CLIM 101 Global Warming Weather Climate and Society

How are ecological and environmental issues, human rights and global politics interrelated?

Global warming results in rising sea levels. Islands are losing land resulting in a new type of refugee: the climate refugee. What are global implications?

Indigenous cultures are historically in a weaker position to fight injustices, economic hardship and human rights abuses. How have the Maori, the Quechua Indios, the Zapatistas, the Roma and Sinti, the Sami people, etc. fared?

a government’s methods to fight terrorism can infringe on its people’s right to privacy and freedom of speech (whistleblower); a government’s actions like oil drilling, cutting social services, privatizing public goods in order to bolster its economy can infringe on indigenous land rights, cause environmental damage and disadvantage the already poor citizens of a society. Show how political actions can effect human rights and environmental concerns.

drones and the ethics of target killing: pros and cons of using drones for private, professional and military use and its effect on a global scale

start with a case, a country, a person that has an issue with human rights,  environmental rights or a transnational political/economic topic then showcase how the issues are connected

use a contemporary political situation like the bombing in Fall 15 of the MSF hospital in Afghanistan by the US. What issues are raised with this incident? Why is MFS pulling out of that region? What political and human rights issues are affected? Are there environmental issues that need to be considered?

globalization and agriculture - what are the challenges feeding the world. What do those challenges have to do with the environment, politics and human rights? Pick a country or region as a case study.

Global politics associated with the decision taken by Canada to spend for the mitigation of global warming and negative change in climate in Solomon Island, specifically the US intervention in this case and withdrawal from the Paris Accord has actually been hindering the overall progress and development of the island nation in both socio-cultural and socio-environmental aspects. Following the global diplomacy in orientation with climate change and environmental degradations. Resilience has emerged as one of the major challenges considering the plight of the island countries. Climate change has been thwarting the island countries devastating their socio-economic and ecological balance. This essay is going to illustrate how the ensemble of livelihood and economy and cultural aspect is impacted upon by the climate changes- specifically global warming. The case island country is the Solomon Island with special contemplation on Nuatambu Island region.

Before looking into the deeper aspect of the study, we need to develop a cognitive understanding through the knowledge of the demographic, economic, geographical and socio-cultural structure of Solomon Island- specifically  Nuatambu Island. Nuatambu is an island in the Solomon Islands located near in Choiseul Province. The other islands of that province are Cyprian Bridge Island, Veghena, Rob Roy, Taro, and Choiseul. The present geographical area of Nuatambu is 13,980 square meters. The entire region is the home to more than 600,000 people depending solely on the natural resources. The major revenue source for the country is fishing i.e. rudimentarily primary economic activity.  

The challenge to the humanity of the island country has been soil erosion, the rise in sea level and coastal flooding.

According to a report by ABC News, since 1993, every year, the average rise in the sea level has been 7-10 millimeters.  

There has been news of five tiny Pacific islands to have disappeared due to rise in sea levels and soil erosion, a detection thought to be the first precise substantiation of the collision of climate change on the shoreline in the Pacific Ocean, as many of the Australian researchers have revealed. The inundated islands were mostly part of the Solomon Islands where important habitat is detected. Solomon Island is an archipelago with many important and unimportant islands. The islands that had gone astray ranged from 1 to 5 hectares in size were not inhabited by humans. However, there has been a significant impact upon the habitat in terms of natural balance. However, other islands had large belt or swath of land sponged down into the sea resulting in the destruction of the entire village. People were literally convinced or forced to put somewhere else. According to the research conducted by Dr. Albert, none more so than the brunt caused by the rise in sea-level has impacted upon the communities across Melanesia thus creating an alarm for the rest of the world. Five reef islands of Solomon Islands have completely yielded down to sea-level mount and coastal soil erosion, and auxiliary islands have been sternly gnarled. There have been several anecdotal chronicles across the Pacific that have, for long while detailed the devastating effect of climate change in the seashore, villages and communities, the first scientific data and substantiation, available in Environmental Research Letters, authenticates that rise in sea-level in the area do chronicles that it is registered to be above the global average of 3mm/ annum.

There are other compromised islands as well, which have been veteran in terms of experiencing annual rates of sea-level rise 1993 and that has been not less than 7 mm. Nuatambu Island is a paradigmatic example of such plight as it is home to approximately 34 families that has lost more than 50% of its total habitable area since 2011. Solomon Islands, at present, experiences high rate at the rise in sea-level. There are the home of low-lying coastal communities and sop up high wave energy as high-intensity waves break onto the shoreline. They offer an imperative sight or foretaste of what the rest of the globe is likely to experience in the second half of the 21st century.

It’s perceptibly and exceedingly intricate to revisit in time so as to comprehend and identify the drivers, but working narrowly with the local people has been a real strength for the researchers. As per the statement of Dr. Albert, “It’s allowed us to create some really rich case-studies about the experiences of those communities.” These accounts acquired the strongest international attention in the team’s research and evacuation. Involving their knowledge and facts with the aptitude to see high decree topographic mapping has also aided the locals to sketch how they can acclimatize to the rise and the problems.

In many cases, customary concrete seawalls are not a workable preference on these remote islands and can be counterproductive as they impede into natural island edifying progression. However, the team of the scientists such as Dr. Albert tends to explore budding technologies such as setting up “three-dimensional printed coral-like structures” that can act as an inundated seawall to diminish the erosion caused by waves under high sea levels.

It is a matter of fact that to ensure the human rights ground it is highly necessary to relocate some of the communities to the safer place and Solomon Island desperately needs help from the economically strong nations. However, it has been tested that Mangrove planting or sea walls do not seem to be feasible of authentic in this specific case from an engineering point of view.

Though the global Green Climate Fund has experienced the availability of approximately  $100 billion USD, to sustain the environment of the developing countries of the LSDs (Less Developed Countries) so as to acclimatize to the change in climate, accessing or getting hold of  these funds is a major face up to small affected communities like those of the Solomon Island as highlighted by Dr Albert, the chief and perhaps the solo researcher of this case.

The small islands are severely hampered due to global warming thereby, affecting the human rights. This is because global warming is a moral issue that is currently encountered by the human race. Additionally, for the small and under developing countries, the change of climate is about their survival in the end. Climate change affects several human right factors in terms of food, water, and human health. The human rights and the climate change evaluation emphasizes on the anticipated consequences encountered by the humans due to climate change phenomenon such as the rise in the sea level, increase in temperature, desertification, and extreme weather events. The impacts of climate change restrict the population of the under developing countries from enjoying and exercising the human rights. Therefore, climate change hampers the human rights in terms of their rights of living a clean, healthy and functional life. As a result, environmental laws along with MEA’s have can be strengthened by including the principles of human rights.

Climate change undoubtedly terrorizes the yield and practicability of both inshore and deepwater fisheries, which is an important source of occupation in the entire island group. Alteration in ocean temperatures and currents has entailed high atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide thus becoming responsible for the rise of acidity in oceanic water. Aquaculture is seen to be a developing industry in the Pacific region and that will be highly defenseless if it is changed and becomes impactful on the patterns of rainfall. However, amplified sediment and flooding in inland water bodies and drought has been affecting the other modes and means of livelihood. According to ADB studies, “Pacific island countries are at the sharp end of climate change on several fronts, rising sea levels threaten the very existence of some low-lying atoll islands and coastal communities, and lives and livelihoods are being put on the line by the marked rise in the frequency and severity of weather-related disasters.”

Climate change has also been threatening food security in the entire region through many channels, including changing patterns of rainfall and continuous drought. “Pacific island leaders have been very active in sending an SOS to the international community to act on climate change and help their countries — which do not have the resources of the developed world — to adapt to climate change,” said Kolkma. The ADB’s independent evaluation study noted that coastal communities and atoll islands are particularly vulnerable to even small changes in climate variables, with increased storm surges and drought already causing "significant problems", including freshwater shortages. In 2011, for example, Australia and New Zealand provided fresh water and desalination units to Tuvalu, an independent island nation in the Pacific, which was grappling with a severe drought. The ADB study noted that environmental problems in the Pacific islands — mainly pressures from rapid population growth, unsustainable patterns of consumption and production, and coastal development — combined with climate change impacts pose major threats to the region's food, water, and livelihood security. "Pacific island countries are at extreme risk from rising sea levels caused by global warming," according to the ADB’s independent evaluation study. “Many are only a few meters above sea level, and more than half the population live within 1.5 kilometers of the shore. A sea level increase of as little as half a meter, along with increased incidents of storm surges, would threaten livelihoods.”

So far the humanitarian concept is concerned, there are several cases that need to be chronicled for the confirmation of the essence in terms of taking it into serious account. The questions are whether it has to be taken into certain consideration pertaining to the effective consideration for the value process of its kind.  It is a matter of fact that the sea level rise in the Solomon Island has claimed the destruction of five whole islands thus entailing plight of the residents there. However, there has been a constant geopolitical race among the developed countries- especially Canada and the United States pertaining to the provision of help- both monetary and technological assistance to the people who are literally treated as in-house refugees in the country. The development program of the United Nations has significantly focused on the change in the lifestyle and provision of refuge to the victims so that they can undergo better life. However, the recent change in the US government has shown disagreement to the majority of the programs initiated by the United Nations. For the better human right issues, all the countries need to be united and assimilated so that it has to be highly effective in terms of creating effective nature of its case. For the basic instances, it has to be highly imperative to focus on the rights of the inhabitants who have lost their home and the source of livelihood due to rise in the sea level.

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