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Global Warming Displaces Pacific Islanders

Posted by: Abhijeet Chavan

6 December 2005 - 2:00pm

U.N. scientific panel reports on what it says may be the first example of people being formally displaced due to rising sea levels caused by global warming.

"Rising seas have forced 100 people on a Pacific island to move to higher ground in what may be the first example of a village formally displaced because of modern global warming, a U.N. report said on Monday...The scientific panel that advises the United Nations projects that seas could rise by almost 3 feet (a meter) by 2100 because of melting icecaps and warming linked to a build-up of heat-trapping gases emitted by burning fossil fuels in power plants, factories and autos.

Many other coastal communities are vulnerable to rising seas, such as the U.S. city of New Orleans, the Italian city of Venice or settlements in the Arctic where a thawing of sea ice has exposed coasts to erosion by the waves."

Full Story: Pacific islanders move to escape global warming
Source: Science News, December 5, 2005
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The areas where we have severe blight and indications of more blight to come are basically the same as they ever were. How in the world are we ever going to move our community development selves into an alternative future that thinks differently about the challenges we face in our cities and low-income suburban and rural communities?
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