Environment
World Habitat Day: Habitats not just for humanity, but for life
Through the choppy waters of the Bay of Bengal, our speedboat twisted and turned trying to reach Sonadia Island.
Providing permanent support to the people of Tanguar Haor
I always wanted to take two photographs of the same spot of Tanguar Haor—one in the driest month of the year and one in the wettest.
Solving the climate change problem
The temperature in a small town in Eastern Russia, Verkhoyansk, located 10 kilometres above the Arctic circle, recently pushed to an astonishing 38 degrees Celsius—hotter than the annual average of Dhaka, Toronto, New York, or Los Angeles, during the same time of the year.
Desertification And Drought Day: The threat of parched land
Barsha-Kaal, or the rainy season, has officially arrived this week. If we were not shackled by Covid-19, we would have been welcoming monsoon with singing and dancing at public gatherings, arranging tree fairs, and planting hundreds and thousands of saplings all over the country. A perfect time to make our country greener!
Conservation delayed is conservation missed
In the middle of the devastating coronavirus crisis, we have come across some good news about the environment.
Why should you care about the air you breathe?
If you live in Dhaka, a city that is perennially drowned in a sea of polluted air, you may think that a scarlet sunrise or sunset blazing across the horizon is a sight to behold.
A breath of not so fresh air
We all know that the air quality in Dhaka is bad. Anyone living in the city only has to clean a surface at home in the morning and see the visible layer of dust magically reappear by the time you return from work, or spend a little time outdoors and just feel the air in your throat to know there is a real problem. But how bad is it truly? And are there insights that the data can reveal to us?
Save the environment, not posters
With the Dhaka City Corporation election ready to roll out next month, the capital is brimming with a palpable air of electoral mood.
Battling climate induced displacement
Disaster and climate induced displacement has become an important issue in the global disaster risk reduction (DRR) conversation.
The silent killer lurking in the air
Surprising as it may seem to some, non-smokers in Bangladesh can die of lung cancer, and we are not talking about passive smoking here.
When the garbage piles up
The near absence of an environment-friendly urban waste management system in Bangladesh is a major concern for the citizens.
Building capacity to implement the Paris Agreement
The Asia-Pacific Climate Week was held at the UN Conference Centre, Bangkok from September 2 to 6, 2019. The objective was to have a regional dialogue on how to rachet up ambition in mitigation and speed up adaptation actions.
Climate change: Is solar radiation management a feasible idea?
In an op-ed piece published in this newspaper on August 27, 2019, I discussed a number of methods within the context of Solar Radiation Management (SRM) as a way of mitigating some of the impacts of climate change. They are whitening low-level clouds, thinning the Cirrus clouds, injecting sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere, or putting sunshades (mirrors and/or reflectors) in outer space.
Saving Dhanmondi Lake
The Dhanmondi lake deserves some serious attention by the relevant authorities to save it from pollution.
Proforestation: A better climate action than tree plantation
The “Global Warming of 1.5 degree C” report determined “afforestation” (planting new forests) and “reforestation” (replacing forests on deforested or recently harvested lands) as essential strategies to remove greenhouse gases (GHGs) from the atmosphere. Likewise, the role of trees in addressing the climate change problem has received much attention in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) special report on “Climate Change and Land”. However, planting trees is not a silver bullet against climate change and it should be a part of an inclusive action plan to address the climate crisis.
Solar radiation management can help combat climate change
In the Environmental Physics course that I teach from time to time, a student once remarked that we really do not have to worry about the deleterious effects of climate change because technology would be able to solve all the problems we are facing.
Solving the climate crisis is beyond governments
Throughout my 10 years working in international development and climate policy, I’ve mostly heard colleagues talk about the private sector as if it was this intangible,
Transboundary cooperation key to enforcing rivers’ legal rights in Bangladesh
In June 2019, the Bangladesh High Court granted its rivers the status and rights of a living entity, becoming the fourth country after New Zealand, India and Colombia to do so, and the first to extend the declaration to every river within its territory. The decision was welcomed by river rights groups, environmentalists, experts and the National River Conservation Commission of Bangladesh as an important move against the widespread encroachment and pollution, choking hundreds of rivers crisscrossing Bangladesh.