Seychelles threatened by rising sea levels

In the Indian Ocean nation of 155 islands and 80,000 people, beaches have become noticeably more crowded as the ocean waters have crept inland within just a decade.

Apart from the country’s infrastructure becoming inundated by the forecast of a two-meter sea level rise, other urgent problems include once-thriving coral reefs that are already dying due to warmer ocean temperatures.

The increased heat is also threatening animal species such as a rare sea turtle that depends on stable temperatures to bear its young. Knowing of this increasingly urgent situation, Seychelles President James Michel had addressed the United Nations Copenhagen Climate Conference in December 2009, saying, “I am not here to celebrate the limited progress, but to speak out once again, as we have always done, of our fight for survival, our human right to exist.”

Your Excellency we are touched by your concerned appeal for climate action. Let us join in united efforts to stabilize the environment for the preservation of our globally shared planetary home. In an October 2009 videoconference in Indonesia, Supreme Master Ching Hai expressed her deep concern for all sinking island nations, offering the one sure remedy for their safety.

Supreme Master Ching Hai: The threats imposed by global warming are more than imminent; they are already here, as you can see through many disasters, upheavals, climate refugees, phenomena around the world.

It’s the rising sea levels as well that force people to lose their home, their ancestral home, to go begging elsewhere; losing also their dignity, losing everything, not just physical possessions, but losing their loved ones as well.

We must change while there is still time. If we want to receive the mercy of Heaven for our life here on Earth, we must first be merciful in granting the same dignity and freedom of life to the animals.

So please, everyone, plant veg, be veg and we can go green later when we’ve already saved the planet.

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100212/FOREIGN/702119852/1135/pollarchive

Micronesian island suffers climate change impacts

The people of the low-lying atoll Ifalik, one of the islands of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), are facing serious threats due to the increasing effects of global warming. A king tide that struck last year is still causing damage to this years’ crops of the islanders’ staple food, taro. Co-author of a report on FSM food security and climate risks, US Professor Charles Fletcher, expressed concern that as sea levels rise, the food situation will only become more dire and said that many communities like Ifalik are headed towardthe need for ongoing humanitarian assistance.

Affirming that the outlook is not hopeful, Ifalik’s Chief Manno Pekaicheng said, “We just put our lives in the hands of God and hope the people who cause all these problems step in and help.”

Our appreciation for your informed voice of concern, Professor Fletcher and colleagues, as we pray for the residents of Ifalik and other low-lying islands whose people are already enduring the perils of a warming planet.
Let us swiftly come together in meaningful action so that all beings may once again thrive. Ever concerned for humanity’s welfare, Supreme Master Ching Hai has frequently addressed the need for urgent action to halt the tolls of global warming, as during a November 2008 interview with Ireland’s East Coast Radio FM.

Supreme Master Ching Hai: If we don’t have global warming, then no one would be a climate refugee. imagine if that were yourself in the refugee’s situation, experiencing all these troubles – insecurities, hunger, lacking all comfort, humiliation, undignified situation, uncertain of the morrows of your future and the future of your helpless children. Just imagine it.

Then try to solve this tragedy by helping in whatever way we can. And above all, and most urgently of all, be veg, go green to save the planet, to prevent such trauma and to build a bright future for the world, for our co-citizens.

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article
/0,28804,1929071_1929070_1947456,00.html#ixzz0aRjRTaSK
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1929071_1929070_1947456,00.html

Climate change’s most vulnerable nations call for urgent action

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) announced that climate change is already forcing large-scale human movement, mostly to other regions within the same country or to neighboring countries.

For instance, migrations due to drought have become common in places such as Ethiopia, Mali, Burkina Faso, Senegal and even Syria. The IOM predicts that at least one billion people will be forced from their homes due to global warming by 2050.

At the Cop15, the United Nations’ Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, negotiators for the small island nation of Tuvalu warned that the current emission reduction goal of stabilizing CO2 at 450 parts per billion is too high to assure the survival of island nations, which in some cases have become uninhabitable and in others are experiencing the adverse effects of rising sea levels. Representatives from other island states also presented their call for urgent mitigation as well as adaptation assistance.

Jacky Bryant – Secretary-General, Ecology Party of Tahiti (M): All water and the land, the taste is very salty, trees dead. All people must migrate to find a new island. We need to say to all the world it is a very very big problem.

VOICE: Without effective action, all countries will sooner or later be impacted by the ravages of global warming. According to the American Medical Association, more than half the US population alone will be at risk of increased hospitalizations for climate change-induced diseases such as pneumonia, asthma and other lung diseases, with potentially worsening health of people already weakened by illness.

International Organization for Migration, island nation leaders and American Medical Association, we are grateful for your concerned voice and endeavors to protect fellow citizens. Our prayers that all climate change negotiators and leaders choose wisely for the sake of ourselves and future generations on Earth. Supreme Master Ching Hai has frequently spoken with concern about the need for leadership to focus on saving human lives made fragile due to global warming, as in a videoconference with our Association’s New Zealand Center in August 2008.

Q (f): What encouragement can we give [government leaders] to stand up and spread the message to the people to be vegetarian?

Supreme Master Ching Hai: I think they will have to, in time. And I hope they do it soon, so that we still have a chance to save millions, billions of people or the whole planet. What is the use of having economy or political power when everybody is dead? Even if the leaderis still alive, whom would he or she rule if there’s no citizen left? I am worried about your country; it’s a small island surrounded by water.

And if the water level rise then… I don’t want to talk about it. But I’m sure your leader will realize it sooner or later, that survival is number one. Political position, economic power is number ten, very low, low, low, low down there. First we have to survive.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8403745.stm
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=33175&Cr=copenhagen&Cr1=
http://interdiscussion.blogspot.com/2009/12/future-of-humanity-hinges-on-copenhagen.html
http://unfccc.int/2860.php
http://www.france24.com/en/node/4943273
http://www.france24.com/en/node/4943525
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6745203/Copenhagen-climate-summit-
Nearly-half-the-world-will-suffer-from-water-shortages-within-30-years.html