Policymakers who want to help the residents of a number of these islands should tackle issues like poverty, health care, corruption and domestic violence and avoid paying so much lip-service to climate
Time magazine is a strong proponent of the global warming cause. Three recent examples include their reports on 'sinking islands' 1, species extinctions 2, and climate change 3. Here let's look at what they say about 'sinking islands.'
Constant turbulence has imperiled industry and choked off the food supply in Fiji; other island nations like Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Marshall Islands could face even worse in the coming century, scientists say, with sea level rise threatening to wipe them off the map entirely.
Time reports, "To save themselves and raise awareness of the perils of climate change, a collection of these vulnerable states--from Fiji to the Marshall Islands, the Maldives to the Bahamas--has launched an international campaign. It has been, against all odds, a remarkable success. Together these mostly poor nations with little hard power leveraged the moral force of their peril to shape the global 2015 Paris Agreement. They helped inspire hundreds of billions of dollars in financial commitments for the developing world from richer countries. They spurred the creation of last year's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report that upended the climate debate. And they helped save complex international climate talks from collapse." 1
In their zeal to show that the island nations are vanishing because of climate change, dispatches like the report in Time are often filled with raw emotion and suggest that the residents are fleeing atolls sinking into the sea.
And many of these places could use some of the hundreds of billions of dollars support mentioned above. Here are some examples:
- The Marshall Islands have seen approximately one-third of the population relocated to the United States, but for reasons more mundane than climate change. Some 52.7% of their population lives below the poverty line. Only 39.3% of the population age 15 years and above is employed. Significant problems include chronic government corruption, and chronic domestic violence, along with child abuse, sex trafficking, and lack of legal provisions protecting worker's rights. Is it any wonder why the Marshall islands citizens want to leave? 4- Tuvalu's problem is not climate change. Tuvalu's mess is that the country was never meant for human habitation. There is no fresh water available--only what can be obtained from rain. Much of the population on the main island uses a lagoon for its bathing and toilet facilities. The tiny nation ships its garbage to landfills in Fiji and New Zealand. Tuvalu is a tropical island mess being run by slick politicians using global warming for a shakedown operation. 5
TIME has not noticed or chosen to ignore a number of papers about sea level around islands and atolls.
A 2019 paper provided an analysis of 709 islands from across the globe and revealed that no island larger than 25 acres, which includes the 'vulnerable' Maldives, Tuvalu, Fiji, etc.--has decreased in size since the 1980s. In fact, 89% of islands assessed are stable or growing. 6
Paul Kench and colleagues analyzed shoreline change in all 101 islands in the nation of Tuvalu. Results highlighted a net increase in land area of 2.9% in eight of nine atolls. 7
This was a follow-on of earlier work by Kench and others that had shown gains not only for Tuvalu but the Marshall Islands and a number of other Pacific Islands. 8
So in spite of these reports, Time reports in panicked tones that the island nations are vanishing because of climate change.
After all, why let some real science get in the way of one of the better 'if it bleeds it leads' stories of our time.
Policymakers who want to help the residents of a number of these islands should tackle issues like poverty, health care, corruption and domestic violence and avoid paying so much lip-service to climate.
References
Justin Worland, "This island is sinking," Time, June 24, 2019
Ciara Nugent, "A million species--and human society--face dire risk," Time, May 20, 2019
Bryan Walsh, "Why your brain can't process climate change," Time, August 14, 2019
Bjorn Lomborg, "About those non-disappearing Pacific Islands," wsj.com, October 13, 2016
Brian Sussman, "Cancun's climate clock," American Thinker, December 8, 2010
Virginia K. E. Duvat, "A global assessment of atoll island planform changes over the past decades,"Wires Climate Change, 2019
Paul S. Kench et al., "Patterns of island change and persistence offer alternate adaption pathways for atoll nations," Nature Communications, 9, 605, 2018
Murray R. Ford and Paul S. Kench, "Multi-decadel shoreline change in response to sea level rise in the Marshall Islands," Anthropocene, 11, 14, September 2015
Jack Dini is author of Challenging Environmental Mythology. He has also written for American Council on Science and Health, Environment & Climate News, and Hawaii Reporter.
Time magazine is a strong proponent of the global warming cause. Three recent examples include their reports on 'sinking islands' 1, species extinctions 2, and climate change 3. Here let's look at what they say about 'sinking islands.'
Constant turbulence has imperiled industry and choked off the food supply in Fiji; other island nations like Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Marshall Islands could face even worse in the coming century, scientists say, with sea level rise threatening to wipe them off the map entirely.
