Bangkok, Thailand faced with serious threat of rising waters - 24 Nov 2009  
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This city of 10 million people, already prone to flooding, is one of 20 major urban regions named by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as being vulnerable to submergence from climate change caused rising sea levels.
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Most recently, research conducted by the Asian Institute of Technology shows that Bangkok along with 30 other Thai provinces could be devastated in the next 50 years. Many families are already suffering from these effects and have been forced to relocate frequently.

Thai citizen Khamron Deedok, who has moved four times, said, "My original house was a few kilometers away from the sea. Each time we have to move, it's with great sadness but we are also happy that we are then safe from the storms. Then we move again. It is an endless cycle.”

Affirming the situation’s urgency, Professor Thanawat Jarupongsakul of Chulalongkom University stated, “The effects of climate change have come very close to our society, so there's no time to discuss whether it's real or not… It's time now to … act.”

We thank Professor Jarupongsakul, the Asian Institute of Technology and other researchers for this valuable information. Our prayers for the safety of the Thai people as well as other residents of the world’s threatened coastal regions. May we all protect ourselves from these changes by quickly adopting lifestyles in harmony with our ecosphere.

Supreme Master Ching Hai, who often reminds of the increasingly urgent state of our planet, spoke once more of the changes we must make to avoid disaster during an interview published in the September 2009 edition of The House Magazine.

Supreme Master Ching Hai: It’s too serious. These are people forced from their homes and communities due to rising sea levels and a host of other natural disasters, so-called natural disasters, but in fact these are all man-made. Sea level rise, for example, threatens half of the world's population living within 200 kilometers of a coastline. These situations will only worsen, not improve, until we stop the cause. This means to halt the livestock production and meat consumption.

If humans switch to the vegan diet, the Earth will begin cooling immediately and many of these dilemmas can even be reversed. So please, be veg and do good, to save the planet and all the beings on it, including you and me.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/8344311.stm  
http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-11-17-voa6.cfm
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/27596/rising-seas-threaten-nation http://enews.mcot.net
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