by frog
Pan Pacific Unity: Pasifika youth support Reverend Tafue Lusama (pictured centre in brown jacket next to Reverend Mua Strickson-Pua) and his plea for urgent action on climate change. Photo: Susi Newborn/Oxfam.
An island leader’s eloquent plea for action to save his Pacific homeland from the ravages of climate change convinced audience members of the need for regional leadership on greenhouse gas emissions, and inspired a work of art.
Reverend Tafue Lusama of Tuvalu spoke about the immediacy of climate change in two sessions at Auckland’s Samoa House yesterday, saying many Pacific islands such as Tuvalu are already experiencing the worst effects of climate change.
He called for immediate greenhouse gas emissions cuts to ensure that people across the Pacific can remain on their islands. This would ensure the ongoing cultural identity that is tied to land.
“We do not want to lose our identity and our identity is strongly tied down to our land. Losing our land literally means our death as a distinct people on the face of this planet.”
Pacific youth in attendance were shocked at the situation in Tuvalu and in many other Pacific Islands and supported the call for urgent action.
Auckland community leader Reverend Mua Strickson-Pua, Green Party candidate for Mangere in the last two general elections, was inspired by the talks. He wrote this poem:
TUVALU
by Mua
There are
Islands
never far
from our hearts
but
deeply embedded
in the genetically encoded
tapa imprinted
tattooed
being
of our existence
where
treasured Ancestors
guard
eternity and our humanity
forever mindful
that our Islands
are never alone
and never forgotten
Published in Environment & Resource Management by frog on Wed, August 12th, 2009
Tags: action, climate change, culture, identity, pacific, poem, polynesia, reverend mua strickson-pua, reverend tafue lusama, samoa house, tattoo, threat, tuvalu, Youth
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
“people instinctively and rightly doubt others who spin end-of-the world stories, demand a “wrenching transformation” of society, and who clearly have a radical social agenda independent of (and predating) their climate concerns. People know from experience that, as H. L. Mencken observed, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” People have seen other eco-scares rise and get debunked over and over again.”
Quite so.
http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion/op-ed/People+know+politics+when+t hey/1876396/story.html
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All bullshit, islands sink as well, so stop the blame game. Saying that, why should we take these people, we have enough of the Pacifics troubles already. As they say, sink or swim.
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Your scared? we were all getting on with it because its a positive thing to do
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Climate alarmism: pure box-office gold:
http://www.ecorazzi.com/2009/08/11/val-kilmers-global-warming-thriller -worse-than-the-happening/
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Wat, if that review is at all descriptive of the movie I think we can count on nobody seeing the film completely, even if it is rented accidentally
Wow.
Try this one instead.
http://www.ageofstupid.net/
BJ
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.” People have seen other eco-scares rise and get debunked over and over again.”
When I was a kid I remember a scare that the ozone layer was being depleted and we wouldn’t be able to go out in the sun without getting skin cancer.
Sun screen and SPF factors were unheard of in them days.
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Eco-scares eh! That’s right. There are no environmental issues that might seriously affect humankind, it’s all imaginary
Relax good people. As you were.
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Sam.
If action hadn’t been taken to reduce ozone depleting chemicals in the atmosphere we would be in deep s*** now. The ozone layer is many decades away from fully recovering to pre-1970s levels, but it looks like it will _as a result_ of action to reduce use of CFCs and other ozone depleting chemicals. More information can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion
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samiuela Says:
August 13th, 2009 at 11:20 am
>The ozone layer is many decades away from fully recovering to pre-1970s levels, but it looks like it will _as a result_ of action to reduce use of CFCs and other ozone depleting chemicals.
If the ozone experience can tell us anything about future environmental problems, it’s ‘can we fix it? yes we can!’.
I’m not quite sure what Sam was trying to say, but I think he was being ironic in some way.
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Whatever the situation is in Tuvalu it is not being caused by rising seas caused by AGW.
I suggest you read the report on the SEAFRAME programme here:
http://www.bom.gov.au/pacificsealevel/presentations/briefing_paper_sps lcmp_nov_2006.pdf
And look at the graphs on table 13 on page 5. The whole Pacific island story was initiated by the great El Nino events of oof the meid seventies which caused sea levels to FALL around these islands by about 30cms in some cases. Then when it rose again everyone read this as a long term trend. There have been no changes in sea levels since 2000.
But you all know this so why keep maintaining the fiction?
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“I’m not quite sure what Sam was trying to say, but I think he was being ironic in some way.”
Sorry – years of living under Labour and National governments have made irony a natural reflex and survival strategy for me. I was pointing out that some ‘eco-scares’ aren’t debunked.
“people instinctively and rightly doubt others who spin end-of-the world stories, demand a “wrenching transformation” of society, and who clearly have a radical social agenda independent of (and predating) their climate concerns.”
Of course, “radical social agendas” tend to stem from awareness of global concerns, and awareness of one concern tends to create awareness of others. The editorial seems to be saying “if you are concerned about more than one issue, or have a solution to offer, you are therefore not credible.” Of course, if advocates do stick to a single issue, they can be written off as obsessive or unwilling to look at wider concerns.
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Owen,
Look at all the graphs on page 5 of the document you referenced. Every single trend curve is positive at the end of 2006. Its hard to tell what the exact values are, because the axes had to be drawn large enough to cover the relatively large trend values seen at the FSM site. You can see the actual trend values as of September 2006 in the table on page 4. Every single site (excluding FSM because of its short data record) has a trend value between 2.7 and 8.1 mm/year. Tuvalu has a sea level trend of 5.8 mm/year.
I suspect you have mis-interpreted the diagram in the article you referenced. The sea level trends “level” out at about 2-8 mm/year in the later years simply because the length of the data record is getting longer. If there were very high or low sea levels measured next year, they would not influence the shape of the curves as much as if the large or small values happened just a year or two into the record; its simply the fact that as the number of samples gets larger, extreme values have a smaller influence on the mean.
The values measured by the SEAFRAME gauges are consistent with the often quoted 10-20 cm sea level rise over the last 50 or so years. They are also consistent with the longer (but less accurate) data for the Pacific which you can see in Table 5 on page 15 of this document: http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO60032/IDO60032.2007.pdf By the way, this document has slightly more up-to-date SEAFRAME data, and Figure 5 on page 13 nicely illustrates the spatial variation of the sea level rise. Also, you can see some satellite altimetry data in Figures 8 and 9 on pages 17 and 18 of the document. The satellite data show global mean sea level has risen by 3.3 +/- 0.4 mm per year since 1992.
So there go three sources of data: SEAFRAME gauges, the historical (ie pre-SEAFRAME) gauges and the satellite altimetry, They all give a consistent message: mean sea level is rising. So the story of sea levels rising around the Pacific is not fiction; it really is happening.
The next question one wants to ask is why are the sea levels rising? The short answer is that it is mostly (to date) due to thermal expansion of the water in the ocean. In the future melting land-based ice sheets will possibly add a lot more to the sea level; time will tell (predicting which ice sheets will melt, and when is a difficult task). On top of that there are local variations caused by the land rising or falling. At individual sites these local variations can be much larger than the sea level change caused by thermal expansion, but averaged over the globe the thermal signal predominates.
OK, enough of the science. Perhaps you want to see what is really happening in Tuvalu? You can see some photos of the Tuvalu Meteorological Service’s observatory here:
http://informet.net/tuvmet/searise.html
I hope this has clarified the issue for you a bit?
Cheers,
Miuela.
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I am aware of the points you make.
And the commentaries I quoted said there is no recent acceleration in these rises which are to be expected since the ending of the LIA in the nineteenth century.
The commentaries point out that these rises are not “signicant” (four to eight inches over fifty years) because they are overwhelmed in most locations by other factors affecting the relationship between land and sea. Coral reefs grow faster than that for example. Tectonic plate movements have more impact on rising and falling net levels in others. The frequent tsunami events are more damaging that any slow persistent rate of small rise. Then there are genuine human impacts – such as mining of coral reefs for road building and irrigation which drains the aquifers and enable sea water incursions. Also beaches often generate accretion if sea level rises which build up the immediate foreshore.
There is no such thing as “average global sea level” except as a statistical artifact. A change in this average tells you nothing about what is happening on your own coastline. Only local measurements count.
It may suit the local politicians of the Pacific Forum to blame the rich westerners for all their problems but their own behaviour and normal natural changes are far more likely to cause any problems in the near future.
And there is NOTHING we can do to stop tectonic plates sliding one or more of these islands under the sea. Just as there is nothing we can do to stop Hawkes Bay sea levels falling as their plate grinds up over the Pacific Plate. The recent Earthquake in Whakatane lifted the plate about 6 inches overnight. Sixty years of global average rise in a few hours.
Sea levels near Great Barrier are falling, not rising. The Earth is dynamic – not a rigid crystal ball. We have to get used to it.
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As for the Tuvalu photos at http://informet.net/tuvmet/searise.html
You don’t suggest this is evidence of anything do you?
It simply shows some flooding at spring tides.
I can show you similar photos of St Mark’s Square at Venice.
Happens all the time.
These kinds of photos are classic propaganda. They propagate a belief while avoiding stating the evidence by ending with a question.
My answer to the question is that no one is saying there are never low level floods at Tuvalu but many say there is no sign of significant increase in frequency or height due to AGW.
If they had the evidence they would surely show it rather than some picture post cards.
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Owen,
You are right about local sea level variations often being larger than the 10 – 20 cm rise in mean sea level, but is is a flawed argument to suggest that a change in the mean sea level is meaningless. The change in the mean sea level is a background effect which applies over large areas and makes local variations more or less extreme.
There is another significant thing about the observed sea level rise; it supports the hypothesis that the oceans have been warming over the last few decades (because local variations can not explain the full amount of change seen in the mean sea level).
With regards Tuvalu, the people who have been living there long enough will tell you the flooding is getting worse. I know such evidence is not particularly reliable (the good old days were always better), but it is consistent with all the other evidence that the sea level is rising.
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Samiuela,
I guess it does not matter what argument Owen, or anyone else for that matter, brings forth.
In your eyes the sea levels are rising, in everyone elses eyes the island is sinking.
Do you think, just possibly, that over population of the island and the dropping of the fresh water table due to overuse could have even the tiniest, minutest contibuting cause for the island to sink?
Not to mention the plate that floats on a mantle of magna might be forced down as Owen has pointed out?
If we were argueing AGW you would be called a denier.
But hey, here on the Manukau we are sweet, no changes in the sea level in over fourty years (certidfed and peer reviewed).
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The sea water has to go somewhere. If one coastline rises so the relative sea level drops, the average sea level will rise slightly as the displaced water dispurses. Therefore it does make sense to speak of a global average sea level.
I get suspicious when people refer to data that is already several years old. Does the more recent data show more evidence of sea level rises?
Trevor.
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Gerrit
The satellite data says that the global average sea level is rising. The island may or may not be sinking as well, but at least some of the cause of their increased flooding is sea level rise.
AGW may also be causing increased storm surges.
They are right to point some of the blame at AGW, and since we have taken advantage of fossil fuels to achieve where we are today and therefore contributed to that AGW, it is only right that we should help them now.
Trevor.
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Trevor,
Alternativly, it could be argued that by not taking the actions neccacary to prevent the negative effects we are seeing here, actions easily pursuable, and by profitering off the actions of those using the contributing chemicals, and using them themselves, they have sealed their own fate and do not deserve any such assistance due to their lack of forplanning and action.
We have no obligation to them what-so-ever.
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Trying to use pacific islands as tide-gauges for the planet isn’t really a good idea. Attributing the problems of those islands to AGW alone isn’t a good idea either. The people there will do so… being able to correctly assess causation is difficult when the apparent effect is that the sea is rising. Purely human tendency, but that will be the perception.
However, this is a “Seinfeld” argument… it is an argument about nothing (Seinfeld said his show was a “show about nothing”). Not a good example of anything at Tuvalu. Not good for the people there but not easy to attribute to any one thing.
BJ
BJ
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Trevor29,
Makes the Manukau a very special place as the sea level here has not risen one mm. Guess the Manukau non sea level rise must have been allocated to the South Pacific. Tasman Sea might be immune from sea level rises?
When I see high restrictions being reduced under major bridges such as the Auckland , Sydney, etc Harbour bridges due to rising sea levels, then I will take it more seriously.
See “scientific” data says one thing, and practical applications such as clearance measurements under obstructions over waterways say quite another.
When that happens I prefer to believe that what I see in practical terms. The high tide mark has not shifted.
Go down to your nearest boat ramp or harbour facility and ask the locals. “Is the high tide mark getting higher?” The answer will be in conflict with the “scientific” findings.
So who do you believe?
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BJ,
Totally disagree with you that it is an rgument about nothing. Risingf sea levels are used all the time as a sure indicator that we are on a doomed planet unless we reduce our carbon foor print.
Was in Sydney last week where a Australian Green party member loadly claimed that the sea level would rise 20 metres (and cover the steps of the Sydney Opera House).
The rising sea levels are almost always used in the climate change discussion as a surefire indicator that ice is melting due to climate change.
Yet in anyones practical terms we dont see any.
So it is not an argument about nothing, it is in fact the very nub of the argument.
Sea level rises are one of the KPI’s used to promote climate change.
Trying to find a scientific paper on the effect potential sea level rises will have on the earths rotation. Currently much of the ice is at the poles and very close to the axis of the earth. If this ice melts and flows to the Pacific, its weight will be tranferred to equator and further from the axis. Potentially reducing the rotational spin of the earth as the weight is redistributed.
Could we get a wooble? Will the water actually flow to the Pacific or will the centralfrugal (sp?) force keep it up and closer to the poles.
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Gerrit
There are rising sea levels in the sense that scientists measure them and then there are the impressions of the people who live on a vulnerable Island. The first are what I noted earlier, real enough but not rapid nor significant in terms of the island. The latter are easy pickings for the media beat-up which then can be thought of as discrediting the science. Which never said it.
The sea level CAN rise 20 meters, and it very likely will if we do nothing. It takes a long time for that to happen. The last time we had 390 ppm there was no “we”, it was 3 million years ago, it was at least 3 degrees warmer and the oceans were 20 meters higher.
The point I’ve made, repeatedly though, is that the sea level is the LAST act in the tragedy. That means that the current rises are slow and not going to affect most people in their lifetimes. This is expected in the science of it.
There is still some time to enjoy your dacha on the beach and see if you can sell it in a decade or two to some greater fool who will experience more trouble.
The water will distribute around the geoid based on the mass distribution of the land under it as shown in the geoid entry in wikipedia, which is as good a treatment as any.
The mass movement from the poles will be uneven. The WAIS and GIS are offset from center. What will happen can be modeled but I haven’t heard of it being done. I suggested it once or twice, but the anticipated disaster is already great enough that something worse won’t mean anything at all.
http://www.uwgb.edu/DutchS/PSEUDOSC/IceCaps.HTM
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=global-warming-shorte ns-day
respectfully
BJ
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BJ,
Problem with the sea level rise KPI is that the perception is out there is that it will happen sooner rather then later. As seen by the brain imploding statement shown on this piece of tripe.
http://www.architectureanddesign.com.au/article/sydney-opera-house-at- risk-from-climate-change/493220.aspx
If rising sea levels are the end game why is the scare mongering scientific community pushing the rising sea level agenda when every sea going person can see that it is rubbish?
It is this type of activity that gives the climate change proponents such a bad image.
You can certainly have fun (not really funny haha, but in a mind teasing exercise way fun) with different scenarios.
How about this one. The volume of water on the pacific plate becomes so great tha the plate actually sinks away from its surrounding plates. This opens up the ring of fire around the Pacific and lets billions upon billions of water down onto the magna layer.
Creating a steam cloud so great that the sun is behind a permanant water vapour layers and the earth surface cools. Leading to another ice age.
Think I go down the pub and have a pint of Guiness while I still can.
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Gerrit
One of the possible explanations for the rising sea levels measured at some islands is that the islands are sinking. Have you considered that this might also apply in reverse? New Zealand is tectonically active, so how do you know that the land around Manukau is not rising at a similar rate to the sea level?
Trevor.
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Many years ago, I read a book called “Nemesis: the Death Star”. This was not science fiction. Rather it described the history of a scientific theory put forward by Walter Averez (sp?) that there could be a brown dwarf star (too small to ‘ignite’ and therefore almost invisible) in a 26 million year elliptical orbit around our sun which periodically disturbed the orbits of the comets in the cluster outside the orbit of Pluto, sending some of them towards the inner solar system. Some of the comets could strike the earth and cause a “nuclear winter” effect leading to some species extinctions and a redistribution of some of the water closer to the poles, increasing slightly the speed of rotation of the Earth and disrupting the flows within the Earth’s core that generate the Earths magnetic field temporarily. When things settle, the Earth’s magnetic field restarts but not always with the same orientation, casung N-S pole reversals (and increased high-energy particle bombardment from the sun while the magnetic field is down). Interestingly, the geological records support this timing including some dips where the magnetic field might not have reversed direction.
Could this happen with increased temperatures?
We futz with things we don’t understand at risk of our peril.
Trevor.
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Trevor29,
That was my argument with Samiula earlier, that it could quite be possible that New Zealand is rising and she consider that in her argument.
As New Zealand rises it will displace the water so that sea level rises in the Pacific Islands could be attributted to normal plate activity, not partly or solely due climate change.
So why are we not hearing about this, if satalites can measure sea level rises, so will they measure land rises?
And on the mind expanding fun “thinking about the consequence senario”.
Who will claim “rights” to this newly accessable land. Maori or the crown?
Oh the fun one can have. Might delay the pint of Guiness to think about that and the fact that my dream of having my property closer to the foreshore, due to rising se levels, being dashed.
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Are you on the Pacific plate or the Australian. I think I want to be on the Australian side. Maybe. Plate tectonics not being a specialty of mine. Seems to me that the idea of more water sitting on the Pacific plate and depressing it somewhat will make it sink rather faster and the Australian plate sit higher… maybe. OTOH, I’d expect more vulcanism on the Australian plate side of the subduction.
Won’t be me though. I hope my kids are smart enough to stay out of trouble.
BJ
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Gerrit,
Unless the volume of the Earth itself is changing, New Zealand can only rise if another area falls, so the net effect on sea levels is approximately neutral. The satellites are measuring a global average sea level rise. Don’t expect any more land to be exposed soon.
Trevor.
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The scientific community ? Surely you jest. The scare mongering is the media beat ups, taking selected scariest sound bites out of the minimal stuff that the reporters think they understand and using it to build their stories.
“If it bleeds it leads” is the watchword. The IPCC report isn’t mostly about sea levels.
respectfully
BJ
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Trevor29,
Not applicable to the Pacific Islands as their mass is small conmpared to New Zealand. If NZL rises 1cm, the water it displaces is far greater then that of a Pacific Island sinking. So while seal level may be neutral, the affect may not.
Looking at the ocean floor on google earth, the physical mass that is New Zealand (above and below the water level) is far far greater then that of the Pacific Island atolls.
BJ,
Yes, I take your point and agree, the interpretation of the scientific data is woeful in the media.
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So Tuvalu is being flooded by rising sea levels…
But no other pacific island is….
I think I spot a flaw….
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“I think I spot a flaw….”
Its called AGW hypocondria
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The land at the Manukau boat ramp may well be rising at the same rate as the sea.
Just as the land in Hawkes Bay is rising somewhat faster than the sea – which is why the sea level there is “falling”
On the other hand the land subsidence at Auckland wharf area is possible adding to the sea level rise.
The North of the UK is bouncing back from the last real ice age but the UK is rotating so that the South of the UK is being forced down – adding to the warming expansion rise. The whole of the European plate is generally bouncing back with a few local variations. That is why it is hard to panic the Dutch.
Measurement is the key.
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This may sound like a bad joke but it could be that one reason the sea levels are rising in the Cook Islands is that the Cooks are not included in the Sea Frame project so one way to stop the seas rising in the Cooks would be for our government to pay for them to join. Good cost benefit exercise.
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