National leaders rake in while the sun shines

King Canute sat on his royal throne. His courtiers grovelled at his feet. “Hail to the King,” they chanted, “You are all-powerful.” “Nonsense,” snorted the king. “You can do anything you want,” his fawning lackeys assured him.

“Take me to the beach,” the king commanded.

So they carried him to the edge of the ocean, and set his throne down on the sand. And the waters rose, and covered the king’s toes.

“Make the sea go back,” the courtiers urged. “Stop the waters from rising.”

“Idiots!” snorted the king. “No human has that power.”

“Then we’re doomed!” the courtiers wailed. “What can we do?”

“Sell the beach for a tourist destination,” King Canute ordered. “By the time it’s underwater, we can all be living in Switzerland with fat bank accounts.”

No, that’s not how the original legend went. But it’s the way the current story is working out. Because oceans are rising all around the world. Low-lying island nations like Kiribati and Tuvalu in the Pacific, and the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, will be inundated. Five of the Solomon Islands have already disappeared. The question is not if, but when. Twenty years ago, climate scientists warned that global warming would result in rising ocean levels. In their extreme case, if all the ice in the north and south polar regions melted, ocean levels would rise by over 200 feet. Mind you, that would take several centuries. In this century, they estimated, mean sea levels might rise by five only to seven feet.

Now it seems that they made a mistake. Too optimistic. Current measurements from satellite data indicate that polar ice is melting at three times the originally forecast rates. If you think the world has too many refugees now, just wait until the heavily populated deltas of all the great rivers get flooded — the Nile, Indus, Ganges, Mekong, Mississippi, Ynagtze….

Of course, thousands of coral islands in the Pacific will sink beneath the sea. You may argue that as a living thing, coral can keep building those islands as the sea rises. But the death of much of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia should tell you that coral are highly susceptible to ocean temperatures; they may not survive to rebuild those islands.

For years, the government of Kiribati begged the larger nations of the world to take action against global warming.

The industrialized nations paid for research. Signed agreements. Committed themselves to reducing greenhouse gases. And did nothing.

Meanwhile, some of the nations threatened by rising oceans have had a change of policy. Kiribati, for example, elected a new president in 2016. Taneti Maamau defined his policy as attracting foreign investors to develop “5-star eco-friendly resorts that would promote world-class diving, fishing and surfing experiences.”

His nation’s 20-year plan: “to transform Kiribati into the Dubai or Singapore of the Pacific.”

Maybe he believes that if you can attract enough big money, then when big money’s investment is threatened, they’ll do something about rising oceans and warming climates.

Or maybe it’s just a “get rich quick” scheme.

The government of the Maldives, a lowlying archipelago in the Indian Ocean, has taken a similar stance -- attract tourism investments while the going is good.

Author, university professor, and activist Ugo Bardi has written, “Imagine that you are smart enough to understand what’s going on with the Earth’s climate. As things stand today, a burst of global warming that will push temperatures so high that nothing will save the Maldives. Maybe not next year but in a few decades, it is nearly certain.

“So, given the situation, what is the rational thing for you to do? Of course, it is to sell what you can [to] a sucker who will buy. Then you can say good riddance to those who remain.

“What we are seeing, therefore, is a game in which someone will be left holding the short end of the dynamite stick. When the elites of the Maldives will have left for higher grounds, the poor will be stuck there.”

Bardi concludes, “Exactly the same thing seems to be going on with the Kiribati islands. You don’t have to be especially smart to understand that the rest of the world will not do anything to help the islanders. They will be left to drown while … for those Kiribati people who have bank accounts on dry land, the road to salvation is clear.”

Bardi may be biased, but I think he’s right. Betrayal pays better than fighting for your people.

Jim Taylor is an Okanagan Centre author and freelance journalist. He can be reached at rewrite@shaw.ca