You have a writer jetting to 52 places in one year and then you do an issue of the magazine on Climate Change. Do you see anything incongruent with this picture?

By mid-century, 15 million or more Bangladeshis will likely be forced to migrate by climate change. In the coming decade, 1.5 million Central Americans & Mexicans will have to move. Where do they go?

Yet another NYT article on the woes of an impoverished 3rd world country with nary a mention of unsustainable birth rates and overpopulation. If Bangladeshis had kept a lid on the problem, there would be plenty more land better protected from the ravages of the annual cyclones for folks to claim. For those who tire of eking out an existence in the more rural areas, Dhaka would be far less sprawling and presumably less slum-like. This issue concerns every country, but it's far more pronounced in countries with an exponentially higher population density. There is only so much land, admittedly even less now that climate change is rendering some uninhabitable, and so many jobs from working the land. And no, as Thomas Friedman never stops yakking about, they're not all going to demonstrate proficiency in STEM fields and become entrepreneurs and computer scientists.

No, this is what happens after the British Empire decimates your indigenous culture.

Remember when the land mass was one piece? And dinosaurs ruled. Now it's broken up into several land masses. And there are several types of people roaming the planet. Can't change nor fight Mother Nature. Change will always happen until our planet begins to expire because our dying sun is finally to weak to feed us. At that time the winds stop, The oceans become still. And there is no more rain. But not in our lifetime. Enjoy!

The land in the Ganges delta is subsiding faster than global mean sea level is rising. The area would experience the same disasters in the absence of any anthropogenic global warming, though they would be somewhat delayed. Is it reasonable to expect the author to at least mention this? Or is complicating the usual narrative undesirable?

It's gotta be said, this is a nonsense article in many ways except that it exposes the weird state of mind of some cadre of our culture who think that the story substance here amounts to something upon which we might make policy. It does not. The implication is misery and toil, in fact I don't see that, I see a rather bucolic life outdoors in fresh air in relative peace without the rat race. Much better than a crowded slum perhaps.The implication is of blame, I don't buy it as useful other than as PC kumbaya ideology. The implication is of hopelessness, I don't see it and if you spoke with these people they are probably more irritated that a cameraman is studying them than anything else. It's very easy to go to Youtube and wander around Pakistan or India and see the city filth and crowds. American whiners over how hard we have it ought to take an entrepreneurial lesson from these women and btw where are the young men? Busy in other activities no doubt. The problem we see here is religion, overpopulation, and gender bias keeping women in narrow roles. It's not about rising water. Nice try, but the faces give you away.

Why are these women "hunting" for bricks, and not making them? (BTW; You don't hunt for inanimate objects, you search or scavenge for them!) Where are the men, doing what men are supposed to do...like make things...like bricks!? Where is the cottage industry aspect of all this? You need bricks, you make them!

"Now can you see those dark clouds gathering up ahead? They're going to wash this planet clean like the Bible said. Now you can hold on steady and try to be ready, But everybody's gonna get wet. Don't think it won't happen just because it hasn't happened yet." Jackson Browne, The Road and The Sky

For those that think we can adapt as waters rise, think again. Worst case projections today show a 10-foot rise by 2100 and rising a foot per decade after that. Our coastal infrastructure (ports, cities, military installations) took hundreds of years to evolve and with water rising in 10's of years, there just isn't time for even us in the West to replace it. And it's just not water in the oceans. Since stormes get worse and wetter, our farmlands will be destroyed and never to be replaced. Look what just happened in the center of our country with the 'bomb cyclone' that was only supposed to happen every 500 years. We will not be able to move North to compensate for global warming either. Farm soils took tens of thousands of years to become what they are. However, the growing climate band is moving North in some tens of years, and the soil just won't be there to support our crops. For those that say that our species is adaptable - it is to a point. We can eat cockroaches and worms because that's all that will be left of our livestock.

Duffy, a some questions for you. What is the change in the amount of vegetation that absorbs CO2, over the past 150 years? What is the growth rate of CO2 production by humans over that time? What is the trend of measured CO2 ppm? What is happening with CO2 levels in the oceans? Once CO2 is in the atmosphere, how long does it stay there? How about Methane? I can point you to places that can answer those questions but I would rather you use data from sources you trust. I am happy to discuss the point with you. Are you 100% sure there is no danger? I see you are in Toronto. On Jan first European weather people notice an event over the north pole, a sudden stratospheric polar warming event. Did you hear about that? It is pretty interesting what happened. Was mid to late January colder than usual for you? If so, it was a result of that event. The event was reported on Jan 1, 2019 and they said that the polar vortext was going to be disrupted pushing polar air down three different paths (North America, Europe, and Asia). The root cause of the event was the reduced Arctic Sea coverage, increased warming in the Arctic, and something to do with El Nino. Are you familiar with the event?

Bangladesh is 9th on the GCRI. Astonishingly, though a U.S. Territory, Puerto Rico is number 1, which raises all kinds of difficult questions, not least of which is why the Trump cult continues to disparage our territorial neighbors. It's easy to see the inverse correlation between the GDPs of major carbon contributors and GDPs of the countries most suffering now and at risk. The deniers don't know, but more significantly, they don't want to know and have no interest in anything but living in the present. The story of Bangladesh here is so arresting; people making the best of dire circumstances as families even as they are surrounded by more global maladies of their very large and densely populated country--climate refugees to large urban centers. The future of our atmosphere is here, now, right before our eyes. We can't look away.

Hey, it's also a very inconvenient fact for GHG climate alarmists that the planet is still warming as it exits our last ice age. As recently as 11,000 years ago there were 2 miles of glacial ice sitting on Manhattan, while in relative terms we noticed only recently, the mid-1800s, that glaciers were steadily melting in Alaskan ocean inlets - all of this very inconvenient, and completely unrelated of course, to the release of extra CO2 gas into the atmosphere by humankind. When atmospheric CO2 levels increase, vegetative life also uses it, growing faster and better - ask any greenhouse farmer who enhances his indoor crops with 1500 ppm CO2 atmosphere. So knowing this, no one really knows for sure that the oceans will rise any faster than the 1" to 4" per century they've been rising so far. To claim otherwise is pure theory, conjecture - unless one's a fanatical alarmist, of course - and we have no shortage of those these days. But if we do assume there's the possibility that oceans might rise at a faster rate than that, then what we should be doing is creating global financial reserves for future shoreline projects which is locked-in, untouchable to any political hands unless there's absolute proof that ocean levels have risen - not based upon radical political hyperbole. The Nobel Prize people can administer it. But if after 50 years we find out there is very little ocean rise to worry about, then the fund should be used for to do something worthwhile - like end poverty.

These pictures could be pictures of people from thousands of years ago eking out a living. It made me think of how far we've come but how so many have not made the transition to modernity. Besides this thought, the pictures bring about the realization of our reality which is approaching. Because Bangladesh is a poor country and really considered a 'nothing' country, their plight is overlooked, but it will be the future for many people in years to come. Climate will change the lives of millions and possibly billions in the very near future. The richer the country, the more devastating the results. The Bangladeshi economy may not be much bigger than a small US state, but imagine that same damage inflicted on the economies of our huge dynamic coastal and low lying cities around the world.

There is no effective high ground anywhere nearby. It's a delta region. In the monsoons it's simply covered with water. The rest of the country is densely populated too and so is next door India. India doesn't want Bangladeshis and Myanmar certainly showed its intolerance against the Rohingyas. So where will they go? Migration abroad, especially where labor shortages have surfaced: the Anglo-phone countries, Western Europe, Singapore, Malaysia, and Japan.

As a young boy I visited Bangladesh soon after it was founded in 1971. A poor and struggling nation then no doubt, having barely recovered from atrocities committed by the Pakistani army and their local collaborators, it was a country that had prided in its beautiful countryside and the bounty it yielded. I made a short trip to an interior village where my grandmother lived, a mere 18 miles from Dhaka but it took me all day. The reason was simple, it was winter season and the rivers had mostly dried up. Otherwise a single boat ride would have sufficed in the rainy season. Modes of transportation varied from a steam boat, a diesel-powered boat, a bus, and a mule ride. However, as it was getting dark the mule owner decided he would go no further so I was left with the only option of taking a boat for the next two or three miles. As I sat in the boat, I could see dimly lit houses on both banks, hear women and children chattering, and feel the moon light shine through the palm fronds. The boat moved with a soft rustling sound and then the majhi (boatman) began singing a Bhatiali (a lonely boatman’s song). It was enchanting and joyful to say the least. It remains an unforgettable evening for me even to this day. That was in 1973. My heart goes out to the struggling Bangladeshis who seem to suffer to no end and through no fault of theirs.

There is a big difference between flooding due to a heavy storm and a long-term-rise of sea-level due to the melting of the glaciers. If all the ice in the world melts and melt-water enters the oceans, the sea-level will rise about 76 meters or 250 feet. But a slow rise will allow the population to move gradually to the higher ground and the economy presumably readjust.

From the photos, it looks like the elderly, women and children are the ones left to fend for themselves.