Get out of my country!

[shiz]

Get out of my country!
Sunday 8 June 2008

If I had to nominate something that I would never expect a President to say, it would surely have to be for him to encourage all his citizens to migrate and desert his country. That's an unusual policy platform, to say the least. I've heard of ethnic cleansing. But that would be national cleansing. And who wants to be the President of nothing?

Yet this is precisely what, Anote Tong, the President of the tiny island nation of Kiribati was doing last week. And he's not joking. True, Kiribati has always been a unique country - it straddles both the equator and international date line (and you thought Australia had time zone problems!). But there's nothing quirky about this development.

Tong was on an official state visit to New Zealand last week when he made the astonishing plea: he's asking New Zealand to start a program to take in as many of his people as possible.

Why? Because Tong has realised that his country might be the first to disappear as a result of climate change. And soon. Kiribati is a low-lying atoll. It sits at an average of about 2 metres above sea level, and is sinking fast as a result of rising sea levels caused by global warming. As a result, Kiribati's 100,000 people face the prospect of having no home at all in the next few decades.

Tong is already making plans, which has given rise to what must be the most arresting quote from a politician I remember encountering: "To plan for the day when you no longer have a country is indeed painful, but I think we have to do that".

At this stage, Tong is hoping his people can migrate as skilled migrants rather than refugees. If so, that would have to happen pretty soon, because if the dire forecasts are right, the Kiribati people will all be climate change refugees very soon.

Maybe I'm just a little slow on the uptake. I know people have been talking about this sort of thing for ages now. But I have to say I found this news really confronting. Just close your eyes for a moment and think about an entire nation simply being wiped off the map by global warming. Just swallowed by the sea.

Does this needle you in the same way? Or do you think we'll all just go back to making our typical carbon contributions? I'm guessing we will. The car is just too tempting, and the catestrophic consequences somehow still seem too remote and distant.

So I guess it's only when climate change comes all the way to our cars that we might be forced to change. I guess that would look something like this:



What do you guys think?

Source

Wow, this reality is closer than we thought.

[silverflower]

Craziness. I'm kinda looking at the same thing since I'm moving to Florida. Hopefully it doesn't go under until AFTER 2012..

[New Kid]

Actually the piece makes Tong a very compassionate and caring man. On top of that if the plan goes through, his "ex" citizens would probably have a better life and access to better services than in their own country...

As for global warming... yea, totally sucks!!

[Pathseed]

not just kiribati but tuvalu and others are going to just simply disappear its sad but whats to be done?

[shiz]

Hmmm, possibly take global warming and climate control a little more seriously.

[Pathseed]

yes but how would we do that? i say eco-terrorism not where people get hurt just something to make them think about it .

[shiz]

Well, to start with, I don't think it's worthwhile to just say the governments need to fix the problem (with reduced carbon emissions, etc). To me, that sounds like a cop-out. The whole mentality of 'It's too big a problem, what can I do, somebody else needs to fix it.' is just ridiculous.

The issue needs effort from everybody, every little bit counts.

Fair enough, some global problems are daunting. However, some great people can effect change. What makes them so different to you? Everybody has their own sphere of influence. If you can sell an idea or concept to just one person, and they carry on that concept. It all has to start somewhere, and bitching about it probably isn't where the start is.

In a blue sky future, I guess the idea of one person starting to have a concept, and passing it on to a few others. And each of them passing it on to a few others each, and so on, to create a snowball effect. To a degree, I guess I'm thinking along the lines of movie Pay It Forward.

[Pathseed]

i sometimes feel like the little things i do don't mean anything but maybe your right i just hope its enough.

[IzzeoftheWest]

sounds like Mark Levin.

[shiz]

Originally Posted by IzzeoftheWest

sounds like Mark Levin.

Who's Mark Levin?