[Tlc] T-Bangkok and Global Warming

[justinm at ucr.edu]

Where to move the capital next?
Best,
justin

Subject: 	News: Bangkok May Be Swamped In 20 Years By Rising Seas,
Sinking Land
Date: 	Sun, 21 Oct 2007 23:54:55 -0700
From: 	Yahoo Group <vasishth at csun.edu>
Reply-To: 	envecolnews-owner at yahoogroups.com
To: 	Environmental Ecology News <envecolnews at yahoogroups.com>


http://www.sptimes.com/2007/10/21/Worldandnation/Rising_seas_inch_towa.shtml

*Rising seas inch toward Thailand's capital
*    The land is sinking, too, and experts say the city of
10-million
will go under in 20 years.

Associated Press
Published October 21, 2007

KHUN SAMUT CHIN, Thailand - At Bangkok's watery gates,
Buddhist monks
cling to a shrinking spit of land around their temple as they
wage war
against the relentlessly rising sea.

During the monsoons at high tide, waves hurdle the breakwater of
concrete pillars and the inner rock wall around the temple on a
promontory in the Gulf of Thailand. Jutting above the
waterline just
ahead are remnants of a village that has already slipped
beneath the sea.

Experts say these waters, aided by sinking land, threaten to
submerge
Thailand's sprawling capital of more than 10-million people
within this
century. Bangkok is one of 13 of the world's largest 20 cities
at risk
of being swamped as sea levels rise in coming decades,
according to
warnings at the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change held there.

"This is what the future will look like in many places around the
world," says Lisa Schipper, an American researcher on global
warming,
while visiting the temple. "Here is a living study in
environmental change."

The loss of Bangkok would destroy the country's economic
engine and a
major hub for regional tourism.

"If the heart of Thailand is under water, everything will
stop," says
Smith Dharmasaroja, who chairs the government's Committee of
National
Disaster Warning Administration. "We don't have time to move
our capital
in the next 15-20 years. We have to protect our heart now, and
it's
almost too late."

The arithmetic gives Bangkok little cause for optimism.

The still expanding megapolis rests about 31/2 to 5 feet above the
nearby gulf, although some areas already lie below sea level.
The gulf's
waters have been rising by about a tenth of an inch a year,
about the
same as the world average, says Anond Snidvongs, a leading
scientist in
the field.

But the city, built on clay rather than bedrock, has also been
sinking
at a far faster pace of up to 4 inches annually as its teeming
population and factories pump some 2.5-million cubic tons of
cheaply
priced water, legally and illegally, out of its aquifers. This
compacts
the layers of clay and causes the land to sink.

Everyone - the government, scientists and environmental groups
- agrees
Bangkok is headed for trouble, but there is some debate about
when.
Anond, who heads the Southeast Asia START Regional Center,
believes
total submersion may not be imminent, but Smith disagrees.

"You notice that every highway, road and building which has no
foundation pilings are sinking," Smith says. "We feel that
with the
ground sinking and the seawater rising, Bangkok will be under
seawater
in the next 15 to 20 years - permanently."

As authorities ponder, communities like Khun Samut Chin, 12
miles from
downtown Bangkok, are taking action.

The five monks at the temple and surrounding villagers are
building the
barriers from locally collected donations and planting
mangrove trees to
halt shoreline erosion.

The odds are against them. About half a mile of shoreline has
already
been lost over the past three decades, in large part due to the
destruction of once vast mangrove forests. The abbot, Somnuk
Attipanyo,
says about a third of the village's original population was
forced to move.

The top of a broken concrete water storage tank protrudes from
the muddy
sea.

The monastery grounds are less than a tenth of their original
size, and
the waterlogged temple is regularly lashed by waves that have
forced the
monks to raise its original floor by more than 3 feet.

Fast facts

Threat from sea

Of the 33 cities predicted to have at least 8-million people
by 2015, at
least 21 are highly vulnerable, says the Worldwatch Institute.

Cities at risk

Dhaka, Bangladesh

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Shanghai and Tianjin, China

Alexandria and Cairo, Egypt

Mumbai and Kolkata, India

Jakarta, Indonesia

Tokyo and Osaka-Kobe, Japan

Lagos, Nigeria

Karachi, Pakistan

Bangkok, Thailand

New York and Los Angeles

Countries at risk

More than one-tenth of the world's population, or 643-million
people,
live in low-lying areas at risk from climate change, say U.S. and
European experts. Most imperiled, in descending order, are
China, India,
Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, Japan, Egypt, the U.S.,
Thailand and the
Philippines.

______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
951-827-4530
justinm at ucr.edu