Climate Change and Conflict
So due to poor insight on my part (or perfect planning) my meeting schedule has been put on hold at least in the official sense as most Bangkokians have fled the city to celebrate Thai New Year. Those few brave natives that stay in the city are then subject to the thousands of foreigners that descend on Bangkok and other Thai cities to celebrate Songkran!
Songkran started as a fairly solemn Buddihst religious festival. Also known as the Thai New year or Thailand Water Festival, Songkran was originally celebrated as a way for the Thai people to sprinkle water on their family members and elders for good fortune and pay their respects to images of the beloved Buddha. Today, while that might be the case behind closed doors in peoples homes, the public festival is anything but! The festival has transitioned into 3 days of water play fun, splashing locals and visitors alike with buckets of water, water hoses and super-soakers as they gather in the streets. Bangkok shuts down for pretty much the entire week and it is one long wet party. It is interesting to me to be participating in this festival while thinking about climate change and issues of access to clean fresh water still running through my head from the week before. There is a long list of things I could find wrong with this in a changing world where resources are getting more scarce and such. But I decided that in this, I would just join in, loose myself to the unique experience and just have some fun... wet. Happy Songkran everyone!! To check out better photos and get more information (like I was going to take my phone out of its plastic case with all that water around), check out this website that shows lots of fun pictures and gives more details on the holiday. http://www.songkran2015.com/
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This week was an interesting week in Bangkok. I was able to meet up with APLP alumni in Bangkok (and scored a FREE place to stay for a week) which is always great, but I also had some great talks with environmental experts as well. Even after months of talking with people and learning about cultures affected by change in climate, I am still amazed by my ignorance of some of the basic trends in climate change work.
This week I learned about the difference between mitigation policy works versus adaptation programs. I learned much about this from talking with people at the Swedish International Development Corporation Agency (SIDA). That is a special thanks to Keiran Thitimakorn (APLP Alumni) which got me in the door. Gave me words of wisdom about the world of financing international environmental programs and working with ADB and SE Asia and for introducing me to three of his colleagues who gave me the education about these two program types. In essence, Mitigation is projects that attempt to curb or eliminate the contributors of Climate change. Wipe the slate clean and end these forms of pollution. Most projects that attempt mitigation are larger in scope and aimed more at national policies and international regulations. Adaptation take the form of projects (usually more local in scope) that are aimed at helping communities "adapt" to the "new norm" caused by climate change and allow people to find livings and live in this new changed world. Adaptation focuses more on individual communities, locals and segments of populations that are affected by the changes occurring in the environment. What I found most interesting is that programs usually focus on either one or the other, often not sharing information or coordinating action plans. On the surface I understood the argument that these were two very different approaches and they don't directly influence each other. Even if we stopped all green house gas pollutants and climate change factors and set them to 0, it will still take decades if not over a century for natural processes to take back over. Thus a balanced approach to mitigation and adaptation will be required. It seems only prudent that these two avenues of climate change work coordinate to some degree so a wise, balanced plan is put forward and followed. But it seldom works that way in the real world I guess. This week was a slow week for me so I thought to make a break I would post some pictures that relate to what I have been doing. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the below would be an epic novel to rival War and Peace lol. Everything looks good. These are Chaing Mai in Thailand and Taal Volcano crater in the Philippines. Very idyllic. Taal is a tourist destination with a nice breeze and warm light. Very nice. But below is what is also happening in the Philippines. Conflict in Mindanao, crop failure and increased flooding and it is only getting worst. I had a taxi drive my last week in the Philippines that asked me what I was doing there, so I told him I was researching climate change and was interviewing people about what was happening in the Philippines. He was very interested because he said he helped his 9 year old son study in the evening and in order to help his son he was also reading the books which it turned out were science books. They were covering topics of climate change, geography and earth science I believe. He was very proud of what he had learned.
So, being the diligent researcher I am, I asked him his opinion regarding the top environmental issues facing the Philippines and what could be done. He just looked at me for a minute and said... "oh, well that is not my problem. I will be dead, so it will not affect me. Let someone else worry about it." A parent so proud of his 9 year old and his studies yet unable to see that though he may be dead, his child will inherit this problem. It is real but how to make people see... or more importantly... make them care. I felt defeated in that moment. This father, whether he knows it or not, probably just condemned his child to a hard life or a short one. |
AuthorI'm Dan. Climate Change and Conflict. Archives
April 2015
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