Over a week ago, I showed the film, An Inconvenient Truth, to my students at SaigonTech. I had realized that very few of them knew anything, or seem to cared, about the influence of global warming on Vietnam. As they watched the film, they were a bit surprised. Imagine, I told them, if the the glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica melted resulting in a 5 meter rise in sea water, what would happen to Vietnam.

Yeah, Vung Tau, Nha Trang, Mui Ne, Phan Thiet, etc., would all be underwater. The Mekong Delta would be flooded but not by fresh water. Halong Bay well known beauty would be submerged. I even joked with them that Saigon would be next to the sea. Who knows?

The underlying theme here is that we all are like the frog in the film that jumped into water being heated up (not boiling, he jumped out, remember?). We ride our motorbikes in the midst of dangerous and toxic fumes with our masks and helmets. Yet we do nothing…

Yesterday, the Worldwatch Institute in Thailand announced the 21 megacities would be greatly affected by the sea rise. They also mentioned that Vietnam was the 4th most peril country in sea rises and other climate conditions associated to global warming. (See Article Here)

If the sea rises, “Bye Bye Vung Tau.”