Burma Cyclone

American aid worker Nicki Bennett just posted from Bangladesh on Nick Kristof’s On the Ground blog on nytimes.com. She’s been doing reconstruction work in the aftermath of Cyclone Sidr, which ripped through Bangladesh six months ago.

Here’s an excerpt:

<<While an earthquake measuring 6 or 7 on the Richter scale might kill tens of thousands of people in places like Kashmir (2005) or Iran (2003), a quake of the same magnitude in a place like Japan or California leads to far fewer deaths and less damage.

What’s the difference? Poverty, exclusion, inequality and bad policies.>>

She goes on to make the important point that due to climate change, floods and natural disasters of this magnitude seem likely to increase in frequency. With that in mind, Robert Kaplan had an interesting piece in the Jan/Feb ‘08 Atlantic Monthly, entitled “Waterworld” about how Bangladesh is dealing with climate change.

– Karen