The Courier

© Kirill Livshitskiy. Image from BigStockPhoto.com

With climate change seemingly on everyone’s agenda there’s real concern that many of the small, beautiful, faraway islands in the Pacific and Caribbean are in danger of disappearing. And, as the earth warms up, regions with temperate climates like Europe will have less snow, reduced rainfall and months when it is hot when it used to be cold.

There’s more. In countries where there is no winter, it is now extremely hot, almost too hot, all the time and in some places it has simply just stopped raining. That, of course, makes it difficult to grow plants and find drinking water. It is rain that causes water to penetrate deep into the earth; the water that appears when you turn on the tap.

Also there is now an increasing number of major disasters in which people are killed: hurricanes, earthquakes, floods and erupting volcanoes. In the North and South Poles, where there used to be enormous quantities of ice in winter and summer, the ice is melting more quickly. When it melts it means there is a lot more water in the seas.

This can be very serious in some places around the globe. Belgium and Holland in Europe and particularly the small islands in the Pacific - flat coral reefs that are only just above sea level. In one of these countries, Kiribati (pronounced Kiribass) two of the small islands have already disappeared under the sea. Although these islands were not inhabited, people used to go there and it is said that when he was very young Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, had lunch on one of them. Not surprisingly, on some of the small Kiribati Islands the people are frightened. In fact, some of the people from this country as well as from another country, the Marshall Islands, have already had to go and live on another small island state in the region, called Niue. Niue is lucky because it has mountains.

But the country in the Pacific people speak about as most in danger is Tuvalu. People say it will perhaps be the first country to disappear completely beneath the waves if sea levels continue to rise. We visited Tuvalu. One grandmother told us: “I will allow my children and grandchildren to leave but I will stay here. It is here that I want to die.” That is sad.

Children learn at school what must be done to help the country, such as not wasting water, protecting the trees, and so on, but they also learn what to do in the case of danger - if the sea rises. But, of course, they do not want to leave their homes. Susana, aged 9, told us : “I don’t know what we must do but I don’t want to leave.” Another girl, Tepula, said that she will climb up into a tree and wait for the water to go down. A boy, Teisi, wants to stay to watch over his country and Kanava, another boy, says he will fill the sea to make a mountain.

And Kanava is not wrong. He thinks the same as the leaders of his country who want to build an artificial island that is higher. But they will need a lot of money and materials. They think people and children everywhere do not want their very beautiful little country to disappear and that everybody will help them.