Global warming. A gradual increase in the overall temperature of the Earth's atmosphere. It's a term kids from the past few generations have grown up with, but has now evolved into "climate change". The same meaning as global warming, only including the monumental consequences that come with it.
Up until the past few years, as a global community we have yet to reap the effects of climate change, but now that we have; hurricanes, temperatures, sea levels, and many other events have sent us spiraling. But up until now, there has never been a real threat to our ways of life.
According to science correspondent, Josh Gabbatiss's article from British newspaper, The Independent, as opposed to the inhabitants of Southeast Asian and Pacific Islands getting the next century to keep their native lands, new research published in the journal, Science Advances proclaims that the once promised one hundred years are now diminished to a few more decades.
Since the Industrial Revolution, more and more of the green house gases such as, carbon dioxide and methane have been released, overall warming our planet. Although this "warming" has only come to about a two degree global increase, that change melted enough of the ice caps for there to already be devastating floods throughout these islands. The constant rising sea levels exert more water onto the low lying land, here the sea water is able to leach into the soil, spill into freshwater supplies, and decimate infrastructure and farm land.
Narrowing in on the Marshall Islands of the South Pacific, Science Advances illustrates the 70,000 natives of these chains of islands, where due to climate change and rising sea levels they will lose access to freshwater supplies, causing their farming industry to collapse, leaving a good portion of these inhabitants with little to no income or food. Along with the fact that, the rushing flood waters will sit in the dry walls of these houses for days at a time before clearing out and drying, therefore leaving mold in it's place. However, the authors also find that these issues will soon extend to neighboring islands such as the Maldives, Hawaii, and Seychelles, driving hundreds of thousands of people from their ancestral homes.
This is definitely the most selfish and least important reason to want the islands to stay right where they are, BUT... I have always wanted to travel to these places. These destinations are stunning, the landscape, the sites, the culture, to experience it all would be extraordinary. Stepping away from my traveling fantasies, there are more important matters...
Anyway, as someone who has always dreamed of traveling the globe all their life, to now see the world being picked apart and slowly demolished is devastating, but to the people living this out and losing the only home they have ever known must be like walking through their own never ending nightmare. 70,000 people. And that is just one chain of islands, what about the more densely populated Maldives or state of Hawaii. Where are all these people going to go? What are they going to do? Some of these people know nothing outside of their island chains, are they supposed to simply adapt from thousands of years of tradition overnight?
Not to point fingers, but those who think climate change "doesn't exist" or is a "natural occurrence" are going to be very sorry some day, and that day may be coming soon. Even though this is happening thousands of miles away, across oceans, on a different continent, who is to say this can never happen to our coasts. Already, climate change is mauling our southern coasts, nothing permanent yet, but nothing is impossible, these people native to these Pacific islands probably thought that they would die in their home, as would their children, as had their parents, and relatives before them, all before their world was torn apart.
As a global superpower, we can not stand idly by while this is happening, sure it has not directly effected us yet, but eventually it will. So what if we have to give up certain things like oil and coal, and invest for a future in eco-friendly power systems, hundred of thousands of people will have to give up their land by the middle of the century. Maybe it might be too late to save some of the islands, but do we really want to see this underwater and abandoned? Gone?
Who really wants to see this gone?
Citations:Josh Gabbatiss Science Correspondent “Rising Sea Levels Will Leave Islands From the Maldives to Hawaii Uninhabitable.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 25 Apr. 2018
