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TechnoratiClimate Change Displacement Has Begun – but Hardly Anyone Has Noticed
The first evacuation of an entire community due to manmade global warming is happening on the Carteret Islands
Journalists - they're never around when you want one. Two weeks ago a momentous event occurred: the beginning of the world's first evacuation of an entire people as a result of manmade global warming. It has been marked so far by one blog post for the Ecologist and an article in the Solomon Times*. Where is everyone?
The Carteret Islands are off the coast of Bougainville, which, in turn, is off the coast of Papua New Guinea. They are small coral atolls on which 2,600 people live. Though not for much longer.
As the Ecologist's blogger Dan Box witnessed, the first five families have moved to Bougainville to prepare the ground for full evacuation. There are compounding factors - the removal of mangrove forests and some local volcanic activity - but the main problem appears to be rising sea levels. The highest point of the islands is 170cm above the sea. Over the past few years they have been repeatedly inundated by spring tides, wiping out the islanders' vegetable and fruit gardens, destroying their subsistence and making their lives impossible.
They are not, as the Daily Mail and the Times predicted, "the world's first climate-change refugees". People have been displaced from their homes by natural climate change for tens of thousands of years, and by manmade climate change for millennia (think of the desertification caused in North Africa by Roman grain production).
Some people ascribe the fighting in Darfur - and the consequent displacement of its people - to climate change, as people struggle over diminishing resources. But this appears to be the first time that an entire people have started leaving their homes as a result of current global warming.
Their numbers might be small, but this is the event that foreshadows the likely mass displacement of people from coastal cities and low-lying regions as a result of rising sea levels. The disaster has begun, but so far hardly anyone has noticed.
* thanks to Jon Freeman for alerting me to this story
16 Comments so far
Show AllDifficult topic as The Club of Rome began disseminating Climate Change literature in the 1970s for the possible purpose of implementing a global tax.
I found the following links to be of value:
The Club of Rome:
www.clubofrome.org
http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/cor.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_of_Rome
The Kyoto Protocol: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol
An Inconvenient Truth—Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/An_Inconvenient_Truth
The Great Global Warming Swindle:
www.greatglobalwarmingswindle.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Global_Warming_Swindle
www.garagetv.be/video-galerij/blancostemrecht/The_Great_Global_Warming_Swindle_Documentary_Film.aspx
World Climate Report: www.worldclimatereport.com
World Climate Report: www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/category/temperature-history
Climate Science—News—Dr. Kiminori Itoh: http://climatesci.org/2008/06/17/
A forty-year liberal tax conspiracy? No. Politicians won't wait that long to steal money from taxpayers. But it does turn out that some of those organizations were correct about the threat of unchecked atmospheric dumping.
The melting ice sheet
Rate of change in ice sheet height in cm per year
Positioned in the Arctic, the Greenland ice sheet is especially vulnerable to global warming. Arctic climate is now rapidly warming and much larger Arctic shrinkage changes are projected.[4] The Greenland Ice Sheet has experienced record melting in recent years and is likely to contribute substantially to sea level rise as well as to possible changes in ocean circulation in the future. The area of the sheet that experiences melting has increased about 16% from 1979 (when measurements started) to 2002 (most recent data). The area of melting in 2002 broke all previous records.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_Ice_Cap
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
Do not let out the secret of Rome's desertification of North Africa to the USan people. We are the NEW ROME and the world's "breadbasket"! Yes!!
The wealthy are not concerned about loss - the taxpayers bail them out. The rest of us need to tough it out. The wealthy have already secured alternate locations to live or they will just displace the less fortunate.
They want to acquire the potentially lucrative coastal properties they don't already own. This Global Warming alarmist buzz plays right into their hand. Obama isn't selling his property in Hawaii and the UN isn't planning on relocating to higher grounds.
Glad to see people are ignoring articles such as these.
Sioux Rose
Ah, that warm, cozy by-the-fireplace feeling emanating from climate-change deniers...
30,000 people had to evacuate the Santa Barbara area today, as California has had major fires just about every year for years now.
I remember when "Life Magazine" had cover stories of destructive events because they were so rare: a tornado outbreak, a major earthquake, a huge hurricane. Today these events tend to happen on a more frequent basis. True, there are generally more persons living in these zones, and construction/reparation is more costly today than a decade or more ago. Still, nature is sending MAJOR signs, one after another. Part is the decimation of ecosystems to pursue so-called development, part is the use of fossil fuels and their ultimate emissions; but also is the spiritual fact that people are showing more aggression and using more weapons. Science in many respects has declared war on nature as seen in the delinquent use of tons and tons of chemical polymers, pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, and just plain toxic shit. Gaia, the Earth as Being and Mother, placental and life-sustaining, is like "The Old Woman in the Shoe." As the human progeny take apart the sole, the laces, the leather, and every aspect of that shoe... she has so many problems, what can She do? I believe that nature will act as the ultimate equalizer. Yogananda had much to say about this, and his message distills to: unless and until people learn to put down arms and learn to get along, drastic climate/geological events will ensue.
I think Monbiot is right to point out this evacuation. There will be more people relocating as Greenland's glaciers melt. I expect the positive feedback of arctic sea ice melting, resulting in dark sea instead of white ice, and of permafrost melting, thereby releasing methane (20 times worse than CO2) into the atmosphere, will cause a rapid increase in sea level.
Mr. Wilson:
Even if Greenlands glaciers melted, which has never happened even in periods 10C warmer than present, the overall effect is minimal as most of the glaciers are in a bowl. Greenland would become a huge lake, but as I indicated, it would be the 1st time in millions of years that that has happened.
Actic Ice melting does nothing to raise sea levels as Arctic Ice is not land based, but rather floats. And it seems the ice is within the mean of 1978-2008 at this time.
You might not have predicted the breakup of Antarctic ice shelves either. Here's the thing: Those politically against global warming are politically against any monitoring of the possible negative fallout of their activities, ehh? From the particulates of petro-diesel, to the acid rain from sulfurous coal, ehh? Leave the monitoring up to the elites and the elites cause no problems ever! We don't do body counts! Yipee!
It's already happened. Greenland glaciers are melting into torrents for the sea. Where have you been?
The Ice cap is not "in a bowl". It's at ten thousand feet, and if it breaks up it's going to carve paths to the sea. Earthquakes indicate that may have already started. If it all melts, florida and Washington D.C. will be under twenty feet of water.
Thankfully, those places are mostly owned by GOP fanatics. Might want to check the story about Sarah "no-college" Palin, the governor of Alaska. Her whole state is 20 degrees above normal right now, and huge melts are wiping hundreds of houses out as we speak.
But you prefer Rubbish! You prefer info from "The Flat Earth Society" and "The man will never Fly" club. "AGW-Denying" is a mental disorder.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
Amazing how a sinking island can be blamed on AGW. Also Mr. Monbiot, you had better check your facts before writing such rubbish. World Sea Levels have fallen since 2003. The only credible reason seems to be that the temp of the ocean has fallen as well, and the contraction due to the temp drop is normal science.
"Rubbish May 8th, 2009 8:11 pm"
I must congratulate you on your honesty and straightforwardness in choosing a moniker. Yours fits perfectly well.
Perfect rubbish.
Gee, Rubbish Man,
You wouldn't have a non-corporate peer-reviewed science link for that ridiculous claim would you? Did the Maldives and the Marshall Islands sink too? Several islands there were evacuated for the same reason last year you know. Where do you think ten percent of the world's glaciers are melting into? You can say it, I know you can: The sea. Or did you think the shrinking ice mass fell into outer space?
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
The corporate media will not notice until upper management's beach front mansions begin to be flooded.
I remember George Bush looking forward to sitting on Trent Lott's beach front mansion porch which was being rebuilt as soon as Katrina passed.
When natural disasters strike the rich and powerful it's terrible. How's the construction coming on that lower ninth ward project?