Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Island Disappears and So Does Conflict



Sometimes, the answer to a dispute comes without anyone's efforts. Check out this, from AP reports:

NEW DELHI – For nearly 30 years, India and Bangladesh have argued over control of a tiny rock island in the Bay of Bengal. Now rising sea levels have resolved the dispute for them: the island's gone.
New Moore Island in the Sunderbans has been completely submerged, said oceanographer Sugata Hazra, a professor at Jadavpur University in Calcutta. Its disappearance has been confirmed by satellite imagery and sea patrols, he said.

"What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming," said Hazra.

Scientists at the School of Oceanographic Studies at the university have noted an alarming increase in the rate at which sea levels have risen over the past decade in the Bay of Bengal.


Kind of unfortunate, given the implications globally. But it also shows the Earth's ability to intervene and dramatically remind us that human life is short, and nothing stays the same forever on this "blue" planet of ours.

4 comments:

Adam said...

Crazy! Even land is subject to impermanence......

At first I thought you were revealing some kind of spolier for LOST.

Was Once said...

Next it will be Florida and everyone will act surprised.

Algernon said...

If only there was a harmless way to make Jerusalem disappear. It has occurred to me in the past that it should just be taken away from us.

Nathan said...

Yeah, so true. After all the suffering produced in the fighting over that place, no one really should be able to claim it.