Global warming

I read in the newspaper today that this November is likely to be the hottest November ever and the onset of winter is expected only in late December. A senior from B-School who lives in Europe who hates the cold is not complaining, but the 10800 citizens of the tiny island nation of Tuvalu are already feeling the heat. The rising sea levels have seen the salt water enter the fresh water aquifers and the primary source of fresh water on the island is now rainwater harvesting. They are facing a bleak future. For some others though, the future is already here. The first refugees of rising sea levels have already migrated from the Carteret Islands of Papua New Guinea  to relocate to island of Bougainville after salt water inundated their crops and infiltrated their fresh water wells. This newfound safety on another island may be fleeting though as scientists believe that most of their islands will be uninhabitable by 2016 and completely submerged as early as 2020.

Yet others have come up with a more novel solution. President Anote Tong of Kiribati, another small island nation in the south pacific has bought land in Fiji in preparation for the day that Kiribati will have to be abandoned due to rising sea water levels.

Closer to the western world, the Alaskan island of Kivalina is under threat too with sea water levels rising at a rate that gives the 400 residents of the island just under a decade to think about where they wish to relocate to.

I suspect that even for the nay-sayers, the evidence is going to soon become difficult to ignore, but they have another line of defense. There is no proof they say that global warming is anthropogenic. The Earth has been subjected to warming and cooling cycles for eons and some groups actually claim that another ice age is around the corner. Time to turn on the oil fired heaters for them I suppose.