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Located between Hawaii and Australia, the Marshall Islands are made up of 29 atolls and five islands with a population of about 70,000, all of whom live about six feet above sea level. Now Story Hinkley writes in The Christian Science Monitor that another 10,000 Marshallese have moved to Springdale, Arkansas because of climate change.
Because this Pacific island nation is so small, the Marshallese population in Arkansas attribute their Springdale settlement to one man, John Moody, who moved to the US in 1979 after the first wave of flooding. Moody's family eventually moved to Springdale to live with him and work for Tyson and other poultry companies based in Arkansas, eventually causing a steady flow of extended friends and family migrating to Springdale. "Probably in 10 to 20 years from now, we're all going to move," says Roselinta Keimbar adding that she likes Arkansas because it is far away from the ocean, meaning it is safe.
For more than three decades, Marshallese have moved in the thousands to the landlocked Ozark Mountains for better education, jobs and health care, thanks to an agreement that lets them live and work in the US.. This historical connection makes it an obvious destination for those facing a new threat: global warming. Marshallese Foreign Minister Tony de Brum says even a small rise in global temperatures would spell the demise of his country.
While many world leaders in Paris want to curb emissions enough to cap Earth's warming at 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius), de Brum is pushing for a target that's 25 percent lower. "The thought of evacuation is repulsive to us," says de Brum. "We think that the more reasonable thing to do is to seek to end this madness, this climate madness, where people think that smaller, vulnerable countries are expendable and therefore they can continue to do business as usual." Meanwhile residents jokingly call their new home "Springdale Atoll," and there's even a Marshallese consulate in Springdale, the only one on the mainland US. "Its not our fault that the tide is getting higher," says Carlon Zedkaia. "Just somebody else in this world that wants to get rich."
(Score: 5, Interesting) by edIII on Wednesday December 02 2015, @01:39AM
Which is why if you moved half of the poor population from the South to the Middle East, you would have Southern terrorists instead almost immediately, and certainly within a generation. I've come to the same conclusion myself about the standard of living being key to terrorism.
We wasted nearly a trillion dollars attacking a bunch of people that were mostly intangible and ghost-like. The trillions went into private pockets of people most likely far more scary and indirectly sociopathic than any ISIS member decapitating people. What wasn't intangible and ghost-like? The Middle Eastern economies.
If we spent our trillion bringing hard infrastructure (transport), schools (beginning of an advanced economy), agriculture (the food), irrigation and water projects (the water), and environmentally friendly housing (shelter) you would have most likely millions of Middle Eastern men unwilling to be recruited by ISIS since they would have our situation here.
It never ceases to amaze me. We learned nothing from the ending of World War I and the Treaty of Versailles. It makes more sense to waste a trillion dollars in war, then it does to use a trillion dollars in the creation of entire country. You know, because a solid country with an even an average economy is far less likely to produce and promote terrorists. We can't see that it makes more sense to bring them up to the modern world with us instead of trade embargoes, sanctions, and a metric shitload of military ordnance.
Our egoistic calls for aggression and violence have led us down paths that had no hope for success beyond complete genocide of a people. Real peace comes from prosperity, not idealism. That's the point you made, and I agree with it. It's more efficient to battle ISIS via economies and huge public works projects than with drones and missiles. Nearly impossible to sell that to the American people though, and I doubt the French would listen at the moment either with all of the calls for revenge and justice.
Ten thousand bombs will only incite ISIS and help them recruit. Ten thousand McDonald's fast food restaurants (and equivalents), and a people that can afford it, will actually hurt ISIS' ability to operate effectively. The tangential benefits of putting the fast food restaurants there are wonderful too. If want to see what rebuilding a country can do, just go back to World War II and look at Germany and Japan. Even more for our dollar, including a ton of good will for all those acts of creation.
War? What is it good for? Absolutely nothin.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by Linatux on Wednesday December 02 2015, @03:17AM
I don't believe history shows terrorism being spawned by droughts or harsh economic conditions - really closer to the opposite.
It might be a last straw for some, but it really is just a straw. There are many other much more important factors in play. I'm sure Bernie knows better
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2015, @05:29AM
> I don't believe history shows terrorism being spawned by droughts or harsh economic conditions - really closer to the opposite.
Really? You can't just leave us hanging like that. Or is this one of those cases of "I believe it so it must be true, don't bother me with logic or evidence."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2015, @07:55AM
Other factors like the Gini index? [wikipedia.org]
If the 1% has more then half of everything, and the country becomes poor, they'll be swinging from the lampposts in no time at all. Gated communities or not.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday December 02 2015, @07:18PM
Other factors like the Gini index?
Would that not be covered by "harsh economic conditions"?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday December 02 2015, @05:20PM
Ten thousand McDonald's fast food restaurants (and equivalents), and a people that can afford it, will actually hurt ISIS' ability to operate effectively.
And for the revenge types, just think of all the diabetes that will lead to!