Maldives Government Holds Undersea Cabinet Meeting

Hugh Pickens writes "The president of the Maldives and 11 ministers, decked out in scuba gear, held a cabinet meeting 4m underwater to highlight the threat of global warming to the low-lying Indian Ocean nation. While officials said the event itself was light-hearted, the idea is to focus on the plight of the Maldives, where rising sea levels threaten to make the nation uninhabitable by the end of the century. President Mohamed Nasheed and his cabinet spent half an hour on the sea bed, communicating with white boards and hand signals and signed a document calling for global cuts in carbon emissions. The Maldives has already begun to divert a portion of the country's billion-dollar annual tourist revenue to buy a new homeland as an insurance policy against climate change that threatens to turn the 300,000 islanders into environmental refugees. Emerging out of the water, a dripping President Nasheed removed his mask to answer questions from reporters and photographers crowded around on the shore. 'We are trying to send a message to the world about what is happening and what would happen to the Maldives if climate change isn't checked,' he said, bobbing around in the water with his team of ministers. 'If the Maldives is not saved, today we do not feel there is much chance for the rest of the world.'"

Comments

Re:CO2 cutbacks cannot stop climate change

[omfgnosis]

Are you suggesting that it's an entirely non-man-made catastrophe, which was in the works long before industrialism? If so, got any citations to back that up? If not, will you clarify?

Re:Well, good for them.

[DiamondGeezer]

That's right. But a lot of the Netherlands is below sea level whereas the Maldives are above sea-level. So who has most to fear?

Around 1970 the sea level dropped by 20-30 cms and since then there has been no sea-level rise: http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/inqu/finalprogram/abstract_54486.htm

But don't let scientific and historical facts get in the way of a good piece of hysteria.

Re:Well, good for them.

[Sique]

Just to give you a better picture: Less than 5% of all Dutch people live within walking distance to the coast, but all of the Maledivians do. The largest island is Malé, with just about a square mile (2.7 sq km). So while 95% of all Netherlands can hide behind several layers of dikes, none of the Maledivians can. Or for some other numbers: The whole of the Maledives covers 298 sq km of land, stretched over 823 km x 150 km of ocean, completely different than the Netherlands with more than 41000 sq km of land stretched over 360 km x 280 km.

The whole length of the Dutch dikes is about 3000 km, so if we estimate that an average dike is 30 m wide, a similar construction would amount to 30% of the whole maledives used for the dikes, while less than 0,25% of the Netherlands are actual dikes.

Re:CO2 cutbacks cannot stop climate change

[martinX]

And no-one has considered that fishing with explosives or cyanide on coral reefs could be causing a problem? Interesting.

Re:Yeah, Um, Maldives...

[Greyfox]

Sorry I meant people who could actually do something about the problem. I'm not convinced that anyone they've talked to thus far can, anyway. To be perfectly serious for a moment, it would be a bad idea for Maldives to rely on anyone else to solve this problem or to prevent the potential catastrophe they're facing. The whole "We're going to buy as a new homeland" thing is a good start, but they're talking about moving a nation of people and it's possibly only a couple of decades before things start going downhill.

Have they even scoped out a new homeland yet? If not, may I suggest Utah? No one's using it at the moment, if my last drive through there is any indication...