The larger international community needs to take coordinated responsibility for monitoring and mediating problems caused by global warming. Individuals can accelerate efforts to prepare for climate change. On the islands, that includes community organizing. Environmentally, that includes protecting sea grass, restricting fertilizer use, green building and redesigning infrastructure at shorelines to account for habitat migration.
The Fox Islands are rightfully proud of the new wind power turbines installed on Vinalhaven. This represents a proactive direction in this age of global warming. We are part of a global web, of modest initiatives to address energy concerns, evolving independent of policy makers. On the other hand, turbine noise issues illustrate how complex any “solution” to global warming can be.
From December 6-18, I was a non-governmental organization (NGO) observer from the University of Colorado (UC) group, at the fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP15) for the United Nations, Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.
That status was based on my on-going research project in collaboration with Dr. Jim White, director of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Some issues we have been addressing that I tracked at COP15 included migrations, thermal dynamics, tectonic subsidence, geomorphology, tidal surges, albedo (the reflective value of snow, ice and ocean surfaces) loss, a, nd buffering capacities in facing the challenge of scale at local levels.
The gap between island states facing extinction and the Maine islands seems dramatic. But Mohamed Nasheed, president of the Maldives spoke for many at COP15, when as the Cassandra of the proceedings, he warned that no island, no coastal region will be spared the consequences of rising seas. The Maldives goal is to become carbon neutral. Island nations in the South Pacific, as Kiribati and Tuvalu, facing onerous migrations and imminent land and cultural loss, have become models of adaptive behavior.
The survival strategies of the poorest island nations were presented at COP15 with modest grace. Kiribati describes its resources as “sticks and sand.” It presented a moving display of their cultures’ songs and dance to a packed audience of enthusiastic supporters and passed out handmade necklaces of local shells. Tuvalu has advertised its needs with the film, “Trouble in Paradise.” Its strategy was to challenge the other 200 nations of the planet to be responsible to all. Kiribati and Tuvalu both proclaim they want to stay on their land but are assessing what transferrable skills they can contribute as new immigrants to other lands, as, to Australia. They are well aware that no nation welcomes immigrants today. In a study of public attitudes towards their crisis, Kiribati natives describe their responses to their plight as primarily fear and grief.
Island survival strategies vary depending on their resources. Denmark is a nation of islands with extensive lowlands. Some regions, as Ama, an island suburb of Copenhagen, are built on filled wetlands and the air there is still heavy with moisture. Until 2001, Denmark invested aggressively in windmill research. But since then, under a more conservative administration that research has languished.
In contrast, Germany, with the loaded motto, “Germany takes responsibility,” acts as an advisory nation to several countries and regions at risk, as COMINFAC in the Congo Basin. It has contributed 2.3 million Euros partnering over the next five years for mangrove conservation in Fiji, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Samoa and Tonga.
In the face of global warming, islands are rebuilding barrier reefs, reinforcing coastal buffer zones with indigenous plantings and seeking funding to create models of where rising seas will reclaim land in the next decades. The international dimensions and complexity of migration problems will increasingly result in serious socio-economic and political disruptions. Causes include desertification from drought and deforestation, as in Africa and salt water intrusion into aquifers, as in Bangladesh. Island states provide examples of discreet planning for calamity. They are early warning systems for land loss in other communities as climate change continues.
It is tempting in Maine, founded on stable granite rather than a fragile atoll, as Kiribati is, to presume such concerns are remote. But as the representative from Tuvalu stated, and most scientists concur, what Tuvalu faces today, we will all face tomorrow. The rapid change means the past is an inadequate guide.
The effects of global warming are felt first in equatorial regions, as in the Pacific islands and Africa but most dramatic at the polar extremes. Accelerated and extreme impacts will begin to be felt by 2030, in most of our lifetimes and certainly that of our children. But even in Maine, we are already seeing the migrations of some plant and animal species, including lobsters.
Models prescribed by island states are three-pronged. First, is the courage to demand transparent, accountable binding treaty agreements of the larger nations, including our own federal government. Islands nations and Least Developed Countries (LDC) took political leadership in Copenhagen, achieving the suspension of COP15 negotiations until a binding agreement could be transparently agreed upon. This diplomatic crisis forced developed and developing countries to public accountability. The second prong, is enlisting help to map regional vulnerabilities, as to hurricanes and tidal flooding. Third is reinforcing shoreline buffering while developing emergency plans for evacuation when and if necessary.
Generally, Maine is considered one of the best-prepared states in the United States. Hawaiian planners reference work done in Casco Bay. But speaking at a COP15 side event on coastal preparedness in the American pavilion, Thomas Strickland, assistant secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks of the U.S. Department of the Interior emphasized two critical points.
Strickland concluded that until we have better predictive tools, offshore, coastal communities must form individualized plans for adaptation, evacuation and rescue in independent task forces. Island committees can initiate listening sessions, identify priorities and establish means to enhance stakeholder interests. He said, “Climate change must be integrated into all other decisions. Locally directed plans must be based on priorities from each community and the scale of individual properties. Start with existing priorities. Communication and support for adaptation is an essential part of planning and implementation. Start as early as possible. It is a rapidly evolving situation.”
Task forces can assess sources of danger and vulnerabilities and have plans in place for eventualities. In addition to fresh water and development, some concerns might include: economic impacts, storm water run off and infrastructure resilience, costs of protections, assessing ecosystem services lost, prioritizing what to protect and value as salinity moves up into estuaries, modeling and habitat equivalency, changes in habitat spatial distribution, and cost benefit analysis of restoration vs. replacement.
On the surface, Copenhagen was disappointing. But negotiations and project implementation continues on many levels. Meanwhile, each person, each island community can contribute to this global rescue. We can still do a lot to protect the world we live in.
Aviva Rahmani, who lives in Vinalhaven and New York, is a studio artist and Ph.D candidate, University of Plymouth, United Kingdom and the Arts University of the University of Zurich, Switzerland.