Water World

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Commenter: Sirajul Islam
Good reporting by Maria. It hinted that it maybe necessary that we have to be ready to witness a mass migration from the coastal areas of Bangladesh because storm surges are more frequent than before, there's a lot of places that experience perennial waterlogging, and also salinity is a problem. Water world? Maybe yes. Water is coming down the lanes from the Himalayas, and water from the Bay, and from the sky. 'Water water everywhere but not a drop to drink!' And agriculture? Not so sustainable. Already some parts of the northwest part of Bangladesh sustained drought this year. Too many people? Yes. Global warming. Yes. Money can solve this problem? Perhaps no. Then what? Bangladesh is going to be a security problem, both internal and external.

Commenter: Tanveer
thanks to networks like PBS, our stories are told, i hear all these minor inconveniences amplified to exponential propotions, like the story in the song Kenji, made my fort minor, or the story told in 'where'd you go' by the same group

Commenter: Disgusted
This was a poorly done episode. The guy trying to send us his countrymen left out what they had done to cause global warming -- TOO MANY PEOPLE/overpopulation. This is the most important thing to control to stop global warming and it was not even mentioned here! If this documentary was all you were about it would be time for you to close down.

Commenter: Catherine Henry
Thanks...this is important

Commenter: Doha
Over the years , we all know that Global warming is a burning issue for all of us , all around us-means for this planet. we all are agree with that alarming issue.But it is fact that we are not conscious enough to face that very dreadful and devastating phenomenon , I mean we are concern look like most of the academic stage or hy-pothitical stage --we need to be much more conscious about the practical impact of it's futurity and neededto be prepeared our selves to face that un-expected madness of reality of the environment . ecological-- preservation should be brought up successfully in a large scale with all our collective efforts .

Commenter: Ed Peachey
While your program delivered interesting information about life in the river delta that is Bangladesh, it failed miserably in presenting the full story. In fact, it mislead viewers by presenting the occurrence of annual flooding as connected to sea level rise due to global warming. Global warming is likely involved to some small extent, but there are a complexity of issues that should have been discussed, including river management by upstream India, deforestation in Nepal, subsidence and compaction of sediments, overcrowding and movement of the marginalized to flood prone areas, and sedimentation that adds land to the Delta (as much as 8 square miles/year). I lived in the lower Delta of Bangladesh for 3 years. Flooding is integral to the success of agriculture in the region. Few of your viewer could comprehend the situation in the lower Delta of Bangladesh because it is so far removed from our 'normal' existence. You did them a great disservice by presenting a very narrow view of the issue. I suggest a follow-up program that includes those who are willing to take a more global view.

Commenter: NKTT
THE REAL REASON WHY THEY ARE SETTING UP THE MEETING IN COPENHAGEN IS THIS AND SOMEBODY IN THE MEADIA BETTER START DOING SOME REASEARCH ON THIS AND FAST. THEY AND OUR PRESIDENT ARE GOING TO LAY DOWN THE FOUNDATION FOR THE BEGINNING OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER AND ONE GOVERMENT SYSTEM.THIS IS NOT A HOAX ITS BEEN TALKED ABOUT AND SO FAR ITS BEING IGNORED, THIS IS NOT GOOD FOR ANYBODY IN THE WORLD. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CLIMATE CONTROLL,WAKE UP AND START SMELLING THE ROSES,THEY ARE STARTING TO SMELL!

Commenter: Eleanor Hall
The program on flooding in Bangladesh was informative and useful. But why are so many of the programs on climate change focusing on faraway places? We learn about endangered polar bears in the Arctic. shrinking glaciers on Mt. Kilimanjaro and in the Himalayas, etc. To really wake up America, we need programs on how climate change is affecting us -- flooding in the Midwest, wildfires in California, etc. Such events are almost always reported as natural disasters and are not linked to climate change. The trends over time are not discussed. I'd like to have PBS shows on how climate change is affecting the US now, how the effects have increased over time and will increase in the future.

Commenter: Roy Cone
Nearly every video report relating to distress areas of the Earth show massive younger people and few elderly. Your Bangladesh piece was on point!

The ONLY cure for poverty that will yield immediate [a few years] result in the elevation of living standards is birth control.

How about distribution of educational information and birth control methods and supplies with teaching methods of food raising and other survival skills?

Commenter: BB
The show presents the issue as the ocean rising as a result of climate change. All of the damage that is presented is a result of flooding caused by cyclones and the subsequent water surge. It does not present how much the ocean has actually risen in Bangladesh. Has the ocean level actually risen or is the issue really about flood control? Is the ocean higher in Bangladesh than it was prior to the recent flooding? Are the floods worse than they were 10, 30 or 100 years ago?

What is happening there is tragic, however, showing these images as proof that we need to stop using fossil fuels is dishonest. Was the flooding in New Orleans proof of global warming?

Commenter: Thomas Clark
Perhaps the government of Bangladesh should take responsibility for the larger poor population. Birth control sounds like the way to go, instead of other nations taking their poor because of the excess carbon emission.

Commenter: Xcorps
I just watched NOW senior correspondent Maria Hinojosa story Water World with her traveling to Bangladesh to report on water rising to disrupt a population.

This is a sad story made even more sad by Marias GUILT TRIP leveled toward America and Canada. Cheap shot interviewing a Indian official asking that Americans take in all displaced Bangladeshes because it's their fault because of our carbon output!

Let's face it here that climate change will happen with human help or not and earthly populations will die because of natural disasters. Suggesting that displaced peoples of such disasters be shuttled to 'guilty'countries was a journalistic cheap shot! Maria chose her sound byte subject well for that end!
Her other interviews were great.

Commenter: T R Black
No mention of grotesque overpopulation strips your report of any credibility. There is no dignity in overpopulation, especially of the poor. Any show that doesn't put human overpopulation at the top of their priorities is wasting their time and misleading their viewers/listeners.

Commenter: Don-n-ABQ
TO Commenter: Xase:

That is dumb.

Do they want to come here?

Remember what happened when President Andrew Jackson moved the Cherokees, Seminoles, and other tribes to Indian Territory?

The people of Bangladesh have been living there for thousands of years. They are used to the climate, the weather, etc. They would not be happy here.

They would become resentful, which would lead to the abuse of alcohol and drugs, which leads to crime and violence, which leads to resentment.

Imagine if they were all moved to central Wyoming. You think they would be happy and like that?

Not all of their problems are due to global warming, some it is soil erosion, deforestation, poor farming techniques, etc.

No, we should help them fix it there, where they live, where the want to live.

The Dutch did it in the Netherlands. We can help do things there in Bangladesh.

Taking them to the United States is not a solution, just another band-aid. Find a cure, not band-aids.

Commenter: Bill
To be sure global warming needs to be put under control. Driving awareness of how global warming effects our planet is necessary. I did find Now's coverage of "Water World" to be less than fair. While it is true that the U.S. is guilty for having too large a carbon footprint, to suggest that displaced people of Bangladesh should migrate to the U.S. because of it is absurd.

Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries on the planet, with a population of over 150 million people its land mass is smaller than the state of Illinois. Bangladesh still has a growth rate of 1.88%. With or without global warming Bangladesh at some point in the near future will need more land to provide food for its population. Let's not forget that deforestation for cropland also contributes to global warming.

Commenter: Xase
My solution is to bring all those people in Bangladesh to America. We're all humans on this planet and should care for one another.

Commenter: Shaf Chowdhury
Dr. Rahman raises some good points, particularly about relocation of affected people. I'm not aware of any major studies that evaluate possible scenarios of evacuation and re-establishing communities that are affected by rising water levels.

Thank you, Maria, for your fantastic reporting. Also, keeping the documentary free of political propaganda makes it far more educational and touching.

Commenter: Marcella Respini
Yesterday I asked people to share and donate to the Facebook cause to STOP GLOBAL WARMING and only one person donated and seems like few notice the global warming videos I post. My worldwide friends on FB tend to be very political but focussed so much on the health care and the war issues that the environmental concerns seem to not be getting the necessary attention and why is there no ability to share this story of what is happening on Facebook where Rachael Maddow could see this as we need to get the mainstream to see that there is interest and cover these stories as well. Help me help you!

Commenter: Paul David Warrington
At the end of Water World you mentioned a director that will coach citizens how to produce public concerns to put on public places like U-Tube.
I am new to the NOW site and have been unable to find any reference to this. Thanks Dave Warrington

Commenter: Don-n-ABQ
UPDATED FIGURES:

A number of studies conducted in recent years on natural gas reserve and undiscovered resource potential have all concluded that Bangladesh has a mean undiscovered gas resource of at least 32 Tcf. The two most widely recognised studies are the United States Geological Survey (USGS) / Petrobangla Study (2001), which declared the mean undiscovered resource potential to be 32.1 Tcf, and the Hydrocarbon Unit / Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) Study (2001), which declared the mean undiscovered resource potential to be 41.6 Tcf. Both of these studies, however, only took into account offshore acreage out to a water depth of 200m.

Source: energy.ihs.com

Commenter: Don-n-ABQ
Here is my idea:

Send in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and build a massive dike and other flood control structures.

How to pay for it?

The DOE EIA estimates that Bangladesh has 5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (I think there could be 10 trillion when a good, comprehensive, seismic study is done; like the Mississippi Delta region of Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico).

As we build these flood controls, we extract the natural gas and sell it to China and use a 1/4-to-1/3 of the proceeds to pay back what we spend.

We don't do this for free, we help Bangladesh, we sell to thirsty China, we put some Americans and some of the people of Bangladesh to work.

If we don't do this China just might cut us out and do it instead.

Commenter: Forrest M. Mims III
Your program on the terrible flooding problems in Bangladesh reported again and again that climate change is responsible for the floods. The text on your web site attributed the flooding to global warming. However, the situation is far more complex, for, unless I missed it, your program failed to mention land subsidence, land compaction, deforestation, soil erosion and expansion of the population into flood-prone regions. For example, land subsidence alone may account for an elevation change of -30 cm over the past several decades.

Television programs that fail to present the full story about potentially serious ecological and environmental disasters do a disservice to both your audience and, especially, those who are at risk by diverting attention away from the array of mediation measures that simply must be quickly implemented.

Frankly, in view of the seriousness of the situation in Bangladesh, it is appalling that your research team and writers failed to address the big picture. Are they unaware of the abundant literature on the flooding problems in Bangladesh? If so, they should at least review the work of Md. Khalequzzaman of the Department of Geology and Physics at Georgia Southwestern State University. His report "Flood Control in Bangladesh through Best Management Practices" is based on objective science that addresses all the water issues that threaten the country, including climate change (http://www.eb2000.org/short_note_17.htm). Many other reports on this serious problem are also available.

Will "Now" revisit the Bangladesh situation with, perhaps, Md. Khalequzzaman and others who can properly explain the potentially disastrous environmental situation in that country?

Forrest M. Mims III
www.forrestmims.org

Commenter: Russell Seitz
Why is the word 'isostasy' missing from the the script?

There is an unsubtle geophysical difference between land sinking and seas rising, and deliberately ignoring it in the case of the Sundarbans erases the difference between environmental science and climate policy propaganda

Commenter: RP
Thank you for putting this program on the air. It clearly shows the effects our greedy western lifestyle has on the people on Bangladesh