Eat chapati, give up mutton, save the planet

Rice contributes more to global warming than chapatis and mutton curry is more damaging than chicken curry, according to a study of the impact of Indian food on climate.

Consumed in quantities producing the same amount of energy, wheat is eight times less damaging to the climate than rice and 52 times less than mutton, says the report, which has not been published yet.

The study by the Indian Agriculture Research Institute (IARI) examines the carbon footprint of 24 food items used in Indian homes such as chapati, rice, vegetables and milk derivatives such as paneer.

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Rising sea level threatens Bangladesh

The place where India meets South East Asia, the history and flow of two of the world's religious cultures mingle in the waters of two of its largest rivers.This is a landscape beyond mere superlatives. The water created in the Himalayas flow out to east and west as the Ganges and Bhramaputra Rivers. The rivers meet forms the Meghna ,which is the second to Amazon,and then course south in hundreds of distrbutaries to form the largest delta on the planet.

There lies Bangladesh , a nation of 140 million people beset by poverty and the floods of the rivers, and now also affected by rising sea level. Gary Braash visited to document this threat, traveling by boat south from chaka and speaking to villagers, foshermen, and scientists. Already a million people a year are displaced by loss of land along rivers, and indications are this is increasing. Villagers spoke of losing a town mosque to unexpected fast erosion, even in a time of good weather in the dryer season. The one meter sea level rise generally predict of no action is taken about global warming will inundate more than 15 percent of Bangladesh, displacing more than 13 million people and cut into the crucial rice crop. Intruding water will damage the Sundarbans mangrove forest, a world heritage site.