Carbon sink. Or swim

The recently released UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report says the following about the effect on sea level rise on "Small Islands":

"Small islands have characteristics which make them especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change, sea-level rise and extreme events," the report said.

"Sea-level rise is expected to exacerbate inundation, storm surge, erosion and other coastal hazards, thus threatening vital infrastructure, settlements and facilities that support the livelihood of island communities."

The carefully-worded, bureaucratic language occludes the very real fact that it's happening already:

clipped from www.smh.com.au That sinking feeling In our own backyard, the people of the Carteret Islands - a tiny South Pacific atoll north-east of Papua New Guinea - are the first in the world to be evacuated due to rising sea levels. Salt water has already destroyed their coconut palms and food gardens are in ruins. Some villages have built sea walls from clam shells in an attempt to hold back the tides. By 2015, the Carterets will disappear altogether. Families will soon begin moving - 10 people at a time - to neighbouring Bougainville Island. Bougainville's deputy administrator Raymond Masono says this could happen as early as June. "The feeling is very positive about moving," he says. "Right now they are realising that [in] 20 years' time they will not have any choice so they prefer to face [moving], than face the extreme circumstances of the future.

Google Maps: Carteret Islands. Here is a Wikipedia entry that explores additional reasons for the Carteret catastrophe.

They are not the only small island communities to be worried. The current Australian Government has studiously ignored the calls for help from the people of the Tuvalu Islands. Luckily for them, our Kiwi cousins show a lot more compassion and a resettlement plan is underway. Two uninhabited Kiribati islands are under water and salinity has killed all the coconut palms on a third island. They have also approached New Zealand for help, apparently not even bothering with Australia. Why would they? Our Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, had this to say in response to the calls last year from France for a dedicated UN body to deal with the 200 million environmental refugees by 2050 that has been predicted by experts:

"A bit premature," he said at the time.

He's right of course. We clearly need a new government before shouldering any sort of responsible approach to climate change and its attendant upheavals. Elections are in November.

Global Warning Climate Change Risisng Sea Levels IPCC Report Small Islands Australia

Another trick of the dark: The Tuvalu canard

Professional global warming denier, Andrew Bolt, floats a favourite from his box of tricks - the Tuvalu strawman: :::[Andrew Bolt Blog]

So when he speaks on global warming, it is with the voice of outstanding authority. Observe his latest pronouncement:

“In fact, there is an island called Tuvalu, which was completely evacuated and New Zealand accepted all the residents because of sea level rising."

Tuvalu completely evacuated? Because of rising sea levels? I’m afraid the Professor has watched Al Gore’s deceitful film just once too often.

A challenge:

Professor Dore, please pack right now and take a cruise to Tuvalu. Check in at the lovely (for Tuvalu) Vaiaku Lagi Hotel...

You get the picture.

He's used the Tuvalu strawman before, to yell at Al Gore during a media conference. I am curious about why Andrew must think that Tuvalu is the high ground in global warming denialism, so I did some research to clear up the myths that he latches onto.

Dear Andrew,

Before you go on attacking the man with such zeal - it's only as grave a error of geography as a Swede getting Adelaide and Darwin mixed up when taking about Australian beaches. Flooding and evacuation to New Zealand did happen.

What Dore seems to be referring to has happened in Manihiki in the Cook-islands, 2,840km east of Tuvalu. The atoll was hit by a hurricane (Martin) in 1997 or 1998, and 12-meter high waves swept across the coral islands and washed the islanders to the ocean. They were very lucky, only 19 people died. The survivors were evacuated to Rarotonga, and many went on to New Zealand and most of these are living there today.

The population decline went from 19,000 to 16,500 and the rest went into overdrive to plan adaption strategies, including the building of anti-surge sea walls.

The confusion with Tuvalu may be because one of it's islands HAS been rendered unihabitable. In 1997 Tuvalu was hit by three cyclones. One island one of it's nine islands was left uninhabitable. In 2001 the Tuvalu government saw the writing on the wall, so it went to neighboring countries to find a new homeland. Australia turned them down, but New Zealand said yes. So starting in 2002, the plan was that a quota of residents will move from Tuvalu to New Zealand each year for the next 30 to 50 years. Even if the Kyoto Protocol helps put the brakes on greenhouse gases, it's not likely to save Tuvalu. Generations from now, the country may be remembered only as a modern Atlantis, the first nation to be swallowed whole by the sea.

(That last bit courtesy of The Weather Notebook - but, it's not the 'sinking' that is the immediate cause for evacuation, it is the contamination of the fresh groundwater with saltwater from the combination of rising sea levels and storm surges).

I know you won't publish my comment because it sinks your strawman. But I do have the satisfaction of knowing that you now know the inconvenient truth about Tuvalu.


Wadard

When we stop denying, we get the chance to learn from the real facts and events on the ground, and then make a plan. Like, how does a community recover from an extreme weather event? This traumatology paper is fascinating:

OBSERVATIONS FROM A CYCLONE STRESS/ TRAUMA ASSIGNMENT

IN THE COOK ISLANDS

A.J.W.Taylor, Ph. D.

Others were critical of the local clergy and others in positions of authority in Rarotonga who publicly attributed the cyclone to Divine intervention for the transgressions of the community (individually and collectively), to the over-utilisation of pearl farming, failure to attend church, and working on Sundays. But although they did not refute the arguments openly for fear of causing social disruption, between themselves they declared that a) because the changing weather pattern was world-wide it was not a matter for which Cook Islanders could be held responsible, b) the politicians had changed their stance, because previously they had praised the same local pearl-farming industry for its contribution to the national economy, c) church attendance should not be obligatory and enforced by fear of disasters, and d) among those who worked on Sundays there might have been Seventh Day Adventists who worshipped on Saturdays and could not therefore be said to deserve the punishment.

Global Warning Climate Change Australia Kyoto Energy

Bolt burger # 6 is undercooked and raw

Fossil-fuel industry shill, Andrew Bolt's 6th "minor quibble" with Al Gore's rendering of the science in "An Inconvenient Truth" dismisses rising sea levels as a minor dribble:

6: Gore claims the seas have already risen so high that New Zealand has had to take in refugees from drowning Pacific islands.

In fact, the Australian National Tidal Facility at Tuvalu in 2002 reported: ?The historical record from 1978 through 199 indicated a sea level rise of 0.07 mm per year.? Or the width of a hair.

Says Auckland University climate scientist Chris de Frietas: ?I can assure Mr Gore that no one from the South Pacific islands has fled to New Zealand because of rising seas.?

I have not had the time off to see the movie yet, so I don't know whether Gore made the call as Andrew relates it, or not. But I do know that late last year a UN study revealed that there could be as many as 50 million environmental refugees around the world by the end of the decade. Not all of these refugees will be a result of rising sea levels, of course.

The Guardian article linked above reports that New Zealand has already agreed to accept the 11, 600 inhabitants of the low-lying Pacific island state Tuvalu if rising sea levels swamp the country. Elsewhere, as many as 100 million people live in areas that are below sea level or liable to storm surge. A total of 213 communities in Alaska are threatened by tides that creep three metres further inland each year.

Andrew Bolt specifically states that "In fact, the National Tidal Facility at Tuvalu in 2002 reported: the historical record from 1978 through 199 (sic) indicated a sea level rise of 0.07mm per year". These data are now 6 years old. The most up-to-date recordings from Tuvalu available from the National Tidal Centre show a sea level rise of +6.1mm/year, some 100 times faster than the value Andrew Bolt quotes. Similar rates of sea level are evident across the entire Pacific SEAFRAME network maintained by the National Tidal Centre at the Bureau of Meteorology.

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