MikePaterson
Drowning islands!
Posted on: 05/21/2010 13:45
Pacific News 20 may:
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The Pacific Small Island Developing States (Pacific SIDS) at the United Nations called on the Security Council to immediately address the security threats of climate change in a letter sent to Security Council members today. "Climate change can devastate a country just as thoroughly as an invading army. We urgently need the Security Council to take this issue seriously," said Ambassador Moses, Permanent Representative of Nauru to the United Nations and Chair of thePacific SIDS.
Climate change is already contributing to severe food and water shortages in the Pacificand has led to the forced to displacement of individuals and communities in Vanuatu, Micronesia, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands. Sea level rise is the most dire security threat to the region. Recent projections by scientists indicate that a rise in sea level of two meters by the end of the century cannot be ruled out. Such a scenario would redraw political borders and devastate low-lying islands in the Pacific.
"If international community fails to take immediate action, then it will be complicit in the extinction of entire nations," said Ambassador Moses. "We can no longer be silent on the failure of the Security Council to meaningfully take action on this issue." Within the United Nations system, the Security Council holds primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. The letter, sent by the Permanent Representatives of eleven Pacific island nations, contends that the Security Council has a duty to use the powers granted to it under the UN Charter to respond to the security threats posed by climate change. "While the UNFCCC should be the primary forum for developing a global response to climate change, the negotiations are not keeping pace with the severity of the impacts.
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LBmuskoka
And apparently the primary
Posted on: 05/22/2010 07:07
And apparently the primary concern at the G20 talks is banking reform.
LB
At twelve o'clock a meeting round the table
For a seance in the dark
With voices out of nowhere
Put on specially by the children for a lark.
Cry baby cry
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better
So cry baby cry
The Beatles
sighsnootles
it really is a case of
Posted on: 05/22/2010 07:12
it really is a case of rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic, isn't it???
gecko46
This is a significant thread
Posted on: 05/22/2010 11:08
This is a significant thread Mike, and glad you started it. I'm not certain members of the UN have the political will or desire to address the situation for these Island nations. There is still so much denial of the effects of climate change, even with the growing and indisputable evidence of rising sea levels as a result of warming oceans. Of major concern to neighbouring islands is the prospect of relocation and resettlement which disrupts established patterns of living. Approximately 100,000 people may need to find a new home in what may be a hostile environment.
Australia and New Zealand both appear to be hoping the issue of international resettlement somehow goes away, and do not appear to have even focussed on how they will assist regional governments in dealing with the problems generated by internal relocation. But as the dominant powers of the region and the most likely destinations for people displaced by rising seas and vanishing resources, they don’t have a choice? Or do they?
MikePaterson
(No subject)
Posted on: 05/23/2010 08:03
MikePaterson
(No subject)
Posted on: 05/26/2010 12:25
gecko46
Of interest. United Nations
Posted on: 05/26/2010 16:35
Of interest. United Nations webcasts.
http://www.un.org/webcast/
InannaWhimsey
Of even more interest or,
Posted on: 06/07/2010 04:34
Of even more interest or, "Freedom from Gloom Addiction Inc., Masochist Branch"
(there's even a Kiwi mentioned in the article :3)
MikePaterson
So you guys read the New
Posted on: 06/07/2010 11:59
So you guys read the New Scientist story?
The first paragraph reads: " A new geological study has shown that many low-lying Pacific islands are growing, not sinking."
Fine: it's all about coral deposition which is a variable, and depends too on present elevations above sea level and vegetation and soil build-up on the islands -- and that depends on a few factors (the Pacific is not one homogenous environment). One of the tricky threats to predict is the point at which the lenses of fresh water beneath these islands are contaminated by salt water. Once that happens, crops become unsustainable. One big storm can do it. Rising sea levels increase that likelihood, and severer storms accompany global warming because weather systems are made more erratic.
The last two paragraphs read: "But although these islands (i.e. the "many") might not be submerged under the waves in the short-term, it does not mean they will be inhabitable in the long-term, and the scientists believe further rises in sea levels pose a significant danger to the livelihoods of people living in Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Federated States of Micronesia.
One scientist in Kiribati said that people should not be lulled into thinking that inundation and coastal erosion were not a major threat."
--------------------
Still feeling "lulled", guys, or do you want to polish your reading/comprehension skills?
RevMatt
When I met with John Baird,
Posted on: 06/07/2010 14:09
When I met with John Baird, he laughed in my face and told me that no islands were in danger of submersion. And our government never lies to us, so clearly, this is all fear mongering.
GordW
RevMatt wrote: When I met
Posted on: 06/07/2010 17:37
When I met with John Baird, he laughed in my face and told me that no islands were in danger of submersion. And our government never lies to us, so clearly, this is all fear mongering.
No Matt, it isn't lying when you are simply clueless about the facts. So yes, it is hard for this government to lie.
InannaWhimsey
MikeP, 1. I realize that
Posted on: 06/07/2010 20:49
MikeP,
1. I realize that you and I are domesticated primates and I am in your territory here, made by your markings (your print). You have your own Blasphemies, your own Obscenities (one of them is, I think, Capitalism).
2. The posts, so far, seemed to be one-sided to me -- taking an absolutist stance of "those islands are sinking, so BAAAD." Or going into the old 'Government' or 'Corporations' are EVIL (which reminds me of the quote by RAW where he says that the Left's view of Corporations is true and the Right's view of Government is true.)
So, the BBC article itself isn't absolute. It points out the nuances. Which you point out in your reply.
Here is the newscientist article referenced in the BBC piece.
And here is an abstract of the study that was referenced in both pieces.
Note that more and more nuances come to the fore. Such issues of 'Sinking' and 'Islands' become more nuanced, ferinstance, hopefully enabling the reader to be able to realize the choices they have.
I am sorry for infringing on your territory and Blasphemies.
LBmuskoka
InannaWhimsey, perhaps those
Posted on: 06/08/2010 06:15
InannaWhimsey, perhaps those not living on the islands could attempt to recognize that the people living there have the best perspective of what is happening to their world.
Should we shut out their cries for help because in listening it would infringe on our comfortable territory?
LB
A writer may tell me that he thinks man will ultimately become an ostrich. I cannot properly contradict him.
Thomas Malthus
MikePaterson
Hi Whimsy.. this is a
Posted on: 06/08/2010 10:22
Hi Whimsy.. this is a sub-issue of global warming... which is a topic that, for some reason many people choose to ignore or wiggle away from. The challenge is not to capitalism or any other specific "ism": it's a loud message about the absolute unsustainability of the mindlessly voracious lifestyles we've slid addictively into in the wealthy "West" and the challenge is personal.
And, like the global warming/human induced or exacerbated climate change it is a magnet for deniers who'd rather cling to their "fix" (despite the limits it places on their enjoyment of life).
When a scientific controversy opens, like, "this much is really bad" Vs "no, it's more like this much", the denier will leap in and say.. "see, nobody knows. What, me worry?".
That's like the child who doesn't want to believe sugar might harm teeth (ah, bot 'how much') or that no-one "needs" to, exercise...
In this case it's the homes, lives, cultures and futures of people that are NOW at stake. Stopping ice melt is too late for them. They know their homeland is awash because it's friggin' awash! They need help now. And their situation is the evidence that it's happening.
The issue is topical because, unless we wean ourselves of hyper-consumerism, it's going to happen to a lot more people, including low-lying cities in the more temperate climates for whom coral growth offers no hope of protection. It's a problem that will reach us all, one way or another, unless we see we all live on the same world and that in a few millennia we, as a species, are seriously damaging the result of 3.8 billion years of life's slow emergence and evolution on this planet. We've gone critical as a species. Something will shut us down (call it determined self-destruction) if we don't start pulling in a few horns fairly soon.