Tuesday, June 30, 2015

You're Making This Island Disappear

You're Making This Island Disappear

I try to stay afloat



You must click on this link and read this account of what climate change/sea level rise is doing to the Marshall Islands and where some climate refugees are settling in the US. You must meet the beautiful people who inhabit these islands and call them their home. They are no different than you. They are people who love their homes and families and cherish the Earth. They are people who have beautiful spirits and who live off the water that now threatens to take all they have because people in developed/industrialised countries for the most part do not understand or refuse to understand or care about what their consumerism and waste is doing to the rest of the world.

The only way to deal with climate destruction in any way that is to be construed as adequate in preserving civilization beyond this century is to look inside ourselves, understand and admit our own participation in what is happening and pledge to live a life that treats our Earth with respect and love as we ourselves wish to be treated and as our Earth treats us. This is why political (UN) conferences sponsored by the very entities responsible for this crisis will not ever do what is necessary to save us from the catastrophe that has already been put into motion.

The inhabitants of these islands have been wronged by the US and other countries in more ways than one. Not only is climate destruction now flooding their homes and cultures and threatening to overtake them- the effects of nuclear fallout from testing as far back as the 1940s (Bikini Atoll)- have also poisoned the water, ruined livelihoods and made it uninhabitable.

There will be no substantial progress in addressing climate destruction until we can all look beyond our front porches in the US and other industrialised countries to see the real and true effects of our actions and ask these questions: Just how much does our comfort at any cost supersede the continued existence of mankind? Also, what is our responsibility to the inhabitants of these islands in response to seeing their homes submerged?

Welcome To Bikini Atoll
How do we as Americans and humans not see the human rights abuses we have committed against the native people? And now we will abandon them as the waves submerge their lives? Climate destruction is not just about charts and graphs- it is about flesh and blood.


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