as solar, wind and biogas (one usage of biofuel where biological waste such as animal excreta is used as opposed to growing corn or sugarcane to produce ethanol; the latter in many cases is food for poor people). However, energy efficiency in all this will be of paramount importance so that precious energy is not wasted in any stages of the chain (generation, transmission, distribution and also usage).
As I am writing this from the quiet city of Lusaka, I am making a mental comparison of the creativity amd work ethic of Bangladeshis as compared to the people in this region. We, urban Bangladeshis living in Dhaka or elsewhere, can make amazing things happen if we wish, but we really need to wake up to the fact that global warming is here (and we will feel its effect though perhaps not as quickly as vulnerable poor people) and we collectively need to make drastic lifestyle changes if we wish to leave behind a livable planet for our offsprings. Instead of blaming the West, we need to act at the national level as well as try to become active and make our voices heard at the regional and international levels.
Just some food for thought.
Sarwat
March 11th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Big discussion on environment is nothing but another tool of imperialists to suppress economic growth in third world. Due to my nature of job, I have to come accross a lot of people from 1st world who often talks about environment. These people are very much interested to talk about measures to be taken in India, China and other 3rd world countries but mum about 1st world.
The fact is, 1st world countries have been polluting the world four last 250 years. The per capita pollution created by a citizen of a 1st world is still 100 times more than that of a citizen of a 3rd world. (e.g. in china 6 cars for every 1000 persons, in USA a car for each person. In Ontario, Canada population 10 million power generation 31000 MW, in Bangladesh population 130 millions, power generation 4800 MW and son on). In 1st world countries a citizen creates on average 100 times more garbage that 3rd world, recycle only 20%. In 3rd world countries, per capita garbage creation is 100 times less but recycle rate is almost 80%.
Readers, please now your judgement where the action should take place. In many 3rd world countries, where people just starting to see a little prosperity after generations of suffereings, it is totally unjustified and in human to take back that little prosperity in the name of pollution control. My appeal is please, do not advocate the imperealist’s agenda unknowingly.
March 11th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
I agree with iftekhar’s sentiment, if not his line of argument. Though i beleive that folks are willingly playing the imperialist agenda.
I think the climate change argument is being spun like the development deceit, its not that there is not a big issue here, its that theres a false religion being spun.
Theres money in playing poor passive victims. no dignity though. this never botheres folks before, so i dont see it bothering people today.
article was sentimental unscientific writing, of little use in moving forward. dont take it personal sis.
March 11th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
Iftekhar and Fugstar, while it is certainly possible that the “imperialists” are spinning the climate change agenda with ulterior motives, are you honestly going to deny that the developing countries are the ones that are going to be hurt the most by climate change?
Rhetoric and “sentimental unscientific writing” aside, there are several economic reports that are quite rigorous in examining the impact of climate change on poverty and development. Needless to say the poor will be hit hardest. Just think about who gets hurt more when we have floods and typhoons back home - the foreign interests or the broke fishermen and farmers?
So, even if developed countries don’t give two $h!*s about the climate it does not change th fact that if the developing world doesn’t act, we’re gonna suffer more. And for the record, economic and environmental groups do put pressure on the “imperialists” to be more environmentally responsible.
Check out the links below for something more rigorous:
http://www.undp.org/energy/docs/poverty-and-climate-change-72dpi-part1.pdf
http://www.wri.org/climate/project_content_text.cfm?ContentID=1284
March 12th, 2007 at 4:01 am
amer,
Adapation to environmental change in desh, is part of my work. I hope that you dont disagree with my idea of the development industry. Its not my intention to bring up the human cause-natural cause issue as its foolish to, change is happeneing, lets deal with it. The excesses of Industrialisation and colonisation have plenty of their own impacts and can be critiqued on plenty of other grounds, withotu bringing CC into it.
Impacts are already being felt, and changes will make the global poor, whether in the west or the east, but especially in the east further endangered.
My medicine, is that we sort ourselves out, have better wiser accomodating planning, win iwn planning. Our collective intelligence needs to be be cranked, adbicating this challenge to others, even *suchil samaj* is not going to solve this. We will have more extreme weather events, less arable and settlement land, less living space weirdly shifting growing seasons. And this ontop of our existing hazardscapes.
i think we agree on much but i place more emphasis on internal transformation of thinking and practice.
some of us would call that adaptation, it is distinct from the mitigation you talk about. and ideally we would want both streams of activity to go forth.
Adaptation is the critical idea, in face of globalisation, environmental threats, couter terrorism and whatever. I beleive its about protecting what you hold dear and advancing in terms of your own world view. I hope that it doesnt fall into the hands of the ‘development practitioners’.