Global Warming - Save Kiribati

It is just a couple of tiny specks in the big, blue ocean. You've probably never heard of it, adrift in the three million square miles of the Pacific of which its territory spans. Its name is Kiribati ("key" "re" "boss"). It is an island nation comprised of 33 atolls and one island scattered throughout the aforementioned vast emptiness, of which one is submerged-and counting.

The reason 33 has fallen to 32 and, if things continue at the current pace, will fall to 31 and so forth is the rising sea level. The rising sea levels are being caused, of course, by global warming. Some of these atolls rise only a few feet above sea level at their highest points. Sea levels may not rise to completely submerge these atolls, but rises in sea levels may have devastating consequences to the already harsh ecosystem.

This is a problem happening all across the South and Central Pacific. Some islands may have their habitable land shrink to the point where they become uninhabitable. However, others that can sustain the rises in terms of surface area may not be able to withstand the rises in terms of the massive amounts of salt water washing further and further inland, salinating what will become formerly arable land. This is already happening in some areas of Kiribati.

This problem has become so severe, that in the summer of 2008, Kiribati President Anote Tong requested that the nations of Australia and New Zealand grant the citizens of Kiribati permanent refugee status. That's right. The Kiribati people may become the first "refugees of climate change". Let us not even think about what sort of affects that will have on the lands in which they seek sanctuary. Displacement is a real threat for many living on these small atolls and islands in the Pacific.

But set aside even the environmental implications of displacement. Consider that these people have to uproot their families, leaving behind their homeland forever-a place where their ancestors had lived for centuries and even millennia-to move to a foreign land because of a force out of their own control. Now, picture that the people who are causing all of this hardship are the top economic and most industrialized nations-those nations who stand to suffer much less than those, like Kiribati, who contribute the least to the problem of Global Warming. It must be frustrating.

Last month at the Climate Conference in Copenhagen, pacific islands, including Kiribati, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and other nations consisting of low-lying islands and atolls petitioned for more aggressive cuts to emissions, transparency of industrialized nations' efforts, and a binding resolution. They did not receive any of this. If the debate around Global Warming continues in this fashion, these nations are doomed. The land gone and the people displaced.

As good human beings, this is not how we treat people. We need to be more aware of this problem, and consider the entire world's inhabitants-not just those who contribute a great deal to the international economy. Save Kiribati!