Breaking: Thousands March to Oppose World’s Worst Location for a Coal Plant

Waterkeeper Alliance
Buriganga Riverkeeper Sharif Jamil and hundreds of his fellow Bangladeshis, including BAPA, the largest civil society platform in Bangladesh for the environment, and the National Committee for Saving Sundarbans (NCSS), are fighting to save the Sundarbans, an irreplaceable world heritage site, from the destruction of a massive new coal-fired power plant. To show the government the size and scale of the opposition, they joined National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas and Mineral Resources, Power and Ports who organized a five-day, 400-kilometer march from Dhaka to Rampal on Tuesday. Their goal is to stop the Rampal coal-fired power plant and all activities that would destroy the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest. It was designated as a world heritage site because it supports an exceptional number of rare plants and animals including the world famous and endangered Bengal Tiger.
The Sundarbans are not only critical to the survival of wildlife, they are vitally important to the survival of thousands of Bangladesh’s people because they provide a buffer to storm surges, cyclones and food sources. Bangladesh is widely recognized as one of the world’s most vulnerable nations to climate change because it is less than 20 feet above sea level. One of the worst floods in modern history struck the country in September of 1998, killing 1,050 people and making 25 million more homeless. It has been estimated that sea-level rise caused by climate change could result in as many as 30 million climate refugees in Bangladesh. Coal-fired power plants are the largest source of human-made carbon emissions that contribute to climate change.
“If constructed, the Rampal coal-fired power plant will not only harm a UNESCO world heritage site and much of the irreplaceable wildlife it contains, but will also fuel ever-faster-rising sea levels that will drown the people of Bangladesh," said Jamil. "Millions of peoples’ lives and livelihoods are at stake.”
The proposed massive 1320 MW Rampal coal-fired power plant is a joint venture involving the Indian state-owned National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and Bangladesh state-owned Power Development Board (PDB). But the burden of the polluted air, water and waste is not jointly shared. Most of it will be borne by the people of Bangladesh while India gets the power. In an excellent analysis, Rampal Coal-Fired Power Plant: Who Gains, Who Loses, Economics Professor Moshahida Sultana Ritu shows just how bad the project is for the people of Bangladesh. Joining Professor Ritu in providing additional argument against construction of the plant is Professor Anu Muhammad. He wrote a scholarly point-by-point decimation of the shoddy, incomplete and inaccurate environmental impact analysis and summarized his review of the process used to site the coal plant in the Sundarbans as a project of deception and mass destruction.
During the 400-kilometer, five-day march, Jamil and Muhammad, along with thousands of citizens and activists, will voice their concerns over the risks the power plant poses to not just the Sunderban’s health, air, water, land and wildlife but to the very survival of Bangladesh as it faces the worst potential impacts of climate change. Waterkeeper Alliance stands in solidarity with all the people of Bangladesh who are marching this week to protect the Sundarbans and their country’s future.
If you are inspired by their courage we urge you to support the Buriganga Riverkeeper organization and the NCSS. The NCSS was created to oppose the government’s move to set up the power plant in Rampal. Jamil, along with a team of young volunteers, have also decided to go on hunger strikes in several places in the country.
“We are in the process of making a larger platform to initiate a peaceful movement with the local people to save the Sundarbans from the Rampal Project,” said Jamil.
“The Sundarbans may be one of the most inappropriate places in the world to build a polluting coal-fired power plant,” said Waterkeeper Alliance’s International Director Sharon Khan. “It would be like building one on top of Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park in the U.S. or at the foot of Uluru in Australia.”
Waterkeeper Alliance calls on conservation organizations all over the world to join the fight to oppose the Rampal coal-fired power plant. The need for international support is urgent because the government of Bangladesh recently announced it would lay the foundation of the power plant on Oct. 22, despite vehement and widespread opposition by environmental activists and other social groups.
Sign the petition to stop the coal-based Rampal power plant and save Sundarban.
Visit EcoWatch’s COAL page for more related news on this topic.
——–
New fossils uncovered in Argentina may belong to one of the largest animals to have walked on Earth.
- Groundbreaking Fossil Shows Prehistoric 15-Foot Reptile Tried to ... ›
- Skull of Smallest Known Dinosaur Found in 99-Million-Year Old Amber ›
- Giant 'Toothed' Birds Flew Over Antarctica 40 Million Years Ago ... ›
- World's Second-Largest Egg Found in Antarctica Probably Hatched ... ›
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
A federal court on Tuesday struck down the Trump administration's rollback of the Obama-era Clean Power Plan regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.
- Pruitt Guts the Clean Power Plan: How Weak Will the New EPA ... ›
- It's Official: Trump Administration to Repeal Clean Power Plan ... ›
- 'Deadly' Clean Power Plan Replacement ›
Trending
By Jonathan Runstadler and Kaitlin Sawatzki
Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers have found coronavirus infections in pet cats and dogs and in multiple zoo animals, including big cats and gorillas. These infections have even happened when staff were using personal protective equipment.
Gorillas have been affected by human viruses in the past and are susceptible to the coronavirus. Thomas Fuhrmann via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
- Gorillas in San Diego Test Positive for Coronavirus - EcoWatch ›
- Wildlife Rehabilitators Are Overwhelmed During the Pandemic. In ... ›
- Coronavirus Pandemic Linked to Destruction of Wildlife and World's ... ›
- Utah Mink Becomes First Wild Animal to Test Positive for Coronavirus ›
By Peter Giger
The speed and scale of the response to COVID-19 by governments, businesses and individuals seems to provide hope that we can react to the climate change crisis in a similarly decisive manner - but history tells us that humans do not react to slow-moving and distant threats.
A Game of Jenga
<p>Think of it as a game of Jenga and the planet's climate system as the tower. For generations, we have been slowly removing blocks. But at some point, we will remove a pivotal block, such as the collapse of one of the major global ocean circulation systems, for example the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), that will cause all or part of the global climate system to fall into a planetary emergency.</p><p>But worse still, it could cause runaway damage: Where the tipping points form a domino-like cascade, where breaching one triggers breaches of others, creating an unstoppable shift to a radically and swiftly changing climate.</p><p>One of the most concerning tipping points is mass methane release. Methane can be found in deep freeze storage within permafrost and at the bottom of the deepest oceans in the form of methane hydrates. But rising sea and air temperatures are beginning to thaw these stores of methane.</p><p>This would release a powerful greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, 30-times more potent than carbon dioxide as a global warming agent. This would drastically increase temperatures and rush us towards the breach of other tipping points.</p><p>This could include the acceleration of ice thaw on all three of the globe's large, land-based ice sheets – Greenland, West Antarctica and the Wilkes Basin in East Antarctica. The potential collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet is seen as a key tipping point, as its loss could eventually <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/324/5929/901" target="_blank">raise global sea levels by 3.3 meters</a> with important regional variations.</p><p>More than that, we would be on the irreversible path to full land-ice melt, causing sea levels to rise by up to 30 meters, roughly at the rate of two meters per century, or maybe faster. Just look at the raised beaches around the world, at the last high stand of global sea level, at the end of the Pleistocene period around 120,0000 years ago, to see the evidence of such a warm world, which was just 2°C warmer than the present day.</p>Cutting Off Circulation
<p>As well as devastating low-lying and coastal areas around the world, melting polar ice could set off another tipping point: a disablement to the AMOC.</p><p>This circulation system drives a northward flow of warm, salty water on the upper layers of the ocean from the tropics to the northeast Atlantic region, and a southward flow of cold water deep in the ocean.</p><p>The ocean conveyor belt has a major effect on the climate, seasonal cycles and temperature in western and northern Europe. It means the region is warmer than other areas of similar latitude.</p><p>But melting ice from the Greenland ice sheet could threaten the AMOC system. It would dilute the salty sea water in the north Atlantic, making the water lighter and less able or unable to sink. This would slow the engine that drives this ocean circulation.</p><p><a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/atlantic-conveyor-belt-has-slowed-15-per-cent-since-mid-twentieth-century" target="_blank">Recent research</a> suggests the AMOC has already weakened by around 15% since the middle of the 20th century. If this continues, it could have a major impact on the climate of the northern hemisphere, but particularly Europe. It may even lead to the <a href="https://ore.exeter.ac.uk/repository/handle/10871/39731?show=full" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cessation of arable farming</a> in the UK, for instance.</p><p>It may also reduce rainfall over the Amazon basin, impact the monsoon systems in Asia and, by bringing warm waters into the Southern Ocean, further destabilize ice in Antarctica and accelerate global sea level rise.</p>The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation has a major effect on the climate. Praetorius (2018)
Is it Time to Declare a Climate Emergency?
<p>At what stage, and at what rise in global temperatures, will these tipping points be reached? No one is entirely sure. It may take centuries, millennia or it could be imminent.</p><p>But as COVID-19 taught us, we need to prepare for the expected. We were aware of the risk of a pandemic. We also knew that we were not sufficiently prepared. But we didn't act in a meaningful manner. Thankfully, we have been able to fast-track the production of vaccines to combat COVID-19. But there is no vaccine for climate change once we have passed these tipping points.</p><p><a href="https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-risks-report-2021" target="_blank">We need to act now on our climate</a>. Act like these tipping points are imminent. And stop thinking of climate change as a slow-moving, long-term threat that enables us to kick the problem down the road and let future generations deal with it. We must take immediate action to reduce global warming and fulfill our commitments to the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Paris Agreement</a>, and build resilience with these tipping points in mind.</p><p>We need to plan now to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, but we also need to plan for the impacts, such as the ability to feed everyone on the planet, develop plans to manage flood risk, as well as manage the social and geopolitical impacts of human migrations that will be a consequence of fight or flight decisions.</p><p>Breaching these tipping points would be cataclysmic and potentially far more devastating than COVID-19. Some may not enjoy hearing these messages, or consider them to be in the realm of science fiction. But if it injects a sense of urgency to make us respond to climate change like we have done to the pandemic, then we must talk more about what has happened before and will happen again.</p><p>Otherwise we will continue playing Jenga with our planet. And ultimately, there will only be one loser – us.</p>By John R. Platt
The period of the 45th presidency will go down as dark days for the United States — not just for the violent insurgency and impeachment that capped off Donald Trump's four years in office, but for every regressive action that came before.
- Biden Announces $2 Trillion Climate and Green Recovery Plan ... ›
- How Biden and Kerry Can Rebuild America's Climate Leadership ... ›
- Biden's EPA Pick Michael Regan Urged to Address Environmental ... ›
- How Joe Biden's Climate Plan Compares to the Green New Deal ... ›