Bangkok - The Next Atlantis?

Bangkok is one of 13 of the world's largest 20 cities at risk of being swamped as sea levels rise in coming decades, according to warnings at the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change held here. The arithmetic gives Bangkok little cause for optimism. The still expanding megapolis rests about 3 1/2 to 5 feet above the nearby gulf, although some areas already lie below sea level. The gulf's waters have been rising by about a tenth of an inch a year, about the same as the world average, says Anond Snid

vongs, a leading scientist in the field. But the city, built on clay rather than bedrock, has also been sinking at a far faster pace of up to 4 inches annually as its teeming population and factories pump some 2.5 million cubic tons of cheaply priced water, legally and illegally, out of its aquifers. This compacts the layers of clay and causes the land to sink.

"You notice that every highway, road and building which has no foundation pilings is sinking," says Smith Dharmasaroja, head of Thailand's meteorological department in 1998. "We feel that with the ground sinking and the sea water rising, Bangkok will be under sea water in the next 15 to 20 years — permanently." Once known as the "Venice of the East," Bangkok was founded 225 years ago on a swampy floodplain along the Chao Phraya River. But beginning in the 1950s, on the advice of international development agencies, most of the canals were filled in to make roads and combat malaria. This fractured the natural drainage system that had helped control Bangkok's annual monsoon season flooding.

Smith urges that work start now on a dike system of more than 60 miles — protective walls about 16 feet high, punctured by water gates and with roads on top, not unlike the dikes long used in low-lying Netherlands to ward off the sea. The dikes would run on both banks of the Chao Phraya River and then fork to the right and left at the mouth of the river.

 

Sierra Tangos

 

• Foot In Mouth - In a recent post, I commented on the poor state of the highway between Pattaya and Chonburi City and suggested that it could be why fewer Bangkok residents appear to be visiting Pattaya over the weekends and what happens next. Pattaya is overflowing with Bangkokians on a long weekend for the end of Buddhist Lent. I won't be buying a raffle ticket this week.

 

• Seems like just about every bar in town is holding an Halloween Party on 31st Oct. I'll compile a full list nearer the date but I just hope the the parties don't get in the way of the serious business of mongering.

 

• Firefox 2.0.0.8 is released and optimized for Leopard, fixes bugs, creates others

  Mozilla has released Firefox 2.0.0.8. The big news is that the latest version of the web browser is compatible with Ma

  

  c OS X 10.5 Leopard. But there are also security updates for Windows and Linux users. Oh yeah, and there's a long list of known issues for the Mac version. (There are known issues for Windows, Linux, and Unix too, but most of those issues are easily fixable).

  Here are just a handful of those issues:

  • Problems with some media plugins

  • "Close Other Tabs" may fail when you have more than 20 tabs open

  • Macromedia Flash content may not play on Intel-based Macs

  Still, since the update includes recommended security fixes, we think you'd best go ahead and install Firefox 2.0.0.8. That, and your browser will probably nag you every time you start it until you do.  [via DownloadSquad]

 

• Firewall Products - Matousec has put in a lot of time and effort to test the majority  of firewall products in use today and produced an easy to read league table of the results. Go here and scroll down passed the Results Table (shades of purple) to the Firewall Rating Table. You may be surprised to see where your firewall comes in the table. Please tell me you're not using Microsoft Windows Firewall....

 

• There is more money being spent on breast implants and Viagra today than on Alzheimer's research.  This means that by 2040, there should be a large elderly population with perky boobs and huge erections and absolutely no recollection of what to do with them.

 

• A man met a woman and fell madly in love with her. He asked her to marry him right away. Her response was: "But we don't know each other at all, what if we don't get on?" The man said that was a chance he was prepared to take and he felt that he loved her so much straight away that he was sure it would work and they could get to know each other during their marriage. So the woman agreed, they married and went away on honeymoon where they found they were very compatible. They were lazing by the poolside one day when the husband said he fancied a swim and his wife watched him as he climbed up to the very highest diving board and leapt off backwards. He did a triple spin, a forward turn and a double back-flip (piked) before entering the water with barely a ripple. The wife was amazed. When the husband came back to her she said: "Blimey! I didn't know you could dive like that!" He replied: "Oh yes, I used to be an Olympic diver in my youth and was the champion for ten years running." They agreed that there was lots to learn about each other and that it was fun finding out. Then the wife decided to go for a swim. She dived into the water, swam 150 lengths, got out of the water and laid on her sun lounger barely out of breath. The husband was amazed. He said: "I can't believe it, did you used to be an Olympic swimmer?" She replied: "Oh no, I used to be a hooker in Bangkok and I worked both sides of the Chao Phraya."

 

 

• Footnote - The England rugby team go home with their heads held high after almost defending their title against all the odds. Also rans at the start of the tournament they were in the end, just a couple of calls from the officials away from bringing the Webb Ellis trophy back home. Fantastic stuff, heroes one and all. Congratulations to South Africa who were the form team of the whole tournament and worthy winners.

 

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