Sunday, September 10, 2006

Raining and Pouring

Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite.

Will we never learn? In the dry season and during periods of drought, many parts of India resemble a desert. But if it should rain, behold we have floods. The photos compare the Mahanadi estuary just one month apart. About 2 million people were displaced over that one month along the course of just this one river - 2,000,000!

Climate change has been rapid in India what with the massive elimination of forests over the last century. The land's ability to ameliorate the extremes has disappeard. The water table has dropped precipitously making it unlikely that the forests will ever come back even if we do try to allow aforestation. We replant with monocultures promoting bioinversity, we pollute. Is there anything left for us to make worse?

the people suffer

The government builds mega dams and the flooding worsens. The likelihood of catastrophic earthquakes increases - Latur, Bhuj and Kashmir all in the space of 10 years are not enough of a warning.

the people suffer

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