Luddly Neddite
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- Sep 14, 2011
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One Small Pacific Island Nation Just Bought Part Of Another Island To Escape Climate Change | ThinkProgress
More at the link. I wonder if the water at the new island will also rise.
Maldivian Leaders Might Move the Entire Nation to Australia If Sea Keeps Rising | Popular Science
Its already happening in some parts of the world. Flooding in Florida, Venice and we saw signs of rising water in the Caribbean.
Apparently, one of the hardest hit is and will be Bangladesh. They're dirt poor and have no resources.
The president of Kiribati, an island nation in the Pacific ocean, recently purchased eight square miles of land about 1,200 miles away on Vanua Levu, Fijis second-largest island. Like other Pacific Island nations, including Tuvalu and the Maldives, Kiribati is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change especially sea level rise. In certain areas around these islands sea level is rising by 1.2 centimeters a year, about four times more than the global average. Within decades significant chunks risk submersion.
Kiribati president Anote Tong is well aware of this, saying of the purchase, we would hope not to put everyone on [this] one piece of land, but if it became absolutely necessary, yes, we could do it.
With just over 100,000 people scattered across 33 low-lying coral atolls totaling about 313 square miles, the land purchase provides some guaranteed high ground to escape to if sea level rise renders the country mostly uninhabitable. The Church of England owned the land, which is mainly covered in forest, and sold it to Kiribati for $8.77 million. Barring imminent relocation, it will be used primarily for agriculture and aquatic farming to ensure Kiribatis food security. With sea level rise contaminating groundwater and climate change causing devastating coral bleaching, the nations food supply is also in jeopardy.
In a statement, the government said the purchase marked a new milestone in its development plans, which include exploring options of commercial, industrial and agricultural undertakings such as fish canning, beef/poultry farming, fruit and vegetable farming.
Kiribati is the first country to actually purchase land in another country as a hedge against climate change.
More at the link. I wonder if the water at the new island will also rise.
Maldivian Leaders Might Move the Entire Nation to Australia If Sea Keeps Rising | Popular Science
If their islands are deluged by rising seawater, the people of the Maldives would have to evacuate, becoming the first refugees driven from their homes by global warming. Their president considers this an eventuality, not a possibility, and so he is buying up land in foreign countries and urging those countries to be prepared for an influx of people with no return destination.
President Mohamed Nasheed told the Sydney Morning Herald that his government was considering Australia as a potential new home for the Maldives' 350,000 citizens. He said Maldivians want to stay on their archipelago, but "moving was an eventuality his government had to plan for," the newspaper said. "He said he did not want his people living in tents for years, or decades, as refugees," the Herald writes.
Australia has plenty of open space and a decent climate, although Nasheed has also considered India and Sri Lanka because of their cultural similarities.
If sea levels rise as predicted over the next century by 23 inches, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change the 1,200 islands of the Maldives archipelago will largely be submerged. About 80 percent of the land mass is less than three feet above sea level, and already 14 islands have been abandoned because of erosion, the Herald says. "It is increasingly becoming difficult to sustain the islands, in the natural manner that these islands have been," Nasheed told the newspaper.
Its already happening in some parts of the world. Flooding in Florida, Venice and we saw signs of rising water in the Caribbean.
Apparently, one of the hardest hit is and will be Bangladesh. They're dirt poor and have no resources.