Dept. of Drowning Nations: The Maldives wants a new home

by Emily Gertz

categories: Drowning Nations, Media, Oceans, Politics

Published May 23, 2009 @ 08:58AM PT

Above: Trailer for "The Age of Stupid"

Mohamed Nasheed, president of the lowlying archipelago nation of Maldives, doesn't have the luxury of ignoring global warming. Even a slight overall rise in ocean levels will submerge most of the country.

On a recent evening, after a special screening of the new documentary "The Age of Stupid" (which looks back in anger from 2055 at how people ignored taking strong action against climate change), he's announced that the Maldives will become the world's first carbon-neutral nation.

To the overall dismay of India, Sri Lanka and Australia, last year Mr. Nasheed suggested those nations as possible new homes for his citizens, with the move funded perhaps by setting aside some of the nation's income from tourism. In a feature article this month in The New York Times Magazine, Nicholas Schmidle writes,

...Nasheed has been taken seriously. Three months after his announcement, the president of Kiribati, an archipelagic nation in the Pacific, confessed that he, too, was searching for ways to relocate his countrymen. And in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Al Gore encouraged Congress to pass legislation reducing carbon emissions by citing Nasheed’s initiative as just one example of what could happen if they failed to act.

As Schmidle describes, some take issue with Mr. Nasheed's suggestion of moving the entire population, notably his political opponents. Scientists more often than not think he's correct to worry, however. The coral reefs that help protect the Maldives isles are themselves vulnerable to changing ocean temperatures and acidity -- both of which are rising as the oceans absorb more and more human-created CO2 from the atmosphere.

Others note that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (I.P.C.C.) forecasts on sea level rise by the end of the century, which are pretty broad at 7 to 23 inches, are actually conservative. "Since the I.P.C.C. study, the journals Science, Nature Geoscience and Nature have all published articles featuring estimates that exceed two feet, some saying that rises could be as much as five feet by the end of the century," writes Schmidle.

...At the reception following “The Age of Stupid,” I asked Nasheed how he planned to follow up on the two blockbuster initiatives so early in his term. He had to be thinking about the practicalities, right? How would he actually implement carbon neutrality or mass exodus? What came next?

“We need to go into direct action now,” Nasheed replied, matter-of-factly. His brown eyes channeled intensity. “We haven’t seen this generation — you know, those who are 18 to 30 years old — go into action yet. It is time.” He added, “I believe change is on the horizon.”

He didn’t give details. Maybe details didn’t matter. Perhaps the symbolism of Nasheed’s pronouncements was enough, and cultivating the image of the mad-scientist president was a strategy. “We are going to attract anyone with a mad idea and an investment plan,” Nasheed told me later in his office. “They can test their things here.” Whether or not the Maldives becomes carbon neutral almost seemed beside the point. If Nasheed’s antics could goad Western countries into more aggressive policies toward curbing carbon emissions, then his mission would be accomplished.