Even the Dead Are No Longer Safe
Climate Change: Micronesia, Island Nations Threatened by Global Warming – ABC News
“Even the dead are no longer safe in my country,” Micronesia’s Ambassador to the UN told ABC News at his mission’s offices on a rainy day in New York.
He gave us recent digital photos of his home islands.
In one, a man stands shin-deep out in a calm and sunny sea … where a cemetery used to be.
In others, colorful traditional burial grounds spill out of a wave-eroded bank onto the tiny remaining beach, and water surges inland past tumbled houses.
Masao Nakayama, Permanent Representative of the Federated States of Micronesia, is a soft-spoken man, born on the tiny atoll of Onoun in the state of Chuuk.
“The threat is to our existence, survival, not only as a people — as a culture. … We now have just flat beaches — the wash comes in and hits the roots of coconut trees,” he said, describing more photos. “It’s very scary, it’s very frightening.”
This issue may be a convenient political football for Sarah Palin, but it is real issue for millions of people around the world, even if you can’t see them from a back porch in Wasilla.
1 Comment
Comments are closed.
So lets see, in Micronesia the sea has rose something like, what, 5ft (or 1.5m for those who use the metric system) but it hasn’t rose anywhere else in the entire world. Yeah, that seems real likely.