Sink or Swim: The Climate Crisis We Caused in Bangladesh

When I recall the nation I was born in, my memories of the brief time I spent there are conjured through rose-tinted glasses. I recall lush fields of green rice paddies, ponds decorated with lily pads and frogs, and trees bursting with fruit. Besides myself, Bangladesh is home to 168 million people — yet the nation was only recently born through blood and struggle over 50 years ago. Now, Bangladesh faces great struggle again.

The majority of the nation sits on the largest river delta in the world, at the confluence of the mighty Ganges, Jamuna, and Meghna Rivers. These rivers are Bangladesh’s lifeblood; they are the waterways that produce the rich agricultural soil that dubs the nation the “Land of Rivers.”

My rose-tinted glasses are gone now. Where there were once rice paddies, there is now just water; where there were once ponds full of life, they are now buried under the currents; and where there was once beautiful agriculture, there is now only erosion and destruction.

The Land of Rivers is quickly becoming the sea, and no one is coming to save it.

Read the full article here!

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