Thailand’s capital sinking due to climate change.
The nation’s scientists have expressed growing concern at the 2 to 5 cm per year that Bangkok has been sinking, saying that this coupled with rising sea levels will soon force regions of the city to be abandoned unless drastic and quick action is taken.

Over the years, hundreds of pumping devices and an extensive canal network have been returning floodwaters back to the Chao Praya River, with levees that prevent the water from surging back into the city.

However, estimates by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change forecast nearly 60 centimeter sea level rises by 2050, meaning that Bangkok could face regular flood waters of up to 2 meters high.

The current system could not withstand this kind of increase. Saying that climate change must be prioritized as a current and real threat, Tara Buakamsri, campaign manager for Greenpeace Southeast Asia said, “Bangkok has been identified as one of the climate change hot spots – it will be one of the most affected
cities in the world.”

Our thanks, Greenpeace Manager Buakamsri and all Thai researchers who are urging for fast climate action. May world leaders and individual citizens heed your call to avoid climate disaster and save our coastal cities.
In many discussions, including an October 2008 climate change conference with Thai dignitaries and the public, Supreme Master Ching Hai has called for the only sure solution to all climate change effects, in Thailand and across the globe.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87715
http://www.alertnet.org/db/an_art/52132/2010/00/8-120659-1.htm

Extra News
Due to the unusually frigid temperatures in Florida, USA, state wildlife officials rescued thousands of cold-stunned turtles and are now returning them to their natural environs as temperatures return to seasonal norms.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/earth-environment/article6987105.ece
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/15/turtles-released-back-atlantic
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/15/AR2010011501556.html


UK researchers at Oxford University create a new 3D model, which indicates that Pine Island glacier in Western Antarctica has passed a tipping point and appears irreversibly on the way to losing 50% of its ice mass in 100 years.  
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18383-major-antarctic-glacier-is-past-its-tipping-point.html

The future of prized heirloom pepper varieties in Turkey and Syria is threatened as farmers abandon their lands due to what may be the worst drought and crop failures in the region’s 8,000-year growing history.  
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-01-15-drought-drives-middle-eastern-peppers/

New Zealand and the US launch the largest wind farm in Antarctica, which will provide enough electricity to power 500 homes as well as meeting some of the energy requirements for the two countries’ scientific bases on the Ross Sea coast.  
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100116/D9D8I6E00.html