Spent much time thinking about Bangladesh lately? If the answer is no, don't worry — I was in the same boat, so to speak, until I saw these pictures.
Earlier this month, crushing rains left 20 people dead and over 20,000 stranded when overwhelming rainfall left five feet of standing water in the low-lying areas. This is on top of already taxed landscapes that flooded when melting Himalayan glaciers burst the 200 rivers that web across the country last year. Bangladesh under water is seeming like a real and permanent possibility.
The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — whose claims are usually conservative — said that Bangladesh is heading to lose 17 percent of its land and 30 percent of its food production by 2050. That's like California and New York drowning, and the whole Midwest ceasing production of food.
If this happens, more than 20 million Bangladeshis will be without a patch of land to stand on. Though hardship in the country isn't entirely recent: since 1971, Bangladesh has endured over 200 disasters that have left a total of 500,000 dead and affected a total of 500 million people.
And I haven't even said anything about the plague of rats that's consuming all of their food. A plague of rats. I wish, wish there was more room for stories like this in the general consciousness — shouldn't we be hearing about this every night? Not to dwell on the gloomy, but just knowing about this makes the answer to this question pretty clear to me.
Ann Sofie Back
EWA
Mulberry
Gotta love their spirit - that bus is a rare work of art.
1Well here is a perfect opportunity to save the lives of a few thousand cats from being gassed. Spaid/Neuter them and the country of Bangladesh can pay for their passage to hot spots where the Rats are out of control.
2That's a great idea. My Uncle/father-in-law has 20 cats on his farm he'd like to get rid of...
3My husband is Bangladeshi and we go back to visit his family every few years. Things in the country have steadily gotten worse and worse for the vast majority of the population every time we go back. It is one of the poorest countries in the world, and I can see the looming tragedy here. Citizen, I agree with you, these types of tragedies are things we should be hearing about and caring about...
4It is wrong that we haven't heard about this - it is stunning what some people have to endure. I appreciate your including this story Citizen, it is worth knowing and making an effort to learn more about.
5Wow, why haven't I heard about this? I tend to think I'm fairly up on my news. I feel so bad for the Bangledeshis who are suffering because of this--and for so many years. I believe this is climate-change in action. Plus it makes me ashamed our military is wasting time in Iraq when they should be helping in situations like this.
6This is terrible. In south Texas right now, after Dolly, there is a huge tarantula and fire ant problem due to the flooding. That's always fun!
7EWWW! GS, please tell me that the tarantulas don't actually come into your house??!! How does the flooding create that problem, btw?
8I luckily am not in south Texas. We do have tarantula's here though, check out my pics to see my latest kill. But the problem there it the lowland grassy areas where they live are flooded and they are invading all higher ground including homes. The fire ants are worse than the tarantulas in my opinion.
9Whoa - had to go look at the picture. That thing was HUGE! I give you props, girl - I think I would have totally lost my mind if I saw that thing in my house! But you held it together and managed to kill it!
10Thank you ma'am! It was on the back porch. The worst is when I was in high school, I was jumping on our trampoline with some friends and I kept feeling something on my leg. It felt like hair or something so I kept just brushing at it absentmindedly. Well, all the sudden it dawned on me, that's no hair. I looked down and it was a tarantula bigger than that one. I knocked that thing like twenty feet then squished it repeatedly with a shovel. I HATE spiders.
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12I also hate spiders. I remember the first time I went to visit my husband's family in Bangladesh, we were hanging out with one of his older brother's family and I looked up on the wall and there was this HUGE black spider - seriously, the largest I have ever seen, it must've been nearly a foot across, including the legs! His brother told me it was a leftover decoration from Halloween so that I wouldn't totally freak out. Come to find out, they don't celebrate Halloween in Bangladesh!! LOL! I had no clue that it was real until much later, when we had returned home....
You seriously just icked me out!!
13Dhaka is already overrun with cats ... I don't think a shortage of cats is the reason the rats haven't been kept in check.
14The problem is that the country hasn't done a good job of birth control clinics, and aid to displaced people. The stuff these people use to build their homes in fishing villages are the equivalent of building paper-houses to block the wind. The government ... in all their corruption ... needs to change and help the people instead of themselves.
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