Vietnam and climate change

Yesterday as I was walking home from a day out shopping, I got caught in a torrential downpour, which is odd considering it's the dry season (Note: these are not my pics. I didn't bring my camera with me.) These abnormal storms are convincing Lena and her parents that the end is nigh. Thankfully I had my flimsy lavender poncho to slip over me and my backpack, which helped at first, but eventually the rain seemed to sneak in through the porous thing and I got soaked, blinded and demented (causing me to jump onto the wrong bus and head 15 minutes in the wrong direction. Today the rain ruined my new haircut.)

And my shoes! My L.L. Bean low-cut hiking boots quickly became waterlogged as I waded through one-foot-high water coursing down the streets and gutters, carrying with it whatever snatched goods offered up by the city, from cabbage leaves to motor oil to even more odious fluids and smears, ugh.

Because the rain was falling after dark, and the city is still relatively dimly lit after nightfall, the scene took on a slightly nightmarish hue. The water that suddenly filled up the streets looked to be burning under the weak lights of all the motor scooters. And everyone was hooded in their dark rain cloaks, heads down against the onslaught. Very Apocalyptic!

Speaking of Apocalypses: Vietnam is looking at a sorry future when the climate warms up a few degrees. A Gaurdian reporter recently wrote this: "Which country will be most affected by the steady rise of the seas? Which country could see more than a tenth of its population displaced, a tenth of its economic power crippled and a tenth of its towns and cities swamped by the end of this century? The answer, which may surprise you, is Vietnam, named by the World Bank as the nation with most to lose as global warming forces the oceans to reclaim the land.

Just a one-metre rise in sea level would flood more than 7% of the country's agricultural land, and wreck nearly 30% of its wetlands, the bank says. (If you click on the first live link you can read what Oxfam says will happen to the poorest of people.) The government claims it's preparing for the catastrophe.