Sidr is currently officially a Category 5 cyclone, and is about to make landfall in Bangladesh…and has also finally made the top news story at CNN. You can get more timely info from a Bangladesh blog and the Bangladesh online news agency.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Picking up on the comment made earlier about misplaced news concerns — CNN and other news media giving way too much air time to the prayer fest at the Georgia state capitol while ignoring a devastating cyclone aiming for Bangladesh — today’s Atlanta Journal Constitution actually has a headline quoting Gov Perdue as saying the 1/4 inch or so of rain that fell as a cold front moved through the area last night was “affirmation” the prayers worked. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together should have noticed rain was already in the forecast when the prayer fest was proposed, but instead the AJC and all the local news channels are talking about “blessings.” Unreal.
If you check the satellite picture of the storm, what strikes me is the fringe of straight strands of cloud around the edge, extending radially away from the center.
There’s an impressive hi-res version of the photo there.
I don’t think I’ve seen that before. I could be wrong, but it certainly suggests very strong winds.
Wow. Just….wow. Did you see the last sentence of the CNN article? “Bangladesh, a South Asian nation crisscrossed by river deltas, routinely suffers large-scale loss of life and property from cyclones and floods.”
So, you know, don’t worry about it. They’re used to it. I…there are no words.
If prayer works, let’s have those same people pray that the cyclone simply vanishes into thin air. Now that will be a true test.
“Don’t worry about it”
I don’t recall CNN summarizing the SoCal fires that way:
“An arid area, routinely suffers large-scale fires and loss of property”
Nah — they’re praying to the wrong god, don’t you know.
When I am sitting at a traffic light I pray to God to turn it green.
And He always answers my prayer.
Geez, Ahcuah. As if the schism between the Right-on-Redists and the Walk-Signists wasn’t bad enough already!
The cyclone is in the TV news pretty good today. There were figures on death toll from natural disasters, and yes, Bangladesh is right up at the top. I think it was Paul Ehrlich who cited the fact that people live in Bangladesh as prima facie evidence that the world is overpopulated.
Fuck, who cares? They have brown skin.
Re: Jim Thomerson’s flip comment quoting Paul Ehrlich:
I don’t even know where to begin responding to this kind of insensitive and ignorant remark – and I am actually taken aback to find it on this forum from someone who otherwise seems to share the concern expressed in this post (and thanks PZ for keeping this in the news even as the mainstream media took their time getting to this story).
I don’t know whether Paul Ehrlich ever said such a thing (although I have plenty of other bones to pick over his having his population bomb epiphany in India), but I doubt an ecologist like him would fail to see that Bangladesh is actually perfect habitat for humans to settle in, and is productive enough to support a high population density. It is perhaps the richest delta in the world, with silt from all over the Himalaya pouring in every monsoon, and a warm climate, all leading to high primary productivity. Which translates to plenty of rice, easily grown, and plenty of fish in the rivers – which is what all those poor Bangladeshi’s subsist upon. If that strikes you as the kind of secondary habitat that would be occupied only if the world were overpopulated, I’d say you are really far removed from the processes of food production that sustain human life!
Sorry, I don’t mean to start some debate over whether overpopulation is a problem, but I’d point my fingers at the continued explosion of places like Las Vegas in the middle of hostile deserts, and the excessive consumption of resources they represent, as a much bigger problem for our species and our planet than the millions of poor crammed into the fertile Ganges Delta (of Bangladesh and India).
As for the periodic cyclones, as I’ve said on my blog, I think the Bangladeshis have far greater resilience than even some apparently sympathetic but patronizing westerners give them credit for. They sent help to Katrina victims before the US govt. reacted a couple of years ago – and that is because they know what it is like to suffer such cyclones and hurricanes. But as to how to actually make people safer in the face of such natural disasters, I think that needs a much greater rethinking of our entire outlook on how our species should be living on a dynamic planet – but I’ll save my thoughts on that for another time and place, and not take up too much of PZ’s space here.
(breathes deeply a few times to calm down…)
Not too get into a shouting match here but the average American, European, Japanese, and many others in the world have what is called a first world lifestyle. Electricity, running water, decent shelters known as “houses”, heat, airco, medical care (sort of), food, and a car, cable, internet connection and so on. Note, I said the average.
According to you, the average Bangladeshi lives on a rich flood plain and can grow rice and other crops, and catch fish in the estuary and rivers. All 150 million of them crammed into a small space.
Who would trade places with who? I haven’t heard of first worlders sneaking into Bangladesh to grow rice and catch fish. I have heard that Banglas are a common source of cheap labor, some of it barely above slave labor, indentured workers. My guess, if the border of the USA was with Bangladesh rather than Mexico, there would be Bangladeshi restaurants all over the US, and a huge population of immigrants, legal or not.
Whatever, maybe Bangladesh can advertise its 150 million people jammed into a small space and mostly poor and rural as a selling point. “Tired of the rat race? Tired of paying lots of bills every month. Move to the land of river deltas barely above sea level, live in a grass hut, grow rice and catch fish (or else die), and enjoy the occasionally spectacular weather.”
Raven,
You said,
“According to you, the average Bangladeshi lives on a rich flood plain and can grow rice and other crops, and catch fish in the estuary and rivers. All 150 million of them crammed into a small space.”
Ok, Madhu did say the average Bangladeshi lives on a rich flood plain — in fact, almost all Bangladeshis do. But he didn’t say they can all get enough rice and fish. And he certainly didn’t say first-worlders would want to trade places with Bangladeshis.
Why turn this into an argument over who has the best lifestyle? If you really want to go down that road, consider that the average American, using 250 times more resources for his “first world lifestyle”, is a far greater environmental problem than the average Bangladeshi.
Seems to me that the incredibly rich environment of Bangladesh is the reason people live there in such high densities, despite the threat of natural disasters.
Now somebody explain to me New Jersey.
Raven,
No shouting match – and your response is an example of reasons I generally don’t get into arguments about overpopulation; things get heated quickly, and I don’t find shouting matches all that productive! Perhaps, in the heat of my initial response to Jim Thomerson’s remark, I didn’t state my main points clearly enough, so let me try again:
Jim invoked Ehrlich to say that Bangladesh was such poor habitat for our species that finding people there at all was prima facie evidence of overpopulation. As an ecologist, I find this illogical if one applies basic habitat selection theory to humans, and considers the actual distribution of human populations across habitats on this planet. Habitat selection predicts that preferred habitats get filled up first (e.g. under models based on Ideal Free Distribution), leading to highest population densities in these habitats; further, any overcrowding in such habitats is usually an indicator of habitat overmatching which does lead to lower per capita benefits. In other words, individuals can crowd into a good habitat even if it means a poorer quality of life as long as the habitat remains productive. Rather like so many of us (and I’m sure you and I both do this) are willing to endure long waits, small portions, and even crappy service at some preferred restaurants if the food is really good! With me so far?
A second point to note is that Bangladesh and the floodplains of the Ganga have held very high (significantly above average) densities of humans living an agrarian/fishing lifestyle for a lot longer than your average (post-industrial revolution / post oil) first world lifestyle has been around. As autumn put it, finding a lot of people in Bangladesh is a no-brainer, much easier to understand than the high densities now found in SoCal or New Jersey! It is rather odd to argue that one would only find people in Bangladesh during times of overpopulation. To bring in another ecological argument – the Ganga floodplain is not a “sink” habitat but a “source” habitat for our species – and that can explain why people from there spill over into other places! How about that as an alternative hypothesis?
Yes, the industrial/commercial first world lifestyle is the dominant one now, and is sold as the only way to live by the corporate media all over the world. But tell me something: once we exhaust oil reserves, if we experience anything like the collapse of this “first world” society that Jared Diamond worries about
, and all the technology you list fails you – where would you rather want to live? Strip away all my average “Electricity, running water, decent shelters known as “houses”, heat, airco, medical care (sort of), food, and a car, cable, internet connection and so on” tomorrow, and I’d rather take my chances with an occasional severe cyclone in the otherwise continuously productive and hospitable Bangladesh landscape than many currently popular parts of this first world, thank you very much!
In fact, the more I think about all this, the more I find it hard to believe that Paul Ehrlich would make the argument attributed to him. Certainly not these days given his more recent writings since he incorporated “affluence” as part of the equation for addressing human environmental impacts. He’s already been making the argument Dave brought up in response to you!
Anyway, this discussion has certainly pressed me to better articulate my own thinking on this, so I will polish up what I’ve written some more and post it over on my blog soon. At least it will help the students in my Human Ecology class this fall. So I guess I have to thank Jim and you for geting my juices flowing!
peace,
Madhu
Hey Dave, no problem. Planes leave every day for Bangladesh. If you want to live there, everyone will wave good bye and wish you luck. I’ll send you a post card.
Facing the challenge of this mega cyclone Sidr and keeping the figures under couple of hundreds in a populous land (of 140 million) is truly a sign of progress if one should compare. Its true because of lack of resources we cannot expect Bangladesh to be more perfect in disaster management but this proves Bangladesh is on the right path and more awareness and experience are needed to tackle the changing climates and the wraths of the nature.
Earlier in 2005 I wrote about Hurricane Katrina and compared with Bangladesh. Commentators praised the survival instincts of the Bangladeshi people, their ingenuity in the face of adversity and their culture of hard work and the courage to start all over again.
More here.
Electricity, running water, decent shelters known as “houses”, heat, airco, medical care (sort of), food, and a car, cable, internet connection and so on. Note, I said the average.
I hazard that the average Bangladeshi has more of that than you assume.
Amazing picture, thanks for the link #2. But aren’t those parallel straight lines waves, not clouds? Assuming we are talking about the same thing. Of course, either way it’s a hell of a storm.
Raven,
The real exchange rate of 1USD = 70 Bangladeshi Taka. Daily 70 BDT means 2,100 Taka per month which is more than the official minimum wage. There is another way to measure this, which is called the purchasing power parity which equals two exchange rates according to purchasing power. According to this (I don’t have the latest figure off hand) 1 USD equals about Taka 12. So with BDT 70 one can purchase in Bangladesh about 6USD worth goods.
And there are also some realities. Monthly about BDT 2000 is enough to sustain one’s life in rural area where one usually have very low cost of living. However in Capital Dhaka you will have to earn at least twice or thrice to sustain one living (lower middle class).
The figures are distorted because of the agricultural economy and the population in rural areas.
And yes population is the biggest challenge for Bangladesh. One thing you will notice when you are in this country (or in India or China so to speak) that you have never seen so many people at once. But it is also true that Bangladesh is almost self sufficient in food (that leaves you of the responsibility of conscience that there are no hungry people who need international aid). Its growth rate has been remarkably constant 5-6 over the decade. Consider a nation which have to take a blow a year say its a cyclone, flood or political disturbances.
I will advocate here another important piece of information:
Have you heard about Miracle that has happened in Bangladesh over the last 30 years? No? Bangladesh has the highest population density among the worlds big countries, today, Bangladesh has more people than Russia. But the area is smaller than Florida.
So what is the Miracle? In 1970 an average women in Bangladesh gave birth to 7 children, and on of four of them died before the age of five. But after independence from Pakistan in 1971 things has improved. See Hans Rosling’s GapCast to see how much.
http://www.gapminder.org/video/gap-cast/gapcast-5—bangladesh-miracle.html
Rezwan – thanks for jumping in, with more specific information about life in Bangladesh. Given the tone of raven’s last two comments, I’m not sure we can get through. Being rude to Dave and then tossing that “less than 1 USD a day” income without any proper context?! Doesn’t say much about raven’s capacity for nuance or reflection, does it?
I’m appreciating the information you’ve added, however, and expect to be reading your blog a bit more regularly!