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Facing Oblivion, Island Nation Makes Big Sacrifice
Damien1972 writes "Kiribati, a small nation consisting of 33 Pacific island atolls, is forecast to be among the first countries swamped by rising sea levels. Nevertheless, the country recently made an astounding commitment: it closed over 150,000 square miles of its territory to fishing, an activity that accounts for nearly half the government's tax revenue. What moved the tiny country to take this monumental action? President Anote Tong, says Kiribati is sending a message to the world: 'We need to make sacrifices to provide a future for our children and grandchildren.'"
How does this protect their children and grandchildren?
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
so we wait until they drown and then fish?
They're gonna feel like fools when the doom and gloom prophesies don't pan out.
Democrats and Republicans are like AIDS and Cancer, I want neither!
Corruption is much louder than their message.
I wish the people and governments of these island countries well and I certainly think they should try whatever they can to get attention for their plight, but the lesson learned in COP15 is that the major industrial powers of the world are not willing to make major changes in their greenhouse gas emissions. And basically the rest of the world can't do a damn thing to make them.
What do you expect from a bunch of island savages?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Quite enjoyed J. Maarten Troost's The Sex Lives of Cannibals which takes place on the island of Kiribati. A great beach book.
It's interesting to hear the government making a commitment like this. As the article has the president saying: "One million is 1+1+1 and so on. Every person and every action is important." Too often forgotten methinks. The cynic in me is losing out today; facing extinction of their islands, I can hope enough that they're sincere, and they others will listen.
Is this slashdot or digg? From the articles I can't tell anymore. I used to like the news when it wasn't slanted towards any particular angle, but there are no good news sources anymore.
Getting the American marketers to stop getting the rapidly expanding middle class of China on the consumerism gravy train simply wont happen until something collapses.
Studies show that atols and coral islands maintain their height above sealevel. The coral grows upwards as sealevel rises.
Does this somehow help them? The article doesn't say.
How much of their fishing territory does this eliminate (article says 150,000 square miles, but doesn't mention the current total area)?
Basically, the article is poorly written, even mixing units - square miles, then square kilometers. Has all the appearance of a "puff piece."
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
as far as google maps is concerned the islands have already sank in to the pacific
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
>>>They're gonna feel like fools when the doom and gloom prophesies don't pan out.
Not really. Even if 2100 arrives and nothing terrible has happened, they'll still benefit from a smaller population and abundant food supply. So it's a win-win solution.
In fact I think population control, like China's 1 baby per family, will eventually become necessary... especially after oil becomes scarce and skyrockets to $1000/barrel (~$30/gallon of gasoline). Simply put either WE will impose population limits, or nature will do it for us (via starvation in the cities).
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
A government restricts the lives of ordinary, innocent citizens, making them poorer in the process, while the government officials continue on without changing their lifestyles at all. Or the government officials make a profit from the change by getting payments (or something else of value) from environmental special interest groups or from the fishermen who use the other, non-restricted territory and have fewer competitors selling fish.
Governments using unnecessary force against people is oppression, even when the rulers are The Good People and they are doing it for The Good Reasons.
Someone who cared about islanders would suggest they actually solve their problems (in the event those problems actually happen) by building some small seawalls or other simple structures to deal with a modest rise in sea levels. Whining and making ridiculous and destructive spectacles is useless and childish.
Plenty of speculation in the article, "facts" however are completely missing.
Got Code?
Oil costing $1000 per barrel will happen if the dollar hyperinflates(then we can probably suspect $1billion/barrel) or if everyone stops using oil for anything for a few decades and you buy an authentic barrel of 2010 BP as a collectors item.
Barring massive market manipulation, inflation or some semi-apocalyptic event there will never ever be a time when oil could rise to $1000 a barrel while our dependence on it is kept at a level similar to today. Long before it would hit that price it becomes economically viable to use non-fossile sources for all our hydrocarbon needs.
Oh, and for nature to impose population limits for us she better start working now, because we're nowhere short of stopping technological advancements allowing us to be more than ever before, in increasingly smaller spaces. Heard about vertical hydroponics? It's like skyscrapers for plants, allowing us to grow more than ever before per square meter of earth surface. It's extremely unlike that we'll suddenly freeze the earth population at 6b, it's a pipe dream of the crazy enviromentalist lobby. By year 3000, we'll be a hundred billion people, on approximately the same footprint, with a higher standard of living.
Your paranoia is palpable, but you really must get yourself a passport and see the world.
One would have thought the recent BP disaster and the machinations of that AMERICAN corporation to limit their liability would be enough to wake your people up, but alas, you're all too obese, insolvent, unemployed, and glued to television, to care. Now that is sad. I hope you have your guns loaded (I just assumed you were a gun nut).
It makes perfect sense if you understand that when they speak of "our children and grandchildren", they're speaking as residents of Earth, not of Kiribati. They're taking a step toward conservation of the planet's biosphere (to the limited but measurable extent that they are able), and setting an example for others to follow, to help preserve it for future generations of humans, not just future generations of I-Kiribati.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
The sad fact of the matter is there are very few pristine coral reefs left in the world. Build a few 5 star eco logdes on these islands and they will be worth MAGNITUDES more in revenue than fishing will ever hope to bring in.
(I have lived on islands in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean, so I have a clue - unlike most knee jerk global warming deniers on here)
Now, how many FISH does one need to sell to equal that? Answer: ALOT.
:::: zing::::
Don't have children! Then no grand children.
Problem solved!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
This reminds me of a study I read about a year ago, The author pointed out that most reefs were dying, obviously because of global warming. The only ones that are still healthy are the ones where the large predators (sharks, groupers, etc) are still present to control the smaller fish that eat the coral. But the conclusion was that removing the large predators wasn't the problem, it is obviously global warming. Obvious to that scientist anyway.
Where do you think all the fish you eat is coming from?
Ocean are over-exploited, people are talking to register Tuna to the list of endangered species (it is that serious). Quotas and catch management are barely working...
What you need is an area where fish can reproduce and grow. For migratory species like Tuna you need a big area, and because of el nino anyhow, the big area for fishing is the west Pacific, not the central Pacific where this area is.
Kiribati just did that.
Franck Martin
Avonsys
"And the research showed similar trends in the Republic of Kiribati, where the three main urbanised islands also “grew” – Betio by 30 percent (36ha), Bairiki by 16.3 percent (5.8ha) and Nanikai by 12.5 percent (0.8ha).
Webb, an expert on coastal processes, told the New Scientist the trend was explained by the fact the islands mostly comprised coral debris eroded from encircling reefs and pushed up onto the islands by winds and waves.
The process was continuous, because the corals were alive, he said."
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/02/tuvalu-and-many-other-south-pacific-islands-are-not-sinking-claims-they-are-due-to-global-warming-driven-sea-level-rise-are-opportunistic/
Worries about the small islands are alarmist propaganda.
See also
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/19/despite-popular-opinion-and-calls-to-action-the-maldives-is-not-being-overrun-by-sea-level-rise/
Taking more fish out of the sea will cause the water level to drop. They should be fishing everything they can find out of the water. For an added bonus they should invest in researching how to build walls out of fishbones.
872835240
The story said they would be one of the first, BUT when will that be? Let's see, some ice at the pole and HUGE oceans around the world. It will slowly rise and they will be under water in what...250 years from now?
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
A nation-state doesn't have to have residents in a territory to continue claiming it. If they are able to annex and occupy land somewhere to maintain their status as a nation-state (I assume the UN requires that for recognition), and at least some of the islands of Kiribati remain partially above water (albeit uninhabitable and uninhabited), the I-Kirabati people could maintain legal and political control over those islands just as the US does with Howland Island or Norway does with Bouvet Island.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
>>>Like what?
I'm not a fuel engineer so i'm not sure on the specifics, but there are methods for deriving hydrocarbon equivalents or good enough substitutes from organisms that are only recently dead, biofuels you know, I also have a distinct memory of hearing about some technique to turn CO2 into fuel, that of course is probably something we'll only bother with when the coal run out in a few hundred years.
>>> We were supposed to have flying highways
We were also supposed to face global famine/population caps in the 20th century due to the old cliche of overpopulation, along came the green revolution and food suddenly could be made availible in abundance.
>>>Asimov described that future
And the Turner Diaries have the neo-nazis take over the US and exterminate all black people(according to wiki atleast). Just because a book paints a picture of doom and gloom doesn't mean reality will follow.
Energy wise we have an extreme abundance, it's just that the necessary technologies for utilization of it is lacking, geothermal, solar or fission, and if you are allowed to belive in fusion could all single handendly supply the entire earth with all our energy needs if refined and developed on a large scale, that's _all_ forms of energy, not just our electricity needs, and if we ever find ourself in need of ludicrous energy levels we can presumable paint the moon in solar panels or anchor huge arrays of them in the lagrange spots. Or start building that bloody dyson sphere if we find a need to support more than a few trillion people.
In recent history, no negative prediction fortelling catastrophic economical, societal or otherwise a really really bad turn of events have turned out to be true. I don't see why i should assume any future prediction along those lines should have any more luck, more likely we're getting better at adaptation and as such being more capable of mitigating he impact of whatever that's threatening to ruin our day. And no, the recent economic downturn does not qualify a catastrophic events, it was bad and ugly, but far from a catastrophe.
If they were thinking just a little smarter....they would realize the planet is increasing its demand for seafood..therefore they should double the fish tax instead of halving it, use that money to purchase advanced good dredging equipment and some other heavy equipment, pick out the highest atolls they have of the 33, and start building them up with dredged seafloor stuff. If there are two atolls close to each other, pick the better one, strip the lesser one and move the material over, build it up.
What they are doing is a *gesture*, what they need to do is *go to work* and mitigate their problems in advance before it gets to be too late.
"every action is important"
Kiribati looks to make the ultimate sacrifice by mid-century, when much of the country is projected to be largely uninhabitable
They are being awarded mighty enviro kudos for 'closing' their fishing territory AFTER they have migrated elsewhere.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Increased demand from the aquifers-the islanders just using more fresh water that can be replenished from rainfall- would do the exact same thing, allow the saline water in. Happening all over the planet now, like in south Florida..and we do NOT have any major sea level rises anyplace. You are talking single digit millimeters at the most, an insignificant amount.
Bubble Domes!
DEAD DEAD DEAD DELETE ME
I have seen quite a bit of wild speculation here as to the motives of the I-Kiribati, and their President as concerns this initiative. I have had the opportunity to visit Kiribati, to install a SolarNetOne solar powered internet infrastructure package, as part of a project with the Internet Society http://www.isoc.org You might remember the SolarNetOne: http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/07/02/1330252 Having been to Kiribati and worked with the I-Kiribati, I would like to offer my perspective on this topic, as well as a little history.
Kiribati has been inhabited for several thousand years or so by people who have managed to not overfish their waters, not cut down all the trees, not drive the local wildlife to extinction, and not overpopulate their lands. They KNOW how to live in harmony with one another and with their environment. They have a complex system of protecting their own genetic stock that traditionally would not allow a young couple from the same island to mate. They have no homeless, hungry people, or crime. In addition, they are one of the most sincere, honest, and friendly peoples that I have had the opportunity to be around.
Most of the water for drinking and cleaning there is not groundwater. Coral atolls are essentially ancient coral reefs that have grown upon the rims of slightly more ancient volcanic caldera. Underneath a few meters of soil, which is mostly composed of a fine grit of coral dust, is the reef, or the fossil of the reef. In low areas of the ancient fossilized bedrock of reef, fresh water lenses develop. These are areas where fresh water will pool under the soil, and is isolated from the ocean. There is no aquifer to draw from. The fresh water lenses are a source for agriculture, to be sure, but not the main source of drinking and bathing water. That water is rainwater collected in cisterns or barrels for the most part. One of the main impacts upon them will be sea level rise, and no, it will not erode the ancient bedrock of fossilized coral reef away, but it is already taking a toll on the shoreline: http://gnuveau.net/kir/pict0614.jpg
Notice the old growth palms that have had their roots undercut. Here is the reef bedrock near the shore:
http://gnuveau.net/kir/pict0589.jpg
http://gnuveau.net/kir/pict0591.jpg
http://gnuveau.net/kir/pict0592.jpg
http://gnuveau.net/kir/pict0584.jpg
Notice in the last image there(584), how small the ankleslapper wave is breaking on shore, as opposed to the next to last image(592), where a 15 foot barrel is peeling 1/2 mile offshore. This is because the wave comes up on the shallow outer reef, which rises from VERY deep water, much like on the north shore of Oahu. This forces the wave to expend all its energy on the outer reef, with very little of that energy making it to shore, as one days photos above show. The following image is from the next day, when the wavers were a bit smaller... only 12' or so on the outer reef, and makes the point very well:
http://gnuveau.net/kir/pict0611.jpg
Kiribati is not in the path of Tropical cyclones to cause erosion, being in the region where many of the storms start their lives, like the tropical wave region over and off the east coast of Africa which leads to the Atlantic hurricanes.Needless to say, I do not buy the argument that normal erosion will cause this. Erosion with higher sea levels, which makes the outer reef deeper and allows more wave energy to reach the beach, however, will.
Government is essentially enacted for the most part in what is called Manaeba, or village council, which includes not only an open meeting to discuss events, topics of the day, and courses of action, but also includes a "coverd dish buffet" with each family preparing part of the feast, singing, dancing, and closes with time for socialization. Ideas therefrom are passed up to island council members, and on to members of Parliment, which meets on the capital island of Tarawa. There is no "slick politics" going on in Kiribati, unlike many more developed but imh
mongabay.com: Have Kiribati's reefs experienced coral bleaching?
President Anote Tong: I have certainly seen bleaching. Whether it is the product of climate change, I do not know.
A straightforward, honest answer from a politician?
Impressive!
Sounds like this man has a clue, and integrity. He's prepared to do what needs to be done, even if it's hard.
Sadly, that makes him a very dangerous man in the minds of "some countries".
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
Every time I hear about this island nation, I have to wonder "why don't they build a wall around it?
Well, why don't they?
A ten foot wall would give them 10 feet of sea-rise additional lifetime. That could be *decades*, maybe longer.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
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What would Richard Feynman do, if he were here right now? He'd do some math and he'd follow through!
>>>Like what? I'm not a fuel engineer so i'm not sure on the specifics, but there are methods for deriving hydrocarbon equivalents or good enough substitutes from organisms that are only recently dead, biofuels you know, I also have a distinct memory of hearing about some technique to turn CO2 into fuel, that of course is probably something we'll only bother with when the coal run out in a few hundred years.
Well, I stopped reading after this paragraph I quoted. You don't have to be a "fuel engineer" to understand you don't have a clue of what you're talking about. Please go learn some basic, non-high-level, layman's chemistry.
11. Frosty Piss
12. Invoke Random Meme
13. First Post (but not really first)
14. @Twitter style response. #Herp-#Derp
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Atols don't "drown" when the sea level rises. They rise with the sea.
planet texture maps and more
If the nation vanishes, their control over their land also vanishes. But their major threats are their own population and typhoons, which aren't going to be affected much by this because the locals can still get enough fish. If they're really threatened by rising waters they'd be exchanging fishing licenses for deliveries of rocks and concrete.
And it seems no sacrifice is too great as Kiribati is one of the few nations to back the Japanese in their 'research' whaling. You've seen Whales Wars, The Cove. This, an excerpt from Silence is Betrayal at blogspot: On June 13th (2010), the Sunday Times reported they had uncovered proof of Japan bribing nations for votes on ending the commercial whaling moratorium that has been in place for 24 years. Two undercover reporters posed as lobbyists for a fake billionaire who wanted to prevent the moratorium from being overturned. They offered £25m in aid over 10 years to six nations: St Kitts and Nevis, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Grenada, Ivory Coast and Guinea, in return for a vote against the whaling quotas at the Morocco meeting. They indicated they were willing to consider the offer.
this is not a flawless plan.. this is inspiration
trade for a vital resource like food (fish) would be state of the art operating theaters. Unfortunately, we don't live in a resource based world. We live in a monetary based one.
Living below sea level didn't work for New Orleans either...
Otherwise it's just an attention-getting overture. They are in the news now, which means that people who have never heard of them are now thinking about visiting.
Just wait, six months from now, everyone will have forgotten about this and they will quietly back down.
Really? "Flamebait"?
That's just fear expressing itself. A little clear-eyed rational thinking might lead to scary realizations, but fear can be mastered, and then it goes away. Living a lie, by contrast, is just plain suicide. You can hum and whistle all you want, but the house will still be on fire. (Or vanishing under a mile of ice, as it were.)
That's a high cost for walking around avoiding uncomfortable subjects.
Time to grow up.
-FL
I sure hope that we don't ever have to give up the act of slaughtering members of other species solely to satisfy our taste buds! That would be horrible. We might have to... eat something that doesn't suffer just as we do, like plants!
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
"..Do you even know anything about Kiribati?..."
Yes, I do.
"..As for sea walls, those would do nothing against the salinization of groundwater on those islands. When your well draws sea water, you have to leave the island anyway, which is what is happening in those islands....I admit to not knowing about island fresh water supplies. I'm not sure I believe a small rise in sea levels would automatically change ground water to salt water..."
Correct. Fresh water forms a lenticular shape in the ground, supported by the saline around it. This is simply shrinking under pressure from overuse. See this World Bank report:
http://blogs.worldbank.org/eastasiapacific/drilling-for-water-in-kiribati
"...The population of South Tarawa has grown from only 3,013 in 1931 to over 40,311 by 2005. Such rapid growth has led to a population density as high as 15,000 people per square kilometre on the narrow atoll islands. Tokyo, famous for overcrowding, has a population density almost three times lower..."
"Well, then, do a Google Image Search on Kiribati. And Tuvalu. You'll find pictures of beaches lined with dead palm trees. Those trees are dead because sea level rise raised the average salinity of the ground water they're rooted in. This is what they are "whining" about: our energy consumption is raising sea levels and making their islands uninhabitable."
On the contrary. If you search scientific papers rather than activists' reports, you will find that the sea level at Kiribati is currently static. In fact, it has dropped quite far since 1950. People who claim that Kiribati will go under are just extrapolating rising sea level models - actual measurement on Kiribati shows it is in no danger whatsoever. Here is an open letter from Nils-Axel Morner to the president of Kiribati. But what does he know? He's only the Head of Paleogeophysics and Geodynamics at Stockholm University and President of the INQUA Commission on Sea Level Changes...
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=31&ved=0CBQQFjAAOB4&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmeteo.lcd.lu%2Fglobalwarming%2FMoerner%2FMaledives_Open_Letter_Moerner_Oct09.pdf&ei=38GVTIaGLN3NjAfx3N3GBQ&usg=AFQjCNGNdByTVrBigykwSBW5HUKkeFozYg&sig2=oD7ht7r8NwikUy04I53_rQ
I don't know about global famine, but we certainly had famines around the globe in the 20th century. And there were quite a few unfortunate side effects from the green revolution, aka the industrialisation of food production.
Kiribati is superbly strategically located; with a friend in northern Africa and a slice of bread each, you can make a perfect earth sandwich.
Chuck Norris: Socialism == a thousand years of darkness.
The chinese only needed the USA market for a long enough period to exchange the dollars received back for more manufacturing related items and tech. Once they have "enough", which they do now, to expand their manufacturing base, they no longer need the influx of USA dollars, they need the larger influx of raw materials and energy sources, which they get outside the USA. Those areas of the world, then their own internal economy, is what will be driving the chinese economy in the future and will be their consumers of choice.
The days of "needing" the USA consumer for them are rapidly closing. That was a one to two generations effort only, it is no longer really needed, and is borne out by noting they have drastically slowed their purchase of US government debt instruments.
Yeah, because getting tourists to an isolated island does not generate any CO2, so it's great way to fight global warming...
It makes sense only to rainforest people: throw your kids in the volcanoe or kill them, and then you will ot need to catch as much fish and gather as much resources.
Typically it's a Satanic principal for these bastards to downsize, when the should be in Research positions to travel abroad for insightful techniques to maximize and generate resources. People forget that plants collect sunlight and water to and create organic material that we should be running through enrichment processes toturn it into more useful minerals. More study on plants and how they transmute!
Supposed to pile it ontop of the land area to make the land rise higher! Just look to Haiti as an example of a pile of shit rising out of the Sea!
Yeah you're thinking of Corn ethanol and Biodiesel which solves the transportation problem, but not the starvation problem. Competition with the food industry for scarce land will create skyrocketing grocery costs, leading to the starvation I mentioned before.
As for genetically-modified food, yes yield was improved but at the cost of putting food production in megacorps control (like ADM) and THAT is leading to rampant starvation around the world. Search youtube for Food Inc (second half) for more information about how subsistence farmers are getting screwed out of their homes, and losing their jobs.
See.... even the present is not rosy, and it's only going to get worse, especially when oil wells start drying up and prices soar to $1000/barrel during the 2020s.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I'm giving this plan 12 months at best, this would be the same as the USA telling 50% of the farmers they weren't allowed to grow crops anymore. Food prices would rocket up faster than anyone could anticipate. Of course this negates the fact that farmers in the USA would raise arms against the government and a new civil war would start.
BTW, thanks for your input. While you were there, did you notice if they had any solar powered (solar thermal) desalination programs to help provide more freshwater over and above rainfall? That would seem to be another option for them.
even the present is not rosy, and it's only going to get worse, especially when oil wells start drying up and prices soar to $1000/barrel during the 2020s.
If slashdot and your account is still present when the 2020s start, i'll make sure to give you an annual reminder of this prediction until we're in the 2030s.
We are not talking only about low-level atols.
Atols maintain their elevation wrt sea level: if sea level drops, wind erosion lowers the atol. If sea level rises, the coral (yes - underwater) builds the reef higher. Beaked fish, e.g. parrotfish, and wave action partially reduce the face of the reef to sand and rubble, which is deposited on the atol above waterline. The coral has no trouble keeping up with sea level rise, about a foot in a century. The real problem is decimation of the fish by hunting. That can slow or halt the build up of coral sand.
For vegetation to grow on the atol, fresh water is needed. This comes from the lagoon enclosed by the atol, and is contained in a "fresh water lens" that is slightly above sea level under the atol. If the lagoon is breached or allowed to dry out and fill with sand, the atol becomes a coral island. To keep this from happening, the lagoon mush be protected and fresh water must be carefully conserved. Coral islands may have much less water, due to run-off, unless vegetation is firmly established and not destroyed in a typhoon.
These facts have been confirmed since Darwin first proposed his theory of atol growth.
A recent, refereed article studied the surface area of 27 atols in the Central Pacific. 86% of them increased in area or remained the same as sea level rose over a 20 to 60 period.
Global and Planetary Change, Article in Press, Accepted Manuscript, doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2010.05.003
The dynamic response of reef islands to sea level rise: evidence from multi-decadal analysis of island change in the central pacific
I know it's a crisis for them, but sea level changes all the time.
Current sea level changes don't even SHOW UP on this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Post-Glacial_Sea_Level.png 24 kyr graph.
To suggest that humans can breed nonstop and fill every nook and cranny of terrain on the planet, then cry when the tide comes in because they're getting wet is disingenuous and short-sighted.
-Styopa
I lived on Tarawa for a couple of years in my childhood. The islands are overpopulated and very fragile. A popular picnic destination when I was there was the island of Bikeman. Here's what is looked like in 1975. The Japanese built a causeway in the 1990s, which altered currents around the atoll. Here's Bikeman now, although that story falsely attributes the loss to rising sea levels. If that had been the case, the entire island chain would have disappeared. Bikeman was just a large sandbank that got washed away.
J Maarten Troost's book The Sex Lives Of Cannibals is a humorous yet insightful story of life on the islands, and is well worth a read.
Ydco co