Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Greens attacking Bangladeshis for trying to build a better future for their children.
From Paris to Bangladesh, how the climate change accord is imploding
By Divya Rajagopal
The onslaught of a new power plant on the fragile ecology of the Sunderbans is fresh proof of the futility of climate reforms. A ground report from ET.
Until two years ago, 28-year-old Sajjad Hossain Tuhin, a student of forestry, would walk up to the banks of the River Rupsa in Khulna, Bangladesh, to capture the moment of dusk, when the setting sun left the sky lit up like fireworks. In romantic Bengali literature, it is described as the moment to catch a glimpse of a new bride. But Tuhin doesn’t do this anymore. The sun now sets behind the boundary of an upcoming LNG power plant. The banks of the Rupsa are astir with vehicles ferrying rocks and cement to speed up the completion of the plant that will fire up Bangladesh’s economic growth.
…
At Rampal, a village 14km off the Sundarban forests, four-lane roads are being dug up by construction lorries to make way for a 1,350MW power plant, a joint venture under the Bangladesh India Friendship Project. Linked to the Mongla port, Rampal is expected to light up the entire upcoming industrial belt around the region, and holds the key to Bangladesh’s leap out of the LDC group. It is also a strategic investment for India as it strives to keep its influence intact — and immune from China — with its closest ally in the subcontinent.
Meanwhile, environmental groups are convinced the power plant will destroy the pristine ecology of the Sundarban mangroves, which act as a natural cover against the frequent cyclones and flooding that the Bay of Bengal brings. A drive from Mongla port to Rampal reveals why the environmentalists are edgy. On one side are lush green paddy fields, mangroves, and banana trees that are distinct to the Sundarban ecology. On the other, are giant gas cylinders and cement factories eating up the green cover.
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Read more (paywalled): https://prime.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/67446220/environment/from-paris-to-bangladesh-how-the-climate-change-accord-is-imploding
When I read articles like this – how could anyone with an ounce of humanity express outrage that the people of Bangladesh are trying to build a better future for their children? Who gives a stuff about a bunch of Mangroves, when human lives are at stake?
Only a green could attack the economic efforts of some of the poorest people in the world, and think they are doing the right thing.
Update (EW): The original link stopped working (and contained a typo anyway), but Steve Case found a working link, unfortunately now paywalled.
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Michael Oppenheimer – at the time Chief Scientist for the EDF. ‘nough said.
Why is every ecosystem always described as “fragile”? Ecosystems are tough, resilient, persistent and impossible to destroy. They survive nuclear blasts, volcanic eruptions, floods, frosts and fire.
We need to figure out some way to harness ‘Activist Power’ for good rather than for evil.
Evil is stopping the improvement in living conditions for poor people. Idiotic evil doers think they are on the side of good when they are on side of chaos/evil.
Bangladesh has an estimated population (2016) of 162 million people. Their country is less poor than super poor countries (mostly African countries) as they have a textile industry.
Industry requires law and order, electrical power, people that want to work, and so on.
Ranking, Country, Per capital income in US dollars
146 Bangladesh 1,517
147 Zambia 1,510
148 Kenya 1,508
149 Uzbekistan 1,504
150 Cameroon 1,447
151 Cambodia 1,384
152 Myanmar 1,299
153 Kyrgyzstan 1,220
179 Uganda 610
180 Liberia 598
181 Togo 585
182 Afghanistan 584
183 South Sudan 534
184 Congo, Democratic Republic of the 512
185 Sierra Leone 497
186 Gambia, The 484
187 Madagascar 451
188 Central African Republic 394
189 Mozambique 379
190 Niger 364
191 Malawi 294
192 Burundi 273
193 Somalia 198
Bravo for Bang-the-Dish! They are announcing their rise out of the 3rd world countries.
From ScientificAmerican:
“Climate refugees from Bangladesh, a predominantly Muslim country, are not welcome in the neighboring countries of India and Myanmar. India is building its version of a border wall, a barbed-wire fence.”
While at COPxx junkets both Bangladesh and Myanmar chant climate psalms and strong leadership slogans. So…
One for the money
Two for the show
Three to get ready
And four to go
Some ecologists are like watermelons: green on the outside, red on the inside.
The author of this piece seems to be ignorant of the importance of mangoves as a physical barrier protecting low-lying coastal areas — especially in the Bangladesh delta.
The geography of Bangladesh demands mangrove marshes to protect the land — removing the mangroves means the sea will wash the land away.
Bangladesh needs BOTH == power plants and mangroves.
Kip, I live on the subtropical Fraser Coast on the shores of the Coral Sea, so I’m well aware Mangroves help protect the coast. But large concrete sea walls also work. With a stronger economy Bangladesh will be able to protect vulnerable areas with sea walls, and regenerate damaged Mangrove areas. But cutting down a few Mangroves to make way for a power station doesn’t seem an unreasonable trade – they are not THAT important.
Eric ==> As you know, the coastal mangroves perform lots of important functions — specific to mangroves — that can not be done by concrete walls or other physical barriers.
The proper response to the complaint that the plans for the power plant call for destruction of the protective mangroves is to change the plan to allow the mangroves to stay in place and perform their function and build the power plant! It should be be an either/or situation.
As you know, any land that is covered by mangroves is totally unsuitable for any major structure — and certainly not suitable for a power plant. It is a questionable proposition to build a power plant in a location that involves considerations about mangroves in any case — mangroves grow at 0 to 6 feet above sea level — in the tidal zone — thus any power plant plan that must consider mangroves is on land far to close to sea level. Much of the delta has “a large tidal range (three to six meters)”.
With a tidal range that large, unprotected soil washes away, often unreplaced due to the poldering of farms and villages and dredging of main river channels to increase river flow and prevent flooding.
This little kerfuffle is an example of how failure to frame a problem rationally leads to conflict. Properly framed, the question really is “How can we build this power plant and still keep it and the surrounding land protected by mangroves?”
Note carefully that in this particular case — this power plant — is being built in Rampal, north of the Sundarbans Forest (a national forest, protected) and will have no effect on the Sundarbans mangroves. The protest by environmentalists are using the mangroves as a straw man in their ongoing anti-development campaign. So, in one way your are justified to “dismiss” the environmentalists objections — but not because “Who gives a stuff about a bunch of Mangroves, when human lives are at stake?” but because the power plant is a faked up threat in the first place.
Cheers, Kip
More on this is one of my earlier essays: BANGLADESH: The Deep Delta Blues.
Correction: “It should NOT be an either/or situation. “
The socialist Trojan Horse way is for Bangladesh to take climate aid scraps from the Developed (OECD) countries in lieu of their own economic independence and devolopment.
The green lunatics lament they aren’t falling for the ruse as climate aid money comes with conditions imposed by the UN..
Wonder where the LGN is coming from. Fracking maybe? Even if not from a fracked source the price will be lower due to the increased supply from….. wait for it FRACKING. Hooray for the old guys in jeans, boots, and cowboy hats.
yup. coming from Texas
without the protection of Mangroves you will lose both.
==========
install solar panels above the mangroves in place of the LNG plant. See how long the mangroves last. Solar panels would be much more destructive than an LNG plant.
Yes, mangroves protect the coastline, but they sure can make it a miserable place for human beings. Hot, humid and full of mosquitoes. Impenetrable except via waterways. At dusk the mosquitoes come out of the mangroves and eat you alive.
Mangroves are found throughout the tropics, along with coral reefs. In many cases the mangroves are behind barrier reefs and can be selectively removed for human habitation without sacrificing the coast.
There are many, many examples of tropical cities around the world that were built over top of mangroves. Darwin Australia for example.
Yes, you may well need to take steps to minimize erosion after the mangroves are removed, but simply leaving the mangroves untouched is not compatible with large scale human habitation. At a minimum you need to selectively remove the mangroves for roads, docks, houses, beaches, etc. ctc.
Bangladesh poverty rate fell from 40% in 2006 down to 24% in 2016.
Bangladesh exports rose from U$17 billion in 2009 up to U$37 billion in 2017.
Bangladesh grew it’s GDP by at least 6% annually from 2007 through to 2017.
Bangladesh rural household income rose 40% from 2010 to 2016.
Bangladesh unemployment unfortunately went up from 2010 to 2017 by 7% & 1/3rd of it’s young with education are unemployed.
Paris agreement proponents seeking to impose their ideas on Bangladesh need to also force 85% of their family members to work in the textile industry. This would be fair because >85% of Bangladesh exports come from textiles.
In a few years, the mangroves and forests will be even greener in Bangladesh courtesy of the the LNG fired electicity plant. ” The Great Greening” is, so far, the only unequivocal sign of climate change and ironically, the Gang Green, who are looking for a miserable brown world will be lost in a purgatory of green.
Aren’t mangroves in Bangladesh more endangered by shrimp farms ? It looks like a power plant is a better environmental trade off.
Bangladesh is energy poor, even by comparison with other energy-poor countries.
I found electrical generation capacity numbers here (unfortunately 2013 numbers).
Population figures (2018) here.
So Bangladesh has 6,663,000 KW of generating capacity (not broken down by type) for 168,065,920 people, or a per-capita capacity of 0.0397 KW. By comparison from the same data: India: 0.1520 ; Pakistan: 1.1088; Zimbabwe: 0.1176; Mexico: 0.4685; China: 0.8070; US: 3.1572. (Obviously China has added a lot of capacity since 2013, so that number is low).
The average Bangladeshi lives on roughly a third the electricity of the average Pakistani and roughly a fourth that of his neighbors in India, and about 1.25% of the average US resident. Adding the 1.3 GW this plant provides is a major (19%) boost.
Let me put that 0.0397 KW per capita in perspective: that’s enough to power one 40-watt light bulb per person. Anyone reading this comment lives somewhere the per-capita consumption never drops as low as 40 watts, just for personal household use. Unless you trip the main service disconnect, you probably can’t turn off enough stuff to get down to that level of consumption. But for Bangladesh, 40 watts per person is what the whole country has to get by on. This is really poor.
You’d think author Divya Rajagopal would at least be pleased this much-needed addition to Bangladesh generating capacity was coming from clean natural gas instead of coal, but instead she complains because it spoils the view. Would she say the same thing about the hundreds of wind turbines required to provide the same power (some of the time)?
Maybe a power plant isn’t as attractive as the natural landscape, but the constant view of poverty is much uglier.
For every square meter of wetland converted to a rice paddy or residential, industrial, commercial use, convert another square meter of wasted ocean space to a wetland through creating some dykes and a bit of dredging. I bet its not that expensive and everyone benefits. Their 30% educated youth unemployed could build it. Of course the greenies will oppose it for some stupid reason or other.
Inquiring minds wish to know: what the frack does ecology (a real issue, sometimes) with the pseudo-issue of “climate change”?
Bangladesh PM tells Al Gore to piss-off, in the nicest possible way:
Go Bangladesh! Developments up the River Rupsa will ensure the future happiness and security of the Bangladeshi in the face of self-serving Green Hypocrisy and Marxist environmentalism.
The ‘Marxist’ tag might apply to a few hardcore Greens, although I doubt many of them would have got past the first page of Das Kapital, throwing the epithet around clouds the issue and puts people off IMO.
The vast majority of so-called Greens are just younger idiots: “… the numerous well meaning individuals who have allowed propagandists to convince them that in accepting the alarmist view of anthropogenic climate change, they are displaying intelligence and virtue For them, their psychic welfare is at stake …” (Richard Lindzen 2009).
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2009/07/resisting-climate-hysteria/
They may be younger idiots, but they are still younger idiots working in support of a Marxist agenda. Even if they don’t realize it.
The problem in labelling climate alarmism amongst the young as ‘Marxist’ is that it encourages the acceptance of, or provides an entrée into, a package of ideas that are genuinely Neo-Marxist.
Whether they are properly labeled or not, the younger idiots are still being exposed to Marxist ideas and ideals.
Attempts to deny this muslim nation the opportunity to raise their standard of living by utilising fossil fuels can be regarded as racist. On leftist arguments, it would be regarded as racist.
Hello social justice warriors- your climate activism to prevent the developing world rise out of poverty is racist. Hang your little sawdust filled heads in shame-you nasty racists.
What a lazy berk!
Couldn’t he walk a few hundred yards further and watch the sunset beside the new LNG plant?
Or is that too much to expect in a world of snowflakes?
He makes it sound like the entire river bank is filled by one LNG power plant.
Making his entire article based upon fictions and lies.
I actually enjoy stories of this nature.
Like a petulant child, the Green Wehrmacht will stamp their feet and scream and shout until they make themselves sick. All to no avail.
Like the retreat of Napoleon’s Grande Armée from Moscow, or that Austrian guy who didn’t have much fun at Stalingrad, this is war they are losing. Inch by inch, day by day, they will lose. Because they are trying to deny humanity what humanity wants: a better life.
The green left leaning well meaning attitude is reminiscent of Marie Antoinette’s famous response to being told the people of Paris did not have bread to eat ‘Let them eat cake’
The author of this sob story is a bit light on facts. The site of the Khulna LNG plant according to the Asian Development bank (funding source) is the 50 acres of the abandoned Khulna Newsprint mill complex on the west side of the Bhairab river (meets up with the Rupsa down south).google earth the site and they have pictures showing the delapidated buildings and what appears to be tall smokestacks! Hard to believe that the new plant is going to add any view obstruction from the rupsa river. Good on the Bangladeese for picking a great spot to help raise themselves out of poverty and clean up the neighborhood!
By the way the coal fired plant going into rampal south of Khulnais on the east side of the river. Sunsets no problemo.
The article is probably referring to the Rampal power station project, it is a different beast from Kuhlna , check it’s wikipedia entry for description.
Bangladesh is a river delta and so it has no erosional problems. The mangroves do not stop storm surges one second.
Rubbish, try being there in a cyclone or monsoon & watch as millions of tons of earth are washed into the Bay of Bengal.
If only there were extension cords long enough so Bangladeshis could attend the next Conference and drown the dialogue in a merry din of small household appliances. Call it My Green Dream.