Planning to sink: What happens if Kiribati drowns? | Hacker News Reader

Planning to sink: What happens if Kiribati drowns?

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30 pointsrosser43 comments

"“If you have everything but land – if you have a population that is displaced – whether that allows you to be a state is a novel question,”"

Well, I can think of our own example - Poland has been forcibly taken and split into three parts during late 18th century, by Russia, Prussia(Germany) and Austria. For nearly 20 years there was no such country as Poland on the map, and people who lived on the lands of former Poland were forbidden from even speaking Polish.

Yet the entire country has survived - we had a government and an army which both operated from other countries, until finally we were given little independence back in 1807 - but even after that Russia has controlled majority of the land here. Fast forward 200 years - Poland is a large country in the centre of Europe, despite having disappeared from every map for more than two decades at one point.

So based on that I would say that yes, there can be a nation without land.

> For nearly 20 years there was no such country as Poland on the map, and people who lived on the lands of former Poland were forbidden from even speaking Polish.

Sounds like Poland didn't exist at that time then, if there weren't even people speaking the language.

To my mind a more relevant example would be various governments-in-exile. Wasn't there a case during WWII where a Canadian(?) hospital was redesignated as the territory as one of the occupied countries, so that a princess(?) born there could be legally born on native soil?

Just because speaking Polish is prohibited doesn't mean it wasn't spoken.

>>Sounds like Poland didn't exist at that time then, if there weren't even people speaking the language.

Of course there were, they just had to do it at home, in secret. My point is, that the entire nation survived even though for two decades they couldn't even identify as Polish in public.

And yes, we also had a government in exile during that time. Heck, we also had a government in exile during communist rule in Poland(1945-1989), which based its operations in London.

> My point is, that the entire nation survived even though for two decades they couldn't even identify as Polish in public.

How do you distinguish between a nation surviving, and a new nation being founded with the same name?

Well it's not like the Russians or the Prussians suddenly decided they wanted to start Poland again - it must have been Polish people who wanted that, so I think it's quite clear it was Polish people "surviving" long enough to see their country come back. I think new nation would apply if the people starting it had nothing to do with the original citizens? Like if someone wanted to create a country of Sparta now - it's not Spartans surviving, it's just a new country with an old name.

Your Sparta analogy has a real-world example in Macedonia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Macedonia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonia_naming_dispute

"Citing historical and territorial concerns resulting from the ambiguity between the Republic of Macedonia, the adjacent Greek region of Macedonia and the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon which falls mostly within Greek Macedonia, Greece opposes the use of the name "Macedonia" by the Republic of Macedonia without a geographical qualifier, supporting a compound name such as "Northern Macedonia" for use by all and for all purposes"

"..millions of ethnic Greeks identify themselves as Macedonians, unrelated to the Slavic people who are associated with the Republic of Macedonia, Greece further objects to the use of the term "Macedonian" for the neighboring country's largest ethnic group and its language. The Republic of Macedonia is accused of appropriating symbols and figures that are historically considered part of Greek culture such as the Vergina Sun and Alexander the Great"

It's not clear that modern-day Greeks themselves are closely related to ancient Macedonians. Certainly some of today's Greeks are descended from the Greeks of that time, but they're descended from a hundred other peoples who at that time lived in a hundred other places as well. Just like those who live in Macedonia today. Just like people all over the Earth who have some Mediterranean heritage. (We can probably exclude the Inuits, Pygmies, Aborigines, etc.)

Your great-grandfather might not remember migrating from a thousand miles away, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen fifteen generations back.

By distinguishing between "nation" and "country" or "state".

"A nation refers to a large group of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, or history"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation

Apparently the Canadian government didn't have to make the maternity ward Netherlands territory - they simply had to make it "not Canada":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Margriet_of_the_Nether...

The state of Poland didn't exist but Poles as a people, as a group with a distinct culture, language, and idea of themselves as a group did. So when they were able to, the Polish people re-constituted a state in which to live. That doesn't mean that the state of Poland existed in those years.

Agreed that governments in exile are a better example.

The Order of Malta has no territories except some buildings and no "real" citizens and is semi recognized like a country, more by tradition than other things, with a big difference that Kiribati has citizens that should be relocated. The loss of their territories is a not so natural disaster. I think is more a matter of international willing, if they will to recognize it and maintain the status of Kiribati.

how is the order of malta "semi recognized like a country" ?

It retained its sovereignty.

Quoting from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Mal...

Although this state came to an end with the ejection of the Order from Malta by Napoleon Bonaparte, the Order as such survived. It retains its claims of sovereignty under international law and has been granted permanent observer status at the United Nations.

They still issue passports and have embassadors and receive from other countries, they don't have even proper citizens, but they get treatment like they were a real country.

The same happens to the Holy See, not to be confused with the Vatican City. The Holy See technically doesn't have territory nor citizens although is recognized as a sovereign country.

Meanwhile, in reality:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-06-03/pacific-islands-growin...

"Climate scientists have expressed surprise at findings that many low-lying Pacific islands are growing, not sinking.

Islands in Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Federated States of Micronesia are among those which have grown, largely due to coral debris, land reclamation and sediment.

The findings, published in the magazine New Scientist, were gathered by comparing changes to 27 Pacific islands over the last 20 to 60 years using historical aerial photos and satellite images."

Using land reclamation to contest climate change isn't much different than contesting it based on your fridge being cold.

Whatever you say buddy. The PBS article says that "The nation of Kiribati, made up of 33 tiny islands far out in the Pacific Ocean, is getting smaller".

It isn't.

Except the climate change wasn't posed as the problem. The lack of land was. And land reclamation is a great way to contest lack of land.

Wow, that is incredibly selective quoting! From the same article "Sea levels are obviously rising...the key problem is that sea level rise is likely to accelerate".

The article describes that in the short term, bigger waves are leaving more sediment expanding the island's area—but, the islands are not raising up, so sea level rise will (and already has) displaced people from these islands.

My mother has been to Kiribati, she saw first hand portions that have been lost to the sea. The reality is clear if you simply open your eyes and look.

"Sea levels are obviously rising...the key problem is that sea level rise is likely to accelerate"

So something they think is going to happen, as opposed to something that has, you know... actually happened.

The actual paper is, I believe, http://www.pacificdisaster.net/pdnadmin/data/original/SOPAC_... . It comments "Results presented in this study show that the entire footprint of islands are able to change so that erosion at the local scale (on one aspect of an island) may be offset by accretion on other parts of the coastline."

If correct, then it means seeing "portions that have been lost to the sea" is an incomplete observation, without seeing which parts have been gained. The paper's figure 6 shows some of changes over the decades, both loss and gain.

As a further complication, some of the increase in land area seems to be human-controlled. In any case, one of the points of the paper is that the Bruun Rule, "commonly advocated as an appropriate tool to assess coastal change", is "ultimately misleading" because it doesn't explain the observed changes.

The paper also agrees that sea levels are rising, at about 2mm/year.

But "in reality" - quoting gd1 - the point isn't simply one of land area growing or decreasing. It's that changes in sea level cause complicated changes in the islands, because they are actually part of a complicated dynamic system. I'll quote from the end of the paper:

> Given this positive trend, reef islands may not disappear from atoll rims and other coral reefs in the near-future as speculated. However, islands will undergo continued geomorphic change. Based on the evidence presented in this study it can be expected that the pace of geomorphic change may increase with future accelerated sea level rise. Results do not suggest that erosion will not occur. Indeed, as found in 15% of the islands in this study, erosion may occur on some islands. Rather, island erosion should be considered as one of a spectrum of geomorphic changes that have been highlighted in this study and which also include: lagoon shoreline progradation; island migration on reef platforms; island expansion and island extension. The specific mode and magnitude of geomorphic change is likely to vary between islands. Therefore, island nations must better understand the pace and diversity of island morphological changes and consider the implications of island persistence and morphodynamics for future adaptation.

Paradise almost lost: Maldives seek to buy a new homeland

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/nov/10/maldives-...

And a longer story on Kiribati

Drowning Kiribati

http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/169064-drowning...

What's preventing people from moving onto stilt houses or even large floating seasteads? The big asset of Kiribati is their extensive EEZ which guarantees income from fishing or other activities (mining, drilling etc). You can chain together steel and concrete pontoons, add soil on top all without terrafirma. That could even be funded by the industrialized nations that are supposedly responsible for the sea level rise (a tiny cost, compared to actually cutting emissions).

I can think of a few likely problems. The lack of surface area would make it harder to get fresh water; something that's already difficult. One of the main exports is copra, but I doubt that growing coconut trees on a platform will be economically worthwhile. The same holds for other agriculture currently on the island. (Sea level rise would also affect aquaculture in the lagoons, but I can't guess if it would be better or worse.) I expect it will be extremely expensive to raise the two international airports and over a dozen domestic ones.

Assuming intense agriculture at 0.25 acres per person (that's 8x the current population density) implies 100 sq. km of platform area. I see that sea docks cost around $30/sq. foot. That's just a bare dock, without soil, so let's say $50/sq. ft. "furnished" and at wholesale pricing. (I suspect I'm far under the actual price.)

That's roughly $50 billion, or almost 20x the country's GDP.

On top of that, add maintenance costs. I can't begin to estimate that.

How much would that be if it's a concrete platform with polystyrene on the inside for buoyancy?

And able to stand up to the occasional typhoon? I have no idea. The point of my exercise was to establish a minimum cost, to show why the idea isn't economically practical.

Japan's Mega-float cost $150 million in 1999 for 1km x 60 meters. It was designed as a floating airport for use in a protected bay. The floating airport proposal ("Floatport") for San Diego was estimated at $10-$30 billion. Both show that my $50 billion estimate is very low.

Then again, you don't actually need floating structures. As an alternative estimate, a cubic meter of soil is about $35. The cost of 1 meter of soil spread across 100 sq. km is $3.5 billion, plus shipping.

I see no way to get lower than that number. I see many way to get a lot higher.

Would the EEZ still be there when the islands are gone?

It's unlikely that the islands will disappear entirely. The highest point is 81 m above sea level, and the US claims the area around Kingman Reef ("largely submerged", highest point is 1.5 meters above sea level) as part of its EEZ.

You'll need to consult the Law of the Sea Convention for full details on the EEZ. As an edge case, Japan claims Okinotorishima http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okinotorishima which used to have a few rocks on the surface but is now completely submerged except for artifical structures, and Rockall is part of Scotland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockall , with its own complicated EEZ history.

Therefore I think it's a moot issue - it will be a long time (if ever) before Kiribati is gone.

"“If you have everything but land – if you have a population that is displaced – whether that allows you to be a state is a novel question,”"

Jews would have disagreed that this is a novel question -- for them the question has been about for around 2000 years if not more.

2600 years, according to wikipedia the Diaspora started with the conquest of the Kingdom of Judah by Babylone (started in 597BCE and ended with the destruction of the first temple in 586BCE), although a numbers of jews were already in exile since the conquest of the Kingdom of Israel in 722BCE by Assyria.

State and Nation are not the same.

No, it IS a novel question, and it has yet to be answered. You talk as though Israel is a done deal, when the ongoing situation suggests anything but.

Why do you need to do political astro-turfing for Israel on a totally unrelated thread?

I wouldn't call it astro-turfing. For a long time, Israel was a race/people without a homeland. You could maybe say the Palestinians are in that state now as well.

I sure as shit would call it that.

Just because it doesn't have a definite answer doesn't mean it's a novel question. Otherwise P ?= NP would still be a "novel question".

I wonder if the fine folks of Kiribati will go about slaughtering civilians as well.

I should imagine they would if Fiji started launching rockets at them and had a stated aim of wiping them out.

Yes, some religious nutjobs start lobbing missiles at you. So go kill the innocent civilians. Seems reasonable to me.

You just had to say something didn't you :D :D :D Now look at the responses at what you have done. (Very tongue in cheek)

...and more recently Palestine?

I would disagree that this was ever a question. The assumption of the Zionist movement was that a Jewish state was not possible without land and a concentration of population. Jews hadn't been displaced because their land disappeared, they were displaced because they'd been conquered and divided and driven out by empire after empire over a period of thousands of years. I don't think any Jews would have disagreed that without the land, with the population displaced, that they did not represent a state.

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