Climate change impacts in Bangladesh
With the Himalayas to the north and the Bay of Bengal to the south, Bangladesh sits on one of the world’s largest and most densely populated deltas, where the Jamuna, Padma and Meghna rivers converge.
With the Himalayas to the north and the Bay of Bengal to the south, Bangladesh sits on one of the world’s largest and most densely populated deltas, where the Jamuna, Padma and Meghna rivers converge.
Saying that financing for climate change is a right of the people of an affected country, the speakers at a conference yesterday urged the government to negotiate for compensation to face its possible adverse impact instead of seeking loan or grant. The two-day conference titled 'Financing for climate change: Challenges and way forward 2008' was organised jointly by Unnayan Onneshan and Oxfam Bangladesh at the LGED auditorium in the city. The speakers said Bangladesh is only getting lots of assurances but not enough fund.
The time is appropriate for the government NGOs, and local communities and non-profit to collaborate more effectively and start working together towards a cleaner Dhaka, and to protect wetlands in and around Dhaka from the pressure of development to ensure biodiversity. This writer was quite alarmed during a recent phone conversation with a relative, who was visiting Boston. It was alarming because my relative told me that there were hardly any wetlands in Bangladesh that may be considered active.
In the heels of the predatory nature of deforestation and environmental degradation, urban as well as rural afforestation programmes have assumed paramount significance in Bangladesh in line with the neighbouring South Asian nations. Although there has been a prolific growth of literature on environment in general and forestry in particular, research on urban forestry in Bangladesh has been strikingly limited.
The Dhaka City Corporation will receive around 100 CNG-run environmentally-friendly garbage trucks and 25 compactors, used in waste reduction, from the Japan government within a couple of months, corporation officials said. A Japanese team is now working in Bangladesh for this purpose and a memorandum of understanding, to this effect, is likely to be signed between the External Relations Division and the Japan government on August 22, said a top DCC engineer.
Increased arsenic in soil and water may sneak into the food chain, as it is more or less present in all types of crops in the country's arsenic-affected areas with some crops, such as arum, showing much more contamination than the internationally allowable standard, according to a group survey.
Is global warming causing more extreme weather? Many people seem to think that the last decade's heat waves, hurricanes and droughts did not happen just by chance, but were linked to the phenomenon of global warming. In 2003, for instance, a ferocious heat wave settled unexpectedly across Europe and killed 35,000 people. Nobody saw it coming.
Rising food prices and shortages have joined the energy and climate crisis, economic recession, and the war in Iraq, as headline news. While consumers struggle to pay their bills and put food on the table, Monsanto, Cargill, and Archer Daniels Midland rake in billions from taxpayer-subsidized biofuels. Monopolizing markets, polluting the environment with genetically modified organisms, and hoarding future reserves of crop seeds, wheat, rice, soy, corn, and other grains, the food and gene giants profit from global crisis and misery.
The current food crisis has several causes-rising demand for food and feed, biofuels, high oil prices, climate change, stagnant agricultural productivity growth-but there is increasing evidence that the crisis is being made worse by the malfunctioning of world grain markets. Given the thinness of major markets for cereals, the restrictions on grain exports imposed by dozens of countries have resulted in additional price increases. A number of countries have adopted retail price controls, creating perverse incentives for producers.
Eminent agri-scientist National Professor and former Vice Chancellor of Bangladesh Agriculture University Professor Dr. A.K.M. Aminul Haque said that Biotechnology has a potential to alleviate poverty and hunger in developing countries including Bangladesh and deserves an extra focus from concerned scientists and functionaries.
River dolphins, gavial (gharial) and turtles have almost been extinct from the rivers of the country. When the list of near extinct animals is increasing it is a rare opportunity to watch river dolphins and gavial (gharial) in the rivers of Bangladesh.