Bangkok In Ten Years Time

I don’t want to sound patronizing, but I think that many of the problems this city and country have stem from the desire to remain insular. To keep the place separate. In fear of being compared to societies that are more scrutable.

Most of these behaviors stem from fear and protectionism. Which leads us to HOME – a film by celebrated Yann Arthus-Bertrand. Remember his recent Bangkok exhibit?

The main message of this film is that we cannot continue living in a bubble. Bangkok is one of the eleven major cities mentioned in the film which are in direct danger of rising sea levels.

By Chang Dek

There are countless instances in the film that draw attention to destructive practices that are part of our every day life in Bangkok and Thailand.

I present a somewhat blithe attempt to make the case for including the important message eloquently told in this new film HOME. This very aptly named film hammers home some important global issues that are absolutely and urgently relevant to Bangkok.

It tells us all this through exquisite aerial cinematography:

Without wanting to sound patronizing, as said, I think that many of the problems this city and country have stem from the desire to remain insular, to keep itself separate in fear of being compared to societies that are more scrutable.

As a foreigner, many a Thai will blankly ask me when will I go back home. Hard for many to accept that this is my home.

As I left the cinema after watching the movie I noticed that most of the patrons were tree-hugging types, and realized that the rich industrialists were simply too busy to watch such a film, too busy making themselves richer and polluting the world in the process.

The film could be a film about Bangkok. A high ratio of cars to citizens, massive traffic and industrial pollution, shrimp farming, deforestation, introduction of monocultures, palm oil production and the excessive use of pesticides and herbicides are just the tip of that yet un-molten iceberg.

It is well known that claiming poverty as an excuse for practices that pollute doesn’t wash anymore. China still makes such claims while it is about to become the worlds second biggest economy.

The film’s mandate that we have no more than ten years left to make radical changes to the way we share this planet reminds us that the coastal erosion just twelve linear miles from Bangkok is very real.

There are temples that used to be connected to the mainland that are now islands reachable only by boat. We will surely see a seasonally submerged Bangkok in the very near future. As usual we wait for the accident to happen before we apply the patch.

Many cities are joining international coalitions to legislate climate control measures immediately. Mumbai just joined. If Mumbai can, Bangkok can?

What will Bangkok look like in ten years?

Watch the entire film on YouTube

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Comments

8 Responses to “Bangkok In Ten Years Time”

JJ on June 6th, 2009 7.33 am

Interesting, but what can I do?

Once read somewhere that a single hurricane produces more energy that mankind has ever produced since the “invention” of mankind’s use of electricity.

And then again, the whole beautiful country of the Netherlands (literally “low lands”) would have long ago disappeared without the construction of massive dams.

Dams, floodgates, watergates – we can continue to abuse the planet. For at least some more generations.
chang dek on June 6th, 2009 1.55 pm

You can start by watching the movie – looks like you haven’t seen the film JJ – its free on YouTube, so there’s no excuse, or you can see it in its full grandeur at the Scala – highly recomended over the small screen. Rich countries like U.K., Holland or Italy can afford to build flood gates; they are also part of the 2% that own 80% of the global wealth.
whoopla on June 6th, 2009 5.28 pm

The dykes the Dutch built were created to reclaim land from the sea, which they did very successfully. This was an expansionist technology, not protectionist.
Pete, frogblogger on June 6th, 2009 10.23 pm

Trouble is the politicians need votes today, not tomorrow. And today people will always vote for their pockets. It’s a vicious circle, we’ve been heading inexorably in that direction for decades, and with the explosive industrialization of the world’s two most populous nations China and India, with the rest of the developing world following rapidly behind, it’s hard to see the process being halted, forget reversed.

Human nature’s the problem, not the industrialists. They just service our insatiable demands. We’re a greedy lot, we always want more, and tomorrow never comes. Or so we pretend.
expatudon08 on June 8th, 2009 3.11 am

The dykes the Dutch built failed with catastrophic consequences and will again because nature can not be tamed in the long term.

Short term gains is all modern society is interested in hence the credit crunch.
Leosia on June 8th, 2009 9.54 am

I live in Bangkok and personally think it would be a good thing if it went underwater. It’s a mess of a city – polluted by too much traffic and too many people, archaic development laws, zero land taxes which discourage responsible development, non-existent health and safety standards, high crime rates – the list is endless.

The other issue you mentioned, insularity, combined with a stream of short-term governments, political instability and corruption, will ensure that Bangkok sinks steadily into the sea.
Pete, frogblogger on June 8th, 2009 12.19 pm

Understand the sentiment Leosia, but what you say applies to any number of cities around the world, and the bulk of the world’s population is living in areas threatened by rising sea levels. So maybe saying “let it sink” is not a solution!
Chang Dek on September 22nd, 2009 4.15 pm

The sinking city – Bangkok’s Chao Praya River basin is top of the list for global sites to be affected by rising sea levels:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8266500.stm

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