Maldives president seeks help for "paradise drowning"
source: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Maldives_president_seeks_help_for_paradise_drowning_999.html
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- JanforGore
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He launched a book at the UN-backed Business for the Environment conference to highlight the threat to his South Asian tropical island chain favoured by tourists for its white sandy beaches, clear waters and swaying palm trees.
"My people are blessed with one of the most beautiful settings that nature has to offer... To many people across the world, our shores have indeed become an earthly paradise. This paradise, though, is endangered," he said.
"Each year, the seas that make up 99 percent of the Maldives are rising, and, slowly but surely, engulfing our 1,192 low-lying islands and posing serious risks to the lives and livelihoods of the people."
He said he chose the title "Paradise Drowning" for his book because "it evokes an image fraught with great danger" and "most clearly encapsulates the threat of climate change and sea-level rise to my people."
Speaking to reporters later, Gayoom said the country can only adapt to the problem by relocating citizens to safer islands. Building protective walls on 193 inhabited islands would cost about six billion US dollars, which the government finds too expensive, he said.
Gayoom said the real culprit for rising sea levels is global warming and the solution lies in countries cutting the carbon dioxide emissions which have been blamed for the phenomenon.
He said it was ironic that although the Maldives accounts for only 0.01 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, the country could be "possibly the biggest victim of global warming."
At the rate at which sea levels are rising, the islands would be rendered "uninhabitable in the not-too-distant future," he said.
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taboga
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If this country were "worth saving" the rest of the civilized world would address the issue more realistically than simply escaping to the world of Global Warming mumbo jumbo.
For instance, the Okinawans are not that much higher and they are building all sorts of islands and land extensions by dredging and adding sand from the depths of the ocean. I see no reason why the Maldivians with international help can't do the same thing. Don't waste time with walls. Use the interlocking concrete "jacks" the Japanese use and fill in behind them. Use the coral reefs for foundations for the land..whatever is destroyed will renew itself in a new area. The maldives islands can be raised many more meters and also spread out. There would be interruptions in life but the need many people to have to move to the mainland would be silly.
The Maldives can become a world "experimentation" area to combat Global Warming on a more realistic and immediate footing...and the sooner the better... - 4 years ago
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taboga
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EdKnowsAll
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What are President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom's qualifications for making a determination about the cause and solution to this problem he is facing. The Maldives holds the record for being the lowest country in the world, with a maximum natural ground level of only 7½ ft above sea level, not accounting for any areas that sustained accelerated erosion from the major tsunami that hit the region in 2004, though in areas where construction exists the ground level has been increased to several yards. Over the last 100 years, sea levels have risen about 8 in. There was not nearly enough "man-made" impact 100 years ago to influence the rise in sea levels around these islands. This is not a new occurrence, and, like the islands near New Zealand and Australia, dynamiting of reefs by local fishermen and over-extraction of fresh water by local populations has greatly contributed to their problem. Any questions?
- 4 years ago
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EdKnowsAll
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JanforGore
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My, a lot of conferences and a lot of talking going on... and yet, where is the action on a global scale? Countries met in Bali last year and instead of defining targets and starting on them, here we are basically where we were two years ago. Every day we read stories like this. We see famine, weather anomalies, drought, storms, glacier melt, water shortages, and warnings about everything from species extinction to the impact our actions are having on this planet. We know this is happening.... we know it is affecting real people in real places... so the logical next step should be doing something to either mitigate what is happening or planning to provide for those affected. We can't do that on a set time schedule. The Earth doesn't work that way. It works on its own schedule. Which is why this cannot be relegated to being a poltical issue and waiting for politicians to decide when it is more advantageous for them to do what must be done. How many more "meetings" is it going to take?
- 5 years ago
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JanforGore
