Has the world gone mad on green consciousness?

There is an old saying - ‘too much of anything is not good’. Too much of sunshine dries the crops and too much of rain drowns it. We certainly acknowledge the existence of many similar symbolic examples like these which are explicitly relevant to many other aspects of our daily lives. In our daily affairs, one of such aspects has certainly drawn huge attention – ‘green consciousness’, which has become vogue for governments, businesses, civic societies and by and large normal public for last more than three decades. Is it fair to say ‘fashionable’ or ‘necessity’ the appropriate word to describe the green consciousness? There is often a dichotomy between what is popular at a particular time and something that you need in order to fulfil one’s basic life requirements. In due course, we will pick up this argument as we approach in this article.

The origin of green consciousness is not new. It grew during the early stages of Industrial revolution when 'smoking stacks' were considered as the pride and symbol of industrial activity, success and affluence. From the chemical industries, emissions of highly repulsive waste gases especially hydrochloric acid and hydrogen sulphide from the Leblanc soda process were so high that authorities in England had to introduce environmental legislation Alcali Act in 1864. Smoke and ash abatement in Great Britain was considered to be a health agency responsibility and was so confirmed by the first Public health Act of 1848 and the later ones of 1866 and 1875 (Stern, 1984).

During the last thirty years, green consciousness has grown even stronger than ever. Society is now more conscious of pollution prevention, resource conservation and recycling, reduced new extraction of fossil and raw materials, more use of biomass materials, using clean sources of energy and adaptation to the impacts of climate change. Not just widespread green consciousness among public but the green movement and green political ideology also played a very important role. But, what is the real driving force behind this? It may be quite opposite for many people, who would rather call it 'green hysteria' or 'scaremongering'.

Society always reacted towards the natural and anthropogenic disasters once it destroyed people's livelihood, immediate environment and killed many people on the way. Aftermath of an incident associated with BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico 2010 (by far it has been the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of petroleum industry) has showed how public outcry and political willingness can change the future environmental, health and safety policies and strategies on how petroleum industries should behave and take the responsibilities for their actions. Increasing customer expectation, supply chain pressure, pressure from the local community, ethical investment and plethora of environmental legislation will continue to underpin the green success and tackle environmental degradation.

Let us forget the impacts of global warming and climate change for a moment. Reducing the needs for new resources and make greater use of recovered resources ought to be the inherent culture, otherwise the risks of resource scarcity that may stall industrial progress to manufacture more goods and services that we all depend on. In this regard, green consciousness marches steadily uphill which is undoubtedly welcome for the future survival of the planet and the people. But any false or overstated green claims e.g. false Green PR or false Green Marketing will be not only damaging for the reputation of businesses, but also the gravity of the real cause for green agenda will probably be lost.

On the dichotomy of ‘fashionable’ and ‘necessity’ arguments in green consciousness where I believe that the necessity cannot be fashionable or fashionable cannot be necessity. In general, as a global citizen we all are entitled to be obligation-conscious of environmental conservation. Overwhelming evidences exist in environmental degradation driven by man-made pollution, consequently many experts are repeatedly calling and re-emphasising the importance to protect and improve the environment where ensuring both human beings and the environment can coexist. Environmental degradation is one of the ten threats to humanity identified by the High Level Threat Panel of the United Nations in 2004. Therefore, it is an urgent issue where something that we all need to fulfil for our planet’s basic life requirements.

Coming back to the maxim - ‘too much of anything is not good’! Too much emphasis is given on green consciousness without pointing out the measurable benefits, which is counterproductive and that is why it is not surprising when we see timid and inadequate public reaction towards green agenda. Sceptics have always capitalised on the opportunity by saying - ' the green agenda is about getting rid of as many humans as possible', 'green agenda has parallels with excesses of communism', 'green house effects have been falsified', we didn't have global warming during the Industrial Revolution', 'Al Gore's hockey stick is broken', 'record snowfall disproves global warming', 'mercury thermometers cannot measure within tenths of a degree' and the comments go on.

People from all strata of the society generally accept that mankind are to be blamed for exhausting many of planet’s precious resources for growth and development. We always read and hear the bad news. Particularly in the news media, it barely points out the benefits of humanity’s growth and development, for example availability and varieties of food, health, education, improvements to living standards and comfort, security, recreation and human mobility as a whole. Tremendous progresses have been made on biodiversity and environmental areas such as pollution prevention, resource recovery, recycling, finding alternative materials to avoid the exhaustion of raw materials, advancement in green technology, and the major technological changes in agriculture e.g. alternative farming methods, conservation on biodiversity and so on. Green consciousness is good and will be well accepted by the general public when they will see a balance in both sides of the debate – on one side ‘the causes of environmental degradation and destruction of the eco systems’, on the flip side ‘benefits of growth and development’ on society while maintaining the sustainability obligations.              

Climate change exodus in Bangladesh: The real battle lies ahead

The reality surrounding environmental or the climate-induced displacements of people are not unusual in Bangladesh as the country has always suffered from the catastrophic natural calamities and other disasters for centuries. Cyclones, heavy rainfalls, floods, droughts, river erosions, salt water intrusion are the usual scenario and they are all devastating in nature, which remain regular threats to the millions of Bangladeshi people. While having these ongoing natural calamities, impacts of climate change have imposed further disastrous phenomenon in Bangladesh. Ongoing climate events and experiences have shown that the intensity and severity of natural disasters have increased in recent years due to climate change.

The adverse effects of climate change undermine the economic development, human security, and people’s fundamental rights (UNDP 2007). According to Tanner et al. 2007, loss of coastal land to the sea, currently predicted to 3% by the 2030s and 6% in the 2050s, is likely to generate steady flow of displaced people. Also a report by Rabbani, 2009 shows over 35 millions of people will be displaced from 19 coastal districts of Bangladesh in case of 1 meter sea level rise in this century.

International Organisation for Migration (2009) indicated in a study report that many people have already migrated to the urban slums from the coastal zones of Bangladesh due to frequent cyclones, storm surges, river erosion, etc. In conjunction with ever increasing climate-induced impacts and exodus of people from their coastal homelands have subsequently put huge pressure on the big cities. Slums in the Dhaka city are expanding due to increased population and huge pressures are being felt on the infrastructure such as housing, transport, education, energy and water supply, sewerage system and recreational amenities. In 2009 around 12 million of people lived in the Dhaka city, around 3.4 million of them slum-dwellers. Dhaka is growing at 3 per cent per annum, one of the fastest rates in the world (Roy, 2009). Such unsustainable urban growths in turn step up the deterioration of local urban environment that contributes further to urban poverty.

However, the key questions are repeatedly being asked whether Bangladeshi government has appropriate policy in place, intuitional framework or even the capacity to deal with such monumental tasks. Many experts have provided useful advice to review issues related to human vulnerability against the impacts of climate change; displacements and identifying the important gaps with regard policies that are already in place.

It would be utterly unfair to suggest that Bangladesh does not have any existing national policies or the intuitional frameworks to deal with the consequences of any disaster. In fact it’s quiet opposite. There are different levels of agencies or working groups exit who are dealing with the disaster management, for example The National Disaster Management Council (NDMC), The Inter Ministerial Disaster Management Coordination Committee and The Ministry of Food and Disaster Management. They all coordinate and get involved under the Disaster Management Bureau (DMB). More over, The Department of Environment under The Ministry of Environment and Forest is the key group and focal point of most of the organisations that are engaged with national development activities.

Additionally, in this context there are few existing prominent policies that need to be noticed such as National Environmental Policy (1992), Coastal Zone Policy (2005), National Adaptation Programme of Action (2005) and Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (2008).   These policies were designed to maintain ecological balance, protecting the country from natural disasters, environmental issues such as identifying and regulating activities which may degrade the environment, coastal zone development, identifying the priority activities to adapt to the impacts of climate change etc. But according to Aktar (2009) there are no clear indications how population displacement problems will be addressed in these policies, also there are no detailed action plans with a timeframe to tackle this problem.

Bangladeshi floods and disasters management experts are said to be the finest in the world. Even former US President Bill Clinton has said the world can learn from Bangladesh many things about disaster management (the Third International Conference on Early Warning System in Germany, 27 March, 2006). Sir David King, chief scientific advisor of the United Kingdom (UK), said Bangladesh is playing a role in facing natural disasters far advanced than other countries of the world.

In contrast, many experts have contradicted the claim that the scenarios on the ground are far from being commendable, and further stressed the fact that there are weaknesses and inefficiency in managing the natural disasters in Bangladesh. As experienced in cyclone Aila (Roy, 2009), the Government of Bangladesh could not repair the damage embankments even after more than one year in most affected areas. Other post-disaster problems such as displacement of people, improper and insufficient rehabilitation programme, issues related to transparency and accountability, negligence, corruption and favour people who support the same political party in power over others by the local disaster management authority regarding the relief operations were also reported.

Having a plethora of national policies and institutional frameworks are merely inadequate to response the consequences of any disaster. Appropriate, organised and corruption free actions on the ground are equally needed to fulfil the requirements. Government got to have policies and institutional frameworks vis-à-vis proper and sufficient rehabilitation programme and corruption free supports. Metaphorically speaking, if a building is built with an inadequate foundation, inevitably building wouldn’t stand for long even though the strictest building regulations were met to build the upper portion of the building. Therefore, fundamental question needed to be asked – how effectively and quickly Bangladeshi government can provide support and rehabilitation programme when it is needed on the ground, not on piecemeal basis but in an organised and coherent manner.

Undoubtedly, wealthy countries will not accept influx of millions of Bangladeshis as climate refugees. Even though at the December 2009 Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, the Bangladesh government successfully highlighted its concern and anxieties with clarity and urged the wealthy nations to accept millions of Bangladeshi climate refugees (Paul, The Daily Star, 2010). Does Bangladesh have a moral case to justify that the richer countries must allow millions of people to enter as climate refugees? Arguably, may be, but it is simply not plausible for many richer countries to accept such scheme, in reality many of richer countries in Europe, North America and Australia will face similar climate refugee problem within their own territories.

Further more, ongoing dispute over the status of climate refugees have not yet been clarified by the international community, in addition the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is reluctant to revise refugee definition to integrate climate refugees on grounds that it would undermine the whole refugee status who have become refugees dejectedly non-climatic mean, for example flee from persecution, war or political reasons. Who knows how long it will take for international communities to come to a well accepted finale or if ever this subtle debate will see a happy ending? Should Bangladeshi government wait and see what the international community decide, leaving millions of climate refugees to their fate? Or the government of Bangladesh should urgently act now before the situation gets too frantic?

Whole debate is not to undermine extraordinary resilience and determination of Bangladeshi people. Affected communities have always bounced back and overly shown their strongest resilience against any natural calamities. In relation to the impacts of climate change, there are many ways the poorest communities are now developing practical and realistic means (Huq, The Guardian, 5^th April 2011) to adapt the impacts of climate change, for example capturing rain water, growing vegetables on floating meshes of bamboo filled with soil, using water hyacinth as the base of plant growing media, diversification of agriculture crops, revitalising the local plant varieties that can withstand extreme weather, homestead gardening, planting more trees close to river banks against river erosion etc.

As it stands, according to the International Red Cross (2008), environmental disasters attributed primarily to climate change are now a bigger cause of population displacement than war and persecution. Mother Nature will potentially be the cause of many conflicts in the future. Neighbouring country India recently stepped up their border security between Bangladesh and India. Indian Border Security Force (BSF) killed hundreds of Bangladeshi people in recent years in cross border trespassing and one can only imagine what the terrible consequences will be for those climate refugees who will prepare to cross the border to search for safer homes. In effect, the whole situation will create huge tension, which may push two countries to brink of wars.

Policy makers in Bangladesh must consider climate refugee situation with the utmost importance, make it as their primary concern and address climate-induced displacement within National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA). Government of Bangladesh as well as civic societies and the local communities must find the ways that best address the needs of climate refugees.

India's metastases: Farakka barrage to Tipaimukh dam! What next?

India's decision to build Tipaimukh dam 100 km off the Bangladesh border on the river Barak in Manipur state (in north-eastern India) has sparked public outrage, provoked controversy on both sides of the border and drawn huge international attention. Such arrogant and unilateral approach by India is certainly a reminder of the ghost from the past that still haunts Bangladesh. A perfect storm of water war had begun when Farakka barrage was completed in 1974 just 10 km off the Bangladesh border on the river Ganges in West Bengal. The environmental, subsequently human health and livelihood impacts of building Farakka barrage on downstream Bangladeshi side have been immense. Negative impacts have left legacy of environmental damage and human sufferings, which are considerably evident even today and undoubtedly further consequences will follow for many years to come. For those who live in downstream Bangladeshi side, every year it has become the usual event in water scarcity during the dry season, loss of agriculture and fisheries, increased salinity which result on deterioration of public health and  also affecting navigation etc –  and this list goes on and on.

In the past, around-the-world there had been many occasions where dams were unilaterally built however, experiences had shown that unilateralism always did not work. It pushed friendly neighbouring countries withdrawal of bi/multilateral trade relationships and even there had been some cases where countries were very close to go to war, for instance Egypt was ready to use force in 1991 to protect its access to the river Nile and South Africa had come few times very close to war with Namibia due to diversion of water from Okavango system from where Botswana gets its most water.

There are no existing UN laws that could legally prevent any country to build dams or reservoir within their own territories but there is a 'Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses', which was adapted by The UN General Assembly In 1997. This convention explicitly expresses responsibilities of the international communities to manage water resources equitably, protection of the aquatic environment, obligation not to cause serious harm, general obligation to cooperate and regular exchange of data and information (Satter, 2009). The convention is still short on the number of countries that requires it to come into force and India abstained from voting in favour from day one, therefore this convention is not sufficient legally binding instrument to renounce India building more cross-border dams. Many experts in the International Water Law, Policy and Science have persistently called countries to ratify the convention and making it legally binding to avoid many future conflicts. Additionally, many water experts have also suggested that the scarcity of water will intensify and it is more likely that some countries will go for regional wars for their water rights.

India has its own long-standing problem with China. One possibility but currently denied by China on the issue of diverting water from the river Brahmaputra, which will certainly affect lower riparian countries like India and Bangladesh. While facing the similar demeanour from China, it will be worthwhile to follow how India will tackle this analogous situation, which India on the other hand is very keen to impose on Bangladesh. Besides UN legal framework which is yet to ratify, there are many other crucial issues which need to be address by India before building Tipaimukh dam. The issues related to impacts of climate change, associated environmental consequences of building a dam, geo-physical characteristics of the area and the uncertainties surround it, aspects of engineering plans and above all rights of the indigenous people.

At the heart of this debate it is fundamentally important to preserve human rights of the indigenous people, which were overwhelmingly backed by The UN General Assembly in 1997. The UN adopted a landmark declaration over the rights of native people to protect their lands and resources and to maintain their unique cultures and traditions (UN Department of Public Information, 13^th September, 2007). According to the declaration, indigenous people have the right to know, prior consent of how to use and develop their lands but for many years recommendations by Sinlung Indigenous People Human Rights Organisation (SIPHRO) of India and World Commission of Dams were ignored.

The world is living in the era of climate change and water scarcity, more specifically Bangladesh is the 'Ground Zero' (Huq, 2010) of the impact of climate change. India is not immune as well; they will also have to bear the consequences. Monsoons will be more unpredictable from one year to the next due to climate change and thereby it will hugely affect Indian agriculture sector and subsequently loss of associated livelihood. The rise of the sea level will affect the fishery industries, increase coastal erosion, intrusion of saline water and accelerate further flooding. However, these are just a few examples among many others. In the face of a common threat, instead of being bound up in inflexibility and antagonism, both countries will need to get together and develop a co-ordinated approach (action plan) to tackle those impacts. The impacts are far greater, which will overshadow all kind of other problems. In this regard, unilaterally building a cross border dam is certainly not a way forward. Questions still loom whether India has a comprehensive plan to escalate their long held aspiration to build more cross-border dams. Fararakka barrage has been India's metastatic tumour which is spreading to other parts of the body. First Farakka, then the Gozaldoba Barrage on the Teesta and now Tipaimukh dam - when will it end?

Even bigger concern is geo-physical characteristic of the area where Tipaimukh dam has proposed to be built. On 28 May 2009, Dr. Soibam Ibotombi from the Dept. of Earth Sciences, Manipur University stated ‘Tipaimukh dam is a geo-tectonic blunder of international dimensions’. Analysis of earthquake epicentres and magnitudes of 5M and above within 100-200km radii of Tipaimukh dam site reveals hundreds of earthquakes in the last 100-200 years. It is found that within 100km radius of Tipaimukh, 2 earthquakes of +7M magnitude have taken place in the last 150 years and the last one being in 1957 at an aerial distance of about 75km from the dam site in the ENE direction (Ibotombi, 2009). While facing such possible danger from the earthquakes, it’s not a matter of if – but it’s a matter of when, one can only imagine the scale of devastation that will bring if the dam splits.

Scientists/Experts can only find the facts & figures, but here we need an honest and constructive dialogue (within the realm of possibility) to reach an agreement with India along with the other International bodies to resolve most significantly the present crisis, and deny India’s deliberate infliction of similar policies in the future. Repeatedly, India’s policy on building dams has inflicted irreparable damage to the lives in Bangladesh particularly on those who share the common water course.

Politicians/policy makers of both countries need to shrug off their differences and accelerate the necessary (if there is any) coordinated adaptation process on climate change. Climate change is an imminent and ever-growing common threat for both countries and further escalation in man-made negative environmental impacts must be tackled at the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) stage; ensure obvious departure from the detrimental policies, which in effect have potential to harm the environment, local livelihoods and economies. Climate-centric cooperation is urgently needed from both sides of the border; the sooner the better. Overwhelming compulsion of domestic politics in Bangladesh need to be transparent and there needs to be a unified voice and strong political will from all political spectrums to avoid another Farakka. Sincerely, we hope that ‘Tipaimukh dam’ issue will not be another local or regional environmental and political shamble.  

Corporate Environmentalism: Still in the shadow of suspicion & guilt

It is widely acknowledged that industrial and business activities have impacts on the environment and they are one of the major sources of environmental pollution. There are overwhelming empirical evidences which suggest that it is true. Traditionally, the corporate manifesto is making money & growth is good while ignoring to protect the nature poses the greatest danger and for many it is the greatest threat on humanity. Supplying natural raw materials and producing waste while maintaining the biodiversity and quality of life is being increasingly undermined since the Industrial revolution.

Industrial revolution in 18^th & 19^th century was a major turning point for human civilisation, which brought profound changes in agriculture, mining, transport and manufacturing sector, in turns it had effects on socio-economic & environmental conditions not only in Britain but also other modern capitalist economy. Consequences of the industrial revolution were using stream that provided power to pump water and machineries. Steam engines and steam turbines required steam boilers, which was one of the major sources of air pollution. In the manufacturing sectors hand worked replaced by machine works and production of goods increased rapidly. More goods had been produced by the industries than before for human consumption and it also created more pollution by burning coal and further utilisation of raw materials, which were significantly needed for the production processes.

Economic growth inspired by the new technologies, growth of capitalism, improved working condition and wellbeing for people had a price to pay by unsustainable growth that eventually resulted in pollution of water, air and soil. Significant pollution also released to environment by industrial accidents over centuries. There are countless examples; in our recent memories we still bare the scar of disaster of Chernobyl in Ukraine, 1979 Three Mile Island in the US, 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy in India, 1952 London smog disaster, Italian dioxin crisis in 1967, BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico 2010 and many more.

Above description is undoubtedly rather frightening, however my intention is not to enter into a detailed description on how industries have been major contributor to the damage to our environment. On the contrary, I would argue that there have been major changes in corporate attitude towards environmental responsibility and business sustainability as a whole for over a quarter of century. Yet public perceptions have not been changed even though industries have shown far better responsibilities towards environmental protection. Big businesses are still being demonised by their legacy and in many cases needs uphill struggle to win hearts and minds of their customers.

Lets go back to late 80’s when the United Nation’s Bruntland Report; also know as ‘Our Common Future’ was published. This report alerted the whole world that economic growth could be maintained without destroying the environment and provided a key statement on ‘Sustainable Development’ as ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’ Since this report, the role of industries in achieving a sustainable future had become more and more attractive to the policy makers through out the world. It was a turning point for industries who had realised that ‘business as usual’ was not an option any longer. They needed to change their business strategies aimed at moving companies towards sustainable development.

But in reality, why have there been huge changes of attitude? Where the business benefits and pressures come from?  Many businesses have been ‘doing the right thing’ in terms of reducing their environmental impacts primarily to minimise the costs e.g. through increased energy efficiency or waste minimisation. Businesses have realised that there are scopes to increase financial bottom-line, which eventually has triggered businesses to change their attitudes towards environment. Also, new market opportunities have been opened up whilst improving environmental performance of businesses, for example growth of recycling businesses in China and other countries. The United States exported $22 billion worth of recycled materials to 152 countries in 2007 (The New York Times, March 11, 2009). Furthermore, many customers feel and value environmental products and this kind of sales of environmental products can also increase company’s profits.

Businesses community have rightly understood that not only environmental protection to be handled but also wider issues of sustainable development need to be tackled to avoid problems such as liability claims, escalating insurance costs, prosecution, loss of markets and planning problems arising from lack of community goodwill (UK Round Table on Sustainable Development, 1999). Consumers are increasingly taking account of environmental character of products. Because of public concern about environmental issues, promoting environmental care can enhance a company’s image. When a company builds environmental benefit into products, it creates direct values to the consumers. Any false green claims from the company about their products, it will be very quickly found out and that will be a severe consequence upon the company in terms of their selling and rebuilding the reputation (Welford and Gouldson, 1993).

Companies need to make sure that their product manufacturing operations are green, simultaneously it is important to ensure that the suppliers they use who have green credentials such as having an ISO14001 Environmental Management System. Companies are worried about being held liable, environmental damage or found negligent for accidents as over the last two decades health and safety issues and safe working practices have become norm, also plethora of legislations were developed around it.  Employers and employees together have indicated the preferences to work for a good and safe environment and this has become as a major incentive for them to stay within the company (Groundwork, 1995).

Environmental regulations have also been an important driver towards business sustainability. Businesses are now complying with many environmental laws and regulations than they used to comply even a decade ago. Businesses have realised that the consequences of not complying with regulations would often be closure of their businesses (NetRegs, 2003). The European Union (EU) has been an important driver for the promotion of the sustainable development and the single European Act and the Fifth environmental Action Programme towards sustainability, required environmental consideration to be incorporated into all EU policy. Many initiatives from EU for example eco-taxes, the EU eco-labelling scheme and the Eco-management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) have complemented with more voluntary and industry-led approach (Hillary, 2000). European Union (EU) regulations will continue to underpin basic minimum requirements for more sustainable development both now and the future. Therefore, there would be a continuous pressure on the businesses to act responsibly and businesses will constantly monitor existing and likely future environmental and legislative trends, which might influence their business performances (Hillary, 2000).

Reducing costs from the environmental impacts from business activities not only save money but this can be the first step to overall environmental improvement which can later lead to adopt an environmental management system (Welford and Gouldson, 1993). Many experts have suggested that this could be run very efficiently alongside with health and safety (ISO18001) and Information Security (ISO27001) and quality system (ISO9001). All these system could be incorporated within one system which is called Integrated Management System. Big businesses have already started to upgrade their existing systems to Integrated Management System.

Finally, it is often discussed that corporations are locked into a destructive mode of corporate interests, politics and ideologies which could drive how they treat the environment.  More and more corporations are waking up with their moral responsibilities and self-awakening process to flush out so called the ‘old habits’, more specifically ideologies to ignore and many cases obliterate environmental issues. I’m not in any cases advocating that big businesses have suddenly become all green saints, but they should be praised and encouraged when necessary for their good environmental performances. Guilty should be brought to justice if they violate the human rights, health and environmental protection. It’s not helpful at all trying to shift the overall blame onto one section of society for environmental degradation. Society needs them to help to protect the environment, we should stay away from win/lose situation or we-versus-them.      

Adaptation to climate change is the only feasible strategy for Bangladesh

Bangladesh has been in the spotlight of its notorious and devastating natural calamities and other disasters like cyclones, flooding, desertification, salinisation, soil impoverishment and arsenic contamination in ground water for many years. Indisputably the impacts of global warming and climate change have severely imposed another disastrous phenomenon with existing one. Nonetheless, climate change sceptics may think otherwise. I don’t blame their doubts and above all denial as there has been turbulent year 2010 in which the climate change science has been undermined by leaked emails, which were shared by climate scientists from the University of East Anglia in the UK, failure of Copenhagen climate summit and mistakenly claimed in the IPPC’s 2007 report that all Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2030.

On the contrary, particularly on Bangladesh many climate change experts stated that the combination of rising seas, harsher storms and degradation of the Bengal delta may wreak so much damage that Bangladesh as we know it may virtually cease to exist (Jodi Jacobson, 1988 in Saunders, 2000, p.237). So many undeniable evidences are there and I believe that good sceptic arguments are always healthy when science gets very big. With carrying these new threats Bangladesh has been in the forefront of the debate, also has repeatedly reinforced the global arguments surrounding global warming and climate change.

Impacts of climate change are first felt in biophysically such as sea level rise inundates low-lying coastal areas, stronger cyclones results in increased coastal flooding, changing patterns in crops and vegetations, runoff changes and the risk of spread of infectious diseases. Long lists of biophysical consequences do not stop here; they impose a range of potential socio-economic impacts. Coping with these impacts depend on a society's technical, institutional, economic, and cultural ability. Therefore planned adaptation would determine how Bangladesh would cope against all odds of impacts of climate change (Klein and Nicholls, 1999).

In relation understanding regional and local environmental changes in Bengal delta is very important. Bengal delta has complex physical environment. The regional climate diversity, seasonal variation, geological characteristics, subsidence of low-lying coastal areas, local unpredictability and even variations of monsoon seasons from one year to another put Bangladesh in an unique situation to weaken the global discourse of global warming and climate change.

Bangladesh faces constant threats from floods, which are the usual scenario every year.  Large scale flooding during the rainy season and its force and length brings devastation on society and economy as a whole. Bangladesh is well known as one of the most flood-prone countries in the world. Fifty-four rivers flow into the country, which has the largest system of deltas and flat lands in the world (Symonds, 1998). Bangladesh captures only 7.5 per cent of the catchments area of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers with 1.5 million square kilometres (Brammer, 1990). Rest of the vast catchments area with headwaters of those mighty rivers lie outside of the Bangladesh and has a tropical monsoon climate. Monsoon climate brings heavy rainfall that ranges annually from 300mm to 11615mm outside (Valleys in Nepal, Tibet and Cherrapunji on the Meghalaya plateau) and 1250mm to 5000mm inside of Bangladesh (Brammer, 1990, p.13).

Subsidence; motion of the earth’s surface is an alternative threat to Bangladesh. Many experts have blamed on several factors which have contributed to Bengal delta subsidence (Milliman, 1992) including continuous loading of sediment from the rivers, excessive tapping for hydrocarbons or groundwater, and compaction or shrinkage with drying. Milliman et al (1989) make more explicit reference to Bangladesh and they suggest that some low-lying deltas have natural subsidence rates as great as 1 to 10cm/year, that is 10 to 100 times the rate of present sea-level rise (Bradnock and Saunders, 2000) and Bangladesh is shown as subsiding at 1cm/year which is greater than Nile (3.5mm/year) and less than Mississippi (1.5cm/year) and New Orleans (2cm/year).

Another unique dimension of Bangladesh’s environment is the role of plate tectonics (Bradnock and Saunders, 2002). This primal but recently understood tectonic origins of Bengal Delta have provided another new facet, its destructive nature and impacts of it has catastrophic ability to bring an end to existence of Bangladesh. Three geo-tectonic provinces such as the Stable Shelf, the Central Deep Basin (extending from the Sylhet trough in the northeast towards the Hatia trough in the south and finally the Chittagong-Tripura Fold Belt have been related to a regional plate tectonic scenario, especially the collision pattern of the Indian plate with the Burma and Tibetan (Eurasian) plates. Movement of these tectonic plates will create earthquakes which remain far greater threats than impacts of climate change in Bangladesh.

Human vulnerability in Bangladesh from environmental changes are immense including yearly flooding, cyclones, storm surges, mass deaths, droughts, displacement of human settlement, loss of fisheries and vegetation, loss of financial services, human health etc. Living in a world of such natural hazards most of the people in the region need to facilitate adaptation with these hazards (Ahmed et al, 1999). The economy of Bangladesh strongly depends on agriculture and natural resources that are sensitive to climate change and sea level rise. Target population’s coping capacity differs from one place to another. For example, cyclones in Bangladesh in 1970 and 1991 are estimated to have caused 300,000 and 139,000 deaths. In contrast, Hurricane Andrew struck the United States in 1992, causing 55 deaths (WHO, 2003).

In order to safeguard from the impacts, effective adaptive responses to climate change and sea level rise is very necessary. These measures include such as the creation support and extension services to improve or change agricultural practices, efficient mechanisms for disaster management with construction of safe shelter for emergency situation, construction of embankments where possible, development and introduction of desalinisation techniques, and the plantation of mangrove protection belts (Haq, 2002). We need to evaluate the effectiveness of our sea and river defences. One of the main focuses has to be how can we prevent big cities from flooding? However, the adaptation needs to be cross-cuttings of different disciplines and hence a multi-disciplinary and integrated approach needs to be taken up to reduce vulnerability. Coastal resources, Freshwater resources, Agriculture, Human health, Ecosystem and Biodiversity were identified as the most vulnerable to climate change in a study on Bangladesh: climate change and sustainable development 2000 by World Bank (Haq, 2002).

The question has always been raised whether adaptation or mitigation, which strategy is for Bangladesh? Lots of initiatives towards mitigating measures of climate change have taken into account both national and international levels namely signing the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol, to stabilising or reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and enhancing carbon sinks. Even though how rigorous the mitigation levels are placed there in countries around the world the impacts of climate change are inevitable (Haq, 2002). And that is why country like Bangladesh needs to focus on strategic adaptation and implementation to the effects of climate change into the policy making under the National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) and Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP) for continuous adaptation and mitigation activities.

Building adaptive capacity (Klein and Nicholls, 1999) depends on a country’s plan, prepare, economic wealth, technology, infrastructure, knowledge that it processes, institutional arrangements, its commitment to equity, and its social capital. It is therefore not surprising that most industrialised countries have higher adaptive capacities than developing countries. Consideration of such issues question can be asked whether developing countries like Bangladesh do have the current level and sufficient adaptive capacity to cope with the impacts of climate change in the long run and what about funding for such strategies. Rajendra Pachauri; chair of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said before 2010 UN Climate Conference in Cancun that ‘financing is a prerequisite for a climate agreement’. He also stated that developing countries are very sensitive about the funding issue; talks will collapse in Mexico without strong and secure financing in place. The Poor have always been vulnerable to natural calamities. Therefore the best way to help the poor is to enable an environment that would provide the poor an opportunity to climb out of poverty and can afford a whole range of adaptation strategies to protect and insure themselves against climatic uncertainties (Haq and Klein, 2003).

Undoubtedly our planet is warming up, but we don’t know how far this will affect us in the future, also difficult tasks will still remain how to quantify the effects. More difficult when there are so many regional and local environmental variables exist. When we talk about global environmental issues like global warming and climate change it is important to understand the regional and local concept, more specifically Bangladeshi local environmental variability. How far is the global debate explains or taken into account the regional and local impacts of environmental changes? Many scientists argue that the impacts of climate change are inevitable and it appears that global warming already has increased the frequency of different unwanted scenarios in Bangladesh such as harsher storms and heavier rainfall, and because of that we experience further displacement of people from coastal areas and destruction of their livelihoods. As a result many people move to the cities where they will have limited or no access to basic utilities, or services and eventually settle down in the slums.

Even though how scrupulous the mitigation levels are placed, impacts of climate change are remarkably destructive for Bangladeshi livelihood. Therefore, it is necessary country like Bangladesh to focus on strategic adaptation and implementation to the effects of climate change into the policy making. And climate change issues should not be only the environmental concerns but also developmental problems where social concerns also need to be addressed.

Climate Change myths: Common misperceptions and sceptic's incorrect assertions

The science that supporting global warming and climate change are under endless scrutiny by sceptics who blatantly promoting incorrect assertions without checking the facts. Many of them continue to publicly challenge and claiming that human activities are not to be blamed. Countless recent statements and reports by many prestigious world leading scientific bodies have suggested that  warming of the Earth over last half-century has been caused largely by human activities such as usage of fossil fuels as the main sources of energy, changes in land use, agriculture and deforestation.

Positive and healthy debates are always welcome, which de facto keeps the science on its toes, but the combination of myths, common misconceptions and sceptic's incorrect assertions have created spheres of mistrust, ignorance and change of perception among general public who may or may not genuinely have the knowledge of Climate Change. Therefore, it’s not surprising when we hear that in the UK more than half the population does not believe climate change has been caused by humans (Daily Mail, 14th November 2009).

To some extend public should not be blamed as the roots of climate change science recently have been shaken by the leaked emails which were shared by climate scientists from the University of East Anglia in the UK and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 report mistakenly claimed that all Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2030. Everyone thought that the leaked email was a part of conspiracy, which directly played into the hands of sceptics who always look for more ammunition to reload their guns of denial.

What follows is only (among many) a main list of myths, misperceptions and some incorrect statements, in addition with some brief correct scientific clarifications. It is claimed that anthropogenic (man-made) sources of CO2 are so tiny that they can't change climate, on the contrary volcanoes and other natural sources are producing more. According to the U.S. Geological Survey man made CO2 amounts to about 30 billion tons annually, which is more than 130 times as much as all the volcanoes produce. 95% of CO2 releases to the atmosphere are natural but these CO2 draws back to the nature by plant growth and absorption process by the oceans which ultimately off set  the total amount but leaving behind the amount produced by humans. Many experimental measurements including carbon isotopes have shown that burning fossil-fuel and deforestation have been the primary reasons where atmospheric CO2 levels have risen 35% since 1832.

Ongoing sceptic arguments on whether CO2 levels are strongly related to global temperature rise have played upon people’s misunderstanding of the relationship between CO2 versus temperature. Of course there are cases when this up or down relationship hasn’t worked in perfect synchrony as CO2 is not the only factor that determines global temperature variation, hence sceptics quickly point to the period where CO2 went up but during the same period temperature remained unchanged or didn’t rise. Evidences from Antarctic ice cores have revealed the history of last 400000 years, where they show strong correlation between CO2 and temperature. Evidently they fall and rise together. Furthermore, when the ocean temperature rises it tends to release more CO2, which further help rising the temperature. Due to more temperature rise, consequently there would be further release of CO2; therefore CO2 appears to be both the cause and effect of further warming.

We can not expect scientists to invent miracles. It is virtually impracticable applying traditional science on the entire atmosphere where all the variables are unpredictable, keeping one variable constant to see the trends of other variables or even replicating the same experiment is not feasible. Critics always argue that scientific climate models are not reliable; they are not very good projecting the future climate change. Climate models are mathematically representation of interactions of processes that occur in the atmosphere, ocean, land, frozen surfaces of the earth and the sun. General Circulation Models or GCMs is the most advanced tool available so far which can simulate the global climatic changes in response to increased amount of green house gas concentration. Models have been verified with the past temperature variations and if they can predict past correctly then why it wouldn’t reasonably predict changes in the future.

No doubt those who has read ‘New Nasa Model: Doubled CO2 means just 1.64C warming’ – a piece written by Lewis Page on ‘The Register’ news site has perhaps been marvelled over not to fret about mere temperature rise. Lewis Page wrote ‘it now appears, however, that the previous/current state of climate science may simply have been wrong and that there’s really no need to get in an immediate flap. If Bounoua [Lahouari Bounoua of Nasa] and her colleagues are right, and CO2 levels keep on rising the way they have been  lately (about 2ppm each year), we can go a couple of centuries without any dangerous warming.’

But Nasa’s research conclusion never said so. Out of three models, Nasa’s first simple control model suggests that a doubling of CO2 would lead to warming of around 1.94C. Researchers also stated that their control result was at the low end of a range of other models from 2C to 4.5C. The purpose of controlled model was to include evapotranspiration data and find out if there were any differences and it showed that warming dropped to 1.68C, with the difference 1.9.4C – 1.68C = 0.26C, but researchers never suggested any absolute conclusion on temperature. Lewis Page most likely took the value of the control model and subtracted the dropped temperature 0.26C (rounded figure 0.3) and wrote that we don’t have any problems with the temperature rise as it would be just 1.64C (Hadley in Guardian, 2010).

Based on another Nasa model Lewis Page combined doubling of CO2 concentration of 780ppm (today’s accepted figure 390ppm multiplied by 2) and growth rate of 2ppm/yr, which would take 195 years. Later he quoted we can go a couple of centuries without any dangerous warming. But the Nasa researcher’s actual figure was 700ppm, not 390 ppm or Lewis’s imaginary figure 780ppm. Considering 700ppm is more than 310ppm of today’s accepted figure, therefore it will take 155 years not 195 years (Hadley in Guardian, 2010).

Lewis Page’s conclusion at best one classic example where a myth has intentionally been created, at worst it has spread like virus through the internet and it is rightly the winner when people have experienced extreme cold and big snowfalls particularly in the northern hemisphere during the last winters. No one dares talk about global warming when there is such extreme cold weather and certainly for many big freezes have been further indication that the notion of climate change is all empty and exaggerated talk.

Plethora of similar myths, ambiguous challenges by sceptics and misunderstanding of core scientific knowledge by general public have polarised the climate change debates. The challenges as well as the success for international climate science community lies in transparency, accuracy, honesty and knowledge sharing, otherwise perpetuators will continue push frontier to the wrong end.