Stranger Tides

As the war in climate change is reaching its climax in most low lying parts of the globe, the seemingly unnecessary war is waged on a few small nations defenseless against time and tide. The Pacific Ocean spans over more than 1/3 of the globe and hold a significant amount of authority because of its size. However, it is in these waters that the poorest of nations are found and so sparse in their distribution that they are almost always left out of worldwide data on climate change and lumped together with other smaller nations in the Mediterranean into what they call small island states. The islands throughout the Pacific vary in formation and height and just about everything else. The lower lying atolls being the immediate victims of climate change and rising sea levels.

Climate science is also a new science to the Pacific region in terms of its theory but the reality of it is as old as time. People see what is going on, and they usually do not need a scientist with a few tables and facts and data to tell him that the temperature and sea is rising. He already knows that there's a problem with Mother Earth and how she is being treated. The people were once tied to the very land they live on and the sea that enshrouds them like a blanket of safety that provides fish and other sea creatures for their well being. There are now strange diseases and stranger weather patterns taking over what was once a predicted system that ensured crops were planted in rotation to keep the population fed and looked after. No one was homeless and the Kingdom boasted of that, but how the times have changed just as the farmers realized cash cropping was more economically rewarding than traditional farming and sustainability.

While the experts and politics and scientists are arguing back and forth about the reality of climate change and how it should not be blown out of proportion or that carbon emissions need to be leveled out before human kind becomes obliterated; there are individuals who are moving their entire life from one end of the island to another trying to stay dry. While the US, China and India are among the highest emitters of carbon dioxide and are not willing to commit to any legally binding document it is appalling to see that their greed is taken out on these innocent lives. The Pacific nations have taken their plight to several of the UN conferences and networks on climate change yet they are still being pushed around. This invisible war with climate change is real in our everyday lives and in our fight for a future. It seems that the US will step up to protect their people against any threat under existence, how about the threat of climate change? Until someone turns climate change into an enemy threatening the lives of the entire US population, the war against it is futile.

How could more than 1/3 of the world be suffering from the ill doing of the rest of the world and yet nothing is being done about those nations? Isn't the UN a networking body that looks after the welfare of its members? Do we not condone the terrorist attack that the seas are making on the shores of our islands? Taking away our homes and forcing us into unnecessary migration and poverty. There is time to stand up for this and the time is now. We need to make first world nations realize that they are not the only ones who live on the earth. We may be small nations but we are people and we need to treated fairly and equally on an international scale and not shoved into smaller island nations subcategories. The cost of a human life should mean something, not because of their status and geographic location.