NationStates Jolt Archive

NOTE: There is no denying "global warming," regardless of what you might think is causing it. One of the most serious questions is what to do with those displaced by rising water levels. This article proposes one possible solution. What do you think?


Before the Flood (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/09/opinion/09byravan.html?th&emc=th)

By SUJATHA BYRAVAN and SUDHIR CHELLA RAJAN
Published: May 9, 2005

Cambridge, Mass. —. One of the paradoxes of global warming is that developing countries, which were not responsible for most of the greenhouse gas emissions that are changing the climate and did not reap the benefits of industrialization, will bear the brunt of the consequences. One of these consequences will be rising seas, which in turn will generate a surge of "climate exiles" who have been flooded out of their homes in poor countries. How should those of us in rich countries deal with this wave of immigrants? The fairest solution: allowing the phased immigration of people living in vulnerable regions according to a formula that is tied to the host country's cumulative contributions to global warming.

Conservative climate and hydrological models suggest that the average sea level will rise by about a foot by 2050, regardless of what new actions we take to reduce greenhouse gases. In some cases, entire nations will disappear; a harbinger of this is Tuvalu in the Pacific, whose government has asked Australia and New Zealand to accept its citizens as the sea swallows their island.

What we can do to prevent this is limited: the world's oceans have an enormous amount of what is called thermal inertia - a phenomenon that means that the effects of climactic changes are manifested very slowly. The cumulative impact of the past 150 years or so of greenhouse gases emitted during industrial development is only now starting to warm the planet, and that warming will continue long after we have created sensible policies to reduce greenhouse gases. So no matter what we do, a wave of climate change exiles is inevitable.

One option for dealing with this is to tighten our borders and inure ourselves to the exiles' cries for help. A more sensible, and just, approach is for the top greenhouse gas emitters - including China and India - to grant entry to the up to 200 million people who could lose their homes to rising seas by 2080.

How many should go where? Under our formula, the top cumulative emitter, the United States, would absorb 21 percent of the climate-change exiles a year; the smallest of the 20 major emitters, Venezuela, would absorb less than 1 percent. If such a program were to start in 2010, the United States, for example, would have to be prepared to accept 150,000 to a half-million immigrants a year for the next 70 years or so (to put that in context, the United States now has one million legal immigrants annually). Accepting these immigrants could actually benefit the host countries; many of them face a demographic crisis with a shrinking labor force and growing numbers of retirees.

The rising tide from climate change will not create the same conditions everywhere. While people in rich countries would generally be able to protect themselves and their property with seawalls, insurance and good warning systems, the effect of warming will be calamitous for poor countries. A solution like the one we've suggested may be a relatively painless, yet humanitarian way to deal with one of the devastating effects of a warming planet.

Sujatha Byravan is the president of the Council for Responsible Genetics. Sudhir Chella Rajan is the head of the Global Politics and Institutions Program at the Tellus Institute.

Oh, man, don't tell me you believe in it, too. :(

Nice idea, but I'm afraid human nature will keep many people from welcoming that many strangers into their countries, even after a disaster of this magnitude. :(

Nice idea, but I'm afraid human nature will keep many people from welcoming that many strangers into their countries, even after a disaster of this magnitude. :(

I'm sure the spread of disease will thin out the human population worldwide so there should be enough room for the surviving refugees.

Most countries will have people move away from the coast and further inward.

Hawaii is ****ed. :D

But, but, US conservatives tell us that global warming does not exist! Ergo, Tuvalu doesn't exist either.

Look, just because a few scientists says its happening doesnt make it so. It hasnt been proven. Plus why put them all in already crowded countries, dump them in SA and Africa instead. No one is there already. They can make new countries there.

And I hate to sound ignorant, arrogant and just plain stupid. But nature, and yes Im about to say it, GOD will come through to make a solution.

That or modern science. But your best bet is start praying.

Oh, man, don't tell me you believe in it, too. :(
Don't tell me you're one of the "free market faithful" (as I like to call 'em) who thinks that their ideology is more important than the reality of global warming. :(

But, but, US conservatives tell us that global warming does not exist! Ergo, Tuvalu doesn't exist either.
To me it seems these conservatives are putting their ideology before reality. They are so afraid that any attempt to prevent global warming will turn the world into a "socialist paradise". :rolleyes:

Look, just because a few scientists says its happening doesnt make it so.
That's true. Problem is, all the scientists in relevant fields say its happening. So I would start paying attention, if I were you.

Oh, man, don't tell me you believe in it, too. :(The denial entire sections of society are capable of never seases (sp?) to amaze me. Wow.

Look, just because a few scientists says its happening doesnt make it so. It hasnt been proven. Plus why put them all in already crowded countries, dump them in SA and Africa instead. No one is there already. They can make new countries there.

And I hate to sound ignorant, arrogant and just plain stupid. But nature, and yes Im about to say it, GOD will come through to make a solution.

That or modern science. But your best bet is start praying.

LOL, you remind me of this part in the movie "Erik the Viking" where this little island starts sinking because someone spilled a drop of forbidden blood on it, but instead of the inhabitants realizing what was happening, they all sat around singing and talking about how the island wasn't sinking, and could never sink....until they all sank, and all that could be heard was the bubbling and gurgling of their singing as they slipped under the surface to their deaths.

Burying one's head in the sand is really not a good way to deal with problems, and saying "God will fix it" is like running to tell the teacher that you've wet yourself instead of being a big kid and handling it on your own.

Hawaii is ****ed. :D

nah. no more so than usual anyway. a good chunk of the population already lives fairly well up off the beach, relatively speaking. the hotels on the other hand...

Ergo, Tuvalu doesn't exist either.

not for long, anyway.

and that certainly can't be the fault of global warming. it's probably the fault of their socialistic policies.

The Netherlands will probably also sink under water :(

And our people would probably move to the other european countries like Germany. We would help adding to their labour force (although not by that much since we're lazy).

Hell, we would probably be the richest ethnic minority across the world :eek:

not for long, anyway.

and that certainly can't be the fault of global warming. it's probably the fault of their socialistic policies.

Tuvaly has never existed. You've always been at war with Eurasia.

The United States should only accept those willing to speak our language, learn our laws, respect our constitution, and live the way Americans live. In short, if they are willing to become Americanized then let them come.

The denial entire sections of society are capable of never seases (sp?) to amaze me. Wow.

Doomsayers have been forecasting catastrophic events for years and years. And they've been wrong everytime.

The earth's temperature has been constantly changing. It's not the end of the world.

Look, just because a few scientists says its happening doesnt make it so. It hasnt been proven. Plus why put them all in already crowded countries, dump them in SA and Africa instead. No one is there already. They can make new countries there.

And I hate to sound ignorant, arrogant and just plain stupid. But nature, and yes Im about to say it, GOD will come through to make a solution.

That or modern science. But your best bet is start praying.
Yep, that graph showing temperature increasing is lying, damnit.

The United States should only accept those willing to speak our language, learn our laws, respect our constitution, and live the way Americans live. In short, if they are willing to become Americanized then let them come.

The USA do not have an official language.

The USA do not have an official language.
You mean does not. We are one nation, not many nations. English is culturally our official language if not legally. But in the future, a law will be passed to make it the official language. It is already is in the US military and other government departments.

You mean does not. We are one nation, not many nations.

"United States of America". Plural. Really, the Queen's English isn't that difficult.

English is culturally our official language if not legally. But in the future, a law will be passed to make it the official language. It is already is in the US military and other government departments.

Just give the Spanish-speaking minority some time. One official language will seem so silly to you then.

All those displaced people. . .small green crackers made from soy and sea products. . .OMG!!!

Ya gotta tell'em! Tell'im!! Its people! Soon they'll breed them like cattle!!!

"United States of America". Plural. Really, the Queen's English isn't that difficult.



Just give the Spanish-speaking minority some time. One official language will seem so silly to you then.
We don't speak the queen's english, we speak American english. And in american english United States of America means one nation with one republican government with 50 subject states that have to do what the national government tells them to on many issues.

We don't speak the queen's english, we speak American english.

Well, I don't speak American English. So please do not correct my language, as you say you do not even speak it.

And in american english United States of America means one nation with one republican government with 50 subject states that have to do what the national government tells them to on many issues.

Irrelevant. There are 50 states in your union. Your union is called "The United States of America", and thus as a pluralised noun the name takes the plural in standard English, which, by the way, is British English.

Your dialect is of no consequence to the English I speak.

Environmental Refugees

By Andrew Simms


The Guardian
15 October, 2003

The number of people seeking refuge as a result of environmental disaster is set to increase dramatically over the coming years.

Though they have no official status, environmental refugees are already with us. They are people who have been forced to flee their homes because of factors such as extreme weather, drought and desertification. There are already more of them than their "political" counterparts - 25 million, according to the last estimate, compared to around 22 million conventional refugees at their highest point in the late 1990s. By 2050, mostly due to the likely effects of global warming, there could be more than 150 million.

In 2001, 170 million people were affected by disasters, 97% of which were climate-related, such as floods, droughts and storms. In the previous decade more than 100 million suffered drought and famine in Africa, a figure likely to increase with global warming. Many times more were affected by floods in Asia.

According to one study, at least five small island states are at risk of ceasing to exist. There are several serious unanswered questions. What will happen to the exclusive economic zones of such countries, and what status will their populations have? Where whole nations become uninhabitable, should they have new lands carved out for them? Or should they become the first true world citizens? If there is no state left, how can the state protect its citizens?

Sea level rise in the range expected by the intergovernmental panel on climate change would devastate the Maldives. Without real international legal protection, their people could become resented minorities in Sri Lanka, itself threatened, or India, with its own problems. On the small South Pacific island of Tuvalu, people already have an ad hoc agreement with New Zealand to allow phased relocation. Up to 10 million could be displaced in the Philippines, millions more in Cambodia, Thailand, Egypt, China, across Latin America - the list goes on.

The effects of these population movements are likely to be highly destabilising globally unless they are carefully managed. But, in spite of the scale of the problem, no one in the international community, including the UN high commission for refugees (UNHCR), has taken control of the problem. UNHCR says that, institutionally, they are too poor and that environmental refugees should be dealt with at the national level. It's true that most parts of the UN system are underfunded. Ironically this, like global warming, is mostly the fault of wealthy industrialised countries for either not raising or meeting their contributions.

But without action, the countries least responsible for creating the problem stand to carry the largest share of costs associated with environmental refugees. Bangladesh, one of the world's poorest countries, expects to have around 20 million people displaced. Creating new legal obligations to accept environmental refugees would help ensure that industrialised countries accept the consequences of their choices. In certain circumstances, the suggestion that the solution must lie at the national level could be absurd - the national level may be under water.

In the academic community, there has been much quibbling over definitions. Some would exclude environmental refugees from the protection the Geneva convention affords because, they say, recognition would be "unhelpful", overloading the existing refugee apparatus. The alternative, though, is to rely on current humanitarian relief operations that are widely considered inadequate. The convention could, however, already be used in its current form. Refugees are defined as people forced to flee across an international border because of a well-founded fear of persecution, or fear for their lives and freedom due to, among other things, membership of a particular group.

In terms of well-founded fears, drowning, homelessness or starvation would seem to fit the bill. In terms of membership of a particular group, any community or indigenous group similarly prone would also fit. Numerous countries already cannot afford to meet the basic needs of their people. Without proper environmental refugee status, the displaced could be condemned to a national economic and geographical lottery, and to the patchwork availability of resources and application of immigration policies.

There is a wide acceptance that current national policies would not be remotely capable of handling the scale of the problem. The environment can clearly be "a tool to harm". But to fit the argument for refugee status, can the harm be called intentional? Yes, if a set of policies is pursued in full knowledge of their damaging consequences, such as flooding a valley where an ethnic minority might live in a dam-building project.

The causes and consequences of climate change - who is responsible and who gets hurt - are now well understood. Actively disregarding that knowledge would be intentional behaviour. Current US energy plans, for example, will increase greenhouse emissions 25% by 2010. This is a question of justice in adaptation to climate change. Environmental refugees need to be recognised, and the problem managed before it manages us.

From http://www.countercurrents.org/en-simms151003.htm.


"Islands are Lost Even Before the Sea-Level Rises: The Impacts of Climate Change on Small Island States (http://www.foei.org/publications/pdfs/island.pdf)"


Climate change's potential implications (not necessarily restricted to Tuvalu, at that) for territorial sovereignty and the viability of cultural identity are staggering.

"United States of America". Plural. Really, the Queen's English isn't that difficult.
My family are the same way.

Oh wait, collective nouns take the singular? What?

Well, I don't speak American English. So please do not correct my language, as you say you do not even speak it.



Irrelevant. There are 50 states in your union. Your union is called "The United States of America", and thus as a pluralised noun the name takes the plural in standard English, which, by the way, is British English.

Your dialect is of no consequence to the English I speak.Though the subject of the argument is really petty, the United States of America is singular, not plural. Its American policy, not American policies. See we are not a confederation or an alliance, we are one nation with one economy, one people, one leader, foreign policy, one set of supreme laws. To pluralize it would be to say that the United States of America was a bunch of different nation that are in a confederacy or alliance system and that is not a true description of the United States.

My family are the same way.

Oh wait, collective nouns take the singular? What?

Yes, they do. In British English. Thus you can say "the group are touring Europe". Which is of course not relevant to the United States, as the name itself is built on a pluralised noun.

Though the subject of the argument is really petty, the United States of America is singular, not plural. Its American policy, not American policies.

You are not referring to a plural there, hence the singular. Apples and oranges.

See we are not a confederation or an alliance, we are one nation with one economy, one people, one leader, foreign policy, one set of supreme laws.

Irrelevant. The Netherlands are also a nation. Does not mean that their name has to take the singular. In US English I am aware that it most often does. In British English, it doesn't have to.

It's quite similar to the French system, actually. It is "Les Etats Unis" and "Les Pays-Bas".

To pluralize it would be to say that the United States of America was a bunch of different nation that are in a confederacy or alliance system and that is not a true description of the United States.

You need to look into British English grammar. You seem really ignorant of it.

You are not referring to a plural there, hence the singular. Apples and oranges.



Irrelevant. The Netherlands are also a nation. Does not mean that their name has to take the singular. In US English I am aware that it most often does. In British English, it doesn't have to.

It's quite similar to the French system, actually. It is "Les Etats Unis" and "Les Pays-Bas".



You need to look into British English grammar. You seem really ignorant of it.
I think we've hijacked this thread enough. Time to give it back to its owner. We are not going to agree due to our cultural differences.

I think we've hijacked this thread enough. Time to give it back to its owner. We are not going to agree due to our cultural differences.

There is nothing to agree about. I speak British English. Its grammar allows the treatment of the term "The United States of America" as a plural. It's that simple.

Reading this thread, I have been astounded by the compassion some have shown! ;)

Yes, let's force all refugees into the African continent. Of course it's empty as much of it is desert! Heck, I have a better idea. Let's force refugees to live in Greenland. That's empty too, although that's because over 80% of the island is covered in permafrost. Well, given the rate of climate change in recent times, it won't be long until the permafrost melts and the land can be used! If they die - well, it's their fault for living in a low-lying region in the first place!

Global warming doesn't exist. The sea is not rising.

Countries like the Maldives, where the highest elevation available is two metres above sea level, have built huge concrete walls to prevent rising tides from potentially swamping their lands. I suppose they are being delusional, and are trying to waste tax-payers' money instead? See, the Maldives are even creating an artificial island, as they believe it will be inevitable that the capital, Malé, will be swamped.

Of course global warming isn't the end of the world, for those of you who live in well-elevated regions. It only means the end of the world for about the 150million people who live in low-lying regions.

There is nothing to agree about. I speak British English. Its grammar allows the treatment of the term "The United States of America" as a plural. It's that simple.

I remember reading an article in a British newspaper (when working in London) that told of a significant percentage of Americans not actually knowing why the English language was called "English." They genuinely didn't realise it was related to England and assumed it was just "what the language was called". It wasn't a majority of Americans, but it was a significant minority... I seem to remember that the same article told that a significant minority of Americans presented with an unlabeled map of the world and asked to point out USA pointed at Russia. The grounds given by these Americans when asked why was something along the lines of "it's the biggest country (area), thus it must be USA".

With such enlightened world knowledge, it's not so surprising that many Americans deny even the existance of global warming. It's also worth noting that one of the leading American "scientific" studies on global warming was funded by Exxon - so it's hardly surprising that it discovered there was no such thing.

You can argue all you like about the causes, but I know some of the people who developed the instruments for global temperature surveys, and I've seen the data for the land based temperature records, sea surface (from boats) temperature records, and sea surface (from space) temperature records. The result is the average global temperature is increasing.

You can argue all you like about the causes, but I know some of the people who developed the instruments for global temperature surveys, and I've seen the data for the land based temperature records, sea surface (from boats) temperature records, and sea surface (from space) temperature records. The result is the average global temperature is increasing.
I guess the point is, from some anti-global warming people, not that they don't believe that global warming is occuring, but rather that global warming isn't occuring as a result of human activity. Global temperature has been cyclic since the creation of the planet, why then had the current trend upward been assumed to be the result of human activities. Avg. temperatures 1000 years ago were higher than they are today. Avg. temperatures 100 years ago were lower than they are today.

Since it can't be shown that human activities are the cause, nor are affecting the climate shift, that is why policies like Kyoto are opposed by the anti-global warming crowd. Not that it doesn't exist, but rather why hamstring ourselves trying to change something we have no control over? Especialy why hamstring ourselves when others are left to continue unrestricted what it is that the pro-global warming crowd seem to rile so incessently about?

I guess the point is, from some anti-global warming people, not that they don't believe that global warming is occuring, but rather that global warming isn't occuring as a result of human activity. Global temperature has been cyclic since the creation of the planet, why then had the current trend upward been assumed to be the result of human activities. Avg. temperatures 1000 years ago were higher than they are today. Avg. temperatures 100 years ago were lower than they are today.

Since it can't be shown that human activities are the cause, nor are affecting the climate shift, that is why policies like Kyoto are opposed by the anti-global warming crowd. Not that it doesn't exist, but rather why hamstring ourselves trying to change something we have no control over? Especialy why hamstring ourselves when others are left to continue unrestricted what it is that the pro-global warming crowd seem to rile so incessently about?

There have been several posts denying it is happening at all.

This thread is about what to do with the inevitable refugee crisis caused by global warming, not what causes global warming.

"United States of America". Plural. Really, the Queen's English isn't that difficult.

But your sentence was "The USA do not have an official language." Now, someone so pompously aware of British English would know that collective nouns are regarded as plural when you are talking about specific members or parts. When speaking of them as an institution, like whether or not they have an official language, it would be treated as a singular.

Of course, I'm simply an ugly 'merican. What would I know. But then there is this (http://englishplus.com/grammar/00000193.htm) and then, if you scroll down from here (http://www3.ltu.edu/bannederrors/SUBVERB.HTML) you would see how it works again, or as they put it:
When a collective noun is treated as being plural in British English, it is because the implied subject is actually people belonging to the collective noun.

Look, just because a few scientists says its happening doesnt make it so. It hasnt been proven. Plus why put them all in already crowded countries, dump them in SA and Africa instead. No one is there already. They can make new countries there.

And I hate to sound ignorant, arrogant and just plain stupid. But nature, and yes Im about to say it, GOD will come through to make a solution.

That or modern science. But your best bet is start praying.

A few scientists?

If my salary were a "few" dollars - the same "few" as the scientists saying global warming is a fact - I would be quite well paid indeed.

Just give the Spanish-speaking minority some time. One official language will seem so silly to you then.

I love this whole "we need one official language or we'll all die" malarky - how ever do we survive in the EU with, what, 15? official languages [not counting the other, minority, languages which are not used for official business].

I guess the point is, from some anti-global warming people, not that they don't believe that global warming is occuring, but rather that global warming isn't occuring as a result of human activity. Global temperature has been cyclic since the creation of the planet, why then had the current trend upward been assumed to be the result of human activities. Avg. temperatures 1000 years ago were higher than they are today. Avg. temperatures 100 years ago were lower than they are today.

Since it can't be shown that human activities are the cause, nor are affecting the climate shift, that is why policies like Kyoto are opposed by the anti-global warming crowd. Not that it doesn't exist, but rather why hamstring ourselves trying to change something we have no control over? Especialy why hamstring ourselves when others are left to continue unrestricted what it is that the pro-global warming crowd seem to rile so incessently about?
According to the cyclic temperature changes we should be in a iceage now. It has been proposed that human aggreculture has caused deforestation and increased Methane and CO2 in the atmosphere, thus causing global warming the last 8000 years. The cover story in the march issue of Scientific American. It is just a hypothesis, but interesting anyway.

According to the cyclic temperature changes we should be in a iceage now. It has been proposed that human aggreculture has caused deforestation and increased Methane and CO2 in the atmosphere, thus causing global warming the last 8000 years. The cover story in the march issue of Scientific American. It is just a hypothesis, but interesting anyway.
I'll start worrying when the Viking Fields in Greenland are out from under the ice, they're growing wine-grapes in England, and Crow Canyon becomes good corn-growin' country again.

The whole "We're overdue for an Ice-age" crap was really popular in the 1950's and the 1970's, "Global Warming: the Scare Tactic" has been "current" since about 1985. Most models publicized to support this hypothesis have proven to be significantly flawed.

We live under a G2 Variable Star, on a Tectonically and Geologically active planet that goes through climate shifts frequently.
It's a sad thing about the folks in Tuvalu (Tuvalo?), and sure, the Netherlands is going to have a problem (then again, they've been holding back the North Sea for centuries! by all rights, the whole damn area should be ocean-bottom by now.)

What do we do about it? Well... first of all, don't buy land that's only five to eight inches above mean-sea-level, for starters.
This should really be a no-brainer folks, if your ground doesn't perk, and you've got seawater in the well, it's time to reconsider your lifestyle choices-the Tsunami that hit Bangladesh a few years ago (alright, 'decades ago') should have been a big, bright sign saying "Don't live at the bottom of the flood plain!!!" There's a reason people in some areas built the villages at the top of a hill, and did the farming in the bottomland-this has been lost on many folks.

People will, of course, insist on living and building their houses on unsuitable ground. (California: sites two cities in dusty desert bowl-valleys and wonders why they get smoggy? Puts a major urban centre in the middle of a desert where there is NO WATER???) Some of them will go so far as to site their Nations on what amounts to coral-reefs.

There's reeally only one thing that WILL be done about it: someone is going to take them in.
Now, who that someone is, is an open question, but it's probably whoever happens to be near enough that the leaky tubs can get there without capscizing.

Probably Indonesia, Africa, India, south China, maybe Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia/Thailand.

It's not a matter of what someone or other should do, it's what the people whose houses are going under water can do.

Eutrusca, occasionally you surprise me in a good way. :)

Yes, I agree that asking countries responsible for pollution to accept refugees in proportion to their degree of responsability in pollution and global warming is a fair idea. It also might just make polluting nations feel they can't do it with impunity.

The United States should only accept those willing to speak our language, learn our laws, respect our constitution, and live the way Americans live. In short, if they are willing to become Americanized then let them come.

No. If they have lost their entire country and way of life because of you, the very least you can do is open your borders to them, and help and encourage them to retain their own cultural ways once they're settled in your country. You owe them that much at the very least.

you would see how it works again, or as they put it:

Which was how I was treating it. Nice to see that you looked it up though, even though you failed to understand.

Look, just because a few scientists says its happening doesnt make it so. It hasnt been proven. Plus why put them all in already crowded countries, dump them in SA and Africa instead. No one is there already. They can make new countries there.

And I hate to sound ignorant, arrogant and just plain stupid. But nature, and yes Im about to say it, GOD will come through to make a solution.

That or modern science. But your best bet is start praying.

Right. So I shouldn't perform first aid on that person who just got severely cut in a construction site accident. Nope, I shouldn't call an ambulance, I don't need to trouble myself to do that. God will sort things out for me, I don't need to take any responsibility.

And in american english United States of America means one nation with one republican government with 50 subject states that have to do what the national government tells them to on many issues.

So, if the USA had a democrat government it would cease to become the United States of America? :p

Eutrusca, occasionally you surprise me in a good way. :)

Yes, I agree that asking countries responsible for pollution to accept refugees in proportion to their degree of responsability in pollution and global warming is a fair idea. It also might just make polluting nations feel they can't do it with impunity.



No. If they have lost their entire country and way of life because of you, the very least you can do is open your borders to them, and help and encourage them to retain their own cultural ways once they're settled in your country. You owe them that much at the very least.
I owe them nothing at all. Its not my fault they did absolutely nothing while their lands got flooded. America's territorial inegrity requires that all immigrants be Americanized regardless of where they come from. History has proven this point over and over again.

I owe them nothing at all. Its not my fault they did absolutely nothing while their lands got flooded.

If you were a Tuvaluan, what exactly would you be doing to prevent your country from vanishing? Tell me, what do you think you even could do? You're saying that those who created this situation bear no responsability, while those who were helpless to prevent it from happening are responsible. Don't you feel there's something very wrong with your logic there?

I owe them nothing at all. Its not my fault they did absolutely nothing while their lands got flooded. America's territorial inegrity requires that all immigrants be Americanized regardless of where they come from. History has proven this point over and over again.
I agree we should blame the victim. While we're at it lets blame the jews for not doing anything about that holocaust. Lousy slackers.

If you were a Tuvaluan, what exactly would you be doing to prevent your country from vanishing? Tell me, what do you think you even could do? You're saying that those who created this situation bear no responsability, while those who were helpless to prevent it from happening are responsible. Don't you feel there's something very wrong with your logic there?

He is entirely correct. Those Tuvalans should have been insured. They can also sue, go to war, or buy a ship. How many are they?

If you were a Tuvaluan, what exactly would you be doing to prevent your country from vanishing? Tell me, what do you think you even could do? You're saying that those who created this situation bear no responsability, while those who were helpless to prevent it from happening are responsible. Don't you feel there's something very wrong with your logic there?
Go blame the third world, they put out 20 times more pollution than the US does :rolleyes: . I'm sure they'll let you walk in and impose your cultures and laws on their own territories. What you have to understand is its a matter of national soverignty and the US of A, like all other nations, is not under any obligation to give up its soverignty nor does it have to change its laws to fit the foreign cultures of immigrants. The fact is that WHEN the flooding happens, the citizens of the affected countries will have to realize that like the Palestinians, they are become peoples who have no homelands. They also need to realize that whatever nation they flee to, they have an intrinsic responsibility to learn and speak the language of that nation and to abide by its laws, respect its history and traditions, and and live in accordance with that nation's social norms. After all, no nation is required to accept refugees from anywhere. Even the US refuses refugees from places around the world despite our reputation of taking in huge numbers of them.

So, if the USA had a democrat government it would cease to become the United States of America? :p

No, you'd just be more likely to accept a Democrat refusing to allow the refugees in!:D

Enslave them and put them into the Coal Mines for the Greater 5th Reich!

Nothing slow down the evils that cause such Terror!

I'll start worrying when the Viking Fields in Greenland are out from under the ice, they're growing wine-grapes in England...
snip
....the 1970's, "Global Warming: the Scare Tactic" has been "current" since about 1985. Most models publicized to support this hypothesis have proven to be significantly flawed.


Wine-grapes are grown in England. Some nice varieties, actually.

From a recent report in The Independent:

The final proof: global warming is a man-made disaster
By Steve Connor, Science Editor in Washington

19 February 2005

Scientists have found the first unequivocal link between man-made greenhouse gases and a dramatic heating of the Earth's oceans. The researchers - many funded by the US government - have seen what they describe as a "stunning" correlation between a rise in ocean temperature over the past 40 years and pollution of the atmosphere.


I can't quote specifics because I can't find my card to grab the rest of the article, but I read it when it was first printed and it basically amounts to actual proof that human activity is having a noticeable affect on global warming. So STFU, your pretentious verbosity isn't helping your argument.

They also need to realize that whatever nation they flee to, they have an intrinsic responsibility to learn and speak the language of that nation and to abide by its laws, respect its history and traditions, and and live in accordance with that nation's social norms. After all, no nation is required to accept refugees from anywhere. Even the US refuses refugees from places around the world despite our reputation of taking in huge numbers of them.
There's a difference between respecting your host nation's beliefs and becoming a part of the pathetically homogenous mass yourself. And besides, you should hardly get more of a say because you were there first - that's pure luck. You should accept immigrants because you're the main offenders (this applies to most of the West, not just the US), and stop thinking in terms of geography.

He is entirely correct. Those Tuvalans should have been insured. They can also sue, go to war, or buy a ship. How many are they?

Tuvalu has arranged a de facto relocation regime with Wellington; 70 of its ~11,000 citizens (inhabiting nine primary coral atolls and countless smaller islets, distributed about 468,000 square miles of ocean and cumulatively amounting to around 10 square miles of dry land) are thus permitted to depart for permanent residence in New Zealand each year [the figure was established with the preclusion of drastic dissolution of infrastructure in mind].

Tuvalu has, through the United Nations, both appealed the international community for humanitarian resolutions and pursued restitution from what it views to be complicit nations; it has contemplated suing (http://www.atimes.com/oceania/DC07Ah01.html) (as have the Inuit (http://www.contumacy.org/bbs/index.pl?noframes;read=41265)) the governments of Australia and the United States for refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol (though legal action against certain companies thereof now seems more likely); and it has sought to mobilize other low-lying nations, as the Maldives, as a means of realizing their mutual interests.

TUVALU IS THREATENING TO SUE WASHINGTON AND AUSTRALIA over their refusal to back the Kyoto protocol, which sets targets aimed at cutting greenhouse emissions blamed for global warming and rising sea levels. While not expecting to win what would be lengthy and expensive legal cases, observers say that Tuvalu would at least draw global attention to its plight.

"The Pacific Island of Tuvalu has criticised Australia's position on global warming for favouring the United States at the expense of its neighbours." Tuvalu's Prime Minister, Koloa Talake, said he was considering international legal action against major Australian companies whose emissions contributed to global warming and rising sea levels.

Pacific states are seeking ways to blackmail rich polluting nations and multinational concerns whose emissions of greenhouse gases they say are wiping them out. Tuvalu, a string of nine coral atolls five meters (16 feet) above sea level at their highest point, fears its last palm tree could sink beneath the Pacific within 50 years. Other threatened Pacific islands include Kiribati, Niue and the Marshall Islands and the Maldives in the Indian Ocean.

Bob Foster writes us from Adelaide: "Such an action by the Tuvalu authorities would be the best that could happen since then the scientific foundation of the 'greenhouse effect' would be tested in court and independent scientists would be heard as experts. Provided we could be sure the action would be brought in the US or Australia, and not The Hague, we sceptics might consider launching the 'Save Tuvalu' campaign."

Tuvalu and other Pacific nations were looking at taking legal action in the International Court of Justice. A case against Australia was possible, but action against Australian companies was more likely, Mr. Talake said. These industries in industrialised countries, they are the cause of global warming and they are the ones we would like to take to court. Companies likely to face action would be the biggest gas emitters, such as major oil companies, he said.

Mr. Talake also announced a partnership with Ecos Corporation, headed by former Greenpeace chief Paul Gilding, to develop a model for a sustainable and renewable energy system for Tuvalu, likely to be based on solar or wave power."

Australia's National Tidal Facility (NTF), based at Flinders University in Adelaide, has installed and maintained eight sophisticated tide gauges at South Pacific sites, including Tuvalu. Since the instrumentation was installed in 1993, average sea level increase at Tuvalu has been 0.5 mm/yr, being a rate of 5 cm per century.

A similar analysis of 27 data-sets for the Pacific (longest record, 92 years at Honolulu) yields a rise of 8 cm per century. Crucially, the Mitchell et al paper says: "..... visually at least, and at this stage, there is no clear evidence for an acceleration in sea level trends over the course of the last century."

Why then is Mr. Talake so upset?

He could be concerned that the Summary for Policymakers of IPCC's new Third Assessment Report states that:
"Tide-gauge data show that global-averaged sea level rose between 0.1 and 0.2 metres (i.e. 10 and 20 cm) during the 20th century." But "Within present uncertainties, observations and models are both consistent with a lack of significant acceleration of sea level rise during the 20th century." And continues, implausibly: "Global mean sea level is projected to rise by 0.09 to 0.88 metres between 1990 and 2100."

Even this dubious prediction should pose no problem for a coral atoll. After all, the sea has risen some 130 metres over the past 20,000 years, and atolls have maintained their station - at just above sea level.

Coral grows, if you let it. Storms break it off, and throw it up above the reach of normal tides. Islands like Tuvalu are self-maintaining - provided you don't interfere. But if you gather up the coral debris for use in construction work; if you pave parts of the highly-permeable island surface and allow fresh water from rainfall to run into the sea instead of soak into the ground; and if you build flush toilets and discharge the effluent into the sea; then your island is doomed.

"It is likely that Mr. Talake's problem is real enough. He calls it greenhouse. I would call it over-population," writes Bob Foster.

From http://www.sepp.org/weekwas/2002/April6.htm.

Postcards from the Edge (http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/02/16/braasch-tuvalu/#)

There's a difference between respecting your host nation's beliefs and becoming a part of the pathetically homogenous mass yourself. And besides, you should hardly get more of a say because you were there first - that's pure luck. You should accept immigrants because you're the main offenders (this applies to most of the West, not just the US), and stop thinking in terms of geography.
Seeing as you are in the business of flaming people, http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8852617&postcount=51 ,
I am not sure anything you post is even valid.

We are not the main culprits.
Look we don't the Europeans or any one else for that matter, a damn thing. And yes, a citizen of the host nation (I speak of all would be host nations, not just the US), does have greater say over the development and enforcement of that nation's laws than any immigrants do regardless what the reason for their refugee status is. Even the US Supreme Court ruled in the Prop 187 case that US citizens are protected by the US Constitution whereas non US citizens are not. And I'm pretty sure that every other nation on earth has a constitution that says the same thing.

Tuvalu has arranged a de facto relocation regime with Wellington; 70 of its ~11,000 citizens (inhabiting nine primary coral atolls and countless smaller islets, distributed about 468,000 square miles of ocean and cumulatively amounting to around 10 square miles of dry land) are thus permitted to depart for permanent residence in New Zealand each year [the figure was established with the preclusion of drastic dissolution of infrastructure in mind].

Tuvalu has, through the United Nations, both appealed the international community for humanitarian resolutions and pursued restitution from what it views to be complicit nations; it has contemplated suing (http://www.atimes.com/oceania/DC07Ah01.html) (as have the Inuit (http://www.contumacy.org/bbs/index.pl?noframes;read=41265)) the governments of Australia and the United States for refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol (though legal action against certain companies thereof now seems more likely); and it has sought to mobilize other low-lying nations, as the Maldives, as a means of realizing their mutual interests.



From http://www.sepp.org/weekwas/2002/April6.htm.

Postcards from the Edge (http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/02/16/braasch-tuvalu/#)
well, supposingthis was a legitimate source, I read the whole thing. If you read the bottom, it says that the problem of Tuvalu and the other islands mentioned is overpopulation, not global warming. Neither Australia nor the US can be held responsible for the sexually promiscous behavior of the Tuvalese people. I can predict, based on this article that you give as "proof" that even the ICC will throw out such cases as being frivolous.
Futher, I would note that all the islands mentioned are corals. Corals are not made of dry land. They are made of the shells of billions of tiny plankton. Collectively, those shells are called corals and together they get big enough to form what we think of as islands. Now as the article states, if you pave over the stuff, or if you use it for building things, you reducing the size of your island. Unlike other islands, corals are living things. But they don't regrow over night. If you chop down a couple of trees to obtain wood to build your house, you know they won't grow back overnight. At the same time, you wouldn't go suing your next door neighbor for frivolous reasons that have nothing to do with the demise of your own home.
The other thing I note is that the article says the other reason for the shrinking of the coral is that the inhabitants are pouring toilet cleaner into it. You have to realize the toilet cleaner has lots of chemicals init that kill coral and cause it to shrink. So instead of Tuvalu being the plaintiff I would think it more logical that Tuvalu be the defendant for attacking and killing members of an endangered species. There are plenty of sites, such as the WWF one, that have shown that corals are endangered species. And even the UN recognizes them as such. Therefore, Tuvalu risks its own illegal actions being made manifest, and such actions are more dire than the global warming they claim is "destroying" their islands. Global warming is going to take at least a hundred years to go into effect. What the Tuvulans are doing, could destroy their islands within the next 20 to 30 years. You get the picture of which problem I think is more immediate. Why should we let the Tuvalans into our nation? So they can kill off our endangered species too?

A lot of people misinterpret the term "global warming" understandably. Not everywhere is going to end up being hotter, because you have to realise the other factors, such as ocean currents.

Doomsayers have been forecasting catastrophic events for years and years. And they've been wrong everytime.

The earth's temperature has been constantly changing. It's not the end of the world.
lol, this is science we're talking about, not Nostradamus.

No, the world is not ending, but if we don't start working, it will irreversibly change for the worse.

I'll start worrying when the Viking Fields in Greenland are out from under the ice, they're growing wine-grapes in England, and Crow Canyon becomes good corn-growin' country again.
Or when the Gulf Stream has been shut down, and Scandinavia is underwater? It's fine for you living a thousand miles inland in Nebraska or wherever, but what about us?

We live under a G2 Variable Star, on a Tectonically and Geologically active planet that goes through climate shifts frequently.
It's a sad thing about the folks in Tuvalu (Tuvalo?), and sure, the Netherlands is going to have a problem (then again, they've been holding back the North Sea for centuries! by all rights, the whole damn area should be ocean-bottom by now.)

What do we do about it? Well... first of all, don't buy land that's only five to eight inches above mean-sea-level, for starters.
So you're saying "yeah, global warming exists, but I'm too mean to do anything about it. screw everyone who will be affected!" :rolleyes:

It's not a matter of buying land there. Most of the 150 million people who will be affected have lived in these low-lying areas for a very long time.

Let me guess, you think that the tsunami survivors deserve no help because it was their "personal responsibility" to live where the tsunami hit, right? :rolleyes:

A lot of people misinterpret the term "global warming" understandably. Not everywhere is going to end up being hotter, because you have to realise the other factors, such as ocean currents.


lol, this is science we're talking about, not Nostradamus.

No, the world is not ending, but if we don't start working, it will irreversibly change for the worse.


Or when the Gulf Stream has been shut down, and Scandinavia is underwater? It's fine for you living a thousand miles inland in Nebraska or wherever, but what about us?


So you're saying "yeah, global warming exists, but I'm too mean to do anything about it. screw everyone who will be affected!" :rolleyes:

It's not a matter of buying land there. Most of the 150 million people who will be affected have lived in these low-lying areas for a very long time.

Let me guess, you think that the tsunami survivors deserve no help because it was their "personal responsibility" to live where the tsunami hit, right? :rolleyes:

1. Nature is fully capable of repairing itself.

2. You mean "under a massive ice sheet", not "under water"

Seeing as you are in the business of flaming people, http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8852617&postcount=51 ,
I am not sure anything you post is even valid.

We are not the main culprits.
Look we don't the Europeans or any one else for that matter, a damn thing. And yes, a citizen of the host nation (I speak of all would be host nations, not just the US), does have greater say over the development and enforcement of that nation's laws than any immigrants do regardless what the reason for their refugee status is. Even the US Supreme Court ruled in the Prop 187 case that US citizens are protected by the US Constitution whereas non US citizens are not. And I'm pretty sure that every other nation on earth has a constitution that says the same thing.

In the post you pointed to I mentioned a report which kills the 'global warming isn't noticeably affected by humans' argument - a valid point, I would assume, since it is relevant to the debate and from a reputable source. As for this post, I also raise a valid point - and just because your beloved Constitution says so, doesn't make it morally justifiable. Did the word 'pathetic' magically transform my post from a valid point into a flame? I was simply highlighting my contempt for this aspect of modern society, a view I'm fairly sure is widely shared.

A lot of people misinterpret the term "global warming" understandably. Not everywhere is going to end up being hotter, because you have to realise the other factors, such as ocean currents.


lol, this is science we're talking about, not Nostradamus.

No, the world is not ending, but if we don't start working, it will irreversibly change for the worse.


Or when the Gulf Stream has been shut down, and Scandinavia is underwater? It's fine for you living a thousand miles inland in Nebraska or wherever, but what about us?


So you're saying "yeah, global warming exists, but I'm too mean to do anything about it. screw everyone who will be affected!" :rolleyes:

It's not a matter of buying land there. Most of the 150 million people who will be affected have lived in these low-lying areas for a very long time.

Let me guess, you think that the tsunami survivors deserve no help because it was their "personal responsibility" to live where the tsunami hit, right? :rolleyes:
Yes, global temperature/climate is changing. The thing is, nothing we do will have any affect on it... it will change regardless. That's why Kyoto IS bs... it will have no affect on global climate change. Another reason Kyoto is bad, even assuming it's all true, Kyoto has no provisions for the very worst offenders. If it's good for the goose, it's good for the gander.

...Kyoto has no provisions for the very worst offenders.

The worst offenders are having enough trouble with signing (ratifying, whatever)it as it is.

If they have lost their entire country and way of life because of you, the very least you can do is open your borders to them, and help and encourage them to retain their own cultural ways once they're settled in your country. You owe them that much at the very least.
You must understand. In Whittier's mind, compassion = communism!

I owe them nothing at all. Its not my fault they did absolutely nothing while their lands got flooded.
As the heaviest polluting nation, it is your fault.

GThe fact is that WHEN the flooding happens, the citizens of the affected countries will have to realize that like the Palestinians, they are become peoples who have no homelands. They also need to realize that whatever nation they flee to, they have an intrinsic responsibility to learn and speak the language of that nation and to abide by its laws, respect its history and traditions, and and live in accordance with that nation's social norms. After all, no nation is required to accept refugees from anywhere.
So you're basically saying "screw 'em, they lost their homes"?

When you basically destroyed their home, you are required to take them in. I'm not saying they should not abide by American laws, but they should be allowed to preserve their culture.

Go blame the third world, they put out 20 times more pollution than the US does
Wrong.

We are not the main culprits.

Look we don't [owe] the Europeans or any one else for that matter, a damn thing.
The USA is the biggest polluter in the world.

I see you strike out at the perrenial enemies "the Europeans" again. Who ever said we were talking about the Europeans? We're talking about the 3rd world.

In the post you pointed to I mentioned a report which kills the 'global warming isn't noticeably affected by humans' argument - a valid point, I would assume, since it is relevant to the debate and from a reputable source. As for this post, I also raise a valid point - and just because your beloved Constitution says so, doesn't make it morally justifiable. Did the word 'pathetic' magically transform my post from a valid point into a flame? I was simply highlighting my contempt for this aspect of modern society, a view I'm fairly sure is widely shared.
1. The issue of whether humans are impacting global warming is not at debate. Most of the world, including the Bush administration, agrees the evidence says it does. So it would be irrelevant.

2. Moral justification is in the eyes of the people of the host nation. And many people hold their country's constitution to be the ultimate arbiter of defining moral justice.

3. See the bottom of your post where tell him to "STFU".

4. There are many things that many people don't like about modern society. That doesn't excuse what you did. You were doing a good job of making your points until you got to that flame part. My experience here has been that one small flame can invalidate an argument no matter how a point it is or how many sources you cite. By flaming at the end of your post, you invalidated your own argument.

That's why Kyoto IS bs... it will have no affect on global climate change. Another reason Kyoto is bad, even assuming it's all true, Kyoto has no provisions for the very worst offenders. If it's good for the goose, it's good for the gander.
I agree. I think Kyoto does not go far enough.

1. Nature is fully capable of repairing itself.

Eventually, yes. But how much damage should a handful of human elites be allowed to do to the Earth?

You must understand. In Whittier's mind, compassion = communism!


As the heaviest polluting nation, it is your fault.


So you're basically saying "screw 'em, they lost their homes"?

When you basically destroyed their home, you are required to take them in. I'm not saying they should not abide by American laws, but they should be allowed to preserve their culture.


Wrong.


The USA is the biggest polluter in the world.

I see you strike out at the perrenial enemies "the Europeans" again. Who ever said we were talking about the Europeans? We're talking about the 3rd world.


Cultures come and go, only the species continues on. We are not required to preserve said cultures. No nation is required to preserve the culture of another nation. If they want to have their own schools, America allows that, but not a taxpayer expense. And since many of the refugees will pretty much have lost their savings, I doubt they would be able to do such things. Even in those cases (of the development of a netherlands town), they are still bound to abide by and enforce the laws of the nation they live in. They are not allowed to move in and carve out their own governments and laws. And, we are not required by any law or moral obligation to taek anyone in. They must respect and abide by the host culture, not just the host laws. This is the reason the minuteman project has been such a big success. Because the mexicans think they have "right" to move to the US and impose their own culture on the host nation. It is for that reason that Americans want to shut down their borders.

By 2020, China will have surpassed the US as the world's biggest polluter. But since they are still defined as third world, I take it you believe them to be totally innocent? The same applies with India. Both nations pollution rates are growing at such a pace that they will outpace America in the next 15 to 20 years. Some reports says that China will outpace America in the next 10 years.

The Europeans are the ones saying "blame America for all evil on earth" so what do you expect I'm going to do. Besides, with the exception of the low countries, Europe won't be as harshly affected as is being made out. Even with the flooding of the Netherlands, the Europeans will still have plenty of land for their dutch brothers. But we have to remember that Europe is still the second largest polluter after the US, and hence, due to local, they are more responsible for what happens to the dutch than the US is.
Its kind of like that situation where Abe is concerned about all the trees being cut down. So he sues Martin who lives down the street cause Martin cut down a tree that was on Martin's property. In the meantime, Abe demonizes Martin as the vile enemy of all trees who must be forced to pay for the destruction of every single tree in the neighborhood. And all this time, Abe is cutting down the trees that are on his own property. Let us remember that while Europe blames America for Europe's environmental problems, that half of Europe, has either no environmental protection laws, or the laws they do have is so lax that they don't do anything. Even in Western Europe, there a couple of environmental laws that aren't even enforced. The US, especially the state of California, has the most stringent enviro laws in the world. And we are bettter at enforcing those laws than half of europe is. The only Europeans I believe come even close to equaling or surpassing the US in E Law enforcement are the germans and the danish. The british are close behind.
The third world nations have no environmental protections whatever. And before start citing that this nation has that law on its books, even those third world nations that do have such laws, don't enforce them.

I agree. I think Kyoto does not go far enough.


Eventually, yes. But how much damage should a handful of human elites be allowed to do to the Earth?
This is not an issue of class warfare. Global warming has detrimental consequences regardless of whether they are third world or elite.
Using global warming to fuel resentment, class warfare, hatred, fear, will have devastating consequences not only for a peaceful resolution of mankind's common problem, but will inevitably lead to a new global dark ages where nations break up into fiefdoms where neither constitutions nor human rights mean a thing and the clock will have been turned back to the stone age where minorities and women will lose all rights they have required today.

Oh, man, don't tell me you believe in it, too. :(I thought you were one of the intelligent right-wingers. All reputable scientists agree- global warming is real. The ones that don't generally work for oil companies.

This is not an issue of class warfare. Global warming has detrimental consequences regardless of whether they are third world or elite.

but those who are in the worst position to deal with those consequences are the poor - who, incidentally, are not a significant causal factor in the problem.

1. The issue of whether humans are impacting global warming is not at debate. Most of the world, including the Bush administration, agrees the evidence says it does. So it would be irrelevant.

2. Moral justification is in the eyes of the people of the host nation. And many people hold their country's constitution to be the ultimate arbiter of defining moral justice.

3. See the bottom of your post where tell him to "STFU".

4. There are many things that many people don't like about modern society. That doesn't excuse what you did. You were doing a good job of making your points until you got to that flame part. My experience here has been that one small flame can invalidate an argument no matter how a point it is or how many sources you cite. By flaming at the end of your post, you invalidated your own argument.
1.Most of the world, yes. But people on that forum had been arguing otherwise, it seemed. I was correcting them.

2. I'm of the opinion that the majority of the people are too stupid to govern themselves. I'm ideologically anarchist, but practically I think the best thing we could have is a dictatorship until the general populace is educated. Dangerous thinking, but these are dangerous times.

3. Fair point.

4. Fair do's, I apologize and bow to your experience (I'm new here). I do tend to get very annoyed about this sort of thing, but try to keep it out of my posts. Keep rockin', fella.

I thought you were one of the intelligent right-wingers. All reputable scientists agree- global warming is real. The ones that don't generally work for oil companies.

Actually, even the oil companies are coming around. Now its just the extremists who are refusing to accept that global warming is real. Even President Bush believes in the human impact on global warming.

but those who are in the worst position to deal with those consequences are the poor - who, incidentally, are not a significant causal factor in the problem.
Another person with the "blame the rich" attitude. The fact is that the poor are a significant causal factor in the problem. It is the poor who work in the most liable factories. While it is the rich that own the factories, it is the poor who are releasing the tons of pollutants from said factories.
There is no way around it, that the rich and the poor bear equal responsibility for the problem. As I stated in my post, such an attitude as yours will certainly result in the collapse of modern civ back into the dark ages which will be much worse than global warming will be.

Actually, even the oil companies are coming around. Now its just the extremists who are refusing to accept that global warming is real. Even President Bush believes in the human impact on global warming.
Well at least that's good news.
But seriously, Whittier, your arguement seems to boil down to "Oh well, seems like their problem." Try the old "put yourself in someone else's shoes" exercise. I have a feeling your outlook would change if it were you.

1.Most of the world, yes. But people on that forum had been arguing otherwise, it seemed. I was correcting them.

2. I'm of the opinion that the majority of the people are too stupid to govern themselves. I'm ideologically anarchist, but practically I think the best thing we could have is a dictatorship until the general populace is educated. Dangerous thinking, but these are dangerous times.

3. Fair point.

4. Fair do's, I apologize and bow to your experience (I'm new here). I do tend to get very annoyed about this sort of thing, but try to keep it out of my posts. Keep rockin', fella.
1. I already saw your point before I read it.

2. I would have to agree, that is why we have national governments with total soverignty over their lands. But rather than taking their land or constitutions from them, we need to educate and elevate such people.

4. I get annoyed as well at some of these people. You have to be careful cause one of their pasttime is laying traps.

Well at least that's good news.
But seriously, Whittier, your arguement seems to boil down to "Oh well, seems like their problem." Try the old "put yourself in someone else's shoes" exercise. I have a feeling your outlook would change if it were you.
It might seem to be, from your viewpoint, but that is not my argument. What I was arguing is that global warming cannot be used to strip any people of their national soverignty. I'm talking about where you use global warming to force one nation to give up part of its land, or replace any number of its own laws and customs with those of incoming migrant groups.
History shows what I am talking about. We go back to Rome or further but we don't have. We can use contemporary examples from the US and from Europe.

The US has been having a huge problem with illegal immigration from latin america for years. Being the world's official melting pot, Americans have traditionally welcomed people from all parts of the world. But lately, even people who supported amnesty for immigrants such as myself, have had to reconsider. Throughout American history, immigrants have adopted and become Americanized. Americanization is different from say Russianization but to explain that would be thread hijacking. But hispanic immigrants, especially from Mexico and Central America have been demanding that their own laws be given precedence over local American laws, demanding laws to force people to speak their language, and engaging in violent criminal behavior. For example MS 13 the most violent gang in all America, which is entirely composed of immigrants from central america. It is these types of immigrants that cause most Americans to react by demanding their government shut the borders to all future immigrants.

The Europeans have a similar problem with musim migrants. Europe has recent history of welcoming immigrants and refugees from places around the world. But they've run into a similar problem that the US is facing. Muslims moving to Europe are increasingly demanding that europeans adopt muslims cultures and traditions, that Europeans become muslims, (a religion I note is not native to europe). And that many muslim immigrants are now demanding that European replace European laws with muslim laws.

I hope you can see the problem I have with this. And hence why I favor restrictions for future immigrants whether refugees from global warming or just ordinary business travellers.

One of the things I propose is that if any of the GW refugees have committed a serious crime in their home nation, they should not be given refugee status in the US. People affected by global warming can come here, but they have to leave all of their criminals at home. And they have to agree to not try to impose their own laws, languages, or customs on the host nation. If they agree to that, I say let them come. But if they are going to troublemakers, they can go elsewhere cause America doesn't want nor need them.

Another person with the "blame the rich" attitude. The fact is that the poor are a significant causal factor in the problem. It is the poor who work in the most liable factories. While it is the rich that own the factories, it is the poor who are releasing the tons of pollutants from said factories.
There is no way around it, that the rich and the poor bear equal responsibility for the problem. As I stated in my post, such an attitude as yours will certainly result in the collapse of modern civ back into the dark ages which will be much worse than global warming will be.

the rich own the factories and are in charge of controlling their emissions. the rich buy the products produced in the factories. the rich forced the poor off their land. the rich charge the poor money to have a place to live and food to eat. and so the poor go work for the rich, in conditions which are decided by the rich. yeah, truly the poor hold a significant portion of the blame here.

NOTE: There is no denying "global warming," regardless of what you might think is causing it. One of the most serious questions is what to do with those displaced by rising water levels. This article proposes one possible solution. What do you think?


Before the Flood (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/09/opinion/09byravan.html?th&emc=th)

By SUJATHA BYRAVAN and SUDHIR CHELLA RAJAN
Published: May 9, 2005

Cambridge, Mass. —. One of the paradoxes of global warming is that developing countries, which were not responsible for most of the greenhouse gas emissions that are changing the climate and did not reap the benefits of industrialization, will bear the brunt of the consequences. One of these consequences will be rising seas, which in turn will generate a surge of "climate exiles" who have been flooded out of their homes in poor countries. How should those of us in rich countries deal with this wave of immigrants? The fairest solution: allowing the phased immigration of people living in vulnerable regions according to a formula that is tied to the host country's cumulative contributions to global warming.

Conservative climate and hydrological models suggest that the average sea level will rise by about a foot by 2050, regardless of what new actions we take to reduce greenhouse gases. In some cases, entire nations will disappear; a harbinger of this is Tuvalu in the Pacific, whose government has asked Australia and New Zealand to accept its citizens as the sea swallows their island.

What we can do to prevent this is limited: the world's oceans have an enormous amount of what is called thermal inertia - a phenomenon that means that the effects of climactic changes are manifested very slowly. The cumulative impact of the past 150 years or so of greenhouse gases emitted during industrial development is only now starting to warm the planet, and that warming will continue long after we have created sensible policies to reduce greenhouse gases. So no matter what we do, a wave of climate change exiles is inevitable.

One option for dealing with this is to tighten our borders and inure ourselves to the exiles' cries for help. A more sensible, and just, approach is for the top greenhouse gas emitters - including China and India - to grant entry to the up to 200 million people who could lose their homes to rising seas by 2080.

How many should go where? Under our formula, the top cumulative emitter, the United States, would absorb 21 percent of the climate-change exiles a year; the smallest of the 20 major emitters, Venezuela, would absorb less than 1 percent. If such a program were to start in 2010, the United States, for example, would have to be prepared to accept 150,000 to a half-million immigrants a year for the next 70 years or so (to put that in context, the United States now has one million legal immigrants annually). Accepting these immigrants could actually benefit the host countries; many of them face a demographic crisis with a shrinking labor force and growing numbers of retirees.

The rising tide from climate change will not create the same conditions everywhere. While people in rich countries would generally be able to protect themselves and their property with seawalls, insurance and good warning systems, the effect of warming will be calamitous for poor countries. A solution like the one we've suggested may be a relatively painless, yet humanitarian way to deal with one of the devastating effects of a warming planet.

Sujatha Byravan is the president of the Council for Responsible Genetics. Sudhir Chella Rajan is the head of the Global Politics and Institutions Program at the Tellus Institute.

Use it as energy one way or the other.


WE have the knowledge to utilize our natural resources and Not be harmful to the environment. It all comes down to the mighty dollar and power. But we will pay for it, drastically.. . This earth is gonna suck us up and spit us out.
It's inevitable.

I realized changes in the atmosphere since 5 yrs ago. the actions of the birds.. our seasons.. now it's becoming some strange weather in places. Not a suprise to me.

the rich own the factories and are in charge of controlling their emissions. the rich buy the products produced in the factories. the rich forced the poor off their land. the rich charge the poor money to have a place to live and food to eat. and so the poor go work for the rich, in conditions which are decided by the rich. yeah, truly the poor hold a significant portion of the blame here.
well, your not going to change anything by blaming everything on people who just happen to have more money than you.

Which was how I was treating it. Nice to see that you looked it up though, even though you failed to understand.
No, you see the United States the country-which is the intitution-is the one with or without a language. Not the states contained within individually. Understand?

well, your not going to change anything by blaming everything on people who just happen to have more money than you.

Actually, the rich consumers hold more power than the poor workers in this situation. Boycotting products which have been produced in an environmentally unsustainable or polluting fashion is one of the most effective means of pushing for change, since you are denting the profits of the producer. If one of the poor workers refused to work for the factory for environmental reasons the factory would just replace them with some other poor sod, and the original worker and his/her family would probably starve. The rich are the ones with the power to cause change, so they should also take responsibility.

Actually, the rich consumers hold more power than the poor workers in this situation. Boycotting products which have been produced in an environmentally unsustainable or polluting fashion is one of the most effective means of pushing for change, since you are denting the profits of the producer. If one of the poor workers refused to work for the factory for environmental reasons the factory would just replace them with some other poor sod, and the original worker and his/her family would probably starve. The rich are the ones with the power to cause change, so they should also take responsibility.
If America were a communist society you would have a valid point. but America is not communist so everyone holds equal responsibility regardless of their economic status.

I thought you were one of the intelligent right-wingers. All reputable scientists agree- global warming is real. The ones that don't generally work for oil companies.

Last night Channel 4 waded into this issue [UK TV station]. They got two guys on, one in line with the scientific consensus one against.

The one against stated, quite calmly, his position. It was published a few days earlier, citing as evidence a particular website [missed what it was]. That site, he said, showed invontrivertible evidence that anthropogenic global warming is bunk.

The other guy simply asked if he had checked his sources - the citation was for a Science article which doesn't exist.

So - on the one hand we have the overwhelming majority of climate scientists, published reams and reams of data. On the other hand we have "experts" in thrall to the oil industry and people who cite made up data.

If America were a communist society you would have a valid point. but America is not communist so everyone holds equal responsibility regardless of their economic status.

I wasn't just referring to the USA in that post. And whether communist or capitalist, power brings responsibility. If you have no power to change something, you cannot be held responsible for it.

NOTE: There is no denying "global warming," regardless of what you might think is causing it. One of the most serious questions is what to do with those displaced by rising water levels. This article proposes one possible solution. What do you think?
Oh, I don't deny there is Global Warming, but I really don't think it all that bad a thing - at least, not nearly as bad a people would like you to think.

There is a little thing called the "Maunder Minimum" which points out some fun little details like, were it not for Particulate Global Warming we would likely be in an ice age about now.

Jerry Pournell (no slouch in Science) wrote a novel that incorporated this as the basis for the storyline. what follows is a (largish) edited with <snips> quote from "Fallen Angels" - available Free from Baen.com.

Once you sort through the story-telling and get to the science, you can see that, far from being the end of civilization as we know it, global warming has probably caused civilization as we know it.
"We live in an ice age-—" began Gregory Lutenist. When he got to the words "ice age" three people had joined him, speaking in unison with him. Then came a voice from the crowd: "No shit!"
"-—and we always have," he continued, imperturbably adjusting his glasses. "During the last seven hundred thousand years there have been eight cycles of cooling and warming. The glaciers retreat, but always they come back; and the warm, interglacial interludes last for only about ten thousand years. Since Ice Age Thirty-Five ended fourteen thousand years ago, the next one must have started four thousand years ago. Most of human history has been lived in an ice age. So why did no one notice?"
"It was too warm!" someone suggested.
Lutenist beamed at him. "Just so. It's hard to convince a man in Bermuda shorts that he's living in an ice age. But consider the halcyon, interglacial world of 4500 BC!" He waved a forefinger in the air.
"In Scandinavia the tree line was above 8000 feet." Three voices again joined him, speaking in unison, as Lutenist continued. "And deciduous trees grew all the way to the Arctic circle. The Sahara was a rain-watered, grassy savannah crossed by mighty rivers and even mightier hunters. We remember that age dimly as a Garden in Eden." Lutenist paused and removed his glasses. He polished the lenses and set them back upon his nose. He paused, sighed, and said, slowly, so that everyone in the room could join in, "But then the sun went out."
<snip>
"You see, when two protons fuse into a deuterium nucleus they yield a neutrino. There are two ways that can happen, but. . . Well, the details don't matter. Sometimes the deuterium hip-hops through beryllium into lithium and spits out another neutrino, and there are a couple of other reactions that also produce neutrinos; but that's about the gist of it. Fusion spits neutrinos. Get it?"
Gordon looked puzzled. "I get. So?"
Bob held his hands out palms up. "The problem is we never found the neutrinos. A Chlorine-37 detector should register a neutrino flux of eight snew, but all they ever get is two snew."
<snip) (a) Snew is SNU, Solar Neutrino Units. One snew is one neutrino event per 1036 atoms per second."
<snip> "It was all simple, and known before 1980. The sun is not producing enough neutrinos. Ergo, it is not fusing. Yet, according to the technetium levels in deep molybdenum mines there were plenty of neutrinos passing through the Earth during interglacial and preglacial periods."
<snip> it's a cycle. Fusion stops, the sun cools a bit, shrinks a bit, the core gets denser and hotter, fusion starts again, the new warmth inflates the sun. <snip>
"Maunder Minimum!" someone shouted.
Lutenist beamed. "The sun goes through sunspot cycles. Lots of sunspots, it gets warm here. Few sunspots, colder weather. An astronomer named Maunder recorded sunspots and found that the last time there weren't any the planet went through what was known as the Little Ice Age, the Maunder Minimum." He paused dramatically. "And in the 1980s it became certain that the planet was going into a new Maunder Minimum period."
"Yes, yes, we know this," Gordon said. "Sunspots are important to us. But if so important to Earth, why do they not know cold is coming?"
"Bastards did," the man in the bush jacket growled. "But they said Global Warming."
"Grants," Bob said. "There's money in climate studies. All the Ph.D. theses. All that would go if things were so simple-—"<snip> Now. It is important to realize that the sun has always burned hotter or cooler during different eras of our planet's history. Greenhouse or Icehouse." <snip> dinosaurs lived during a greenhouse era, didn't they?"
<snip> "Dinosaurs, and the Great Mammals, too. In fact, prior to the Pleistocene the world was quite warm. Hippopotami wallowed in the Thames."
He paused a moment. When he continued, half a dozen voices spoke in unison with him. "Then, in the blink of a geological eye, they were replaced by polar bears."
<snip>
Lutenist continued. "Human history is so short that, living between the hippopotamus and the polar bear, we thought those conditions were 'normal.'
"After the sun went out, the interglacial ended and the world grew colder and drier. The Saraha rivers dried up, one by one, until only the Nile was left. By 1500 BC, the Scandinavian tree line had dropped to six thousand feet, and broad-leaf trees had disappeared from the Arctic.
"The weather changed. The North African coast was the breadbasket of the Roman Empire. It began to dry up. Great migrations began, Huns, Arabs, Navajos, Mongols. There were Viking colonies on Greenland, but the Greenland Glacier began to move south, until it covered them all."
<snip>
Curtis's voice boomed even in the large room. "In the American Revolutionary War, Colonel Alexander Hamilton brought cannon captured by Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga down to assist General Washington in Haarlem Heights. He brought them across the ice on the frozen Hudson River. By the twentieth century, the Hudson didn't freeze at all, let alone hard enough to carry cannon on!"
Lutenist smiled agreement. "Right! The Little Ice Age was coming to an end! In fact, a warming trend had started around 1200, and lasted for eight centuries. Anyone know why?"
<snip>"Because a farmer doesn't give up his land."
"That's right, Beth. Farmers! Hunters run, which is what our ancestors did during the Thirty-Fifth Ice Age. But the five hundred million settled and civilized humans of the thirteenth century were not going to pull up stakes and move elsewhere. London, Copenhagen, even Moscow were too valuable to abandon. So what did they do?" He used and stared around the audience.
Several responded in unison. "They threw another log on the fire!"
Lutenist beamed. "Exactly! They fought the cold with heat, soot and CO2. Air pollution!"
"Smudge pots," Curtis growled.
Right, Lutenist shouted. "Smudge pots! Greenhouse effect!"
"Pollution, poll-ooo-tion," someone sang.
<snip>
". . . and in the midst of the Thirty-Sixth Ice Age, we were lighting global smudge pots. Wood-burning during the Middle Ages was so intensive that the forests of Europe were actually smaller than in the twentieth century. Coalburning, which began in the fifteenth century, saved the forests and put even more gunk into the air. By the late nineteenth century, most homes were heated by coal furnaces." Lutenist paused and rubbed his hands together, as if imagining heat vents and radiators.
A line had formed. Veggies disappeared as they moved past Alex. Almost everyone who passed put something in Alex's mouth. Dark red was miniature tomatoes; Alex feared the implications. The red-and-white spheroid burned.
Jenny sang,

"Wanted fan for mining coal and wanted fan for drilling oil,
I went very fast through Portland, hunted hard like Gully Foyle.
Built reactors in Seattle against every man's advice,
Couldn't do that in Alaska, Fonda says it isn't nice."

"Nice touch, Jenny. They'll be expecting you to rhyme it with 'ice.' "
"You don't really think the nukes could have saved Alaska, do you Jenny?"
Alaska had been beneath the Ice for fifteen years.
". . . Then, beginning in the 1950s, we began to clean up our environment. Household coal furnaces gave way to centralized electric heating; and pollution was confined to the power plant areas, instead of belching from every chimney in the city. The famous pea-soup fogs of London disappeared."
Lutenist smiled wanly. "But so did the warm, rainy British winters. Heavy winters became the norm. In 1984 and '85 several campers froze to death when a blizzard struck the Riviera. Atlanta, Georgia, had a week of zero temperatures. Winter snow became common in the southlands. Meanwhile, the Sahara resumed its southward march and Ukrainian grain harvests became less and less reliable. Raindrops need tiny particles around which to condense. So, when you eliminate air pollution, what happens?"
"Less rain!" cried the audience.
"And less cloud cover means the ground loses heat faster. And that means?"
"The Great Ice!"
<snip>"The elimination of air pollution did not start with the Greens. It started with the Big Power Companies back in the fifties-—as a by-product of their program of clean, centralized electrical power generation. But it accelerated with the environmentalist movement. Soon, we were not allowed to burn the leaves we raked off our yards. We had to bag them, in plastic bags, of course! And have them hauled away by trucks to landfills hundreds of miles away. The Green Laws became more and more stringent at the same time that interest in and support for science was waning-—not a coincidence, I might add. Even today, with the Great Ice and the Sahara both sliding south, we are not allowed to throw another log on the fire!"
"Damned good thing!" Jenny Trout shouted.
Everyone looked at her.
"It's got to fall," she said. "All the way. We don't like this world we made! Bring it down! Bring it down!"
Harry had taken out his guitar. He struck a chord.
"Black powder and alcohol, when your states and cities fall, when your back's against the wall-—"

I wasn't just referring to the USA in that post. And whether communist or capitalist, power brings responsibility. If you have no power to change something, you cannot be held responsible for it.
That's a very dangerous attitude to have. The rich people you hate, are responsible for the fact that people even have jobs. With out the rich there would be no governments, no laws, no civilization.

Don't tell me you're one of the "free market faithful" (as I like to call 'em) who thinks that their ideology is more important than the reality of global warming. :(

The question is not whether global warming is generally occuring, the question is whether or not our emissions are the main reasons for the warming. On this point, many are sharply divided.

The question is not whether global warming is generally occuring, the question is whether or not our emissions are the main reasons for the warming. On this point, many are sharply divided.
I would say "not any more". Up until the 50's, quite possibly, but not any more.

That's a very dangerous attitude to have. The rich people you hate, are responsible for the fact that people even have jobs. With out the rich there would be no governments, no laws, no civilization.

1. I do not hate the rich. I never said -- or even implied -- that I did.

2. On a world veiw scale, I consider myself to be very well off indeed. Admittedly, I don't have much power compared to some, but the fact that I am a wealthy consumer who doesn't have to worry about starving anytime soon means I can choose what to buy, and exert influence over large cooperations that way.

3. There's nothing dangerous about saying that if you have no power to change something, you cannot be held responsible for it, whereas if you do have that power, you should use it responsibly. That's common sense, not dangerous thinking.

1. I do not hate the rich. I never said -- or even implied -- that I did.

2. On a world veiw scale, I consider myself to be very well off indeed. Admittedly, I don't have much power compared to some, but the fact that I am a wealthy consumer who doesn't have to worry about starving anytime soon means I can choose what to buy, and exert influence over large cooperations that way.

3. There's nothing dangerous about saying that if you have no power to change something, you cannot be held responsible for it, whereas if you do have that power, you should use it responsibly. That's common sense, not dangerous thinking.

Then you must admit that those who are not rich bear as much responsibility as do the rich for global warming since it is the poor and the middle class that buy the products and services provided by the rich that enable the rich to keep their factories and other stuff running and provide the rich with their wealth.

Then you must admit that those who are not rich bear as much responsibility as do the rich for global warming since it is the poor and the middle class that buy the products and services provided by the rich that enable the rich to keep their factories and other stuff running and provide the rich with their wealth.

Anyone who has the power to change global warming can be held responsible for it, to some extend. The degree of responsibility is related to the amount of power to change. For example, I hold some responsibility since I have the power to switch to a green energy company, buy green products etc. But someone who is very poor and works in a polluting factory will starve if they lose their jobs, so there should be less expectation for them to change. Rather, the factory owner who rakes in large profits and doesn't care a sausage for the environment should take more responsibility. Everyone should do their bit, but the rich have a bigger bit to do, since individally a rich person causes far more pollution than an individual poor person by their very lifestyles, also the rich have more power to effect change.

Anyone who has the power to change global warming can be held responsible for it, to some extend. The degree of responsibility is related to the amount of power to change. For example, I hold some responsibility since I have the power to switch to a green energy company, buy green products etc. But someone who is very poor and works in a polluting factory will starve if they lose their jobs, so there should be less expectation for them to change. Rather, the factory owner who rakes in large profits and doesn't care a sausage for the environment should take more responsibility. Everyone should do their bit, but the rich have a bigger bit to do, since individally a rich person causes far more pollution than an individual poor person by their very lifestyles, also the rich have more power to effect change.
While I agree with most of what you say, the rich do not cause more pollution just on the basis of their lifestyles. The middle class is just as wasteful.
In Cali, you don't have to uber rich to own two SUVs. There are a lot of middle class families in California and else where in America that own at least 3 cars, at least one of which is an SUV.
As for the poor factory worker, the government provides for job training programs so that he does not have to spend his entire life in a factory. That he choses to do so is not the fault of the rich.

While I agree with most of what you say, the rich do not cause more pollution just on the basis of their lifestyles. The middle class is just as wasteful.
In Cali, you don't have to uber rich to own two SUVs. There are a lot of middle class families in California and else where in America that own at least 3 cars, at least one of which is an SUV.
As for the poor factory worker, the government provides for job training programs so that he does not have to spend his entire life in a factory. That he choses to do so is not the fault of the rich.

You're totally misunderstanding my veiwpoint. I'm taking a world veiw. That "middle class family" with three cars *is* rich. Probably in the richest couple of percent in the world. If you earn £60,000 dollars per annum, you are probably in the richest 0.1% of the worlds population. If you earn £30,000 dollers a year, you're still in the richest 10% of the world. When I speak of the poor factory worker, I mean the *really* poor one. His governemnt probably doesn't provide a job training program that he can acess, so he has no choice but to work in the factory.

You're totally misunderstanding my veiwpoint. I'm taking a world veiw. That "middle class family" with three cars *is* rich. Probably in the richest couple of percent in the world. If you earn £60,000 dollars per annum, you are probably in the richest 0.1% of the worlds population. If you earn £30,000 dollers a year, you're still in the richest 10% of the world. When I speak of the poor factory worker, I mean the *really* poor one. His governemnt probably doesn't provide a job training program that he can acess, so he has no choice but to work in the factory.
That's what happens when you allow tyrants to stay in power and rob from their nation the money that would go into raising the living standards of those people. That's why I support Bush's policy of ousting dictators.

That's what happens when you allow tyrants to stay in power and rob from their nation the money that would go into raising the living standards of those people. That's why I support Bush's policy of ousting dictators.

That's a very narrow minded veiw of the problem to take. Yes, tyrants and corruption in government is bad for the people. However, much of the worlds poverty is caused and propogated by unfair trade practices and rules imposed by the west. But that would just be so hideously off topic and such a big subject, I think another thread would have to be started if you really really wanted to discuss this.

well, supposingthis was a legitimate source, I read the whole thing. If you read the bottom, it says that the problem of Tuvalu and the other islands mentioned is overpopulation, not global warming. Neither Australia nor the US can be held responsible for the sexually promiscous behavior of the Tuvalese people. I can predict, based on this article that you give as "proof" that even the ICC will throw out such cases as being frivolous.
Futher, I would note that all the islands mentioned are corals. Corals are not made of dry land. They are made of the shells of billions of tiny plankton. Collectively, those shells are called corals and together they get big enough to form what we think of as islands. Now as the article states, if you pave over the stuff, or if you use it for building things, you reducing the size of your island. Unlike other islands, corals are living things. But they don't regrow over night. If you chop down a couple of trees to obtain wood to build your house, you know they won't grow back overnight. At the same time, you wouldn't go suing your next door neighbor for frivolous reasons that have nothing to do with the demise of your own home.
The other thing I note is that the article says the other reason for the shrinking of the coral is that the inhabitants are pouring toilet cleaner into it. You have to realize the toilet cleaner has lots of chemicals init that kill coral and cause it to shrink. So instead of Tuvalu being the plaintiff I would think it more logical that Tuvalu be the defendant for attacking and killing members of an endangered species. There are plenty of sites, such as the WWF one, that have shown that corals are endangered species. And even the UN recognizes them as such. Therefore, Tuvalu risks its own illegal actions being made manifest, and such actions are more dire than the global warming they claim is "destroying" their islands. Global warming is going to take at least a hundred years to go into effect. What the Tuvulans are doing, could destroy their islands within the next 20 to 30 years. You get the picture of which problem I think is more immediate. Why should we let the Tuvalans into our nation? So they can kill off our endangered species too?

Those goddamn primitive Polynesians should have known 1,500 years ago that settling on Tuvalu would harm the environment! Silly darkies!

You do know that the coral aboveground is dead, right? So building on the coral doesn't do shit because you're building on the skeletons of the coral.