Signs seem to indicate that the ability to keep our heads in the sand when it comes to our environmental impact may soon disappear. Brooke Jarvis shares how things are already changing from one generation to another in some island cultures.
I decided to walk the islands perimeter, but found it difficult: Large sections of the trail around the island were missing, the land fallen into the waves.
For those who had been on these islands for more than 50 years:
Thomas, who was born here in 1952 and is the father of Kulenus’s current elected chairman, guesses that three-quarters of the island he remembers from childhood — including the land that people once used for gardens — is gone.
I fear stories like this are going to be commonplace in the years to come. What are we going to do about it? As someone living far inland between two mountain ranges, I have little to fear directly from rising sea levels. But that matters not! Just as the Megan describes how the villager explains “the seas are all connected”, so too are all the peoples of this planet.
We have to care. And we have to act. We can’t wait for politicians to come to agreement; each of us can make small decisions every day to make changes. In North America, our purchasing ability carries much power. Use it!
Here are a few resources to see how to make change:
