Refugees have traditionally been associated with political upheavals. We have had Jews seeking refuge from Nazi Germany, dissidents seeking refuge from Russia, China and other totalitarian communist nations and closer home we have had Bengalis seeking refuge from the murderous regime in erstwhile East Pakistan. Then we had economic refugees who sought to flee their homeland not because of political persecution but because of economic need. One cannot argue with an empty stomach and their are parts of the world where an empty stomach is rule rather than an exception. This explains the exodus from South and Central America towards the land of milk and honey to the North. So is the case of economic refugees fleeing Africa for Europe and closer home we once again have had people from Bangladesh coming across the border into India and West Bengal.
But political refugees and economic refugees are now old news … The latest development in field of human misery and migration is that of the environmental refugee — that is those who have to leave home and hearth becaus home and hearth is not habitable anymore.
In the past we have had many environmental disasters and some of them have been pretty gruesome : Bhopal Gas Tragedy, Chernobyl, Exxon Valdex and what not, but these were “incidents” or “accidents” that affected a large number of people over a period of time. What is now looming over the horizon is a more systematic attack on a way of life and the culprit is “mother nature” itself … in the form of global warming.
We have all heard of global warming .. how the glaciers are melting, how the arctic ice cap is shrinking and how the sea water is rising but Cyclone Aila — that struck the Sunderbans in June — has made it so very real for us in Calcutta.
How and why ?
Because we now see more and people leaving the Sunderbans to come and start camping in our southern suburbs like Sonarpur and Gosaba. These are people who are realising that there is no future left in the Sunderbans. The embankments are being washed away, fresh water wells are being submerged in brine and paddy fields are turing salty … and what is worse is that the process is irreversible. With each passing day, the water will rise higher .. more embankments will be washed away, fewer and fewer sources of fresh water will be available and cultivable land will diminish.
So why stay anymore ? It is not as if these people are leaving because of political or economic pressures but because the land is becoming inhospitable.
These are the refugees of the 21st century, the environmental refugees.
(6 rating, 3 votes)
Loading ...
Environmental Refugee by Dr. Mukherjee shows an insight over the environmental threats humans have been facing. At a macro level exodus to greener pastures is a human desire that will never meet an end. Well!Environmental threats come from uncertainities where we hardly have any control but this blog makes us think about our uncertain future with repect to offbeat environmental threats. It also develops a desire to sensitise general masses towards possible impact of environmental disasters.
This migration has picked up pace in the last decade. The signs of this phenomena are evident not only in human movement but also in the incidents of innocent animals venturing into areas with human habitation. This is a classic example of innocent people suffering largely because of the excesses carried out by the urban populace. The need of the hour is to make those who are iving in big cities more sensitive about these issues. It’s time for all of us to wake up and realise that this is the time to act or we could have another Aila, not only in sunderbans but it could come anywhere, anytime. We better do something if we dont want to be swept away while watching movies in a multiplex.
Kudos for hosting such a informative website. this site happens to be not only useful but also very creative too. There normally are only few bloggers who can create not so easy stuff that creatively. All of us are on the lookout for information on a topic like this. I Myself searched through dozens of blogs to find knowledge about this.Keep posting !!
Hey, this is my first visit to your blog… We are a group of volunteers and starting a new initiative in a community in the same niche. Your blog provided us valuable information to work on. good job
Good points…I would note that as someone who really doesn’t write on blogs much (in fact, this may be my first post), I don’t think the term “lurker” is very flattering to a non-posting reader. It’s not your fault really , but perhaps the blogosphere could come up with a better, non-creepy name for the 90% of us that enjoy just reading the posts.
You might have read many articles on various articles. However, most of the time you came to know that content was not up to the mark. This article is actually related to the topic and features unique information relevant to the theme of the article.
This is a fantastic posting, I located your blog page searching google for a related topic and came to this. I couldnt discover to much alternative details on this piece of content, so it was awesome to discover this one. I probably will be returning to check out some other posts that you have another time.