Sea 10, Land 0, Words 10,000

  

“After two weeks of lofty speeches and bitter negotiations among nearly 200 nations, the question of whether the world will make significant progress to slow global warming still comes down to the actions of a handful of powerful nations that remain at odds over how best to address climate change.

“The United Nations global conference on climate change closed Saturday [11/13] with a hard-fought agreement that calls on countries to return next year with stronger emissions-reduction targets and promises to double the money available to help countries cope with the effects of global warming. It also mentions by name — for the first time in a quarter century of global climate negotiations — the main cause of climate change: fossil fuels.

“But it did not succeed in helping the world avert the worst effects of climate change. Even if countries fulfill all the emissions promises they have made, they still put the world on a dangerous path toward a planet that will be warmer by some 2.4 degrees Celsius by year 2100, compared to preindustrial times.

“That misses by a wide margin the target of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees that scientists say is necessary to avert the worst consequences of warming. And it sets the stage for worsening storms, wildfires, droughts and sea-level rise as well as the social and economic upheaval that would accompany a widening climate crisis.” New York Times, November 14th. 

As the sea rises, much faster than we have heretofore calculated, it’s more than the disappearance of third world island nations, which is bad enough. It is reflected as some of Alaska’s indigenous peoples begin to pick up and move their towns and villages significantly inland because the sea has eroded so deeply. But even for the developed rich regions that see these losses as distant headlines that do not affect them, they need to take a closer look.

For some in isolated Pacific Islands, they face an existential threat from climate change… NOW. But they have no money, they represent relatively small and impoverished nations and, frankly, no one seems to care. “Due to a combination of cost, distance, and COVID travel restrictions, only three of the fourteen Pacific Island nations with the [United Nations] ‘extremely vulnerable’ classification sent representatives to the conference at which nations are hammering out the latest agreements on carbon emissions reductions, environmental protections, aid and financing for such projects, and other issues affecting the planet's climate…

“[Commitments for emergency environmental aid] have been made before— the first COP took place in Berlin in 1995, a year before [Bernard Kato Ewekia, an assistant to island Tuvalu's minister of public works] was born—and nothing has stopped or even slowed the planet's steadily rising temperatures. ‘I've been listening to the leaders saying, 'I pledge to do this, I pledge to do that,'’ Ewekia says, ‘and still there's no progress.’” Jeff Mikulina, Esquire, November 12th. Take a good look at the above map. How many of those little dots of nations will be replaced with pure blue? How would you like to lose your village/city/state/nation… completely? Precisely. Where exactly what you go? Precisely. As mentioned. In Alaska. And nobody really cares.

“After a natural disaster such as a hurricane or earthquake, the U.S. government steps in with money to rebuild. But that’s not the case for the slow-motion hazards of sea-level rise, erosion, and melting permafrost. A number of Alaska Native villages have been impacted so severely by these climate-induced threats, they have decided to relocate. Yet there is no agency designated to pay for and help implement an entire community’s move.” Yale Environment 360, 6/23/16.

“More than two decades ago, the Yupik of Newtok, Alaska voted to move to a new land. With the Earth warming, the permafrost their village sat on was melting, while rising seas were making the Ninglick River rise and erode the riverline and coastline, on average, 70 feet a year… In early October [2019], the first Yupik started moving to their new town, Mertarvik, located along a hillside of a volcanic island from where the Ninglick meets the Bering Sea. The new place is close, only nine miles away, but the journey was long and, as relocation coordinator Romy Cadiente describes, arduous.” PBS NewsHour, November 27, 2019

It's happening in Wales in the UK, right now as well as villagers in Fairbourne are about to watch their coastal enclave, pictured right above, disappear. “[In] 2014, when authorities identified Fairbourne as the U.K.’s first coastal community to be at high risk of flooding due to climate change… Predicting faster sea level rises and more frequent and extreme storms due to global warming, the government said it could afford to keep defending the village for only 40 more years. Officials said that by 2054, it would no longer be safe or sustainable to live in Fairbourne… Authorities have been working with villagers on so-called managed realignment — essentially, to move them away and abandon the village.

“Overnight, house prices in Fairbourne nosedived. Residents were dubbed the U.K.’s first ‘climate refugees.’ Many were left shocked and angry by national headlines declaring their whole village would be ‘decommissioned.’ Seven years on, most of their questions about their future remain unanswered… ‘They’ve doomed the village, and now they’ve got to try to rehome the people. That’s 450 houses,’ said Eves, who serves as chair of the local community council. ‘If they want us out by 2054, then they’ve got to have the accommodation to put us in.’” Los Angeles Times (AP), November 13th. Think about the Barrier Islands in North Carolina, the Florida Keys and the flooding of mangroves in the southern reaches of Louisiana. They will be among the first to go. Picture streets in Miami Beach after rainfall. It’s on its way… in every low-lying coastal region on earth. Corporations belch greenhouse gasses. Nations justify building even more coal plants. Temperature rise is not stopping anytime soon, but without severe accountability, bad becomes worse becomes intolerable very fast. Pledges without enforcement are words.

I’m Peter Dekom, and while younger generations, those who will be most saddled with the consequences of our climate change inaction, the minds of the elder policymakers truly need a radical attitude adjustment before it is really too late.