Rising Sea levels threaten Indian Islands
my2hands
Posts: 17,117
what the hell are we going to do about this? what a mess we have made of this planet. all of us have contributed, so i imagine it will have to be all of us to clean it up, if that is possible at this point? only a few months ago a populated island in the south pacific was overwhelmed by rising seas, the first time that has ever happened on record.
Rising Sea Levels Threaten Indian Islands
By Bappa Majumdar
Reuters
Sunday 18 March 2007
Sheikh Alauddin, like hundreds of other residents living on West Bengal's Moushuni island, has never heard the term "global warming." But he is living with its consequences.
"At night we just pray to God, and hope the sea does not drown us," the 60-year-old told Reuters in Poilagheri village on the sparsely-populated island, part of the Sunderbans national park and the world's largest mangrove forest.
When the tide comes in, sea water laps at the top of a mud embankment that towers 6 meters (20 feet) above Alauddin's adjacent house and is all that keeps it from being washed away.
After a 10-year study in and around the Bay of Bengal, oceanographers say the sea is rising at 3.14 millimeters a year in the Sunderbans against a global average of 2 mm, threatening low-lying areas of India and Bangladesh.
"At least 15 islands have been affected but erosion is widespread in other islands as well," said Sugato Hazra, an oceanographer at Jadavpur University in Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal.
A United Nations climate panel, which grouped 2,500 scientists from 130 countries, concluded last month that human activity was causing global warming and predicted more droughts, heatwaves and rising seas.
But for the Sunderbans, made up of hundreds of islands and criss-crossed by narrow water channels and home to many of India's dwindling tiger population, the threat is more immediate.
"The crops have failed due to scanty rainfall but where do we go?" says Alauddin as his family of twelve stares at their parched farmland.
A combination of drought and then heavy rainfall this year and increasing soil salinity have made it impossible to grow enough food to survive on traditional agriculture alone.
"We now depend on fishing in the high seas and sometimes even eat leaves from different plants to survive," a frail-looking Jameel Mullick said.
At least 4 million people live in the islands spread across 9,630 sq. km (3,700 sq. miles) of mangrove swamps.
Top climate experts on the UN panel predicted that temperatures would increase by between 1.8 and 4 Celsius (3.2 and 7.8 Fahrenheit), and sea levels would rise by between 7 and 23 inches to submerge islands in the 21st century.
The impact could be even greater if ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland thaw.
The 400 or so families living on tiny Moushuni know what is coming.
Two nearby islands disappeared beneath the sea after residents were forced to leave, and the sea has swallowed about 100 sq. km of mangrove forest in three decades in the Sunderbans.
"Global warming and rising sea levels are already having a telling effect on the tiger's habitat," said Pronobes Sanyal of the National Coastal Zone Management Authority.
Rapid erosion over the last five years has destroyed mangrove cover up to 15 meters inland on several islands, environment experts say.
Salt and Sorrow
For centuries, the mangroves fed on both saline and fresh water - tides brought sea water upstream and mixed it with water from the Ganga and Brahmaputra rivers.
But now rising sea levels are pushing salt water inland.
Sixty year old Ayesha Khatoon stood on top of a mud embankment in Moushuni that has been breached at least seven times in the past 10 years.
"There was a lovely mud road surrounded by trees beyond this embankment and we had 3 acres of farmland which the sea swallowed in the last few years," recalled Ayesha.
"No one visits us now and they have left us all to die," she said, tears welling in her eyes as she hugs her young grandson.
Rapid felling of trees on the islands - in part to fuel two small power plants - is adding to erosion woes.
Dilip Maity, a farmer, lamented how he had erred in hacking down several rows of trees, an act which weakened and led to sea water flooding his small farm.
Alarmed, West Bengal's minister for the Sunderbans, Kanti Ganguly, said the islands had to be protected.
"We have realized it now and have taken a decision to raise heights of the mud embankments and increase mangrove cover in Sunderbans," he said.
Oceanographer Hazra says it might be too late.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070319/lf_nm/india_sunderbans_dc;_ylt=AtSTT6lJUN5DNM2BqZs6SV.GOrgF
Rising Sea Levels Threaten Indian Islands
By Bappa Majumdar
Reuters
Sunday 18 March 2007
Sheikh Alauddin, like hundreds of other residents living on West Bengal's Moushuni island, has never heard the term "global warming." But he is living with its consequences.
"At night we just pray to God, and hope the sea does not drown us," the 60-year-old told Reuters in Poilagheri village on the sparsely-populated island, part of the Sunderbans national park and the world's largest mangrove forest.
When the tide comes in, sea water laps at the top of a mud embankment that towers 6 meters (20 feet) above Alauddin's adjacent house and is all that keeps it from being washed away.
After a 10-year study in and around the Bay of Bengal, oceanographers say the sea is rising at 3.14 millimeters a year in the Sunderbans against a global average of 2 mm, threatening low-lying areas of India and Bangladesh.
"At least 15 islands have been affected but erosion is widespread in other islands as well," said Sugato Hazra, an oceanographer at Jadavpur University in Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal.
A United Nations climate panel, which grouped 2,500 scientists from 130 countries, concluded last month that human activity was causing global warming and predicted more droughts, heatwaves and rising seas.
But for the Sunderbans, made up of hundreds of islands and criss-crossed by narrow water channels and home to many of India's dwindling tiger population, the threat is more immediate.
"The crops have failed due to scanty rainfall but where do we go?" says Alauddin as his family of twelve stares at their parched farmland.
A combination of drought and then heavy rainfall this year and increasing soil salinity have made it impossible to grow enough food to survive on traditional agriculture alone.
"We now depend on fishing in the high seas and sometimes even eat leaves from different plants to survive," a frail-looking Jameel Mullick said.
At least 4 million people live in the islands spread across 9,630 sq. km (3,700 sq. miles) of mangrove swamps.
Top climate experts on the UN panel predicted that temperatures would increase by between 1.8 and 4 Celsius (3.2 and 7.8 Fahrenheit), and sea levels would rise by between 7 and 23 inches to submerge islands in the 21st century.
The impact could be even greater if ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland thaw.
The 400 or so families living on tiny Moushuni know what is coming.
Two nearby islands disappeared beneath the sea after residents were forced to leave, and the sea has swallowed about 100 sq. km of mangrove forest in three decades in the Sunderbans.
"Global warming and rising sea levels are already having a telling effect on the tiger's habitat," said Pronobes Sanyal of the National Coastal Zone Management Authority.
Rapid erosion over the last five years has destroyed mangrove cover up to 15 meters inland on several islands, environment experts say.
Salt and Sorrow
For centuries, the mangroves fed on both saline and fresh water - tides brought sea water upstream and mixed it with water from the Ganga and Brahmaputra rivers.
But now rising sea levels are pushing salt water inland.
Sixty year old Ayesha Khatoon stood on top of a mud embankment in Moushuni that has been breached at least seven times in the past 10 years.
"There was a lovely mud road surrounded by trees beyond this embankment and we had 3 acres of farmland which the sea swallowed in the last few years," recalled Ayesha.
"No one visits us now and they have left us all to die," she said, tears welling in her eyes as she hugs her young grandson.
Rapid felling of trees on the islands - in part to fuel two small power plants - is adding to erosion woes.
Dilip Maity, a farmer, lamented how he had erred in hacking down several rows of trees, an act which weakened and led to sea water flooding his small farm.
Alarmed, West Bengal's minister for the Sunderbans, Kanti Ganguly, said the islands had to be protected.
"We have realized it now and have taken a decision to raise heights of the mud embankments and increase mangrove cover in Sunderbans," he said.
Oceanographer Hazra says it might be too late.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070319/lf_nm/india_sunderbans_dc;_ylt=AtSTT6lJUN5DNM2BqZs6SV.GOrgF
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Comments
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Move. That's what I'd do if where I lived was going to be underwater. There wouldn't be a single loss of life if people acted sensibly.“One good thing about music,
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley0 -
Right ... 4 million people who have been living off the land, their only assets and the only way they know to earn a living soon to be lost, and they'll all just pick up and go. Now why didn't they think of that? I'm sure there's some obvious place they're supposed to go, and some obvious way of getting there, that I'm just not aware of.surferdude wrote:Move. That's what I'd do if where I lived was going to be underwater. There wouldn't be a single loss of life if people acted sensibly."Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." ~ MLK, 19630 -
hippiemom wrote:Right ... 4 million people who have been living off the land, their only assets and the only way they know to earn a living soon to be lost, and they'll all just pick up and go. Now why didn't they think of that? I'm sure there's some obvious place they're supposed to go, and some obvious way of getting there, that I'm just not aware of.
i hear what you're sayin but lets face it, they have no other option.0 -
.....oh scary... 40000 morbidly obese christians wearing fanny packs invading europe is probably the least scariest thing since I watched an edited version of The Care Bears movie in an extremely brightly lit cinema.0
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surferdude wrote:Move. That's what I'd do if where I lived was going to be underwater. There wouldn't be a single loss of life if people acted sensibly.
thats what i think about all those starving people in Africa... why dont they just move to somewhere where food is plenty... like Supermarketland or somewhere
:rolleyes:oh scary... 40000 morbidly obese christians wearing fanny packs invading europe is probably the least scariest thing since I watched an edited version of The Care Bears movie in an extremely brightly lit cinema.0 -
why is this news to anyone? alaska has been evacuating coastal towns due to rising waters for several months. coastal towns in the northeast us have been working on an evacuation plan as the rising waters eat away the shoreline. london has determined that a sea wall around the city would be too costly and is now working on a plan to move the city inland.0
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onelongsong wrote:why is this news to anyone? alaska has been evacuating coastal towns due to rising waters for several months. coastal towns in the northeast us have been working on an evacuation plan as the rising waters eat away the shoreline. london has determined that a sea wall around the city would be too costly and is now working on a plan to move the city inland.
links, man, links.
all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.0 -
I don't think it's necessarily "news" to those that have been paying attention that some coastal areas are going to have to be evacuated. I think it's that this is rather more alarming because of the number of people involved, and their near-total lack of resources beyond the land that they are about to lose.onelongsong wrote:why is this news to anyone? alaska has been evacuating coastal towns due to rising waters for several months. coastal towns in the northeast us have been working on an evacuation plan as the rising waters eat away the shoreline. london has determined that a sea wall around the city would be too costly and is now working on a plan to move the city inland."Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." ~ MLK, 19630 -
hippiemom wrote:Right ... 4 million people who have been living off the land, their only assets and the only way they know to earn a living soon to be lost, and they'll all just pick up and go. Now why didn't they think of that? I'm sure there's some obvious place they're supposed to go, and some obvious way of getting there, that I'm just not aware of.
Well, sheesh, if you don't have a car you could swallow your pride and go greyhound.
all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.0 -
Fuckin eh...looks like this Global warming thing is on.
how do you say "uhm...doh!" in Bengalese?
O to be a boat salesman in those parts...Progress is not made by everyone joining some new fad,
and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
over specific principles, goals, and policies.
http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg
(\__/)
( o.O)
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hippiemom wrote:I don't think it's necessarily "news" to those that have been paying attention that some coastal areas are going to have to be evacuated. I think it's that this is rather more alarming because of the number of people involved, and their near-total lack of resources beyond the land that they are about to lose.
i agree; but people act like this is something new. they also refuse to look beyond the obvious. in a few years when manhattan is under water; think of the toxic waste that will be entering the oceans. the sewage and dead bodies alone made new orleans a toxic waste site after katrina. and what about food? as the masses of people move inland and start living on the farmlands; where will the food come from?
the indian islands will be a good model for the world to watch. it will give the world an idea what it's up against. naturally it's too late to change it. man always waits until it's too late.0 -
gue_barium wrote:links, man, links.
if you haven't been paying attention thus far; why should i waste my time?0 -
I don't know much about this particular part of the world, it may very well be too late to save these islands, but based on what I've read I don't think it's too late to turn global warming around and save a lot of other areas. It's certainly discouraging that we're not trying very hard to do it.onelongsong wrote:i agree; but people act like this is something new. they also refuse to look beyond the obvious. in a few years when manhattan is under water; think of the toxic waste that will be entering the oceans. the sewage and dead bodies alone made new orleans a toxic waste site after katrina. and what about food? as the masses of people move inland and start living on the farmlands; where will the food come from?
the indian islands will be a good model for the world to watch. it will give the world an idea what it's up against. naturally it's too late to change it. man always waits until it's too late."Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." ~ MLK, 19630 -
onelongsong wrote:if you haven't been paying attention thus far; why should i waste my time?
Didn't that start when you clicked "login"?
Progress is not made by everyone joining some new fad,
and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
over specific principles, goals, and policies.
http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg
(\__/)
( o.O)
(")_(")0 -
I am thankful for the geniuses that inhabit this board......"so, the only home you have ever known is slowly sinking in the sea? Simply move inland." Brilliant, absolutely brilliant........I guess that they can call the moving company to pack up their meager little belongings and charge the cost to their gold card? Maybe they can crack open their overflowing bank account to purchase a nice inland farm plot? Subsistence farming pays so well in 3rd world countries, you know. And you know India is just so full of under-utilized land.....the government should just give it away. :rolleyes:All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a thousand enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.0
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onelongsong wrote:if you haven't been paying attention thus far; why should i waste my time?
It would be a good way to round out this story of Global Warming a bit if you did.
all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.0 -
Didn't you ever have a really good teacher? And didn't that teacher repeatedly stress that there are no stupid questions?onelongsong wrote:if you haven't been paying attention thus far; why should i waste my time?
If you don't have time just say so, but don't try to discourage people who want to learn more. Better they start paying attention now than not at all, right?"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." ~ MLK, 19630 -
tybird wrote:I am thankful for the geniuses that inhabit this board......"so, the only home you have ever known is slowly sinking in the sea? Simply move inland." Brilliant, absolutely brilliant........I guess that they can call the moving company to pack up their meager little belongings and charge the cost to their gold card? Maybe they can crack open their overflowing bank account to purchase a nice inland farm plot? Subsistence farming pays so well in 3rd world countries, you know. And you know India is just so full of under-utilized land.....the government should just give it away. :rolleyes:
They will eventually evolve fins and gills...it's gods way. The rest will climb back into the trees and live like monkeys.
What a time to sell fishing rods...Progress is not made by everyone joining some new fad,
and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
over specific principles, goals, and policies.
http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg
(\__/)
( o.O)
(")_(")0 -
hippiemom wrote:I don't know much about this particular part of the world, it may very well be too late to save these islands, but based on what I've read I don't think it's too late to turn global warming around and save a lot of other areas. It's certainly discouraging that we're not trying very hard to do it.
i used to think that way too. but the research done after the big "global warming" report; scientists discovered that in greenland; the meltwater is seeping through the cracks to lubricate the base of the ice; causing them to move much faster than anyone expected. in antartica; the melt water is seeping into the cracks but it's refreezing; causing it to expand and break off large pieces of ice. in 2005 nasa reported that 1250 sq miles of ice disappeared in 3 weeks.
in the year 2000 the earths ice was about the size of the us. in 2006; it would only cover the states west of the missippi river.
the earths fail-safe system is it's ice. ice reflects heat back into space. the more ice that melts; the faster the earth will warm.0 -
Then they can stay where they are and die. Sounds like a stupid approach to take but seems to be the one that will keep you happy.tybird wrote:I am thankful for the geniuses that inhabit this board......"so, the only home you have ever known is slowly sinking in the sea? Simply move inland." Brilliant, absolutely brilliant........I guess that they can call the moving company to pack up their meager little belongings and charge the cost to their gold card? Maybe they can crack open their overflowing bank account to purchase a nice inland farm plot? Subsistence farming pays so well in 3rd world countries, you know. And you know India is just so full of under-utilized land.....the government should just give it away. :rolleyes:
Moving people is quite easy. Nomadic tribes have been doing this for thousands of years. Yes, peoples lives will be uprooted and go through tremendous upheaval. I don't dispute this. But when the choice is move or die, I'd stop shitting on the move idea. Instead I'd start looking into what can be done to first facilitate the move then building new lives for all the transplanted people.
Shitting on the one idea that will save the lives of the affected people just seems retarded to me.“One good thing about music,
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley0
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