Bangkok Sinking Under Rising Seas

[Droopy]

Major Cities Around the World at Risk of Being Swamped
AP
Posted: 2007-10-21 14:20:26
Filed Under: Science News, World News

KHUN SAMUT CHIN, Thailand (Oct. 20) - At Bangkok's watery gates, Buddhist monks cling to a shrinking spit of land around their temple as they wage war against the relentlessly rising sea. Jutting above the water line just ahead in the Gulf of Thailand are remnants of a village that has already slipped beneath the sea.

Experts say these waters, aided by sinking land, threaten to submerge Thailand's sprawling capital of more than 7 million people within this century. Bangkok is one of many of the world's largest cities at risk of being swamped as sea levels rise in coming decades, according to warnings at the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change held here.

"This is what the future will look like in many places around the world," says Lisa Schipper, an American researcher on global warming , while visiting the temple. "Here is a living study in environmental change."

The loss of Bangkok would destroy the country's economic engine and a major hub for regional tourism.

"If the heart of Thailand is under water everything will stop," says Smith Dharmasaroja, chair of the government's Committee of National Disaster Warning Administration. "We don't have time to move our capital in the next 15-20 years. We have to protect our heart now, and it's almost too late."

More at the link- http://news.aol.com/story/_a/bangkok-sinking-under-rising-seas/20071020153809990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001

That part about land sinking due to people extracting tons of water from the city's aquifer is also happening here in the U.S. The San Joaquin Valley in California, the site of America's most fertile farm land, is sinking as well as water is extracted from the huge aquifer that lies beneath the land. It is basically an irreversible problem as it would take millions of years of non-use to resupply the aquifer.