In the current discussion and debate over coastal control in Lousiana, it is educational to look at analogues. The issue in the American Gulf Coast boils down to property/business rights in opposition to the environmental arguments for the preservation of coastal marshland as storm buffers. In the case of southeast Asian nations that suffered the devastating effects of the Great Tsunami of December 2004, rights are in question again, but this time of India’s national government.
brimful sent me an article from the latest copy of Nature: India’s ban on foreign boats hinders tsunami research. While other area nations have permitted international research vessels into their waters to study tectonic-plate-boundary interaction through seismic data acquisition and ocean-bottom sediments, India summarily refuses entry into its nautical territory.
[Germany, Britain and the United States] plan to send ships, but none will be able to survey the northernmost 900 km of the 1,300-km rupture zone. This part lies in Indian waters, and researchers say they have not even attempted to ask for permission to enter. Indian science secretary Valangiman Ramamurthi told Nature that the ministry of defence does not allow any foreign vessels in its territory for reasons of national security and sovereignty.
India has conducted similar posturing in the past regarding the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and now wishes to keep its subsurface data from other countries of the Subcontinent and China. However, the real interest of India should be its people, and their safety. New earthquake-tsunami models based on the geological surveying may provide insight into the location of potential danger zones. Similarly, unobstructed surveys and mapping of the American Gulf coast, especially those parts under sea level, will only benefit the people who live there.
The people of southeastern Louisiana are as ignorant of the dangers of living on a coast as their Asian counterparts. This only stresses the importance of science in education and public policy. How can you count on a government to make decisions and contingency plans not based in fact and modern research, and are forced to live by its rules?
Well, you vote, no?
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And now, for the most exciting thing to happen in a while: HAPPY 250th BIRTHDAY to my favorite composer of all time, Johann Chrysostom Wolfgang Theophilus Mozart, born today in 1756 in Salzburg, Germany. Rock me, Amadeus!
Wolfgang! Another point of full agreement!
Seriously, Blair, you should listen to Wanda Landowksa’s variations on cadenzas in some of Mozart’s piano concertos. Especially Nos. 13, 22 and 26, which the man himself would have been proud of.
See, I knew you’d blog about this better than I could! Well said.
Awww, shucks, b!
With an Indian soul and a global/scientific brain, I understand the hesitation towards complete disclosure on the part of Indian researchers and the government, and simultaneously feel irritation at their parsimony at the expense of their people and global cooperation.