A nation underwater
November 27, 2013 2:28 AM Subscribe
If scientists are correct, the ocean will swallow most of Kiribati before the end of the century, and perhaps much sooner than that. … Before the rising Pacific drowns these atolls, though, it will infiltrate, and irreversibly poison, their already inadequate supply of fresh water. The apocalypse could come even sooner for Kiribati if violent storms, of the sort that recently destroyed parts of the Philippines, strike its islands. For all of these reasons, the 103,000 citizens of Kiribati may soon become refugees, perhaps the first mass movement of people fleeing the consequences of global warming rather than war or famine. This is why [Kiribati's president Anote] Tong visits Fiji so frequently. He is searching for a place to move his people. The government of Kiribati recently bought 6,000 acres of land in Fiji for a reported $9.6 million, to the apparent consternation of Fiji’s military rulers. Fiji has expressed no interest in absorbing the I-Kiribati, as the country’s people are known. A former president of Zambia, in south-central Africa, once offered Kiribati’s people land in his country, but then he died. No one else so far has volunteered to organize a rescue.
More: Kiribati man's claim as a climate change refugee denied in New Zealand
Absolutely fucking terrific piece. Depressing as all hell, but genuinely excellent journalism. Thank you.
The president absolutely nails what the proper reaction to climate change and legislative inertia in the face thereof is:
I struggle with it, nearly every day. Climate change has given me an insight into the anxieties my parents had during the height of the cold war. I have a young daughter, and another on the way: I am literally scared for their futures, what their daughters will have to deal with. And I get so sad, and so fucking angry when I see dipshits, ostensibly rational people I know - some of them family or close friends - who just voted in a denialist government a couple of months ago. The pig shit ignorant media coverage that laps up coal-funded activist fictions like a dog rooting through a carcass.
You want to scream, bellow your rage and anguish at these troglodytes, and then block your ears and walk away before it makes you too bitter and hateful, and disengage. And buy "green" power, "renewable" products, and be sure to recycle, and live in your private little green bubble world and forget about changing the system, and the world, even incrementally. You have your quotidian concerns, and they tax you enough.
But you can't. Not if you actually care. Even the smallest action you can take that moves the world towards genuine, legislative and regulatory action on climate change will probably save more lives down the track than anything else any one of us can possibly do. You can't turn your back on that if you want to be a part of this world, a global citizen of an Earth worth saving.
I salute you President Tong. You are inspiring me, and people like me, to keep fighting.
posted by smoke at 2:57 AM on November 27, 2013 [37 favorites]
The president absolutely nails what the proper reaction to climate change and legislative inertia in the face thereof is:
Yes, I have anger and frustration. I should say I had anger and frustration. But I’ve matured in a sense, because I’ve reconciled myself to some realities. I came to the conclusion that nobody listens to an angry person. You’ve got to be very rational. You’ve got to contain your anger and turn into practical solutions. I understand the realities of this world. People care about what affects them. They don’t care about things they don’t feel. But my anger is not going to make the United States and China stop burning coal.It's so true, it's so important. And it's a lesson not just for the I-Kiribati - everyone and anyone who gives a shit about climate change and what we're doing to the environment needs to internalise this and live it.
I struggle with it, nearly every day. Climate change has given me an insight into the anxieties my parents had during the height of the cold war. I have a young daughter, and another on the way: I am literally scared for their futures, what their daughters will have to deal with. And I get so sad, and so fucking angry when I see dipshits, ostensibly rational people I know - some of them family or close friends - who just voted in a denialist government a couple of months ago. The pig shit ignorant media coverage that laps up coal-funded activist fictions like a dog rooting through a carcass.
You want to scream, bellow your rage and anguish at these troglodytes, and then block your ears and walk away before it makes you too bitter and hateful, and disengage. And buy "green" power, "renewable" products, and be sure to recycle, and live in your private little green bubble world and forget about changing the system, and the world, even incrementally. You have your quotidian concerns, and they tax you enough.
But you can't. Not if you actually care. Even the smallest action you can take that moves the world towards genuine, legislative and regulatory action on climate change will probably save more lives down the track than anything else any one of us can possibly do. You can't turn your back on that if you want to be a part of this world, a global citizen of an Earth worth saving.
I salute you President Tong. You are inspiring me, and people like me, to keep fighting.
posted by smoke at 2:57 AM on November 27, 2013 [37 favorites]
A law professor here at the University of Hawaii, Maxine Burkett, has been thinking through the implications of climate change for sovereignty and "ex-situ states". Can you be a nation even after your territorial land is overtopped by the ocean? How do fishing or undersea mineral rights work and to whom do revenues go? "To respond to the phenomenon of landless nation states, international law must recognize a new form of statehood: a de-territorialized nation state, or a nation ex-situ."
posted by spamandkimchi at 3:13 AM on November 27, 2013 [7 favorites]
posted by spamandkimchi at 3:13 AM on November 27, 2013 [7 favorites]
I understand the realities of this world. People care about what affects them.
Yes, and other governments care about potential immigrants only in terms of what they offer their economies.
If I lived there, I would resign myself to having to leave and I would try to become more valuable (in those terms) to other countries. "Yes, I'm a refugee, but I'm a refugee with skills you want. Take me and I'll be able to start supporting myself immediately doing a job for which you have a shortage of people."
And as a government, I would try to find a way to make the country support its people even if it were uninhabitable and the people scattered. Try to make sure fishing and mineral rights remained secure, and work out a system to make payments to former citizens of the country. [preview: exactly what spamandkimchi is talking about]. Make refugees partially self-supporting if possible thanks to profits from fishing and mineral rights.
posted by pracowity at 3:18 AM on November 27, 2013
Yes, and other governments care about potential immigrants only in terms of what they offer their economies.
If I lived there, I would resign myself to having to leave and I would try to become more valuable (in those terms) to other countries. "Yes, I'm a refugee, but I'm a refugee with skills you want. Take me and I'll be able to start supporting myself immediately doing a job for which you have a shortage of people."
And as a government, I would try to find a way to make the country support its people even if it were uninhabitable and the people scattered. Try to make sure fishing and mineral rights remained secure, and work out a system to make payments to former citizens of the country. [preview: exactly what spamandkimchi is talking about]. Make refugees partially self-supporting if possible thanks to profits from fishing and mineral rights.
posted by pracowity at 3:18 AM on November 27, 2013
How do fishing or undersea mineral rights work and to whom do revenues go?
Did the monopoly of violence stop working?
posted by pompomtom at 3:30 AM on November 27, 2013 [3 favorites]
Did the monopoly of violence stop working?
posted by pompomtom at 3:30 AM on November 27, 2013 [3 favorites]
their already inadequate supply of fresh water....
Which seems to be result of cultural norms:
Public health experts on Tarawa estimate that 60 percent of the island’s people are outdoor defecators. The head of the Public Utilities Board, Kevin Rouata, who has the impossible job of protecting the water lens, explained that outdoor defecation wasn’t entirely due to a lack of other options. “When I was young, you would see old people talking with each other in the water while they were defecating,” he told me. “People still think it’s much more pleasing to do on the beach, because there’s a breeze and a nice view and water for washing. We have to make people know that the inside bathroom is also pleasing.”
People who piss in their own drinking water probably shouldn't be lecturing the rest of the world's people about their lifestyles.
Can you be a nation even after your territorial land is overtopped by the ocean?
Why? To what purpose? All you would end up with is a population and its government living in political exile in some other country, or countries, and under the sovereign control of those nations without any ability to decide on their own laws or rule themselves. This would be intolerable and unsustainable in the long term.
OTOH, Welcome to Detroit people of Kiribati.
posted by three blind mice at 3:36 AM on November 27, 2013 [4 favorites]
Which seems to be result of cultural norms:
Public health experts on Tarawa estimate that 60 percent of the island’s people are outdoor defecators. The head of the Public Utilities Board, Kevin Rouata, who has the impossible job of protecting the water lens, explained that outdoor defecation wasn’t entirely due to a lack of other options. “When I was young, you would see old people talking with each other in the water while they were defecating,” he told me. “People still think it’s much more pleasing to do on the beach, because there’s a breeze and a nice view and water for washing. We have to make people know that the inside bathroom is also pleasing.”
People who piss in their own drinking water probably shouldn't be lecturing the rest of the world's people about their lifestyles.
Can you be a nation even after your territorial land is overtopped by the ocean?
Why? To what purpose? All you would end up with is a population and its government living in political exile in some other country, or countries, and under the sovereign control of those nations without any ability to decide on their own laws or rule themselves. This would be intolerable and unsustainable in the long term.
OTOH, Welcome to Detroit people of Kiribati.
posted by three blind mice at 3:36 AM on November 27, 2013 [4 favorites]
Why? To what purpose?
A nation has valuable rights to the things in its land and water. When the nation is inundated, it would be advantageous to hang on to those rights and not let them be grabbed by someone else.
posted by pracowity at 3:43 AM on November 27, 2013 [5 favorites]
A nation has valuable rights to the things in its land and water. When the nation is inundated, it would be advantageous to hang on to those rights and not let them be grabbed by someone else.
posted by pracowity at 3:43 AM on November 27, 2013 [5 favorites]
People who piss in their own drinking water probably shouldn't be lecturing the rest of the world's people about their lifestyles
I know! And think how it raises the sea level!
Those animals!
posted by Wolof at 4:01 AM on November 27, 2013 [12 favorites]
I know! And think how it raises the sea level!
Those animals!
posted by Wolof at 4:01 AM on November 27, 2013 [12 favorites]
People who piss in their own drinking water probably shouldn't be lecturing the rest of the world's people about their lifestyles.
You did see the part where it mentioned the beach, right?
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:48 AM on November 27, 2013 [5 favorites]
You did see the part where it mentioned the beach, right?
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:48 AM on November 27, 2013 [5 favorites]
People who piss in their own drinking water ...
(Doc F beat me to it)
They're not, they're going in the ocean. Not a whole lot worse than seaside communities who flush untreated sewage into the ocean.
posted by Artful Codger at 4:49 AM on November 27, 2013 [13 favorites]
(Doc F beat me to it)
They're not, they're going in the ocean. Not a whole lot worse than seaside communities who flush untreated sewage into the ocean.
posted by Artful Codger at 4:49 AM on November 27, 2013 [13 favorites]
For those interested in learning more about Kiribati and encountering unexpected outdoor defecation from the wrong side of the lagoon, I cannot recommend The Sex Lives Of Cannibals highly enough.
posted by namewithoutwords at 4:55 AM on November 27, 2013 [6 favorites]
posted by namewithoutwords at 4:55 AM on November 27, 2013 [6 favorites]
Well, the US has plenty of space. As the biggest polluter for decades, it should volunteer some space. Maybe another reservation for brown people? Australia has tons of space too! Or the I-Kiribati could always claim they are another Lost Tribe and exercise their right of return to the Negev ... or hell, why not give 'em a settlement in the safely landlocked West Bank?
posted by Azaadistani at 5:07 AM on November 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Azaadistani at 5:07 AM on November 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
What about people who belch megatons of CO2 into everyone else's breathing air?
Especially around here.
posted by Wolof at 5:37 AM on November 27, 2013 [3 favorites]
Especially around here.
posted by Wolof at 5:37 AM on November 27, 2013 [3 favorites]
I don't see why there's any question what will happen: a large storm will hit, a large number of them will die, everyone else will remark about what a tragedy is was (act of god, you know, what a world, what a world), and then move on.
...meanwhile, those who can escape will do so, and those who cannot will die by percentage points as storms sweep over them.
Same thing that happens everywhere when environmental destruction passes a certain point. The only part that's in question is whether they'll have violent civil unrest first.
posted by aramaic at 5:42 AM on November 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
...meanwhile, those who can escape will do so, and those who cannot will die by percentage points as storms sweep over them.
Same thing that happens everywhere when environmental destruction passes a certain point. The only part that's in question is whether they'll have violent civil unrest first.
posted by aramaic at 5:42 AM on November 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
From what I understand, Kiribati is now deluged with international organizations, to the point that government officials won't even meet with you unless you have some kind of aid on hand to offer.
posted by leotrotsky at 5:47 AM on November 27, 2013
posted by leotrotsky at 5:47 AM on November 27, 2013
People who piss in their own drinking water probably shouldn't be lecturing the rest of the world's people about their lifestyles.
Okay well how about the 40% of the population who don't? Are they allowed to prefer not having their homes submerged underwater?
posted by Tomorrowful at 6:00 AM on November 27, 2013 [2 favorites]
Okay well how about the 40% of the population who don't? Are they allowed to prefer not having their homes submerged underwater?
posted by Tomorrowful at 6:00 AM on November 27, 2013 [2 favorites]
Someday I will speak of them much as a I speak of the legendary civilization of Atlantis.
posted by Renoroc at 6:28 AM on November 27, 2013
posted by Renoroc at 6:28 AM on November 27, 2013
Artful Codger: "
They're not, they're going in the ocean. Not a whole lot worse than seaside communities who flush untreated sewage into the ocean."
Ignoring the whole depressing story of the I-Kiribati, and similar issues other places throughout the small island Pacific, on a small atoll disposing of waste that way actually isa whole lot worse than in seaside communities. The lens of water the article refers to is also known as the Ghyben-Herzberg lens, if you want to do some googling, but suffice it to say that when you're somewhere like a small atoll with a super-constrained supply of fresh water that keeping it clean is key to public health. Using the beach as the toilet has been going on for millennia, but Kiritbati is drastically over-populated for what its meager water supplies can manage, and beach toilets only exacerbate the problem. When I spent time on a different atoll, Tokelau, they'd gotten rid of the toilets that drained into the lagoon and there had been a noticeable increase in quality of public health. Mind you, the population density is drastically different, but still: atolls are genuinely delicate little slices of land on which humans are sometimes able to live, but god it can be a tenuous existence, especially with regard to water.
posted by barnacles at 6:38 AM on November 27, 2013 [4 favorites]
They're not, they're going in the ocean. Not a whole lot worse than seaside communities who flush untreated sewage into the ocean."
Ignoring the whole depressing story of the I-Kiribati, and similar issues other places throughout the small island Pacific, on a small atoll disposing of waste that way actually isa whole lot worse than in seaside communities. The lens of water the article refers to is also known as the Ghyben-Herzberg lens, if you want to do some googling, but suffice it to say that when you're somewhere like a small atoll with a super-constrained supply of fresh water that keeping it clean is key to public health. Using the beach as the toilet has been going on for millennia, but Kiritbati is drastically over-populated for what its meager water supplies can manage, and beach toilets only exacerbate the problem. When I spent time on a different atoll, Tokelau, they'd gotten rid of the toilets that drained into the lagoon and there had been a noticeable increase in quality of public health. Mind you, the population density is drastically different, but still: atolls are genuinely delicate little slices of land on which humans are sometimes able to live, but god it can be a tenuous existence, especially with regard to water.
posted by barnacles at 6:38 AM on November 27, 2013 [4 favorites]
Kiritbati is drastically over-populated for what its meager water supplies can manage
...making it a microcosm of a whole planet drastically over-populated for what its increasingly meager ecosystems can absorb.
Twenty years ago I chose voluntary sterilization for exactly that reason.
It's about time that attitude became fashionable.
posted by flabdablet at 8:17 AM on November 27, 2013 [4 favorites]
...making it a microcosm of a whole planet drastically over-populated for what its increasingly meager ecosystems can absorb.
Twenty years ago I chose voluntary sterilization for exactly that reason.
It's about time that attitude became fashionable.
posted by flabdablet at 8:17 AM on November 27, 2013 [4 favorites]
Twenty years ago I chose voluntary sterilization for exactly that reason.
It's about time that attitude became fashionable.
Increasing people's standard of living seems to do a far more effective job of reducing the birth rate than any attempt to make having yourself spayed cool could hope to do.
posted by Diablevert at 8:24 AM on November 27, 2013 [5 favorites]
It's about time that attitude became fashionable.
Increasing people's standard of living seems to do a far more effective job of reducing the birth rate than any attempt to make having yourself spayed cool could hope to do.
posted by Diablevert at 8:24 AM on November 27, 2013 [5 favorites]
spamandkimchi: "A law professor here at the University of Hawaii, Maxine Burkett, has been thinking through the implications of climate change for sovereignty and "ex-situ states". Can you be a nation even after your territorial land is overtopped by the ocean? How do fishing or undersea mineral rights work and to whom do revenues go? "To respond to the phenomenon of landless nation states, international law must recognize a new form of statehood: a de-territorialized nation state, or a nation ex-situ.""
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I hereby request citizenship of the great land of Metafilteria. I wish nothing but eternal benevolence and glory upon the great cabal (which does NOT exist, mind). All hail!!!
This is an interesting question. When one looks at things like the Treaty of Westphalia and how Europe evolved into the current Nation-State structure (along with all its imperial territories), are we going to witness the change in model from the current Nation-State paradigm, forced upon us by the events we caused ecologically?
One might consider that those affected the most will be the smaller island-states (but of course, when you consider the Philippines and Indonesia, it's not as though there isn't a huge population at risk there - I am, of course, considering that those two countries are at risk)...
What degree of affect will this have on the larger nation-states? Whereas Europe was at the forefront of radical change from the late-1400s onward, economically, socially, religiously, and the empires morphed into the current imperial structure we have today, what of those victims on the tail end?
These small provinces are going to be affected the most, but instead of being might nation-states and empires, they will not only end up consolidating power, but de-consolidating.
In a way, it's a process akin to the radical destructuring of the social lives that many of us predicted would occur via the internet. That is, before the walled-gardens/Nation-States hegemonically decided to rule over the network in ever fierce competition for Capital.
In some ways, the question then, I think, will, just as Capital shaped the current topography of the networks social organization (which in the end, reinforced the original real social divisions and perpetuates ever more lack of autonomy), so too, will Capital find a way to drive the potential openings of this "ex-situ" formulation towards its own ends, enclosing it (I use the term "enclosing" in a very historical sense).
These people will be banished and driven from their homelands, made as outcasts, turned into serfs of a sorts. They will have their local and communal ties broken in order to serve the needs of Capital. What this means for the larger nation-states, I don't know.
But based upon what I've seen historically, it's not a good thing. There is no wonderful diasporan utopia, willing and able to be spread all over the globe with a glorious resurgence of influence upon global society, though this might occur in some ways... No - in the end, these seeds of humanity will be tainted and oppressed by the strictures and demands of the global hegemonic elite and the power of Capital, to be one more set of pawns in an extraction of value far removed from their traditional experiences.
posted by symbioid at 10:53 AM on November 27, 2013
-----------
I hereby request citizenship of the great land of Metafilteria. I wish nothing but eternal benevolence and glory upon the great cabal (which does NOT exist, mind). All hail!!!
This is an interesting question. When one looks at things like the Treaty of Westphalia and how Europe evolved into the current Nation-State structure (along with all its imperial territories), are we going to witness the change in model from the current Nation-State paradigm, forced upon us by the events we caused ecologically?
One might consider that those affected the most will be the smaller island-states (but of course, when you consider the Philippines and Indonesia, it's not as though there isn't a huge population at risk there - I am, of course, considering that those two countries are at risk)...
What degree of affect will this have on the larger nation-states? Whereas Europe was at the forefront of radical change from the late-1400s onward, economically, socially, religiously, and the empires morphed into the current imperial structure we have today, what of those victims on the tail end?
These small provinces are going to be affected the most, but instead of being might nation-states and empires, they will not only end up consolidating power, but de-consolidating.
In a way, it's a process akin to the radical destructuring of the social lives that many of us predicted would occur via the internet. That is, before the walled-gardens/Nation-States hegemonically decided to rule over the network in ever fierce competition for Capital.
In some ways, the question then, I think, will, just as Capital shaped the current topography of the networks social organization (which in the end, reinforced the original real social divisions and perpetuates ever more lack of autonomy), so too, will Capital find a way to drive the potential openings of this "ex-situ" formulation towards its own ends, enclosing it (I use the term "enclosing" in a very historical sense).
These people will be banished and driven from their homelands, made as outcasts, turned into serfs of a sorts. They will have their local and communal ties broken in order to serve the needs of Capital. What this means for the larger nation-states, I don't know.
But based upon what I've seen historically, it's not a good thing. There is no wonderful diasporan utopia, willing and able to be spread all over the globe with a glorious resurgence of influence upon global society, though this might occur in some ways... No - in the end, these seeds of humanity will be tainted and oppressed by the strictures and demands of the global hegemonic elite and the power of Capital, to be one more set of pawns in an extraction of value far removed from their traditional experiences.
posted by symbioid at 10:53 AM on November 27, 2013
This is an interesting question. When one looks at things like the Treaty of Westphalia and how Europe evolved into the current Nation-State structure (along with all its imperial territories), are we going to witness the change in model from the current Nation-State paradigm, forced upon us by the events we caused ecologically?
Agreed, this ex-situ idea is super fascinating, thanks for bringing it up, spamandkimchi.
Although on the surface, I have to say it doesn't make much sense to me. If you haven't got control over a given territory and a monopoly of force within it, then it seems to me you haven't got either a nation or a government. If the territory ceases to exist so does the nation. What you might have is the ghost of power, a fossil sovereignty akin to the pope's. But only on the sufferance of existing nation-states. They let the pope proclaim he is a king because he's got a billion followers scattered about the globe in other people's countries who'd be pissed if you fucked with him. If all you got is 100,000 sustenance farmers, you got stateless refugees, and that's it.
posted by Diablevert at 11:06 AM on November 27, 2013 [2 favorites]
Agreed, this ex-situ idea is super fascinating, thanks for bringing it up, spamandkimchi.
Although on the surface, I have to say it doesn't make much sense to me. If you haven't got control over a given territory and a monopoly of force within it, then it seems to me you haven't got either a nation or a government. If the territory ceases to exist so does the nation. What you might have is the ghost of power, a fossil sovereignty akin to the pope's. But only on the sufferance of existing nation-states. They let the pope proclaim he is a king because he's got a billion followers scattered about the globe in other people's countries who'd be pissed if you fucked with him. If all you got is 100,000 sustenance farmers, you got stateless refugees, and that's it.
posted by Diablevert at 11:06 AM on November 27, 2013 [2 favorites]
Climate change has given me an insight into the anxieties my parents had during the height of the cold war.
I'm not sure why you anklebiting whippersnappers aren't currently afraid of nuclear war. The warheads are still in the silos, and having lost the fear we seem to have become complacent about the ongoing risk. The odds of a regional nuclear war are probably higher than ever. I suppose an India-Pakistan war wouldn't be the end of the world but we would get our hair mussed - tens to hundreds of millions dead directly plus a massive spike in worldwide cancer rates.
Having tried both anxieties, the difference is kind of like the difference between a heart condition that could drop you dead at any time versus slow growing cancer. With regards to global warming, we're like people who decided to treat our cancer with homeopathic remedies. Now it's at stage three and growing and our leaders are making noncommittal noises about reiki.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 11:21 AM on November 27, 2013 [6 favorites]
I'm not sure why you anklebiting whippersnappers aren't currently afraid of nuclear war. The warheads are still in the silos, and having lost the fear we seem to have become complacent about the ongoing risk. The odds of a regional nuclear war are probably higher than ever. I suppose an India-Pakistan war wouldn't be the end of the world but we would get our hair mussed - tens to hundreds of millions dead directly plus a massive spike in worldwide cancer rates.
Having tried both anxieties, the difference is kind of like the difference between a heart condition that could drop you dead at any time versus slow growing cancer. With regards to global warming, we're like people who decided to treat our cancer with homeopathic remedies. Now it's at stage three and growing and our leaders are making noncommittal noises about reiki.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 11:21 AM on November 27, 2013 [6 favorites]
This is an interesting question. When one looks at things like the Treaty of Westphalia and how Europe evolved into the current Nation-State structure (along with all its imperial territories), are we going to witness the change in model from the current Nation-State paradigm, forced upon us by the events we caused ecologically?
We already have legal precedent in the relationship the United States has with de-territorialized-yet-still-extant Indian tribes (some of which have re-territorialized recently), so I don't think the Gilbertese people will shake up the current system to any extent.
What I expect will happen is a deal whereby a nation like Kiribati or Tuvalu will sign over their economic zones to a nation in exchange for full naturalization of their citizens into that nation. Fiji might not want an influx of 100,000 people all of a sudden, but if they gain the fishing grounds, it might seal the deal.
posted by ocschwar at 11:41 AM on November 27, 2013 [2 favorites]
In anticipation of the year 2000, Kiribati changed its time zone resulting in the international date line jutting out awkwardly eastward - they then renamed one of their easternmost islands as "Millennium Island" and promoted to "Millennium tourists" as the first piece of land to see in the new year. There's something tragically ironic about the fact that "Millennium Island" is unlikely to survive much longer than a century.
posted by moorooka at 11:58 AM on November 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by moorooka at 11:58 AM on November 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
People who piss in their own drinking water probably shouldn't be lecturing the rest of the world's people about their lifestyles.
Not sure why I bother responding, but did you actually read the whole article? Do you understand the panoply of horror that the islanders are facing? Do you have anything to offer beyond a snide dismissal?
posted by smoke at 12:54 PM on November 27, 2013 [4 favorites]
Not sure why I bother responding, but did you actually read the whole article? Do you understand the panoply of horror that the islanders are facing? Do you have anything to offer beyond a snide dismissal?
posted by smoke at 12:54 PM on November 27, 2013 [4 favorites]
Well, the US could offer them the opportunity to clean toilets and gut chickens, while being pursued by the USICE and anti-immigrant vigilantes, if that sounds attractive to them.
posted by Mental Wimp at 1:24 PM on November 27, 2013
posted by Mental Wimp at 1:24 PM on November 27, 2013
Well, the US could offer them the opportunity to clean toilets and gut chickens, while being pursued by the USICE and anti-immigrant vigilantes, if that sounds attractive to them.
International law says you have to deport to the last known port of call.
Organize an airlift.
Blow up the runway at Tarawa.
Your move, Uncle Sam.
posted by ocschwar at 1:42 PM on November 27, 2013 [2 favorites]
Nation-states aren't an entirely good thing. Their advantages come from the economies of scale that come from physical control of a piece of territory; their disadvantages come from the almost-religious significance we ascribe to this possession. We already have a few pretend-nations (e.g., the Vatican) and I can't see why we'd want any more.
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:03 PM on November 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:03 PM on November 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
God this is so heart-breaking
posted by wuwei at 2:41 PM on November 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
We will lose our homeland unless the ocean stops rising. It’s very simple. We want to stay home. This is where the spirits live. This is where we’re from.”What do you say to a people facing extinction within one lifetime?
posted by wuwei at 2:41 PM on November 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
We already have a few pretend-nations (e.g., the Vatican) and I can't see why we'd want any more.
The original reasons for creating the microstates of the Pacific were that they were too far apart to share administration with each other, and that each could get income from stamp collectors. No, really. Stamps made a significant portion of Kiribati's income in the first two decades.
posted by ocschwar at 5:40 PM on November 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
The original reasons for creating the microstates of the Pacific were that they were too far apart to share administration with each other, and that each could get income from stamp collectors. No, really. Stamps made a significant portion of Kiribati's income in the first two decades.
posted by ocschwar at 5:40 PM on November 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
What do you say to a people facing extinction within one lifetime?
"Welcome to the free market."
posted by zombieflanders at 7:10 PM on November 27, 2013 [2 favorites]
"Welcome to the free market."
posted by zombieflanders at 7:10 PM on November 27, 2013 [2 favorites]
Increasing people's standard of living seems to do a far more effective job of reducing the birth rate than any attempt to make having yourself spayed cool could hope to do.
Maybe. It seemed to me at the time, and still does, that the increased resource consumption that goes with an increase in living standards will generally overcompensate for the subsequent slow decrease in population until ecological overload has got much, much worse.
Voluntary sterilization is also something that I can do as an individual in order to make a contribution to the solution scaled to match my existence's contribution to the problem. In fact, as an individual in a wealthy and therefore excessively resource-intense society that already has a low birth rate, my sterilization makes more of a contribution than it would if I lived in a developing nation.
posted by flabdablet at 7:29 PM on November 27, 2013
Maybe. It seemed to me at the time, and still does, that the increased resource consumption that goes with an increase in living standards will generally overcompensate for the subsequent slow decrease in population until ecological overload has got much, much worse.
Voluntary sterilization is also something that I can do as an individual in order to make a contribution to the solution scaled to match my existence's contribution to the problem. In fact, as an individual in a wealthy and therefore excessively resource-intense society that already has a low birth rate, my sterilization makes more of a contribution than it would if I lived in a developing nation.
posted by flabdablet at 7:29 PM on November 27, 2013
Man, there is a lot of dark, dark humour in this post.
I love it.
posted by Mezentian at 7:43 PM on November 27, 2013
I love it.
posted by Mezentian at 7:43 PM on November 27, 2013
My absolute favorite part of the article was this quote from President Tong:
"I lived in New Zealand once. I thought I was in paradise. I had all of this access to all the different ice creams."
I like his style.
posted by charmcityblues at 12:24 AM on November 28, 2013 [1 favorite]
"I lived in New Zealand once. I thought I was in paradise. I had all of this access to all the different ice creams."
I like his style.
posted by charmcityblues at 12:24 AM on November 28, 2013 [1 favorite]
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posted by mecran01 at 2:48 AM on November 27, 2013