Green Options

In six years time, the number of people affected each year by the climate crises is projected to rise by 54 per cent to 375 million. This will not just be overwhelming for the humanitarian aid system it would also further the inequity that plagues the world and will make the fight for climate justice even more challenging.

It’s hard for me to be shocked anymore by a news report, feature article or scientific study on climate change. I get it already: it’s upon us and accelerating faster than even the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) says. But Belfast Telegraph reporter Johann Hari’s recent account of global warming in Bangladesh hit me like nothing else I’ve read in the recent past.

The sheer enormity of the tragedy already unfolding for so many people (Bangladesh has a population of more than 150 million) is mind-boggling. Hari describes whole villages losing their agricultural livelihoods, their health and — sometimes — their childrens’ lives as rising sea levels cause saltwater to seep underground below once-fertile rice paddies. He visits island communities whose older residents now point to treetops jutting out from the sea when asked where their homes once stood. And, chillingly, he meets with a new and growing generation of jihadists — unusual until recently in Bangladesh — who are seeking out scapegoats as their futures visibly wither away.