Sooner than we think
Sooner than we think
Updated 01:34am (Mla time) Jan 03, 2005
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A10 of the January 3, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
THE IMAGES are mind-boggling: cars perched on rooftops, buildings torn down, beams jutting out of the earth like angry recriminations, rows and rows of bodies strewn on the ground. And wails and lamentation everywhere, some people having lost entire families. "Catastrophe" doesn't come close to describing the swath of destruction left behind by the earthquake that shook Indonesia and the tsunami that engulfed the shores of several countries before the year was out.
As of this writing, the death toll had climbed to 150,000. It wasn't just bridges and buildings that disappeared, whole villages did. The whole place was flattened to the ground, as if a giant scythe had swept across it.
The effects of the tidal wave were no less horrific. A family, now safe back home in the United States, told of the horror they went through. They were vacationing in Phuket, and it was a lovely day, when suddenly to everyone's surprise the sea started receding. It was a scene straight out of a sci-fi movie, the water retreating and leaving behind the slew of stuff that had embedded on the sea floor. Then minutes later, the water began to heave back at the shore.
They saw it from a distance, the sea turning into a "wall of water." That phrase would be used again and again. Most of the bathers were frozen in their tracks, watching in fascinated horror as the water drew near. Some others began screaming and running away. The family that survived did. The father grabbed his two daughters and along with his wife started running toward high ground. They could hear explosions behind them. They managed to reach a restaurant in the shape of a boat before the water burst on them. They clung to whatever they could and for a while lay submerged in water. They thought it was the end until they managed to put their heads up and saw the raging sea tumbling past them.
The aftermath was a nightmare. It's one that has seen the aid institutions of the world rushing to distribute relief goods to the millions of survivors. Indeed, that has seen the Bush administration indicted for foot-dragging when so many American lives were lost on the beaches of Thailand and other countries, in contrast to its rush to go to war in Iraq where only so many oilfields lay untapped by American companies.
I myself have wondered however why so little attention has been given to the environmental sources and implications of the earthquake and tsunami. Reuters is one of the few media organizations that have done so. It has featured stories linking global warming and the environmental mayhem that have been taking place across the planet in recent years. Environmental correspondent Alister Doyle wrote for example: "Scientists say a build-up of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere from human burning of fossil fuels threatens to trigger more powerful storms and raise sea levels, exposing coasts to more erosion... Island nations like the Maldives, swamped by the tsunami, could literally disappear beneath the waves if seas rise."
Well, right now Maldives is hard put to keep its head above water-literally. Last November, I was tempted to write a column on this after having read a news item about a group of scientists warning that global warming was closer than we thought and criticizing the American government for refusing to sign the Rio Accord, one that would limit the emission of industrial wastes into the air. The United States is the No. 1 culprit there. The United States, particularly under Bush, has adamantly refused to agree to it on the ground that it would cripple its industrial production and growth. Well, the recent catastrophe to hit Asia must hint at the global costs, at least for other countries, of that growth.
Of course, there is no direct evidence linking the water that fell on the Sri Lankans, Indians, Thais, Maldivians and Indonesians to global warming. The evidence points to the earthquake that hit Sumatra as the thing that rocked the sea violently, causing it to tumble into different shores. But the sheer plenitude and ferocity of the natural disasters that visited the globe last year alone must suggest that those natural disasters might not owe to completely natural causes.
Here are just some of them: floods in Afghanistan (July), Bosnia and Herzegovina (April), Dominican Republic (May), India (July), Namibia (April), Nepal (July), Macedonia (June), Philippines (December); landslides in Kyrgyzstan (April), Nepal (July), Nicaragua (July), Philippines (December); hurricanes in Caribbean (August), Cuba (August and September), Grenada (September), Jamaica (September); cyclones in Madagascar (February), Samoa (January), Slovakia (November), Vanuatu (February); earthquakes in Indonesia (one in February, two in November, one in December), Japan (October), Morocco (February), Pakistan (February); tsunami in various countries of Asia and Africa (December); floods/drought/frost in Peru in February and extreme cold and snowstorms (July).If these things don't scare the hell out of you, you're already dead. You take them individually and you'll always be able to regard them as freaks of nature. You take them collectively, you'll have to factor in the freakish folly of the human species. It's enough to remind you of the movie, "The Day After Tomorrow," with scientists warning about an impending Ice Age and governments-particularly the one to be found in North America-refusing to heed it. The climate is badly messed up, and the biggest disaster of all is man himself.
Again, take it from your rearview mirror: The vehicles you see gaining on you are closer than you think.
Updated 01:34am (Mla time) Jan 03, 2005
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A10 of the January 3, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
THE IMAGES are mind-boggling: cars perched on rooftops, buildings torn down, beams jutting out of the earth like angry recriminations, rows and rows of bodies strewn on the ground. And wails and lamentation everywhere, some people having lost entire families. "Catastrophe" doesn't come close to describing the swath of destruction left behind by the earthquake that shook Indonesia and the tsunami that engulfed the shores of several countries before the year was out.
As of this writing, the death toll had climbed to 150,000. It wasn't just bridges and buildings that disappeared, whole villages did. The whole place was flattened to the ground, as if a giant scythe had swept across it.
The effects of the tidal wave were no less horrific. A family, now safe back home in the United States, told of the horror they went through. They were vacationing in Phuket, and it was a lovely day, when suddenly to everyone's surprise the sea started receding. It was a scene straight out of a sci-fi movie, the water retreating and leaving behind the slew of stuff that had embedded on the sea floor. Then minutes later, the water began to heave back at the shore.
They saw it from a distance, the sea turning into a "wall of water." That phrase would be used again and again. Most of the bathers were frozen in their tracks, watching in fascinated horror as the water drew near. Some others began screaming and running away. The family that survived did. The father grabbed his two daughters and along with his wife started running toward high ground. They could hear explosions behind them. They managed to reach a restaurant in the shape of a boat before the water burst on them. They clung to whatever they could and for a while lay submerged in water. They thought it was the end until they managed to put their heads up and saw the raging sea tumbling past them.
The aftermath was a nightmare. It's one that has seen the aid institutions of the world rushing to distribute relief goods to the millions of survivors. Indeed, that has seen the Bush administration indicted for foot-dragging when so many American lives were lost on the beaches of Thailand and other countries, in contrast to its rush to go to war in Iraq where only so many oilfields lay untapped by American companies.
I myself have wondered however why so little attention has been given to the environmental sources and implications of the earthquake and tsunami. Reuters is one of the few media organizations that have done so. It has featured stories linking global warming and the environmental mayhem that have been taking place across the planet in recent years. Environmental correspondent Alister Doyle wrote for example: "Scientists say a build-up of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere from human burning of fossil fuels threatens to trigger more powerful storms and raise sea levels, exposing coasts to more erosion... Island nations like the Maldives, swamped by the tsunami, could literally disappear beneath the waves if seas rise."
Well, right now Maldives is hard put to keep its head above water-literally. Last November, I was tempted to write a column on this after having read a news item about a group of scientists warning that global warming was closer than we thought and criticizing the American government for refusing to sign the Rio Accord, one that would limit the emission of industrial wastes into the air. The United States is the No. 1 culprit there. The United States, particularly under Bush, has adamantly refused to agree to it on the ground that it would cripple its industrial production and growth. Well, the recent catastrophe to hit Asia must hint at the global costs, at least for other countries, of that growth.
Of course, there is no direct evidence linking the water that fell on the Sri Lankans, Indians, Thais, Maldivians and Indonesians to global warming. The evidence points to the earthquake that hit Sumatra as the thing that rocked the sea violently, causing it to tumble into different shores. But the sheer plenitude and ferocity of the natural disasters that visited the globe last year alone must suggest that those natural disasters might not owe to completely natural causes.
Here are just some of them: floods in Afghanistan (July), Bosnia and Herzegovina (April), Dominican Republic (May), India (July), Namibia (April), Nepal (July), Macedonia (June), Philippines (December); landslides in Kyrgyzstan (April), Nepal (July), Nicaragua (July), Philippines (December); hurricanes in Caribbean (August), Cuba (August and September), Grenada (September), Jamaica (September); cyclones in Madagascar (February), Samoa (January), Slovakia (November), Vanuatu (February); earthquakes in Indonesia (one in February, two in November, one in December), Japan (October), Morocco (February), Pakistan (February); tsunami in various countries of Asia and Africa (December); floods/drought/frost in Peru in February and extreme cold and snowstorms (July).If these things don't scare the hell out of you, you're already dead. You take them individually and you'll always be able to regard them as freaks of nature. You take them collectively, you'll have to factor in the freakish folly of the human species. It's enough to remind you of the movie, "The Day After Tomorrow," with scientists warning about an impending Ice Age and governments-particularly the one to be found in North America-refusing to heed it. The climate is badly messed up, and the biggest disaster of all is man himself.
Again, take it from your rearview mirror: The vehicles you see gaining on you are closer than you think.
posted by Dante at 1:34 AM
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