Climate Change: When Fiction Becomes Reality By Gabriela De Cicco |
The classic speculative fiction story, "The Long Rain" by Ray Bradbury, tells the story of astronauts who visit the planet Venus, where it is always raining and a few special domes provide a place for people to rest and recover. The crew members desperately travel from one shelter to another to find that they have all been completely destroyed and no longer provide protection. One by one they die or go insane under the bombardment of the rain. During the last week of March, something very similar happened in the city of Rosario in the Santa Fe province in Argentina and several other cities and towns in the Santa Fe and Entre Ríos provinces. It rained for a whole week, without stopping, and the cities' preventative measures-really, too late for prevention, but rather reaction-seem obsolete in the face of climate change and the tropicalization of the climate in this part of South America. The floods have displaced approximately 49,000 people counting those who were evacuated or self-evacuated still in shelters and the few people who are beginning to return to their homes. There are an estimated 25,000 evacuees in Santa Fe, and more than 3,500,000 hectares were devastated by the flooding. More than 500 millimeters of rain fell during that week; the average annually is 900. Rosario was isolated, for the first time in many years, from other cities. Its main entrances were beyond flooded; in fact 60% of the city streets have been destroyed or partially destroyed. The first areas of the city to feel the effects of the disaster were the poorest areas, and the majority of the women, girls and boys who were sent to evacuation centers came from these areas. More than 4,000 people used evacuation centers in Rosario, which were set up in response to sanitary issues. Although most of the assistance provided was helpful, the patriarchal logic that shaped its planning and implementation was inescapably obvious: for example, women with five children were given one diaper at a time because if she were provided with five at one time she might sell them; sanitary napkins, donated by companies, were among the last of the supplies distributed, although we learned about women who went almost three days without changing their pads. It is incredible to see how the different municipalities, which should have acted in response to these circumstances, failed to coordinate. Rosario is a pioneering city with many laws on women's rights and this type of assistance to women who needed a very different type of assistance should be unimaginable. The soy bean industry, one of the industries hit hardest by the flooding, estimates its losses at $900 million, and Rosario has requested 30,000,000 pesos to begin rebuilding the devastated areas. This region is one of the richest in the country, a center for dairy production and large plantations that are driving economic growth in Argentina after the 2001 crisis. These numbers (evacuees plus costs) reveal only one aspect of the problem and merely demonstrate global apathy towards climate change, which has global effects and touches every aspect of life: the economy, the environment, migration, health. Currently, the first migratory displacements caused by climate change are occurring in a mangrove swamp in Bangladesh. The geographer Mudood Elia, a specialist in internal displacement, has said, "If climatic pressure continues in Bangladesh, we will see massive displacements of populations... International organizations such as the UN and UNHCR will play a decisive role in planning for these predicted mass migrations. I believe that countries with more land are going to have to change their migration policies. Global warming is a global problem, and as such, we must find global solutions." [1] The issue is very difficult when we look at geopolitical maps, and how some countries manage to coexist with others and other countries do not.
Appendix:
Climate change threatens the living conditions of billions of people. It will mainly affect the poorest and most disadvantaged people, according to experts who are in Brussels to present the conclusions to the second part of the IPCC's fourth report on climate change. After six years of work, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published this alarming document, which was approved after long and difficult confrontations over some of its contents, according to DPA. The chairman of the IPCC, Rajendra K. Pachauri, warned that climate change will have negative consequences for agriculture and will lead to rising sea levels. Practically all regions of the planet will suffer from these negative effects. "The consequences will be felt on all continents," said Pachauri's co-chair, Martin Parry. Small islands or coastal areas could disappear from the map. At least a fifth of the world's flora and fauna are in danger of extinction. The Mediterranean, polar regions and Sub-Saharan Africa could be especially affected.
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Source:
[1] "The first climate refugees" by Donatien Garnier, in Le Monde Diplomatique, April 2007, South American Edition.
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