How To Lead a Nation That's About To Be Swallowed By the Sea

merbs writes: Anote Tong, the president of low-lying Kiribati, has spent nearly a decade trying to save his people from rising sea levels. There's a good chance he will not succeed. This is how he leads a nation that will likely not exist in 100 years. Motherboard reports: "Kiribati’s fate provides a rare glimpse of the future world under climate change. The tiny island nation is the canary in our global coal mine, and it will bear the brunt of climate change more intensely and much sooner than nearly anywhere else. 'We cannot keep doing what we are doing,' Tong said. 'Because we may be on the front line today, but other countries, other societies, other communities will be next.'"

Comments

Cue the World's Smallest Violin

[TheRealHocusLocus]

Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level: Christmas Island I
Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level: Christmas Island II

Spot the clear blub blub trend, Try hard. ~1mm rise per year. Maybe.
Meanwhile a typhoon could arrive next year with a 8 foot storm surge that swamps the atolls completely.

DISCLAIMER: Grew up in the Caribbean, nailed doors shut from the inside and held on tight for Hugo and Marilyn. People died. '~1mm/yr climate refugees' on a coral atoll really sound like whiny scammers to me. In terms of threat level it's like that movie, Frogs.

Sea-level threat?

[jdagius]

Sure, when you live on an island barely six feet above sea level, passing hurricanes have threatened (and have succeeded in the past) to wipe these islands clean. But the threat of sea level changes, which have been slowly rising since the last Ice Age, is moot because, in recent times, most of these Pacific atolls have grown in size, due to increasing biomass of growing coral.
http://news.nationalgeographic...

Cutting emissions, IMHO, will have no observable effect on these islands. But I can't blame the natives, though, for trying to get the rich nations of the world to give them free transport to higher and safer havens.

Re:To higher ground?

[PopeRatzo]

Why does the world owe a Kiribati resident a problem-free life on a tropical island? Why does the Kiribati's problem with sea level take precedence over the Russian who wants to heat his home in the winter? Or the guy in India or Africa who wants running water and air conditioning in the summer? Or the Chinese woman who wants to buy fresh fruits and vegetables that need to be transported to her town?

Why not just be honest and say "Why does the Kiribati's problem take precedence over the American who wants a bigger SUV to tow his boat down his vacation home on the man-made lake so he can fish for trophies?"