Pirate's Cove

Weird, because the socialists called Vanuatu one of the happiest places on Earth back in 2007

Climate change is forcing Vanuatu to confront an unthinkable future

Wait, I don’t have global heating on here?

Nguna is one of the smaller of some 83 islands that make up the South Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu. It hardly rates a mention in the global politics of climate change, but its people want their voices to be heard. After all, they are living with the effects—close up.

Inneth Tasururu teaches at the little school in Unakap, a village on Nguna just off the coast of Efate, where the capital, Port Vila, stands. Not so long ago she was a pupil playing in its playground. When asked where the sea was then, her eyes glaze over a little and she says just one word: “Far.” Locals estimate that in recent decades the shoreline in Unakap has come in by something like 20 metres. The school’s old football field is under water, and attempts to build coastal defences have all failed, washed away or broken by high tides and storms.

After each storm, changes can be seen. The shores of Nguna island and its neighbours are littered with fallen trees, undermined by erosion. Other trees have most of their roots exposed, ready to fall next. Metal spikes stand out in places, the ruins of failed defences, and the path to the school is being eaten away by the waves. “All the communities in the islands are affected,” says Whitely Tasururu, a local man who advises the government on the issue.

Vanuatu is sponsoring a United Nations resolution on climate change, to press for financial help based on a legal opinion last year by the International Court of Justice that countries can be held liable for their inaction on climate change. America is doing its best to scuttle this motion, and any action would anyway surely come too late for much of Vanuatu. People there laugh at Donald Trump’s claim that climate change is a “con job”. In Port Vila, Vanuatu’s Ministry of Climate Change has collected evidence that suggests the sea level is rising all around the country. According to the country’s meteorological service, it has risen by 11-15cm since 1993. That brings severe problems such as saltwater intrusion.

Blah blah blah. They have been complaining about this for well over 10 years. My first post on them blaming a hurricane, something that happens out in the Pacific, on ‘climate change’ was back in 2015. I know other Skeptics, such as Tom Nelson, noted their BS way further back. And it is BS. Their island nation has a lot of airports, and would basically be a full 3rd world nation without fossil fueled ships and planes bringing in modern goods, along with food. They’ve polluted their fresh water supply. They really just want free, no strings attached money. It is all a scam. It’s very tedious.