As a result of human-induced global warming and climate change, the current global seas’ level rise has a catastrophic impact on the small island nations by occurring at a rate of around 1.8 mm per year. Millions of people have been, or soon will need to be relocated, thus, becoming so-called environmental refugees. Since global warming was not caused by the residents of these islands, people in the developed countries should take the responsibility for the climatic changes caused by the increased human activities in manufacturing, burning coal, using petrol and gas, etc. Moreover, since environmental refugees have to leave their homelands, the developed countries are responsible for their relocation; thus, have to provide refugees with all the necessary financial and emotional support to ease their adaptation process to the new environment and to ensure the security of their cultures, traditions and unique way of life as much as it could be possible.
As the climate continues to warm, entire islands with over 40 nations are sinking below the rising waters caused by ice sheets’ melting or are at risk of disappearing. Scientists are warning that sea levels will rise much faster over the next century than has been expected, even if governments are successful at controlling greenhouse gas emissions. Only in 2007 alone more than 25 million people became uprooted being caused to relocate by the whole villages that have been lived in the islands for centuries. People are forced to move further inside the island since their homes on the seashores are flooded by rising waters. Environmentalists emphasize the current critical environmental situation pointing to the fact that at least eighteen islands are submerged around the world, including Lohachara (India) with 10,000 residents; Bedford, Kabasgadi, and Suparibhanga islands (near India) with 6,000 families; Ghoramara (near India) with 7,000 relocated residents due to 2/3 submerged land in 2006; the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland (USA) consisting of 13 islands; Bhola Island (Bangladesh) of 500,000 residents with half the island permanently blooded; seven islands in Manus (Papua New Guinea); and many others. While these islands are already experiencing partial varnish, experts are predicting near-future changes in such countries as Bangladesh, Burma, and Egypt. It was estimated that a one-meter rise in sea levels would swamp 17 percent of Bangladesh’s landmass (Houghton 43). Complete obliteration can happen to such pacific islands as the Maldives with 369,000 residents and Tuvalu with 12,000 residents living just a few feet above sea level with no more fresh drinking water and vegetable plots being washed away. 250,000 residents of Sagar near India are currently under threat of soon relocation. The situation in Kutubdia, Southeastern Bangladesh is even worse with 200,000 people being lost while the remaining 150,000 might be departed in the near future. The other islands under threat are Marshall Islands (60,000 residents), Kiribati (107,800 residents), Tonga (116,900 residents), Vanuatu (212,000 residents), Solomon Islands (566,800 residents), Carteret Islands (2,500 residents), and many others (Houghton 87).
While sea levels’ rising has catastrophic impact mainly on the developing countries and islands, Great Britain, for example, could face real challenges in lower-lying areas along the east coast, from Lincolnshire to the Thames estuary, with a much greater risk of catastrophic “storm surges” such as the great flood of 1953 that killed 307 people. Merely 1.2 million residents of the United Arab Emirates are considered at risk. While the mentioned number of people at risk or being relocated from their homelands is impressive and scary, there might be more islands, either uninhabited or not reported that have submerged or are currently sinking due to climate change (Mckibben 10).
The islands of Takuu and Tuvalu are gradually sinking making the life of their residents impossible and causing them to be relocated to under-resourced areas or totally different communities and countries, where their own cultures, traditions, and unique way of life might disappear. The Pacific Region alone is made of 22 island countries and territories made up of thousands of small islands, which are now at risk. Fiji consists of 300 islands when only two of them are mountainous containing cities and towns, which means that the rest are coastal areas, which with the rising seas might face mass relocation in near future (Orme and Orma 110).
The press conference at a scientific meeting on climate change in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2009 gathered the main experts in sea-level rise, including Professor Konrad Steffen from the University of Colorado, Dr. John Church of the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research in Tasmania, Dr. Eric Rignot of Nasa’s jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena, and Professor Stefan Rahmsdorf from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. While the 2007 report pointed to 59cm of global sea-level rise by 2100, the 2009 report raises concerns about the drastic underestimation of the problem since the oceans are likely to rise twice as fast. While many people are concerned about the environmental situation in such small islands as Takuu and Kiribati, only a few think about the cultural and ethical issues of the current situation caused by the rising seas. Caught between the lost past and an uncertain future, these people have to decide how to save what is left of their culture since their homeland disappears forever. While for the young residents it might be easier to move to other places where the government will provide them with new homes and resources, the older people do not want to leave the islands preferring to stay in the villages where many generations of their tribes and nations lived before (Houghton 87) Despite they realize that there is always some industrial and environmental change, these tribes are concerns to lose their culture and identity. As the majority of them say, their island and land are their identities. The forecasted climatic changes and possible relocation present a threat to their traditional lifestyle. If these people are relocated to other safer coastal areas together, they still have an opportunity to renew their culture and lifestyle there. Though, if the whole island country is to be relocated to the neighboring country forced to live in an unknown cultural environment, the ethnic identity and cultural peculiarities might be under threat to be changed or disappear gradually under the influence of their new communal environment. Their language, old traditions and customs, and unique way of life – all these might be changed or totally disappear within the new cultural environment. Fueling the agricultural expansion into the midcontinent was the availability of rich farmlands to replace the badly eroded and nutrient-depleted soils of the eastern states.
Since the current environmental problems are caused by human activities mainly in the developed countries, they should take full or at least major responsibility for the urgent actions on how to prevent further environmental disasters by helping residents of sinking islands, decreasing usage of fuel, exchanging the fuel energy for wind and solar energy, manufacturing the products with concern about the environment, applying effective corporate social responsibility, protecting natural resources, especially those under the risk, etc. Such actions should be done urgently; otherwise, the whole planet might soon suffer from numerous environmental disasters. Meanwhile, governments and people of the developed countries should direct their efforts and support toward the current urgent problems like the sinking islands of the Pacific Region, where thousands of people lost their homes, were forced to relocate far from their land, and live in unknown communities and environments (Houghton 65)
In a world that is responding increasingly to global forces yet is increasingly nationalistic at the same time, the question of legislative and enforcement authority at the global level is a delicate and sensitive one. Some propose greater powers for the United Nations on the grounds that the International community is not acting fast enough in the face of certain global problems. Others oppose this on several grounds: some on philosophical judgments of individual and national freedoms, some in the political judgment that the global institutions as presently composed are not sufficiently representative of the world’s people (Robson and Schneider 16). Today, land-use planning on federal lands frequently involves several highly emotional interest groups with disparate agendas, and government agency officials are caught in the crossfire. Environmentalists tend to view the Forest Service and BLM as captives of logging and ranching interests; ranchers and loggers, on the other hand, have always regarded the government agencies as unsympathetic to their concerns, and more interested in bureaucratic control than proper ecological management. Recently, environmentalists’ concerns have expanded yet again to encompass the possible threats posed by atmospheric and other global change, such as acid rain, greenhouse warming, and stratospheric ozone depletion (Shapiro 42). This problem is primarily associated with high water demand from large population centers rather than agricultural activities, and it is clear that saltwater intrusion is a potential threat when areas proximal to the sea are developed Excessive withdrawals of groundwater can also cause ground subsidence, which has resulted in damage to building structures, highways, pipelines, and tunnels. Taking into account the functionalist perspective, it is possible to say that organization and increased pollution contributes to global warming the most. With urbanization, impermeable roofs, paved roads, and sidewalks replace permeable soil areas, resulting in increased runoff and reduced groundwater recharge To compensate for this loss of recharge, recharge wells that route runoff directly down to aquifers and recharge basins that trap runoff and provide time for infiltration into groundwater have been constructed (Houghton 98).
Global warming affects all regions and geographical places, so most environmental NGOs, and probably most individual environmentalists, are especially concerned about some specific subset of the total number of environmental issues. It remains useful, if undeniably oversimplified, to distinguish among conservationists, with an interest in sustainable development; preservationists, interested especially in biodiversity (in contrast to the early preservationists’ focus on aesthetically pleasing wild landscapes); and environmentalists, primarily concerned about pollution, and frequently also anti-technology. Concern over global climate change, as well as related changes such as in biogeochemical cycling, is increasing rapidly. It is clear that the magnitude of human-induced changes to the atmosphere and interacting systems will continue to increase for the foreseeable future. It is also clear that the potential impacts could be major. However, the complexity of Earth’s ocean-atmosphere—biosphere system and the diversity of chemicals that we are producing make it difficult to predict exactly what these impacts will be, and therefore, exactly what sort of policy should be enacted. The basic procedure for attempting to predict global change involves progressive modeling, with the aid of powerful computers; monitoring what is actually happening in the real world, with the aid of satellite remote sensing; and mapping the results in a Geographical Information System. This procedure has allowed climatologists to make great strides in comprehending our climate system, but it is unreasonable to expect that we will ever be able to predict future climate with absolute confidence. The environmental experts address the developed countries for urgent assistance for those nations at risk and requiring immediate relocation. Moreover, if the world community and people in the developed countries do not start making urgent actions to protect the environment and implement preventive actions, their lands might be next on the line. If people are careless about nature and environmental protection seeking only profit increase by manufacturing millions of products that cause environmental pollution, nature will restore the balance and repair damages caused by human beings. Thus, the more people become aware of the critical environmental situation and join in the preventive actions, the more chances are to save the planet in addition to the cultural values and identity of the islands’ residents.
Works Cited
Houghton, John. T. Global Warming: The Complete Briefing. Cambridge University Press; 2 edition, 1997.
Mckibben, Bernard. Changing the Climate: Why a New Approach to Global Warming Would Make for a Better Politics-And Planet. The American Prospect, 2005: 10-11.
Orme, Armand.R., and Augutst.J. Orme, Greater California. In: A.J. Conacher and M. Sala (Editors), Land degradation in Mediterranean environments of the world: Nature and extent, causes and solutions. 1998, 109–122.
Shapiro, Kate. Global Warming: Apocalypse Now? Commentary 122, 2006: 42.