Rising Sea Level Forces island Evacuation

The leaders of Tuvalu--a tiny island country in the Pacific Ocean midway between Hawaii and Australia--have conceded defeat in their battle with the rising sea, announcing that they will abandon their homeland. Sea level is rising because of the melting of glaciers and the thermal expansion of the ocean as a result of climate change. This in turn is due to rising atmospheric levels of CO2, largely from burning fossil fuels. As sea level has risen, Tuvalu has experienced lowland flooding that affects its drinking water and food production. Coastal erosion is eating away at the nine islands that make up the country.

The higher temperatures that are raising sea level also lead to more destructive storms. Paani Laupepa, a Tuvaluan government official, reports an unusually high level of tropical cyclones during the last decade. Laupepa is critical of the US for abandoning the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement to reduce carbon emissions. He told a BBC reporter that "by refusing to ratify the Protocol, the US has effectively denied future generations of Tuvaluans their fundamental freedom to live where our ancestors have lived for thousands of years."

Tuvalu is the first country where people are trying to evacuate because of rising seas, but it almost certainly will not be the last. For the first time since civilization began, sea level has begun to rise at a measurable rate. It has become an indicator to watch, a trend that could force a human migration of almost unimaginable dimensions. It also raises questions about responsibility to other nations and to future generations that humanity has never before faced.

--by Lester R. Brown, copyright (c) Earth Policy Institute. Reprinted with permission. For more information go to www.earth-policy.org.