Sinking Without Trace: Australia’s Climate Change Victims

[Matilda]

"Like Kiribati and Tuvalu, the islands of the Torres Strait are slowly being submerged. But unlike their Pacific neighbours, the plight of their inhabitants is being overlooked."

It's a shame that I had to read this first in an English newspaper.

Link to article:http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/05/8727/


We all know by now that many Pacific Islands are sinking, and their
inhabitants moving to the nearest mainland countries. The Howard
government didn't really want to know too much about them, so it's New
Zealand that has absorbed many. But until today I hadn't read or heard
about the plight of the Torres Straight Islanders.

Kevin Rudd may be rather more enlightened than Howard on this issue (that
wouldn't be hard), but I'm troubled by hearing he and his ministers
prattling on about clean coal, which doesn't exist (and nor do we have
any idea when, or if, it might), and carbon trading, which is just
switching deck chairs on the Titanic. I don't really think he's much
more serious than Howard was about action on global warming, for the same
reason as most other world leaders - he's not willing to take on the
mining companies, the oil companies, the shipping and airline companies,
or any other group who fear that climate change action will mean a fall
in revenue. I know he doesn't want to rattle their cages by acting to
quickly, but the rhetoric suggests that little is even being
contemplated.

The 2020 summit was a useless and futile exercise, because without action
on global warming, we won't have a future to plan for. What was needed
was just one topic: what are we really, truly, going to do about the
impact of global warming on our land, our people, and our wildlife, all
of which are interdependent and under threat?

[Esra Star]

1. Matilda........

Torres "Straight" Islanders. Is he treating the gays differently?..hehe

The lessons learnt '72 thru '75 are lessons well learnt by students of politics.
Specifically, not enough of the Australian population were ready for the Whitlam tsunami.
Kevvy is very aware what has to be done and he will do it slowly at first and pick up the speed
as he detects that the populace is understanding. It's still early days.

The second issue of the Pacific Islands:- All these states will fail without permanent support.
Our main problem is the short term largesse offered by China, Japan, Taiwan.
I have no answer except to keep supporting them. New Zealand is the only Pacific nation with the critical mass to be self supporting.

That'll do for now.

Cheers

[Matilda]

2. Oops ... my bad.

Posting too quickly.

I haven't lost faith in Rudd yet, and I think for all that most Australians will say they believe
that climate change action is necessary, they're not yet prepared to make the sacrifices necessary
to reverse global warming. Corporations certainly aren't. And I know the importance of coal to
the economy; Rudd wouldn't dare at this stage even suggest that we should be rethinking our economic
dependence on it. I wouldn't want to be in his shoes on that one. But the fact remains that time
is running out, and my fear is that reality will only hit when it's already too late. I'm not sure
I care too much about the fate of the human race, because we're the ones who are responsible for
the destruction we're now facing, but I care about the wildlife, and the loss of innocent creatures
who have more sense than to destroy their own habitat as humans are doing.

Do you know much about what aid might be coming to these small island nations from China, Japan, and
Russia? Japan especially would like the numbers to gain a majority vote in the Whaling Commission,
so aid from them wouldn't surprise me, although what good it would do is a moot point.

[Esra Star]

3. No, I don't know the specifics of the aid from any country.

I understand that the Asian countries mentioned are not doing it for humanitarian reasons.
They are just doing it for the influence. Unfortunately they have a lot of money to throw around,
so the small nations are more than likely to accept the thirty pieces of silver.
At the moment Japan wants whaling rights. China wants to have the Pacific as a Chinese lake and the Taiwanese want fishing rights and to piss off the Chinese as much as possible.