Pirate's Cove

It’s one of the most at risk places from climate doom. Just like every other place the media pimps as at risk

A Caribbean island’s quest to become the world’s first climate-resilient nation

(Starts out with a story about a guy)

“The weather announcer said we should prepare our things and get ready to move to the shelter, which is the primary school,” he tells me as we sit in a classroom at that shelter – his home since 2017.

Frederick grabbed some clothes, papers and his artwork and headed over. There were only a few hours to spare.

The storm was first announced to residents of the small island as a tropical depression on 16 September, but within two days heightened ocean surface temperature and low wind shear led it to intensify to a category five superstorm, the strongest possible hurricane, which was named Hurricane Maria.

ZOMG, hurricanes never happen in the Caribbean! Certainly not Dominica. Definitely not all the way back to 1780, and one called the Great Hurricane Of 1780 (category 5). It’s probably your fault.

Dominica is one of the most disaster-vulnerable countries on Earth, meaning the country faces a choice between building resilience or risking becoming locked in an unsustainable cycle of destruction and rebuilding from hazards that could eventually make living there unfeasible.

Well, considering that they are prone to storms being out on the fringes of the Caribbean and Atlantic, and prone to earthquakes and volcanoes (there’s a plate boundary, a subduction zone type right there), well, they should build better, right?

After two of the country’s most costly natural disasters struck within two years of each other (2015 and 2017), Dominica’s prime minister declared the country had found itself “on the front line of the war on climate change” and announced plans to make Dominica “the world’s first climate-resilient nation“. Building resilience into every facet of society was essential to ensure the island remains habitable, he said.

Will they also be doing away with the use of fossil fuels? No longer allowing tourists to come on fossil fueled ships and planes, rent fossil fueled vehicles (25% of their GDP is tourism)? How about all the products, including foods, brought in by fossil fueled ships and planes?

Among the key measures to mainstream resilience is Dominica’s early warning system – a means to warn residents in advance about dangerous weather events, allowing them time to make what can be life-saving preparations, such as moving to higher ground. Dominica’s unique system includes a grassroots approach of support and communication using traditional conch shells.

Wouldn’t that be a good idea to start with? One would think people who live on an island all the way out were it is would keep an eye on the weather. Still your fault.

It is an urgent mission. Mia Mottley, the prime minister of Dominica’s sister island Barbados, has warned that large-scale migration from the small states of the Caribbean will be a reality in the next decades without emissions cuts and finance for robust climate and resilience projects.

Surprise: give us money.