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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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 Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 1:31 am Post subject: Bangkok Sinking |
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I suggest Bangkok build the wall.
Rising seas, sinking land threaten Thai capital
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KHUN SAMUT CHIN, Thailand (AP) -- 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.
...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 here.
"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, chair of 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 3 � 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.
...He urges that work start now on a dike system of more than 60 miles -- protective walls about 16 feet high, punctured by water gates and with roads on top, not unlike the dikes long used in low-lying Netherlands to ward off the sea. The dikes would run on both banks of the Chao Phraya River and then fork to the right and left at the mouth of the river.
"There is no one single solution to respond to climate change," says Anond...
...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 monastery grounds are less than a tenth of their original size... the monks to raise its original floor by more than three feet. |
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Junior
Joined: 18 Nov 2005
Location: the eye
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| Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 5:19 am Post subject: Re: Bangkok Sinking |
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| keane wrote: |
| The dikes would run on both banks of the Chao Phraya River and then fork to the right and left at the mouth of the river. |
Ridiculous.
They need to undo the damage they've done to the coast over the past 20 years. They've built hotels, factories right up to the shore all the way along the coast, ripping out all the pre-existing forest, swamps, saltpans etc and draining them. What is needed is more care for, and understanding of the way the natural environment works.
Not ever more expensive quick-fixes to plaster over the wounds. Not ever more development projects to protect people from thet ever scarier force, nature. |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 1:47 pm Post subject: Re: Bangkok Sinking |
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| Junior wrote: |
| keane wrote: |
| The dikes would run on both banks of the Chao Phraya River and then fork to the right and left at the mouth of the river. |
Ridiculous.
They need to undo the damage they've done to the coast over the past 20 years. They've built hotels, factories right up to the shore all the way along the coast, ripping out all the pre-existing forest, swamps, saltpans etc and draining them. What is needed is more care for, and understanding of the way the natural environment works.
Not ever more expensive quick-fixes to plaster over the wounds. Not ever more development projects to protect people from thet ever scarier force, nature. |
I agree with your sentiment, but replanting the mangroves is not going to stop the meters of sea level rise that are likely this century. I refer you to Dr. Hansen's most recent research. You can find it in the Global Warming thread.
We are now past the point of "should have done" and well into "must be dones." |
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cbclark4
Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Location: Masan
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| Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:51 pm Post subject: |
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| The land is sinking. |
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jinju
Joined: 22 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:32 pm Post subject: |
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| Bangkok has been sinking for a long time. Under a delluge of weirdos, freaks and perverts who go there by the plane loads. |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 1:43 am Post subject: |
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| cbclark4 wrote: |
| The land is sinking. |
How many brain cells does it take to read an article that says, "The land is sinking and the sea is rising, so we have trouble," and come away with, "the land is sinking?"
Hint: not many.
As stated before, the latest research indicates METERS of sea level rise THIS century. Bangkok could not sink another millimeter and it would still end up going under water. |
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Julius
Joined: 27 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 4:44 am Post subject: |
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[quote="keane"]
| cbclark4 wrote: |
| The land is sinking. |
How many brain cells does it take ...quote]
cbclark still thinks global warming is a hoax???
HahahahaahahahaHahahahaahahaha!!!!!!!!!!  |
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TECO
Joined: 20 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 8:35 am Post subject: |
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read that's why the new airport is so crappy.
the runway is sinking.
they built it on re-claimed swamp land. |
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