The Gathering Storm

Comments

• Erik wrote on June 12, 2008, 01:09AM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  Always blame the rich countries. Why is it that everyone wants to blame the U.S and other countries. Third world countries are just as much to blame. From China that is killing its own rivers and polluting its own air. To india that use wood to cook with and dumps their trash every where. To Africa who also uses wood to cook and even though they don't have food they still manage to have about 10-15 kids.
  The Koto agreement proves this point by telling the Americans to lower their Greenhouse gases but allowing China because its a developing country not to do anything.
  Its my belief that China is the biggest human rights violator and biggest polluters of this century. They should be held to the same responsibilities that everyone else is.

• Anonymous User wrote on June 12, 2008, 02:26AM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  Extreme poverty and Madarsa education in Bangladesh are posing problems to the comparatively rich India in the form of exporting terrorism and people.
  Recent explosions in India are a case in point.

• halfmonk wrote on June 12, 2008, 12:23PM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  in response to eric. there is a huge difference between countries like the u.s. and european nations where people are making a CHOICE to live in an environmentally unconsicous and greedy way. while people in china and india are burning wood because that's ALL they can afford to do. have you ever been to china or india? go there, then talk about it. beside that, the u.s. and western nations have been pumping greenhouse gases into the environment for decades not to mention all the other crap we've been doing for a long time. like above ground nuclear testing in the south pacific in the 50s. read about the Marshall islands and what happened to the people there because the u.s. government wanted to find out how large a nuclear device they could manufacture. wake up and get some perspective on the issue. don't deceive yourself, don't make excuses and take responbility for it.

• Change NOW wrote on June 13, 2008, 01:27PM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  as somebody who travels to asia every year (maybe not this year because of fuel prices) and the imperative to conserve, middle class chinese are MUCH more environmentally aware than their US middle class peers....almost everybody has solar water heater and has for some time....a lot of people have five story apartments, I was just reading that some architect in US just proposed something similar to save land and it was "revolutionary"; in the countryside in China, of course, poor people, just like the growing number of poor here do not have envir. conservation as their first priority, that is supposed to be the role of govt....here neocons reframe this as "free market", or you're on your own....just like "globalization" is fine as long as we're winning....and then, now that we're not, we've become xenophobic, isolationist, and protectionist....under dubya.....mcbush would continue these policies, the sooner gm goes under, the better, as they sell chinese 30 yr old technology or getting rid of old crap, so they hopefully cannot compete, not realizing china will just revert to coal and exacerbate the climate crisis....people are not going to immediately stop populating this plant, so we need to really innovate....and fast....we cannot grow food any faster, most countries are already triple cropping and dubya pays farmers here to grow corn for ethanol or not at all!!!!!!

• Geeta Jyothi wrote on June 16, 2008, 01:00PM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  I agree the pollution in China is a problem, but have you tried to find toys in the US not made in China? or any other consumer goods?

  If we curbed our consumption appetites and were willing to pay what it would cost for needed goods to be made in the US, we would have more jobs, more tax money to convert to sustainable resources and there would not need to be new coal plants in China.

• JOHN SWENSON wrote on July 02, 2008, 01:06PM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  I have to wonder if some people reading ‘The Gathering Storm’ may be missing the real threat pointed to in the article? As pointed out in the text the radical Muslim is making great headway into the Muslim world and is properly applying its resources by brain washing the worlds’ poor. This is what I see as the storm warning in the article – CHANGE YOUR WAY OR GET OUT OF THE WAY! It won’t be a political solution as much as a radical religious solution that brings down the western view of use of the planet.

  Having grown up with the ‘threat of communism’ I seem to see the same thing taking place again; but with a most powerful difference, GOD! Communism could not truly win the peasant with its denial of the peasants God, but the radical Muslim has a much better equation!

• jo wrote on July 20, 2008, 05:27PM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  The article's author, George Black, mentions research being done on rice that can grow in higher salinity areas--India has had such rice for decades, after their canals began salinating the land.

  he also refers to "money...coming in from Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries to build mosques... Jamaat-e-Islami, the Islamic political party, is very strong here. It's part of an international network." This plague on basically sufi/tolerate your neighbors Bangladesh ahs been going on ever since the country won independence from Pakistan in 1971. For more than a decade, despite academics warning about it, the move had been ignored or even denied by US government ambassadorial officials. Finally, the US had to face the muzak adn admit it, after assassinations and bombings began to run amuck. Mr. Black should have visited Comilla, where he could have seen ricksha backboard paintings of Osama bin Laden.

• Pavan Nair wrote on July 22, 2008, 10:51PM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  There is a large population of hindus living in the Sunderbans area of West Bengal. Climate change will not selectively target muslims or any religion for that matter. After experiencing severe cyclones, Bangladesh has done a lot to build storm shelters as also evacuate people when cyclonic warnings are issued. Cyclone Sidr is a case in point. The casualties were relatively low for a storm of that intensity and swath. On the other hand India inspite of having more resources is waiting for a tragedy to happen. Given the fact that water levels as also ground levels are rising, it would be worth considering a planned migration of the population northwards. Thius will have tremendous social, economic and environmental impact as the density of population of both West Bengal and Bangladesh is the highest in the world. There is however no alternative.

• Hana Shams Ahmed wrote on July 25, 2008, 02:43AM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  I would just like to point out a very small discrepancy in your report. i don't think the paintings you saw on the rickshaws are those of Bollywood stars. They are more likely stars from Dhaka's film industry (sometimes popularly called Dhaliwood). The rickshaw-pullers have to work from early morning to late at night to make enough money to feed their families for the day and the only form of entertainment they ever get is the low-budget commercial films made in Dhaka that deal with romance, social injustice and violence. And they feel very passionately about these films. In the films, the bad guys (the rich and powerful who exploit the poor always lose). While in real life, their fight goes on.

• Ian Wilker wrote on July 25, 2008, 12:59PM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  Hana -- thanks for that information! Sounds a little like the "blaxploitation" cinema that flourished in the States in the 1970s, like Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song and Shaft. It'd be great to have a look at the genre you mention; love to hear a recommendation or two.

• dude wrote on September 17, 2008, 09:37AM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  i agree with both halfmonk and erik and the author of this article. i live in bangladesh and i know whats happening here. india and china is poor and wood is all they can afford. but that doesnt mean china should keep polluting the air. lots of people go to china to build a factory cuz they dont want to spend all their money on filteration on their factory waste and air. so, people should reduce the amount of pollution if they cant stop. have u guys been to beijing? the friggin air is like black. breathing there is like breathing in a smoking room in an airport. people should just stop pollution.

• Maciek wrote on November 23, 2008, 11:44AM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  How I see Bangladesh:
  http://galeria.interia.pl/galeria,g_id,77829

• Steven Earl Salmony wrote on November 24, 2008, 09:19AM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  Dear George Black,

  Thanks for telling the truth as you see it and for speaking out loudly, clearly and often about what everyone knows but precious few will say.

  As you know better than most of us, "denial" is not only a river in Egypt. However we choose to look at the taxonomy of denial, you help us easily see that many too many leaders are collusively engaged in its practice. Even though it is perverse, denial is consensually validated behavior. If enough elite people remain in denial, something more attractive...ie, something illusory...can be put in place of what is more real and somehow likely to be more truthful.

  Doing good work along the path toward a good enough future for children will not be an easy task for anybody. Evidently, everybody wants to be a somebody, but nobody in a position of power willingly assumes the requisite responsibilities and performs the duties of office. Such so-called 'leadership' is both ubiquitous and woefully inadequate.

  Occasionally a great person can be found who goes against the tide of people with power who uniformly favor whatsoever is politically convenient, economically expedient, socially agreeable and religiously tolerated.

  Certainly I share the view that everyone-in-power's silence with regard to what is happening in any "here and now" moment of space-time is the most formidable foe that the family of humanity faces.

  Sincerely,

  Steve

  Steven Earl Salmony
  AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
  established 2001
  http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1176