tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6548548370779751421.post-51642868342401600932008-07-26T12:37:00.001+01:002008-07-26T12:37:25.346+01:00<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><div align='center'><font face='arial'><img src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/240/535916475_ec8af5e072.jpg' style='max-width: 800px;'/></font><br/><small><font face='arial'><br/>Photo by <a href='http://www.flickr.com/photos/carlmontgomery/'>Carl Montgomery</a></font></small><br/></div><font face='arial'><br/>It's tempting to think that things will be ever thus; that nothing much changes and the world will look roughly the same to our great-grandchildren.<br/><br/>Anyone with a modicum of interest in climate change knows different, though. We've seen the figures, read the books, consumed the warnings. That village on the coast? It'll be underwater. Those wheat fields? Consumed by dust. That city whose only source of fresh water is a rapidly-diminishing glacier? Well, that's a no-brainer.<br/><br/>Of course there are other reasons for humanity to abandon their own settlements. Pripyat in Ukraine is the most famous - that's the city of 50,000 people that had to be evacuated after the Chernobyl explosion. WebUrbanist has a list of <a href='http://weburbanist.com/2008/07/06/20-abandoned-cities-and-towns/'>20 other Abandoned Cities From Around The World</a>.<br/><br/>The reasons for abandoning them are varied, from wars to economic collapse and geological instability. But there's one town on the list that had to be abandoned because it managed to poison itself, in an act so incredibly stupid you wonder what they could have been thinking. <br/><br/>Can you guess which country that might be in?<br/><br/></font></div>Despairinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17416029695260860437noreply@blogger.com