Thailand Reaps the Whirlwind: Kajiki Storm Exposes Decades of Neglect
Kajiki is coming. And with it, the future. The news wires are buzzing with reports of a tropical depression intensifying into a tropical storm, projected to dump torrential rain across Thailand, including Bangkok, over the next few days. Bangkok Post is reporting on flash flood warnings and advisories for small boats. But to see this as merely a weather event is to miss the deeper, more disturbing story: Kajiki is not just a storm; it’s a brutal accounting, a bill come due for decades of short-sighted decisions that have systematically eroded Thailand’s capacity to cope.
This isn’t about fate. It’s about feedback loops, each exacerbating the other. Bangkok, a city built on a swamp, has consistently chosen concrete over canals, development over drainage. As far back as the 1980s, studies warned about the sinking of Bangkok, a consequence of excessive groundwater extraction fueling unchecked construction. The warnings were largely ignored. Now, with climate change amplifying rainfall intensity, the chickens are coming home to roost, and systems strained to their breaking point are producing predictable, yet perpetually surprising, crises.
People in low-lying areas, near foothills or along waterways are advised to remain vigilant for flash floods and forest runoff.
The autopsy of this disaster will point to familiar culprits. Deforestation, driven by agricultural expansion and illegal logging, reduces the land’s sponge-like capacity. Unsustainable farming practices deplete topsoil, accelerating runoff. And the relentless march of urban sprawl obliterates natural floodplains, turning them into parking lots and shopping malls. But these are not independent variables; they are symptoms of a deeper dysfunction: an economic model that prioritizes short-term gains over long-term resilience, profit over people.
And the rot extends far beyond Thailand’s borders. Consider Thailand’s role as a major exporter of rice. Flooding decimates rice paddies, sending shockwaves through the global food market, driving up prices and exacerbating food insecurity in already vulnerable nations. As resources become scarcer and livelihoods more precarious, the pressure on neighboring countries intensifies, potentially igniting regional conflicts and triggering mass migrations. The World Bank estimates that climate change could push more than 100 million people into poverty by 2030. But that figure obscures the deeper truth: climate change isn’t creating new problems; it’s amplifying existing inequalities, turning cracks into chasms.
This is why we need to fundamentally rethink resilience. As Vaclav Smil, a distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Manitoba, has consistently argued, technological fixes, like bigger and better dams, are seductive but ultimately insufficient. They treat the symptoms while ignoring the disease. As Dr. Saleemul Huq, a leading expert on climate change adaptation in developing countries, would emphasize, true resilience requires a radical shift in power, empowering local communities to define their own vulnerabilities and build their own solutions, ensuring that resources flow to those who need them most, not those who can afford them.
Kajiki will dissipate. The floodwaters will recede. But the underlying vulnerabilities — the deep, systemic flaws in our economic and political systems — will remain. It’s not enough to brace for the next storm. We must fundamentally transform the systems that are making these storms more frequent and more ferocious. Because until we do, Kajiki will keep coming, each time revealing the brutal truth: we are living on borrowed time, and the interest is accruing rapidly.
