Word: waterous
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...economic explosion has come at a high environmental cost. China's air and water are among the most polluted on earth and it is the leading emitter of greenhouse gases. The environmental nightmare is hurting public health. Malignant cancer now accounts for 28.5% of deaths while respiratory diseases account for 13.1%, according to the 2008 China Statistical Yearbook. China's growth has been dynamic, but it is also double-edged...
...biggest Hollywood blockbuster can't compare to rainy season in Asia. The air around you suddenly thickens. The sky blackens and crackles with lightning. Then comes the rain, humbling in its ferocity, crashing earthward as a near-solid wall of water. I live in Bangkok, where the monsoon is now reaching a crescendo, and every day I watch the greatest show on earth through my office window...
...Three Asian capitals - Bangkok, Jakarta and Dhaka - are currently fighting what feels like a rearguard action to keep the water at bay. Their efforts will be watched in other cities waking up to a climate nightmare after years of unplanned growth. The threat of sea-level rise and flooding makes Bangkok a "climate hazard hotspot," says a May report by the Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia (EEPSEA) in Singapore. I prefer an older description: "the Venice of the East." Most early Bangkok residents moved by boat between floating houses; it was not until 1863 that the city...
...Bangkok feels high and dry compared to Jakarta. This year, in January, when the rainfall is heaviest, the U.S. embassy in Jakarta advised its citizens to stock up on food and water, keep cell phones charged and gas tanks at least three-quarters full, and exercise caution when driving through "small rivers." It's the sort of travel advisory you'd expect for negotiating an untamed wilderness, not a city of more than 12 million souls. Damage from a deadly 2007 flood cost Jakarta half a billion dollars - ironically, roughly the same cost as an unfinished project designed to prevent...
...what's the alternative? Go with the flow, suggests Habib. Don't erect futile barricades against the water; instead, control its path through the city. "You can't fight nature," he told me. "It fights back." Until the 1960s Dhaka had many lakes and waterways that stored and drained floodwater, but - as in Bangkok and Jakarta - these were filled in and built over as the population exploded. Protect the surviving waterways and re-excavate historic ones, says Habib, and Dhaka will flood less...