I suspect most of you were already familiar with the IPCC “one meter by 2100” forecast — it’s pretty widely accepted, at least in planning circles. But perhaps the implications of that weren’t clear.
If you live near a coast — what is your community doing to plan for this, if anything? Does their plan end at 2100? If you don’t live near a coast…lucky you! Still feel free to chime in…
And, I’m genuinely very curious about this one, because policymakers seem to have all made this value judgment: what do you think about communities planning to adapt (through diking, sea walls, etc.) to be able to withstand sea level rise up till 2100, but knowing (with a high degree of confidence) that they will not be able to mitigate the impacts after that?
I live in the Marshall Islands which is one of the four atoll nations in the world - Kiribati, Tuvalu, Marshall Islands, and the Maldives. All four of these countries will completely disappear with sea level rise, so protections in some places are being built now, but we all know that the saturation from the ground lens water and sea water will eventually take over and saturate the land, even before the waves are completely washing over the land and our atolls disappear.
I'm sorry, I know that knowledge must be heartbreaking. I know that the atoll nations are acutely aware of the realities of sea level rise and are facing the impacts much more quickly and more existentially than any of the rest of us.
Thank you. Humanity still doesn't understand what we are and will be loosing, not just the atoll nations, but so much more. Initially the knowledge was heartbreaking, but since it is reality, we (all of humanity) must learn to accept it and put in place ways to grant refugee status for climate migrants throughout the world, under the U.N. refugee charter, and provide for other necessary huge adjustments that all living creatures will face as the climate continues to change. We humans have created this crisis and we need to unite and work together to make the best of the horribly tragic consequences of our greed, shortsightedness, prejudices, extreme materialism and consumerism, and develop and create new and better ways of living together on our most beautiful but much travailed planet.
Absolutely agree, it's easy to get stuck in the heartbreak and grief and it's better to really internalize that this is where we are at and we can't change that, but we can change what comes next. It's still heartbreaking when stories of climate disaster (and genocide) are attached to personal connections though.
I live in the Marshall Islands which is one of the four atoll nations in the world - Kiribati, Tuvalu, Marshall Islands, and the Maldives. All four of these countries will completely disappear with sea level rise, so protections in some places are being built now, but we all know that the saturation from the ground lens water and sea water will eventually take over and saturate the land, even before the waves are completely washing over the land and our atolls disappear.
I'm sorry, I know that knowledge must be heartbreaking. I know that the atoll nations are acutely aware of the realities of sea level rise and are facing the impacts much more quickly and more existentially than any of the rest of us.
Thank you. Humanity still doesn't understand what we are and will be loosing, not just the atoll nations, but so much more. Initially the knowledge was heartbreaking, but since it is reality, we (all of humanity) must learn to accept it and put in place ways to grant refugee status for climate migrants throughout the world, under the U.N. refugee charter, and provide for other necessary huge adjustments that all living creatures will face as the climate continues to change. We humans have created this crisis and we need to unite and work together to make the best of the horribly tragic consequences of our greed, shortsightedness, prejudices, extreme materialism and consumerism, and develop and create new and better ways of living together on our most beautiful but much travailed planet.
Absolutely agree, it's easy to get stuck in the heartbreak and grief and it's better to really internalize that this is where we are at and we can't change that, but we can change what comes next. It's still heartbreaking when stories of climate disaster (and genocide) are attached to personal connections though.