Treaty could save Tuvalu, others

WASHINGTON – On the picturesque nine coral atolls that make up the South Pacific nation of Tuvalu, global warming is having a disastrous impact.

Rising sea levels threaten to make Tuvalu the first nation in the world to become extinct as a result of the failure of the Bush administration to take seriously the problem of unchecked damage to Earth’s ozone largely arising from the emission of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere.

In 1997, the United States and 54 other nations signed the Kyoto Protocol with a view to reducing the emission of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, which already is melting the polar ice cap and the world’s few remaining glaciers.

In one of his first acts as president, George W. Bush thumbed his nose at science and the international community by denouncing Kyoto and pulling the United States, one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases, out of the global process of limiting the ozone-layer-depleting pollutants.

Tuvalu, as far as the Bush administration is concerned, can just disappear into the Pacific Ocean. Already, the seawater that is filtering into the coral aquifers is poisoning the island nation’s freshwater supply and destroying crops. Storm damage to the nation’s coral reefs has adversely affected local fishing. High tides have swamped homes and roads. A number of Tuvalu’s 11,000 Polynesian-Christian inhabitants have already done the unthinkable – fleeing their beloved homeland because of the rising waters.

The Bush administration thinks nations like Tuvalu are expendable. That did not stop it from signing up Tuvalu’s Pacific neighbors – Palau, Tonga and the Solomon Islands – as members of the “Coalition of the Willing” in preparation for the attack on Iraq. Unfortunately, Tuvalu will be the first of many casualties of the administration’s failure to join the international alliance to combat global warming.

After Tuvalu, other Pacific atolls will succumb, producing more refugees. When low-lying Bangladesh is swamped, millions of refugees will pour into neighboring countries seeking higher land. American vacationers will no longer be able to visit Venice, Copenhagen, much of Holland, New Orleans and Miami – since they, too, will be submerged.

The recent tsunami in Asia showed what rising sea levels from global warming will one day do to low-lying coastal areas. The tsunami that washed over the Maldives chain in the Indian Ocean destroyed the island of Kandholhudhoo. Its 3,000 inhabitants abandoned the island. Like Tuvalu, the island’s water supply was contaminated by seawater and other contaminants. Future natural calamities like cyclones and monsoons will similarly affect other low-lying islands and coastal areas if something is not done soon to stop and reverse the affects of global warming.

While it may be too late for George Bush to salvage anything from his eight-year presidency, rejoining the Kyoto system would provide an important glimmer of hope for many of the world’s peoples.

And, perhaps even more important, it would also provide an example for other obstinate mega-energy consumers like China and India – two polluters that have no intentions of joining Kyoto as long as the United States remains an outsider.

While too late for the poor souls of Tuvalu, a commitment by the United States to put the interests of humanity, wildlife and the planet ahead of obscene corporate profiteering might provide a slight but positive reprieve in the history books for the Bush administration.