http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/blogs/shapley/bangladesh-global-warming-terrorism-55111408Bangladesh could be ground zero for the geo-strategic fallout from global warming, if some of the nation's best national security minds have it right. And that makes Cyclone Sidr a big glaring warning signal. Shockingly, it's a warning signal that the major U.S. media is ignoring.
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Back to Bangladesh, which according to the report, "will be threatened by devastating floods and other damage from monsoons, melting glaciers, and tropical cyclones that originate in the Bay of Bengal, as well as water contamination and ecosystem destruction caused by rising sea levels."
Doesn’t sound like a place I'd want to live. And the authors assume many Bangladeshis will come to the same conclusion. In short: Refugee crisis.
That explosive population will look for new homes -- "which will foment instability as the resettled population competes for already scarce resources … Others will seek to migrate abroad, creating heightened political tension not only in South Asia, but in Europe and Southeast Asia as well."
India is already building a 2,100-mile, 10-foot tall fence on its border with Bangladesh. The nation was only born 36 years ago, in a violent schism with Pakistan. Since then 14 governments have come to power and lost it, four of them via military coup. (Read: "local political, social and economic factors.")
That instability is a factor in "rising Islamic extremism," according to the report. And global warming, the report concludes, will help stoke that latent extremism and propel it into new territory.
In other words, Cyclone Sidr matters -- not only to the 142 million in its path. Not only to everyone with a conscience and a concern for human life in an unfamiliar part of the world. It should matter to every American, since by now it's abundantly clear that our fortunes have become tied to the fates of nations around the world with extreme Islamic elements.