[HN Gopher] Tuvalu looking at legal ways to be a state if it is ...
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Tuvalu looking at legal ways to be a state if it is submerged
Author : gumby
Score : 214 points
Date : 2021-11-10 15:16 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| hammock wrote:
| The image of the government official standing in the water "on
| what used to be dry land" is quite dramatic.[1]
|
| Unfortunately that land is not underwater due to climate change-
| driven sea level rise, but due to soil erosion. They do mention
| this fact, however the focus of the article inexplicably remains
| on rising sea levels.
|
| A factchecker might call that "missing context" (or worse).
|
| [1]https://www.reuters.com/resizer/8doSEMId31ayO3rBn1MaCzPgW50=..
| .
| [deleted]
| eganist wrote:
| > The image of the government official standing in the water
| "on what used to be dry land" is quite dramatic.[1]
|
| > Unfortunately that land is not underwater due to climate
| change-driven sea level rise, but due to soil erosion. They do
| mention this fact, however the focus of the article
| inexplicably remains on rising sea levels.
|
| > A factchecker might call that "missing context" (or worse).
|
| Summarizing is a thing journalists do to make things more
| accessible to lay readers, but that didn't work in your case,
| so I'll expand with common resources and research from ten
| seconds worth of googling.
|
| "As global sea level rises, the action of waves at higher
| elevations increases the likelihood for extensive coastal
| erosion. " (https://toolkit.climate.gov/topics/coastal-flood-
| risk/coasta...)
|
| "Sea level rise shown to drive coastal erosion" (https://agupub
| s.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/00EO...)
|
| Please don't assume malice.
| hammock wrote:
| Once again some context is missing.
|
| Of course coastal erosion is caused by wave action. However,
| the reason it is a problem is because of mangrove
| deforestation. Over half of the Pacific islands' mangroves
| have been rapidly destroyed by human development efforts just
| in the last 20 years.
|
| Mangroves are the natural, first and best line of defense
| against coastal erosion. They create soil. Without either
| mangroves or manmade seawalls, it doesn't matter what the sea
| level is - the coast will erode at an unsustainable rate.
|
| It really grinds my gears that "solving climate change" - the
| hardest problem to solve - is presented as a panacea for what
| are really more complex environmental issues which actually
| happen to have simpler solutions.
| eganist wrote:
| "Climate Change may wipe out large mangrove forests"
|
| https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/912045029/climate-change-
| may-...
|
| Even if logging is a concern, the mangroves wouldn't be as
| protective as you're implying.
|
| Directly related reading:
|
| "Mangroves in Tuvalu are threatened by various factors such
| as coastal erosion, pollution and on a long term basis the
| sea level rise due to global warming." (https://www.fao.org
| /forestry/9011-09d32b158b21752798b87b0378...)
|
| Known at least as far back as 15 years ago: "Rising sea
| levels caused by global warming are posing a threat to
| mangroves and therefore communities in Pacific island
| nations, according to [the United Nations]" (https://www.th
| eguardian.com/environment/2006/jul/17/climatec...)
| hammock wrote:
| There is no question that mangroves can save shoreline,
| today.
|
| The sea level rise in question is not enough to kill
| mangroves and won't be for some time. One source:
|
| >The authors determined that accretion will not keep up
| beyond sea-level rise of 0.27 inches per year. Rutgers
| University climate data scientist Erica Ashe, one of the
| authors, says the current global rate is 0.134 inches
|
| https://therevelator.org/mangroves-climate-change/
|
| On an unrelated note, I am glad that you are doing some
| research and hopefully learning a bit along the way.
| eganist wrote:
| > There is no question that mangroves can save shoreline,
| today.
|
| > The sea level rise in question is not enough to kill
| mangroves and won't be for some time. One source:
|
| > > The authors determined that accretion will not keep
| up beyond sea-level rise of 0.27 inches per year. Rutgers
| University climate data scientist Erica Ashe, one of the
| authors, says the current global rate is 0.134 inches
|
| > https://therevelator.org/mangroves-climate-change/
|
| > On an unrelated note, I am glad that you are doing some
| research and hopefully learning a bit along the way.
|
| Please reread your own sources. _Your own source_
| concludes in the paragraph following the one you cited
| that:
|
| "Based on projected rates, mangrove trees could lose
| their race against rising water within the next 30
| years."
|
| See a few others which may be related:
|
| http://www.tuvalu-overview.tv/pdf/mangrove_manual.pdf
|
| https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/118
| 12/...
|
| Tldr: climate change begets soil erosion, which leads to
| loss of land mass... which disappears islands.
|
| Let's stop disputing the obvious just to be a contrarian.
| Thanks, back to work for me. Wish you the best.
| mkishi wrote:
| How much mangrove deforestation happens in Tuvalu?
| mikojan wrote:
| What is the effect of rising sea levels on land masses
| afflicted by soil erosion in your mind?
| hanniabu wrote:
| His arm chair expertise didn't think that far
| nharada wrote:
| So have we moved from "climate change isn't real" to "it's real
| but we aren't gonna do anything"? Nobody making long term plans
| is questioning the science of it, they're just trying to figure
| out how to be the last ones to starve.
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| Tuvalu has been relatively unique among small, poor nations in
| caring about climate change for a while
| nybble41 wrote:
| Which is ironic in some ways since even a complete end to
| climate change wouldn't make Tuvalu a reasonable place to try
| to live. Poor soil, no fresh ground water, minimal other
| resources, and even without sea levels rising the islands
| would still be sinking. Islands like this come and go (on
| geological time scales) independent of any human-induced
| climate change. When they're no longer viable the residents
| migrate somewhere else. I'm not trying to downplay the real
| disruption involved for the very small group that's made
| their home there for the past few centuries, but they're not
| victims of climate change to any meaningful degree; this is
| simply how life works for people who settle in places like
| Tuvalu.
| advice_thrwawy9 wrote:
| If we were really going to prevent catastrophic climate change
| the realistic time to act would have be probably 50-70 years
| ago.
|
| I've become fairly patient with climate deniers over the years
| since it is both a difficult to imagine idea and contains
| serious amounts of existential dread, making it very hard to
| reason about. Because of the latter I don't know anyone,
| climate scientists and myself included, that aren't in some way
| climate change deniers.
|
| The only possible pathway to dramatically reduced carbon
| intensity in our economy is the potential of physical resource
| limitations, not intentional human action. If you study the way
| energy impacts our civilization (highly recommend Smil's
| "Energy and Civilization"), it's fairly obvious, if not hard to
| swallow, that we cannot reduce carbon emissions radically
| enough in a short enough time span without also destroying the
| global economy. Destroying the economy today to mitigate the
| worse case scenarios is risk that even right now no sane person
| earnestly wants to take.
|
| That destruction, on the timeline somewhere in the next 100
| years, is inevitable anyway, but nobody really wants to suffer
| _now_ when the more extreme suffering we 're putting off might
| be in 20 or even 60 years.
|
| This is really the heart of the problem: the immediate cost of
| addressing climate change has always seemed too high given the
| perceived uncertainty of outcomes. In 1950 it would have been
| fantastically easier to put a cap on carbon emissions than
| today, but the real threat of climate change was more than a
| lifetime away, and seemed ludicrous to even most educated
| people.
|
| But today, meeting the emissions goals required would make the
| pandemic seem like black Friday as far as economic activity
| goes. And at the same time, while we know the impact of climate
| change will be bad, we still don't really know how much we'll
| each live through and how bad it will be immediately. Maybe
| we'll see the AMOC shutdown in our lifetimes and Europe will
| suffer massive crop failure and starvation... and maybe it will
| just get unlivably hot at the equator, and people from the
| American Southwest will have to move to the Northeast.
|
| As many have pointed out, the pandemic is basically a toy
| problem version of climate change. In order to really prevent
| the pandemic we would have had to globally shut down the
| economy for a few months, much like China did. The problem is
| if we did that and prevented the pandemic, our world today
| would remain an imagined counterfactual that would not be
| perceived as worth the harm by the majority. We completely
| failed to address pandemic, and we will completely fail to
| address climate change. We'll find out what that means.
| jorgen123 wrote:
| No. The heart of the problem is this narrative. Granted, you
| paint the picture that is the prevalent narrative, but
| narratives can change.
|
| There are profitable solutions out there today and many have
| a potential to scale. Paul Hawken has done some great work
| recently describing them and calculating their contribution
| potential (https://drawdown.org and https://regeneration.org)
| abraae wrote:
| > Destroying the economy today to mitigate the worse case
| scenarios is risk that even right now no sane person
| earnestly wants to take.
|
| I consider myself sane, and I would take that option.
|
| Then again, I also resent that the banks were bailed out
| during the gfc, for fear of "destroying the economy".
|
| What does destroying the economy mean? The factories would
| still stand. The knowledge, science still exist.
| ahevia wrote:
| Much of what you say is true. We could theoretically still
| avoid catastrophic change and stay below 1.5 degrees but I'm
| increasingly doubtful of that after COP26 and pitiful net
| zero (instead of net negative) commitments
|
| Solar Geoengineering is something that could be considered.
| It is underfunded these days but we should do a better job of
| studying & modeling it's effects if we ever hope to deploy
| it. Heck I think these island nations should deploy
| geoengineering techniques _today_. Albeit that last statement
| is partially in jest because the technology isn't there yet.
| (It could have downstream consequences in the rest of the
| world, but clearly the rest of the world has geoengineered
| the climate using fossil fuels. These nations deserve a
| chance to protect their homes even if the method is drastic.)
| lazide wrote:
| That would require a high degree of international trust and
| cooperation (as it could be turned into a super weapon with
| only a little imagination). For something like that to
| happen, there often needs to be a clear and unambiguous
| external threat that is 'worse'
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I agree. We have lacked, still lack, will continue to lack,
| the ability to work cohesively at a planet scale to address
| climate change. That's the brutal, fundamental truth. Short
| of a tremendous shift in power structure, our future is to
| mitigate some damage with renewables, but ultimately only
| stop using fossil fuels when it becomes completely
| uneconomical to do so for every use case.
|
| We will probably geoengineer local solutions so that the
| human race is not in any real danger of extinction but it
| won't be the nice high-flyin good times we have now.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| >So have we moved from "climate change isn't real" to "it's
| real but we aren't gonna do anything"
|
| Yes, but it's rude to talk about it. Like not mentioning
| politics at Thanksgiving dinner so we can pretend we all
| agree...
| awestroke wrote:
| What's the alternative?
| donkeyd wrote:
| Rigorous global change... But we all know that's not going to
| happen.
|
| So now the plan is just 'improvise, adapt and overcome'.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| I mostly agree but... I don't think anyone has taken
| geoengineering seriously yet so maybe some of that?
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| If you really believe what you say, then find a way to short
| beachfront real estate and reinvest that humongous profit into
| fixing climate when shit hits the fan.
| malermeister wrote:
| By the time shit hits the fan, it'll be too late. You can't
| "fix" the climate, you can only prevent it from getting to a
| state that needs fixing. (And we're failing at that)
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| Point is, the hand-wringing and the cries of _"
| won't-somebody-do-something!!"_ are silly.
|
| If you really believe what you say, then go and act. A time
| of great crisis is also a time of great opportunity.
| AftHurrahWinch wrote:
| Climate change is a collective action problem, just like
| the pandemic was.
|
| If 80% of people took precautions to keep from getting
| covid, and 20% went out and lived their life, the
| decision of the 80% to stay inside was irrelevant because
| the 20% would keep the virus in circulation.
|
| If 80% of people stop buying fossil fuels, and 20% of
| people buy 500% more fossil fuels because the price is
| falling...
| malermeister wrote:
| This is not a time for individuals to act. We need
| systemic change, not me recycling more or whatever.
|
| People like you trying to push the responsibility on the
| individual is why humanity will go extinct.
| JackFr wrote:
| Tuvalu is fewer than 10,500 people living on about 10 square
| miles of island.
|
| Climate change is a real problem for them. But in terms of the
| cold calculus of global impact, the fate of Tuvalu is
| relatively minor.
| whymauri wrote:
| Tuvalu is not the only place impacted by climate change.
| lazide wrote:
| It's the only one clearly having to balance books related
| to it right now in a way that can't be hand waved or
| projected away though
| rbanffy wrote:
| No, but the resources spent in saving Tuvalu could be
| better used in rehoming its people elsewhere. This is a
| horrible thing to contemplate, of course, but I'm afraid
| that, lacking the resources to protect themselves, this is
| what will end up happening.
| rectang wrote:
| Rendering climate-science deniers irrelevant and allowing them
| no influence on the debate is a step forward.
| ape4 wrote:
| Won't someone think of the top-level domain!
| luckydata wrote:
| I understand why they are trying to do that but the effort is
| ridiculous and shows the inadequacy of last centuries'
| institutions to deal with the current challenges. Reactive in
| nature as humanity is, nothing will be done until well past due
| and many will suffer because of it.
| rectang wrote:
| If the worst case scenario happens and Tuvalu is submerged, how
| will the state manage to survive even without territory? Is that
| in the best interest of its citizens? Can any of the nation's
| collective wealth be preserved, either in the form of an enduring
| landless state as proposed, or by in some way transferring that
| wealth as the citizens emigrate somewhere else? Or is this
| proposal the futile death throes of a state about to be
| obliterated by a human-made disaster?
| lcpriest wrote:
| New Zealand has previously given citizenship to island nation
| citizens, it is likely that that will continue if things
| worsen.
| AutumnCurtain wrote:
| Between wealthy doomsday preppers and Pacific climate
| refugees, New Zealand is dealing with the immigrant trends of
| 2050 today!
| ocschwar wrote:
| Well, a nation with a thriving Polynesian culture is
| probably the best place to collect atoll refugees.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| Perhaps, perhaps not. In Hawaii there is actually a lot
| of tension between the Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians),
| the Marshallese, and Micronesians. I am not keen as to
| exactly why this is, but I think it underscores the
| importance of providing more resources for both the
| Pacific Islanders already living receiving limited
| assistance, and the new arrivals. I think the government
| shouldn't just assume they'll get along because of shared
| cultural heritage.
| AutumnCurtain wrote:
| And a liberal democracy that prizes multiculturalism, I
| absolutely agree they are a good fit. You get all that
| human capital and goodwill too, it's good business.
| FredPret wrote:
| Probably going to help make their damn rugby team even
| stronger too!
| Svip wrote:
| The Sovereign Military Order of Malta has had observer status
| at the UN since the early 1990s despite having no territory.[0]
| They issue their own passports and enters intro treaties like a
| regular state.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Ma...
| OneTimePetes wrote:
| They even had a tremendous airforce..
| deanCommie wrote:
| So does the Red Cross and the International Olympic Committee
| [1]. And if you scroll up you see so do many "banks".
|
| UN Observer status is most often used to discuss the status
| of states like Palestines but it has less of an implication
| of being a sovereign "state" than people think.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Asse
| mbl...
| L3viathan wrote:
| The order of Malta is on a different level though: It's a
| sovereign entity in international law[1], the IOC, banks,
| etc. aren't
|
| The only somewhat comparable thing afaik is the Holy See,
| but that at least has sovereignty over some land (the
| vatican).
|
| [1] although this status is sometimes questioned
| shagmin wrote:
| I'm not really optimistic for Tuvalu, I'm guessing their
| culture may out last any legal standing. But I've learned in
| history the idea of the modern state with its political borders
| and such is kind of a novelty. For some people, it's just
| pointless lines drawn by Europeans from long ago (e.g. Pashtuns
| on the Afghan/Pakistan border) and others it's something like
| an inconvenience (e.g. rich people who live anywhere they want,
| corporations putting their profit far from their headquarters,
| etc.,) - wish stories like Tuvalu would further the discussion
| on the role of the nation-state in the modern world, because it
| looks like we're probably going to have a lot of refugee crises
| in the decades to come. In a way the world is getting smaller
| all the time and we even have more people going to space than
| ever, its own thing beyond geopolitical borders.
| ocschwar wrote:
| Tuvalu exists as a state because the international community
| decided to let them. They export coconuts and fishing licenses
| for hard currency, and there is no way they could muster the
| money and hardware to defend their patch of the ocean. So if
| the same institutions that decided to enable the foundation of
| the republic of Tuvalu decide to protect Tuvualuan territorial
| waters as a way to give the Tuvaluan diaspora some source of
| currency with which to start over where they go, then that is
| what will be,.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| > Tuvalu exists as a state because the international
| community decided to let them.
|
| This is true of every state. If no one recognizes your
| claims, and then acts with impunity against you, you're not a
| state.
| quacked wrote:
| It is most certainly not true of every state; if no one
| recognizes your claims, but you can still feed your
| citizens and defend your borders, you are "a state".
| handrous wrote:
| > and then acts with impunity against you
| vntok wrote:
| Russia acts with impunity on Ukraine soil, however
| Ukraine is a state for all definitions of state I could
| find.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I don't really care one way or another, but the OP
| provided 2 stipulations for statehood:
|
| > If no one recognizes your claims, and then acts with
| impunity against you, you're not a state.
|
| Ukraine only fits one.
| notahacker wrote:
| I believe the point the OP was making is that Ukraine,
| like many other countries, exists because there are
| _limits_ to the actions its larger, stronger neighbour is
| willing and able to take.
|
| cf Western Sahara. The international community was not
| interested in preserving Western Sahara as a state, and
| so now its entire territory is governed by Morocco, save
| for some tent cities in a corner of desert the Polisario
| Front clings to mainly because it'd be bad PR for Morocco
| to wipe them out.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Okay, then you definitely couldn't include anything more
| than the 5 nuclear-weapon states.
| zardo wrote:
| There are at least nine.
| quacked wrote:
| Concur
| quacked wrote:
| Not strictly true; states that have nuclear weapons are
| capable of destroying other states, but not necessarily
| invading, repurposing, and ruling them to the point that
| their own legal and governmental system is subsumed by
| the other.
| ocschwar wrote:
| Some states can assert their claims. Tuvalu is not one of
| them.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Depends on how big of an army you have. Plenty of states
| get recognition not because other states want to, but
| because they have sufficient ability to defend their
| borders.
| dspillett wrote:
| _> Plenty of states get recognition ... because they have
| sufficient ability to defend their borders._
|
| This is not always the case. There was a time when IS had
| control of a significant unchanging area of land (and
| much more contested areas too, of course) but were never
| accepted as a state by many (any?) others. Hence being
| referred to as "so-called Islamic State" most of the time
| in news broadcasts.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| > This is not always the case.
|
| I did not say it was always the case. I said "plenty of",
| not "every".
|
| Life and politics are complicated, and I left plenty of
| room in my original statement for nuance and counter
| examples, please do not remove that for me.
|
| > There was a time when IS had control of a significant
| unchanging area of land
|
| Unchanging is not the same as uncontested, and I'd argue
| that IS never had an "unchanging" area of land. Every
| square foot of IS territory was actively contested, and
| if you look at the map of its territory over time it
| moves and shifts and is full of uncontrolled pockets. The
| nice, clean maps of IS territory on the news were in fact
| simplifications for easy public consumption. The real
| situation on the ground was always much more fluid and
| complex than that. If you look at a map[0] of the actual
| territory that IS controlled, it is pretty far from the
| necessary boundaries to run a state. Put bluntly, this is
| a battle map, not the kind of map that you can make a
| state out of.
|
| Even the areas that IS held, it did not hold for very
| long or very securely. Take Tikrit, for example, which IS
| only held from June 2014 to March 2015, with forces
| massing for the attack in February. It's hard to argue
| that a group holds "unchanging" territory when major
| cities are changing hands every 10 months or so.
| Furthermore, if an opposing force is able to mass an army
| outside your city and put siege to it, you are very far
| away from having "sufficient ability to defend their
| borders". Given that IS' territorial claims collapsed
| rather quickly, I think that assertion is pretty good.
|
| > Hence being referred to as "so-called Islamic State"
| most of the time in news broadcasts.
|
| Right, because _the war was still on_ , IS was still
| trying to seize the land and fortify the borders of what
| they hoped would eventually be their state. If IS had won
| or fought the battle to a draw, I have no doubt that they
| would have gotten roughly the same level of international
| recognition that say, North Korea gets and they'd stop
| being "so called". But they didn't do that, so they never
| stopped being "so called".
|
| Really, the counter example you should have gone for here
| is Haiti. Haiti unquestionably was capable of defending
| its borders, and in fact repelled several attempts to
| retake the island. It also did not get recognized for
| nearly 20 years by basically anyone until they agreed to
| reimburse France for the loss of their property,
| including distastefully the value of the slaves who were
| now free. While plenty of states get recognized once they
| manage to successfully hold and defend territory, not
| _every_ state gets recognized that way. Sometimes other
| factors dominate, such as the fear of other slave holding
| states in recognizing the independence of a country
| created via a slave revolt.
|
| 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State#/media/Fi
| le:Near...
| jonathankoren wrote:
| Well, then they can't with impunity against you.
|
| Monaco remains a country, because of interference by
| France, and the fact that they'd be severely sanctioned
| by EU and the rest of their allies.
| vehbisarikaya wrote:
| They also export .tv domains (e.g., twitch.tv)
| number6 wrote:
| So they can exist forth on the metaverse.
| hasmanean wrote:
| That is a very grim assessment. But yeah they might
| become the worlds first virtualized state for stateless
| people.
| number6 wrote:
| I can already see the Press Release: Meta preserves the
| Culture and unique Landmarks of Tuvalu on the Metaverse.
| The State of Tuvalu lives on through the efforts of Meta
| and is the first fully virtual State.
| ocschwar wrote:
| And before that they financed a significant part of their
| government's budget selling postage stamps to kids like me.
| Recognized sovereignty can be a source of money in all
| sorts of ways.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| > there is no way they could muster the money and hardware to
| defend their patch of the ocean.
|
| You also cannot defend a patch of ocean without some land, at
| least with current technology. War ships require quite a bit
| of time in dry dock for fueling, refit, and rearmament. And
| that's before we consider the subpar fighting capability that
| crews without shore leave would provide.
|
| No, they'd still need to buy or borrow some land, even if
| they had the hardware to run a moderate navy.
| alksjdalkj wrote:
| I think the point is even with land there's no way they
| could actually defend their territory so what difference
| will it make when their land goes away? They'll be in the
| same situation they're in now (at least with respect to
| their sovereignty and existence as a state).
| krallja wrote:
| How many war ships does Tuvalu own or operate?
| fy20 wrote:
| One apparently, but it has no armaments:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMTSS_Te_Mataili_II_(802)
| [deleted]
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| These nations will need to make arrangements to migrate to
| welcoming host nations, that will allow for local governance
| similar to how tribal lands work in the US.
|
| Wealth could be preserved by seeking restitution from nations
| according to lifetime emissions (which has led to sea level
| rise), and creating a trust to manage and distribute the
| returns from those funds invested to citizens where ever they
| are. Once submerged, it's unlikely the land has any value
| beyond tourism for diving yachties transiting the pacific.
| coredog64 wrote:
| Assuming we haven't also destroyed fishing stocks, countries
| like Tuvalu and Kiribati have _huge_ value from the fishing
| rights within their EEZ.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I thought of that, but didn't mention it because there are
| a lot of unknowns like China just straight up ignoring them
| or how you'd license, govern, and patrol the waters. It's a
| valid asset though, good point.
| ocschwar wrote:
| China doesn't have to wait for the islands to submerge to
| do that. Chinese fishing fleets have violated fishing
| rules in Ecuadorian waters. The Tuvaluans have no chance
| when all they have is a few motor dinghies and M-16s.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| multiple nationalities are doing this -- its an active
| situation.. Spain for example, in addition to China.
| NineStarPoint wrote:
| Generally speaking, an EEZ is defined as a certain amount
| of miles from the shoreline of a country. The big question
| here is the question of: if you no longer have a shoreline,
| do you get to keep the EEZ of where your shoreline used to
| be?
| mistrial9 wrote:
| we have a group of Pacific Islanders from "somewhere" that
| relocated into an underused Church property on the next block
| here.. there is a large parking area and apartments, in
| addition to the Church itself. The building was obviously
| lonely, then, presto! full of people.. they speak in a native
| language and there are a lot of them, all ages.. it has food
| and events several times a month or more now.. must have been
| hundreds of people
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| It reminds me of the concept of government in exile, similar
| to how there's been a Tibetan "government" in India since
| China took Tibet.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_in_exile
| bin_bash wrote:
| call me cynical, but would any country be willing to give up
| its land like that? Tribal lands only exist to give back a
| small fraction of stolen lands back. Would any country give
| land to another country just for goodwill?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Tuvalu's total land mass is ~10 square miles, which doesn't
| seem onerous to provide. That's about 22% the size of San
| Francisco (~46 sq miles).
| bbarnett wrote:
| Or a small Canadian prairies farm...
| gumby wrote:
| Their problem is not where people will sit (likely NZ
| will oblige) but that they want to retain control over
| other territorial claims/benefits such as fishing zone,
| domain, orbital rights et al.
| PeterisP wrote:
| The fact that they want that does not mean that they will
| receive that; they may well turn out to be one of the
| many nations in history who lose their claims. We have an
| international consensus regarding basic human rights and
| process for refugees which means that they near certainly
| will get an ability to resettle somewhere, but their
| fishing rights may well be divided among the surviving
| neighbouring nations without any compensation to Tuvalu
| unless those neighbouring nations just choose to grant
| some.
|
| By the way, what do you mean by "orbital rights"? IMHO
| according to the Outer Space Treaty you have only the
| right to the orbits you are currently actively using with
| your satellites and nothing more.
| gumby wrote:
| I was confused and thought that the Kacific satellite was
| owned by Tuvalu (as the larger country of Tonga has
| already done for some time, establishing certain property
| rights in space). But I looked it up and Tuvalu was
| merely a customer.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Tribal lands only exist to give back a small fraction of
| stolen lands back.
|
| Tribal lands exist largely so that those resistant to
| integration will stay out of the way of colonizers.
| ocschwar wrote:
| The most likely resolution would be a land purchase in (for
| example) Fiji along with a grant of autonomous power on
| that land, in exchange for a fishing lease in Tuvaluan
| waters.
|
| Fiji gets a share of Tuvaluan fishing grounds, and the
| Tuvaluans get a place to live AND some protection for their
| territorial waters by a nation that is still landed.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Why would Fiji treat them any differently than the
| Indians?
| ocschwar wrote:
| Fishing rights. Cultural affinity. But yes, there is very
| much a risk that the Fijians will mistreat the Tuvaluans.
| aatharuv wrote:
| It would hardly be goodwill -- this would be compensation
| for emitting enough carbon to cause their country to be
| drowned.
| ocschwar wrote:
| Brittany and Galicia are both the result of an explicit
| land grant to British refugees from the English invasion.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| ??? Brittany and Galicia were the destination for some
| Briton migrations during the Roman and Anglo-Saxon
| eras...
|
| Calling the Britons "British" and Anglo-Saxons "English"
| is confusing... Usually those terms are used for modern
| Great Britain and modern English.
| yorwba wrote:
| Who granted it to them?
| ocschwar wrote:
| Brittany: IIRC, it was still part of the Roman Empire
| when Cadwalldr and his followers migrated there.
|
| Galicia: the local king.
| [deleted]
| pkphilip wrote:
| They can become a nation where citizens live on boats (if they
| are ok with that) or on dwellings that exist over water.. or
| they can increase the height of their island by bringing soil
| from elsewhere.. or they can make their own islands.
| Animats wrote:
| Can't make your own island and create a sovereign nation
| under current international law. It's been tried.
| FredPret wrote:
| Getting strong Neal Stephenson vibes!
| ocschwar wrote:
| The engineering challenge involved in making that a safe way
| to live go beyond anything the Tuvaluans can hope to finance.
| bbarnett wrote:
| I wonder, because even it they are submerged, it could be 1
| foot submerged....
|
| So, trade could bring wood, materials, solar, desalinaton.
| If done slowly, over years, as parts submerge, it wouldn't
| be a massive outlay at once.
|
| I agree.. not cheap, but individual citizens have to buy
| building materials currently, their new houses would just
| be on stilts.
| oblio wrote:
| They just need to persuade the latest crazy, pardon me,
| eccentric billionaire.
| twic wrote:
| Tuvalu is at higher altitude than much of the Netherlands!
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| I feel like Kevin Costner should be involved somehow.
| kingcharles wrote:
| The UN Law of the Sea does not allow this.. requires your
| territory to be naturally-formed: https://www.un.org/depts/lo
| s/convention_agreements/texts/unc...
| cblconfederate wrote:
| I dont think the UN can recognize that as a state with
| territory, territorial waters, EEZ etc.
| pkphilip wrote:
| Why not? many countries make their own islands, adjust
| their coast lands and do other sorts of geoengineering.
| Building tall platforms isn't that controversial either.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| The UNCLOS allows them to make artificial islands in
| their EEZ, but to have an EEZ they must be a country
| first.
| SoapSeller wrote:
| They always have the option of building a platform(Sealand[0]
| like) and claim the territory.
|
| Probably there still few advantages to be recognized as nation.
| Being Tax shelter and selling domains(.tv is somewhat popular)
| comes to mind.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand
| bin_bash wrote:
| Sealand isn't a great example considering nobody recognizes
| it as a country. Tuvalu might get away with it since they
| would've been a "real" country in the past.
| javert wrote:
| More important than official recognition by other
| countries, is simply being allowed to exist. Incredibly,
| Sealand has achieved that.
| AutumnCurtain wrote:
| I assume he just meant a platform resembling that although
| it should be apparent that would come nowhere close to the
| size, beauty, or natural wealth of the current islands.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| That brings to mind some interesting ideas. One of the
| "business models" for Sealand was to be a "data haven",
| i.e. offer online hosting of data in a jurisdiction which
| didn't allow searches or seizures of data or servers. Could
| Tuvalu provide a similar service, possibly from within the
| territory of a nation which grants them a legally
| autonomous region?
|
| Similarly, I wonder what would happen if Tuvalu decided its
| laws should not recognise copyright as a concept any more.
| The government could run an official "legal" file-sharing
| site and other countries would have to decide whether to
| prevent their own citizens from accessing it. I imagine
| these other countries would lose a lot of sympathy for the
| people of Tuvalu if such a site were created, though.
| trasz wrote:
| There is a precedent:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Ma...
| logfromblammo wrote:
| The time is now to dredge and dump, and build fixed oceanic
| platforms at their territorial extremes, while the construction
| crews can still breathe air and weld cheaply.
|
| The only motivation any other country has to preserve the EEZ of
| Tuvalu is to prevent Chinese fishermen from overfishing that part
| of the ocean into a dead zone, or Chinese excavators drilling all
| the oil/minerals out of the seabed. So they should play up that
| aspect, and then they may attract the necessary investment to
| make a big enough pile of sand at the right coordinates.
| beervirus wrote:
| Pure theater.
|
| > Kofe said he delivered the video address, scheduled to be aired
| at COP26 on Tuesday, in a place that used to be dry land, adding
| that Tuvalu was seeing a lot of coastal erosion.
|
| Coastal erosion, not climate change, not rising sea levels.
| rbanffy wrote:
| "Since 1993, sea levels have risen about 0.5cm (0.2 inches) per
| year, according to a 2011 Australian government report."
|
| That's 14 cm of elevation on sea level alone.
|
| Coastal erosion can be mitigated, but I don't think Tuvalu has
| the resources to build and deploy the required amount of
| breakwaters required to protect the island themselves. Climate
| change is something that has to be addressed at a global level.
|
| edit: math correction
| beervirus wrote:
| Your math is off by an order of magnitude. Sea levels are up
| by more like 0.1 meter since 1993.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise
| rbanffy wrote:
| Sorry. Fixed. I blame Windows Calculator.
| bbarnett wrote:
| I saw this episode. Gillian kept moving the professor's
| measuring stick..
| bencoder wrote:
| 14cm, not 1.4m
| rbanffy wrote:
| Oops. Fixed.
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _Coastal erosion is the loss or displacement of land, or the
| long-term removal of sediment and rocks along the coastline due
| to the action of waves, currents, tides, wind-driven water,
| waterborne ice, or other impacts of storms._
|
| > _According to the IPCC, sea level rise caused by climate
| change will increase coastal erosion worldwide, significantly
| changing the coasts and low-lying coastal areas._
|
| Interesting.
| beervirus wrote:
| When the sea levels rise a significant amount, sure. How much
| additional coastal erosion does IPCC think we're getting now,
| with sea levels up like 4 inches?
|
| My point is that there's no reason to think that the land
| Tuvalu has lost has _anything_ to do with climate change.
| Pretending otherwise is pure theater.
| mbostleman wrote:
| Yes, one of the causes of coastal erosion can be the effects
| of climate change. But what is the likelihood that the cause,
| or even partial cause, of this particular coastal erosion is
| climate change? I could be wrong, but I doubt that that
| causation is readily provable in this case. Hence some people
| that value a strong, empirical case for things like this will
| tend to take it more as theater than science. I personally
| think that stunts like this hurt rather than help the cause.
| But that's just my two cents.
| HamburgerEmoji wrote:
| Check any of the NOAA charts and chances are excellent that
| you'll see the seas rising at, say, 2mm/year, and that there
| has been no acceleration in the rate for over a hundred
| years.
| https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_us.html
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| The world's burning and you're nitpicking about this...
| asasidh wrote:
| They should look at the metaverse. I am told that is the future.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't post unsubstantive comments, please don't take HN
| on generic tangents, and especially not generic flamewar
| tangents.
|
| All that leads to predictable and lower-quality discussion.
| We'd like the vector to point the opposite way here.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| Moderation comments are about the site rules. They're off-
| topic, but that's (alas) a necessary evil in order to
| prevent the system from ending up in well-known failure
| modes.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&qu
| e...
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&s
| o...
|
| If you'd please stick to the rules from now on, we'd
| appreciate it, and I'd personally appreciate because it
| would mean fewer tedious moderation comments.
| lifeformed wrote:
| They could claim a big stake there with their .tv domains.
| asasidh wrote:
| whatever floats their boat, I say
| glenneroo wrote:
| Maybe we should start a petition for Twitch to start donating
| a portion of their profits towards ensuring Tuvalu can keep
| existing in some form or another... perhaps ideally a fund
| which can be used to relocate citizens when the island is no
| longer inhabitable?
| mherdeg wrote:
| I think this is the premise of 1995 Sci-Fi channel classic
| CARVER'S GATE -- in a grim future where the planet's ecosystem
| is ruined and its remaining inhabitants struggle to survive,
| anybody who can afford spends all their time inside their VR
| helmets living out escapist fantasies.
|
| The motivating issue in that film is that a bunch of people
| play video games, a scientist invents a tool that allows the
| Doom monsters to come back to earth, and a QA engineer has to
| hunt them down before they destroy the remaining shreds of
| humanity. That part is of course unrealistic but otherwise the
| Metaverse narrative plausibly matches this Michael Paree
| classic.
| AutumnCurtain wrote:
| Snow Crash as well, although their physical world is less
| ecodisaster and more corporate hellscape.
| Koshkin wrote:
| If the entire population is forced to emigrate, then what's the
| point?
| alksjdalkj wrote:
| Ken Liu has a relevant short story [1] - set in a future Earth
| where climate change and rising sea levels have forced people to
| live on floating settlements. It's also included in his
| collection The Hidden Girl and Other Stories.
|
| [1] https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/dispatches-
| from-t...
| DicIfTEx wrote:
| Others are citing various examples of states without territory,
| such as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta or various
| governments-in-exile throughout history, so I thought I'd throw
| Estonia into the ring, which has its government backed up in
| Luxembourg in case the Russians invade:
| https://e-estonia.com/solutions/e-governance/data-embassy/
| 310260 wrote:
| That is really interesting. Especially the part where they
| mention their data centers have immunity just like their
| diplomatic embassies.
| 323 wrote:
| Tuvalu is just 26 sq km. How many bulk carriers filled with dirt
| you need to raise that by a few meters?
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I'm certain it would be more than Tuvalu could afford, unless
| they were granted the money by the UN, which seems unlikely. I
| also can't help but think the dirt would eventually be washed
| away regardless. The kind of land reclamation places like the
| Netherlands do isn't applicable on Pacific Low Islands.
| 323 wrote:
| China has experience growing islands in the ocean. They are
| also the biggest polluter right now and they can afford the
| cost. If Tuvalu allows them to build a naval base in return
| maybe the US will get involved just to prevent that.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| My understanding is that the Spratly Islands base China has
| built is not something that can actually sustain a
| population trying to live traditionally. They've destroyed
| the reefs and encircled the dredged area with a sea wall
| that prevents normal sand beaches from existing. While the
| terraformed island would be above water, you wouldn't have
| the kind of ecosystem that is viable or productive.
| int0x2e wrote:
| That could work for Tuvalu, but I hope you realize that if
| everyone just used that solution to address the sea-level rise
| due to global warming, you'd end up greatly accelerating both
| global warming and sea level rise...
| soperj wrote:
| majority of coral atolls have actually been growing in the
| last 50 years, not shrinking.
| pengaru wrote:
| I suspect they need something more like some fresh volcanic
| flows to shore up their land in a way the relentless, rising
| seas won't quickly wash away.
| mlyle wrote:
| That's 2.6 * 10^8 cubic meters of compacted dirt and rock
| needed to raise the island by 10m-- which is more than 1500
| kg/cubic meter (1.5 tonnes/cubic meter).
|
| The largest bulk carriers manage about 400,000 DWT.
|
| So, about 1000 trips of the largest around... ignoring the
| logistical and ecological challenges of procuring that much
| material and using it to raise the island in a durable way.
| prepend wrote:
| That actually seems pretty achievable since there's centuries
| of time needed to raise 10m (assuming we keep on without any
| controls).
|
| I hope the math for how much it costs isn't so low as to be
| sad to fix this problem in the wrong way.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _seems pretty achievable_
|
| Why not give the cost of that operation to every Tuvaluan,
| along with a promise that they and their family can
| emigrate to a country of their choosing?
| randyrand wrote:
| 10m is massize!
| wittycardio wrote:
| Probably easier to just move all the people somewhere else
| nxpnsv wrote:
| Should be possible to compute. Let's user 3 meters of sand with
| a density of 1600kg/m^3. So you ned 3 _26_ 1000 _1000_ 1600 =
| 124.8 billion kg. The largest containerships can do something
| like 200k DWT (2.032*10^8 kg). So just above 614 trips...
| [deleted]
| bmsleight_ wrote:
| 440,000 Shipping containers
|
| https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28%28srt%2829%29*1000...
| lallysingh wrote:
| Note that I believe you're using 2-TEU-size containers. A
| ship will hold 10-20k TEU. So we're talking about 44-88
| shiploads.
| mlyle wrote:
| _If_
|
| A) the container ships could tolerate containers full of
| dirt and rock (nope-- each of these 2-TEU containers would
| weigh 100 tonnes... compare to gross tonnage of ~200000
| tonnes and you're only moving 2000 such containers in a
| load),
|
| B) the containers themselves could safely tolerate this
| much mass & weight (nope),
|
| and
|
| B) raising the island 1 meter is enough (probably nope).
| 323 wrote:
| Note that dirt/rock is not carried in containers, but in
| so called "bulk carriers".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulk_carrier
| mlyle wrote:
| (29000000 square meters * 1 meter)/ 66 cubic meters is a
| cleaner way to do this math. (Or 29 square kilometers).
|
| Note you're using 29 vs. the grandparent's 26, too.
| bobthechef wrote:
| Why not build a system of dikes around the island? What about
| poldering? Is that feasible here? The island is only 26 square
| kilometers.
| ocschwar wrote:
| The hard part is keeping people living safely on the island.
| roywiggins wrote:
| The land area of Fulafuti is 2.4 square kilometers, but the
| total area of the atoll is _275 square kilometers_ : it's a
| ring of islands surrounding a lagoon. The lagoon is 120 feet
| deep. The atoll is basically the tip-top of a vast underwater
| mountain that drops away precipitously: there's nothing to
| build a dike _on_.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funafuti
|
| https://tuvalu-data.sprep.org/system/files/Rapport_de_leve_C...
| robocat wrote:
| The atolls are made of coral - the rock of the top of the
| volcanic mountain is more than half a kilometre (> 500 yards)
| below.
|
| - Drilling explorations at Funafuti from 1896 to 1898
| resulted in 340 m long cores comprising shallow-water
| carbonates. Subsequent analysis of the drill cores suggests a
| subsidence rate for Funafuti of approximately 30 m/Ma [30
| metres per million ano/year].
|
| - report on a refraction line in Nukufetau lagoon, concluding
| that volcanics are capped by approximately 760 m of
| limestones.
|
| The pdf has great information.
| Y_Y wrote:
| Then let's make the old land the dike and build everything in
| the lagoon. Maybe we can mine the Pacific Trash Island for
| building material.
| roywiggins wrote:
| The density of the pacific garbage patch is not high, it's
| not an island so much as a denser soup of trash than other
| areas.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch
| Y_Y wrote:
| Well that's pessimistic! If there's any justice in the
| world then the rising sea levels will be compensated by
| an generous outpouring of plastics into the ocean and a
| corresponding increase in the density of the PTI.
| rbanffy wrote:
| I don't think it's feasible with local resources. Breakwaters
| would help with coastal erosion, but, if done wrong, would
| cause enormous damage to coastal ecosystems.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Do I really have to be the one pointing out this is a well
| executed PR event?
|
| Tuvalu won't be submerged for centuries even in the worst case
| scenarios.
|
| They _will_ have incrementally increasing problems from it decade
| by decade. But that press release will not go anywhere.
| prepend wrote:
| I thought it really funny and disingenuous when the article
| quoted "We didn't think it would go viral as we saw over the
| last few days. We have been very pleased with that and
| hopefully that carries the message and emphasises the
| challenges that we are facing in Tuvalu at the moment,"
|
| I'm sure they were completely shocked by their carefully staged
| and promoted photo op.
| sharmin123 wrote:
| Is It Possible to Hire Hackers Online?:
| https://www.hackerslist.co/is-it-possible-to-hire-hackers-on...
| visarga wrote:
| Raise a 5m wall.
| optimalsolver wrote:
| "Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow"?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cipd-wuHHc0
| FredPret wrote:
| Build an underwater server farm and become an offshore
| (undershore?) banking centre
| rbanffy wrote:
| Build a platform on the highest point of the island and call it
| Sealand II
| jeofken wrote:
| Or "New Sealand"
| rbanffy wrote:
| New Venice.
| twic wrote:
| And rake in the dollars from dyslexic tourists!
| bogwog wrote:
| Or an underwater city and become the number one tourist
| destination in the world for the next few years (until everyone
| else is forced to do the same)
| Y_Y wrote:
| Sounds like a very expensive aquarium with no exit.
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