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Marshall Islands.
Now. The legend is that the Marshall Islands
were created by a god whose name was Lowa.
He descended on the atoll Ailinglaplap. And
he created the islands by saying Lowa and
islands and there were islands. Lowa and people
and there were people. Lowa and fish and there
were fish and on and on like that.
So our land, you know, like our mothers, you
know, they provide for everything and our
ocean--same thing.
We've always thought about the ocean as our
friends right now it's becoming a threat to
us. You know when you find a globe and you
give it a whirl and it goes around and around
and around and then as the going slows, your
eyes come to rest on a dash of color that
has never caught your attention before? A
spot that sits on the part of the sphere you
normally spin right past? An island so isolated
that you’re not even sure how you’d explain
where it is? Somewhere whose story is seen
as insignificant? A land that’s lost to
most of the world; left out of the history
books apart from a passing mention? That place
is here—the Republic of the Marshall Islands.
But unknown, untold, unremembered places aren’t
unique. What makes the Marshall Islands’
story singular is not that’s it’s unrecognized
from above, but because it’s under siege
from below, and it’s only when you see it
from in the middle that you can understand
why. Go on, take a look. You won’t have
the chance for long.
We can talk more about the end of their world
later, but first I’ve got to tell you about
what we’ve got here. It’s a small nation,
the Marshall Islands, with a bit over 50,000
residents and 70 square miles of land, split
up into 29 atolls—thin rings of land encircling
saltwater lagoons. While significant populations
can be found on 13 of those atolls, over half
of the Marshallese people can be found on
this one, Majuro. About 28,000 live on the
capital atoll, and none of those 28,000 live
more than a few-minutes walk from the ocean.
The furthest you can get from the water is
about 2,000 feet or 600 meters inland, but
that’s an anomaly. In most spots, water
flanks you closely on both sides. In some
spots, the atoll gets so thin that you could
stand in the lagoon and have a conversation
with someone standing in the ocean.
Life on a remote, sunny, coral atoll may sound
idyllic, but the population density of Majuro—greater
than that of Bahrain, Bermuda, or Bangladesh—has
not been kind to the mother atoll. In a part
of the world usually thought of as pristine,
sparse, and pastoral, Majuro is instead gritty,
overcrowded, and urbanized. It’s far from
an island paradise.
“Based on the 2011 census, which is the
last census we had, the average household
size on Majuro was about seven people and
household income is about sixteen thousand
dollars in that neighborhood file. Sixteen
thousand divided by seven. You know, if you
can, that can be a challenge. That can be
tough.”
Here’s the problem: some places are poor
because they haven’t yet seized their opportunity.
Others are poor because they have no opportunity.
Majuro is in that second category.
“Characteristics of the economy here in
the islands is, you know, you're looking at
fish, coconuts, people, I mean, outside of
that our natural resources are fairly scarce,
and then combined with our challenges with
education and skills attainment, it makes
it even more challenging with people being
laid off her third largest natural resource.
There are some major inhibitors for sustaining
economic growth, expanding the economy here
in the islands.”
Like many small islands nations, the Marshall
Islands doesn’t have too much in the way
of natural resources worth exporting, and
even when it does manage to produce something
people might want to buy, the cost of shipping
it to those potential buyers will have pumped
up the price so much that it’s no longer
worth it. One of the very few things they
make decent business of selling abroad is
copra, or dried coconut meat, which is produced
mainly on outer atolls and then brought into
Majuro for processing. It’s a work-intensive
process mostly conducted by families who form
informal assembly lines, getting paid 50 cents
a pound—and even that low wage is the result
of heavy government subsidies.
Because creating viable export goods is so
difficult, most of the jobs in the Marshall
Islands are either in government, or the subsistence
economy—in other words, most people in the
Marshall Islands are providing services or
making goods exclusively for the Marshall
Islands, which leaves very little opportunity
for growth. But, the country does have one
tiny little asset that keeps it running—its
location. A location that makes the Marshall
Islands attractive to one of the world’s
biggest businesses—the US Military. The
American military presence can be found mainly
on Kwajalein Atoll, which serves as a key
test site for the US ballistic missile defense
system, among other purposes. In the end,
it’s simple logic: The US Military wants
access to the Marshall Islands, the Marshall
Islands wants money and security, and thus,
an agreement exists—the Compact of Free
Association.
“So the Compact of Free Association, it
basically lays the foundation for the relationship
between the United States and the freely associated
states.” “One section of the compact deals
with the relationship between our peoples
and it allows for qualified citizens to live
and work and study in the United States without
a visa. There is another section of the compact
that generally governs economics and it provides
for grants and services, all kinds of USG
assistance coming to the Marshall Islands,
and the third big section of the compact has
to do with security provisions. The United
States is the guarantor of security in the
Marshall Islands.”
It’s difficult to overstate the significance
of the compact—it’s the basis for the
entire modern economic and political system
of the Marshalls—and while each of the three
sections has an enormous impact on the country,
perhaps none is more consequential than the
second: financial aid.
“The Marshalls are heavily dependent on
money from donors or from the United States.
That's a tremendous part of the national income,
upwards of 70, 80 percent.” “The U.S.
provides approximately 100 million dollars
every year to the RMI as a combination of
grants and services and programs.”
Now, it’s a big world out there, and there
are quite a few places the US could send $100
million a year to in exchange for military
access, so why here? Why is there this strange
partnership between one of the world’s largest
superpowers and one of the world’s smallest
countries? Well, like most strange things,
it came as the result of millions of years
of chance and circumstance.
About 70 million years ago, 29 ancient volcanoes
in what we would now call the North Pacific
came to life and spewed out lava which quickly
cooled and built up into under-ocean volcanic
structures until they grew so much that they
emerged above the water and became islands.
Around these islands, coral began to form,
eventually coalescing into what’s known
as a fringing coral reef, which encircled
each island. Time went on, the dinosaurs ruled,
then died or became birds, then mammals started
mattering, and so on and so on, and as that
all happened those islands were slowly eroding
and undergoing subsidence—they slowly sunk
into the sea. Eventually, the islands disappeared
under the ocean, but the coral reefs that
had formed around them remained. It is these
29 rings of coral, called atolls, that make
up what’s now known as the Marshall Islands.
Sometime, millions of years later, but 4,000
years before today, the first Marshallese
settlers arrived on the islands, coming from
either here, here, here, or here—or some
combination of those places. They split the
atolls into two chains: the eastern Ralik,
or sunrise chain, and the western Ratak, or
sunset chain. From those early Marshallese,
eight clans emerged, of which, four became
dominant. The “chee-tea” conquered Northern
Ralik, the “arab-ra-joey” took southern
Ralik, and the “roo-may-your” clan conquered
nearly all of Ratak, but then gave nearly
all of it to their offspring, of the “rah-no”
clan.
These early Marshallese wore traditional clothing,
which looked like this, lived in large community-based
homes, which looked like this, and practiced
a religion that involved complex dances and
tattoos, which looked like this.
The first Western explorers to find the Marshall
Islands were Spaniards—and there were a
few of them. The first one was this guy, in
1526, then this guy in 1529, and then this
guy in 1530. Over the next three hundred years,
more explorers stopped through the Marshalls—including
Frenchmen, Russians, and this guy, British
Captain John Charles Marshall in 1788, after
whom the islands were named on Western maps.
Technically, during this time, the Spanish
claimed sovereignty over the Marshall Islands
as part of the Spanish East Indies, which
included all of this, but that claim was largely
just theoretical. The Spanish never had a
formal administration, never tried to exert
influence, and never even really visited apart
from those early explorers, whose only real
impact had been giving the Marshallese European
diseases.
Much more relevant to the actual history of
the Marshalls was the presence of these people:
Boston missionaries who first arrived in 1857
aboard the Morning Star. They landed here,
on Ebon atoll and were met by Chief Kabua,
whose great, great—some number of greats—grandson
was the first president of the Marshall Islands,
and whose some greater number of greats grandson
is the current president. Chief Kabua allowed
the missionaries to stay there, where they
began spreading Christianity throughout the
islands. Not only were they teaching them
about this guy and this book, they also actively
changed Marshallese culture, even going so
far as to ban traditional tattooing and dancing
because they referenced the traditional Marshallese
religion.
Soon, the Marshall Islands changed even more,
as the first genuine Western settlers, the
Germans, began to make residence in the islands.
In 1875 they signed a Treaty of Friendship
with Chief Kabua, and developed a consulate,
trading posts, and economic ties, eventually
buying the Marshalls from Spain in 1885, the
same year they worked with Chief Kabua to
make the Marshall Islands an official German
protectorate. Also, importantly, they brought
in more missionaries who spread even more
Christianity.
But then, in 1914, the Germans decided to
invade here, which led to here invading here,
and then here invading here, and then here
invading here, and then here invading here,
and also, not that many people paid attention
to it, the Japanese invading here: the Marshall
Islands. Japan took the Marshalls in part
for strategic reasons, in part for economic
reasons. After all, even in the final years
of German rule, they controlled over 80% of
the island’s trade. Once World War I ended
and all these people got together to sign
the Treaty of Versailles, the Council of the
League of Nations gave control of the Marshall
Islands to the Japanese. While in power, they
expanded their administration, introduced
Japanese culture, and moved about 1,000 Japanese
citizens to the islands.
But then, because of some things going on
here and here and also here, the Japanese
decided to drop bombs here, which led to the
United States entering World War II and eventually
taking the Marshalls from the Japanese in
1944. And then came this:
When the United States dropped atomic bombs
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it began a new
chapter in the world’s history: the nuclear
age. For some, it was exciting. There were
mushroom cloud cakes, Miss Atomic beauty pageants,
and talk of unlimited clean energy, unparalleled
military dominance, and an everlasting world
peace. But, of course, the enduring legacy
of nuclear weapons is not peace or energy,
but destruction. And while what happened in
Hiroshima and Nagasaki can be found in any
book of modern history, there’s another
chapter of the nuclear story that’s told
far less often: that of the Marshall Islands.
“So what happened at the end of World War
2 was there had already been three nuclear
weapons detonated—one in New Mexico and
then Hiroshima and Nagasaki—but the United
States at that time, not just the United States,
the Russians, too—they wanted to increase
their knowledge about the new nuclear testing,
and so they needed a testing ground, and when
they looked around the globe, they needed
several requirements for a proving ground
for their nuclear testing—it had to be out
of the way of major airline and shipping routes,
had to be under the control of the United
States, had to have a really wide area lagoon
to anchor the ships to do the testing with,
somewhere really far out of the way, and they
looked around the map and they saw Bikini.”
Bikini Atoll sits at the northern end of the
Ralik chain, 2.3 square miles of land encircling
a 229 square mile lagoon. It was perfect:
the right size, the right shape, the right
location, and the right political status,
as the US had been given jurisdiction over
the Marshall Islands at the end of the war.
And so, onto tiny Bikini Atoll, the United
States moved in 42,000 personnel on 242 ships,
and began to experiment with the greatest
power ever unleashed by mankind.
First there was the Crossroads Able bomb,
21 kilotons, far greater than Little Boy,
the 15 kiloton bomb dropped on Hiroshima;
then, Crossroads Baker, 23 kilotons; but these
were nothing compared to what came next: Castle
Bravo. Detonated on March 1, 1954, this bomb
produced the most powerful explosion the world
had ever seen—15 megatons; one thousand
times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.
For the United States, it was a triumph: the
greatest example yet of nuclear technology’s
potential. For Nerje Joseph, on neighboring
Rongelap Atoll, it was the start of a long
nightmare.
“My name is Nerje Joseph. I come from Rongelap…and
then I was in Rongelap in 1954, nuclear detonation.”
Nerje was only eight on Bravo Day. Today,
at 74, she still remembers it vividly.
“When it went off we didn't know what was
going on but, we saw lots of different colors.
It looked like a rainbow.” “Later that
day, there were a lot of powders that fell
from the sky and we didn't know what it was
and it looked like snow. They covered their
land, hair, skin, and their drinking water
and when they wanted to drink water, they
had to get rid of the powder to be able to
drink water.”
That powder, of course, was nuclear fallout:
pulverized pieces of coral laced with radiation
that had been shot up into the air, and carried
by wind onto Rongelap. But the people of Rongelap
had no idea what it was—some of the kids
even stuck their tongues out and let it fall
into their mouths, thinking it was snow. Despite
the enormous danger posed to the people of
Rongelap, the US didn’t evacuate them for
two days. By that time, the radiation sickness
had started to take hold.
“I remember there was an airplane that came
in and people with uniform with medals on
them came and stopped them from drinking and
eating food on the land.” “After they
took us to Kwajalean that's when we started
feeling sick. We started throwing up, having
diarrhea, we were feeling really cold and
we were aching all of our body.”
Of the hundreds of people on Rongelap that
day, Nerje is one of just ten who are still
alive. No one on Rongelap died that day, but
that doesn’t mean the bomb didn’t kill
them. Many fell victim to thyroid cancer,
which has been linked to the fallout from
Bravo, and none have been able to return to
their home.
“I want to go back, but I don't know that
I can, because they told me that it is still
nuclear active.”
The collateral damage of nuclear testing isn’t
limited only to the people of Rongelap. There’s
another group of victims, whose pain began
before a single bomb was detonated—the 167
inhabitants of Bikini atoll. To the United
States, once they’d identified Bikini as
a suitable test site, its people were more
of an afterthought than an obstacle.
“They ask them if they're there, they'd
be willing to move for the good of mankind
and to end all world wars. And Judah, the
leader of the Bikinians, he just keeps standing
up and saying the same answer every time he
says [speaking in Marshallese], which is ‘everything's
in the hands of God.’ And if you know what
I know about Marshallese culture, if someone
said to me, if I asked them if I could do
something, they said everything's in the hands
of God. That's about as much as a no as you're
ever gonna get. I mean, it's in the hands
of God. You better be careful, but if you
watch today, the twenty six takes of the same
shot that the Commodore stands up dust off
his pants. In the end, he says, well, everything
being in the hands of God, it cannot be other
than good, and off he walks.”
With that, the people of Bikini were evacuated,
and while they were told, of course, that
they would one day be able to return to their
home, that—like so many things the Marshalls
were told as nuclear testing began—was a
lie. After they were evacuated, the Bikinians
underwent a grueling saga, placed by the United
States here, on uninhabited Rongerik Atoll,
which they soon discovered had toxic fish
and land where nothing grew.
“So but I think the US looked at Rongerik
and looked at bikini: ‘palm trees, beach,
looks the same.’ You'll just go there and
they dropped them off there, the Bikinians
and they starved."
After two years, they were moved to tents
here at Kwajalein base, then finally here,
to Kili Island. And meanwhile, with each bomb
the Americans detonated, more and more of
the Bikinian’s land was vaporized. The little
that remained was laced with nuclear radiation
that wouldn’t dissipate for thousands of
years.
“And in the in the mid early nineteen late
1960s, President Johnson on the front page
of The New York Times on a Sunday edition
said that bikini was now safe on recommendations
from the Atomic Energy Commission that everybody
could go back.”
While they were skeptical, many were so desperate
to return home that they went, choosing to
trust the Americans. Perhaps unsurprisingly,
that trust was not rewarded.
“After about eight or nine years, they discovered
that the people were ingesting the food grown
on the island and the cesium 137 radioactive
element was going up into the crops and they're
eating this. So it was discovered in the late
70s that they had these very high body burdens
of cesium 137, so they moved them off again
and they haven't been back since.”
In the end, the United States dropped 67 nuclear
bombs on the Marshall Islands between 1946
and 1948; still today, many parts of the the
country show radiation levels that far exceed
those of Chernobyl.
“It was really, the Cold War was fought
and won by the United States on the shores
of Bikini and Enewetak in the Marshall Islands.
We really gave a lot to the United States,
and the idea that it's not even talked about.
It's really kind of for lack of a better word,
I would say it's insulting.”
As the Marshall Islands struggles to lift
itself from the crater of nuclear testing,
a new threat looms—one whose capacity for
destruction dwarfs that of an atomic warhead:
water.
Recall for a moment the attributes of an atoll—comprised
of coral, small in size, and notably narrow.
Now, add to that mental picture two more tragic
geological truths—atolls are extraordinarily
low-lying, and exceedingly flat, which is
to say, by their very nature, atolls are uniquely,
acutely susceptible to the deadly power of
a rising sea.
“The implications are dire for this atoll
nation and similar atoll nations.”
Most of the atolls of the Marshall Islands
sit at less than six feet above sea level.
Marshallese homes, businesses, streets, people
sit at less than six feet above sea level.
As temperatures rise, and seas with them,
that six feet begins to disappear fast.
“Imagine an aircraft carrier that has a
free board of perhaps, I don't know, 150 feet.
But if you lowered that free board to six
feet and sea level rose seven feet. Well,
the picture is pretty plain for anyone to,
to imagine. And that's precisely what is predicted
to happen and what is happening gradually
for atolls.”
"It's not just erosion, but there's actual
land loss. Submergence, but also the deprivation
of the use of land for any viable purpose,
including simply to live on.”
“People who have not visited an atoll have
really no concept of what it means not to
have land in an oceanic expanse as vast as
the Pacific. So any loss in land is dire.
30 feet of land on a high island is still
significant, but 30 feet of land loss or unavailability
of land for living is a tragedy on an atoll.”
For the Marshallese, land loss isn’t just
devastating from a scientific perspective;
it’s corrosive to the fundamental tenets
of their culture. While nearly all societies
prize land, in the Marshall Islands, the relationship
between its people and land is especially
precious.
"You have to understand that every Marshallese
is attached to a piece of land. Like, my kids
all have, they know where their pieces of
land are on Bikini and that's their gift from
God and that's like their anchor in life.”
“Marshallese people have a connection to
land.” “We have a connection to place.
Again, like I said, everybody owns land in
the Marshalls, and then but just not just
that. Every piece of land has some story,
some markings, some name. You know, that's
ancient, that's deep. What happens to that
knowledge if you lose that land, if you lose
that connection? What happens to who you are
as a person? To our identity?"
But the Marshallese—the people who settled
distant atolls, who navigated through an unforgiving
sea, who endured colonization, disease, war,
and 63 nuclear bombs—refused to allow their
ocean to be turned into a weapon against them.
And so, they decided to fight back…but they
couldn’t do it alone.
“At the end of the day, the Marshall Islands
is 0.0001 percent of the world's global emissions.
We could be the most polarized island on the
planet and it would still go underwater if
the rest of the world doesn't take it into
consideration and make changes, right? So
we have to fight on a global level.”
What the Marshallese, through their climate
activism, are fighting to defend is complex
and multi-faceted—a combination of culture,
tradition, soil, coral, homes, language, history,
and people. Yet what they hope to achieve
can be condensed to a single number: 1.5.
1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels;
that’s the magic number for the Marshallese,
the limit for how much the Earth can warm
before their island home becomes uninhabitable.
If global temperatures creep above 1.5, it’s
lights out. Streets and houses flood. Land
disappears. Crops die. Above 1.5, the atolls
which, for thousands of years, have supported
life, transform into engines of death.
Mitigating climate change in any meaningful
way is already a nearly insurmountable endeavor.
Limiting it to 1.5 would be next to impossible.
The Marshallese would face opposition from
not only governments and industry, but also
from other climate change activists, whose
focus had long been on a different number:
2.
Limiting temperature rise to 2 degrees above
pre-industrial levels had, for many years,
been the aim of policy, the object of studies,
and the goal of activists. In the mainstream
climate change debate, 2 wasn’t the backup,
the worst case scenario, the not-too-bad.
2 was seen as the ideal, the ambition, the
gold standard.
1.5, on the other hand, was, to many, a pipe
dream. It was called unrealistic, impossible,
a distraction—but the Marshallese knew it
was the only way for their atolls to survive.
And it was not just the Marshalls; above 1.5,
atoll nations like Tuvalu, the Maldives, and
Kiribati would face the same fate. Among these
most vulnerable countries, a motto soon emerged:
1.5 to stay alive.
The fight for 1.5 would be far from easy,
but they knew where it would have to be won—the
2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference
in Paris, where 196 countries would come together
to develop a global plan for combating global
warming. But, before they could do that, they
had to build influence. A Marshallese government
minster named Tony de Brum started building
relationships and rallying support around
the world, making a name for the small Marshall
Islands in the big world of climate change
activism. He represented the Marshalls at
conferences and meetings all over the world—in
Copenhagen, in Doha, in Warsaw, in Lima, joining
with other countries as part of the Alliance
of Small Island States. And while de Brum
made impressive progress, when it comes geopolitics,
there’s only so much influence and power
that can be amassed by an atoll nation with
a population lower than most small cities.
So, he began work on a new coalition, one
that could emerge at Paris to force the conversation
to 1.5, but it needed a spark. In September
2014, that spark came, when the UN Climate
Summit invited Marshallese poet Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner
to speak at their Opening Ceremony. With the
entire nation on her shoulders, she read to
the gathered leaders of the world a letter
she had written
to her newborn daughter.
“Kathy: Dear matafele peinam, you are a
seven month old sunrise of gummy smiles you
are bald as an egg and bald as the buddha
you are thighs that are thunder and shrieks
that are lightning so excited for bananas,
hugs and our morning walks past the lagoon
dear matafele peinam, i want to tell you about
that lagoon that lucid, sleepy lagoon lounging
against the sunrise men say that one day that
lagoon will devour you they say it will gnaw
at the shoreline chew at the roots of your
breadfruit trees gulp down rows of your seawalls
and crunch your island’s shattered bones
they say you, your daughter and your granddaughter,
too will wander rootless with only a passport
to call home dear matafele peinam, don’t
cry mommy promises you no one will come and
devour you no greedy whale of a company sharking
through political seas no backwater bullying
of businesses with broken morals no blindfolded
bureaucracies gonna push this mother ocean
over the edge no one’s drowning, baby no
one’s moving no one’s losing their homeland
no one’s gonna become a climate change refugee
or should i say no one else to the carteret
islanders of papua new guinea and to the taro
islanders of the solomon islands i take this
moment to apologize to you we are drawing
the line here because baby we are going to
fight your mommy daddy bubu jimma your country
and president too we will all fight and even
though there are those hidden behind platinum
titles who like to pretend that we don’t
exist that the marshall islands tuvalu kiribati
maldives and typhoon haiyan in the philippines
and floods of pakistan, algeria, colombia
and all the hurricanes, earthquakes, and tidalwaves
didn’t exist still there are those who see
us hands reaching out fists raising up banners
unfurling megaphones booming and we are canoes
blocking coal ships we are the radiance of
solar villages we are the rich clean soil
of the farmer’s past we are petitions blooming
from teenage fingertips we are families biking,
recycling, reusing, engineers dreaming, designing,
building, artists painting, dancing, writing
and we are spreading the word and there are
thousands out on the street marching with
signs hand in hand chanting for change NOW
and they’re marching for you, baby they’re
marching for us because we deserve to do more
than just survive we deserve to thrive dear
matafele peinam, you are eyes heavy with drowsy
weight so just close those eyes, baby and
sleep in peace because we won’t let you
down. you’ll see.”
Standing ovations aren’t common at the United
Nations. Kathy’s lasted a full minute.
“Why do you think poetry is an effective
means of activism? What is it about poetry
that you think makes people listen?”
“I'm not going to make…hm, why is…well,
I think poetry forces people to slow down
and connect to the emotion of the issue. Right.
Rather than just facts and data and fear.
And, you know, written statements, right?
Poetry is personal. Poetry connects you to
the issue and connects you to why you should
care about the issue.”
And then, it was time to go to Paris.
The Paris Conference lasted 14 days, and for
the first 11, nearly all discussion centered
around 2 degrees. But in the final three days
of negotiation, Tony de Brum began to execute
his plan, when he unveiled the High Ambition
Coalition—a previously secret alliance of
over 90 countries that Tony had spent the
last year coalescing. The High Ambition Coalition
ranged from the small atoll of Kiribati to
the powerhouse nations of the European Union,
and together, they turned the entire conference
on its head, demanding the agreement include
1.5. It was such a jarring and extraordinary
show of power orchestrated by such a small
nation that many said it couldn’t be real.
Chinese negotiators called it meaningless;
representatives from Bangladesh called it
a stunt. And in truth, it was not completely
clear just how formal this coalition was—when
pressed, Tony couldn’t even say how many
members it had. But it didn’t matter, because
the momentum had already changed. New countries
began to join: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Iceland,
Sweden. Before long, a majority of the represented
nations supported 1.5. In less than three
days, Tony de Brum took 1.5 from pipe dream
to reality.
In the end, 184 countries resolved that they
would “[hold] the increase in the global
temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius
above pre-industrial levels, and [pursue]
efforts to limit the temperature increase
to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial
levels.”
“They got 1.5 in there. Right. 1.5 huge
for us. The global temperature. You know,
to maintain our, our, our survival. That before
we went to that conference, I was told by
many people that 1.5 wouldn't make it in there.
It would. It was too hard. You know, even
though for our survival, we need that temperature
to be recognized.” “Yeah, Tony was the
one that orchestrated that. And so beyond
that, you know, we've also we've also continued
that momentum from Tony's legacy once he passed
on.”
“Yes, we were kind of a champion for climate
change in the Paris meeting. You know, by
working with a group of people, which were
what's called the ambition group. And I know
it's kind of amazing prize to be able to gather
a number of people who supported us doing
meetings and resulted in the Paris Accord.”
“You know, next day we were on The New York
Times praising our effort and I'm glad that
I was part of that.”
It was an enormous, unexpected, deserved victory…
but it didn’t last.
The Paris Agreement was, without a doubt,
the most important collective step the world
has made towards solving climate change. It
was also, in many ways, a complete and utter
failure. Many of the pledges made by countries
were unspecific, unambitious, and perhaps
most importantly, unenforceable.
In Paris, the world promised to “pursue
efforts” to limit temperatures to 1.5. Already,
in 2015, it was a weak promise. The five years
since have proven it meaningless. Paris was
supposed to serve as a starting place, with
more ambitious pledges to be made in the future.
Now, it is the future, and the more ambitious
pledges are nowhere to be found. And even
the inadequate commitments of Paris have often
been completely ignored.
In stories, the underdog is supposed to win.
When they give it their all, when they combine
dreams and drive, when they form a High Ambition
Coalition, when they read Dear Matafele Peinem,
when they chant 1.5 to stay alive, it’s
supposed to work.
Today, projections show that under the best
case scenario, we’ll reach 1.5 in 2052.
Worst case, 2030. Either way, in a few short
decades, three millennia of Marshallese civilization
will come to an end.
King Tides
Already, today, flooding and inundation are
common in the Marshall Islands. But things
get especially bad during what the Marshallese
call king tides.
“Since 2011, we've seen more and more
king tides. The ocean that provides is getting
closer and closer to our living room.”
A combination of lunar cycles, wind patterns,
and, of course, rising seas coalesce into
waves that flood streets, yards, and homes.
For the Marshallese, the destruction and disorder
king tides bring have become an increasingly
normal part of everyday life.
““We're flat as a pancake here. And and
if you go out today at five, five, forty five,
the high tide. You know, I know that because
yesterday I was driving home a little after
5:00 in the water was splashing. I drive Volkswagens.
The water splashing on a saltwater splashing
on a Volkswagen is not a good feeling because
they they melt with the rust. And so I knew
today, I don't always know when the high tide
is because I worry about that kind of stuff.
But other people worry about it, too, because
it's hitting their houses. You never used
to know when high tides were unless you were
someone who's out at the sea all the time
and you're a diver or whatever, and you counted
on that stuff. But now everybody kind of knows
when the big high tides gonna be and they
know what they have to do. We never used to
think like that here ever."
Other Effects
Flooding and inundation don’t just destroy
what’s been created on the atoll—it also
destroys the atoll’s ability to create.
“The water is coming up on the ground too
and also contaminating our well waters and
affecting our food crops.”
“The breadfruit trees that we used to depend
on to build our canoes and provide food are
dying because the the water levels, and these
island getting small and small. And, you know,
they cannot survive the the saltwater, you
know.”
And apart from killing what grows on the atoll,
climate change is killing the atoll itself,
as the coral that comprises Majuro dies due
to rising sea temperatures.
“We go out fishing for spear fishing, and
the corals that provide for us is turning
from colorful to whitish. It's it's just bleaching
like crazy and different type of algaes are
growing, weeds growing, importune beautiful
corals and scare away or all the food, all
the fish that we, our life depend on.”
But the most pressing effect of climate change
is also perhaps the most unexpected: it’s
not inundation, not submergence, not coral
bleaching, not erosion. The most pressing
effect of climate change, the thing that is
hurting Marshallese most right now, is disease.
“So currently the most urgent effects are
illnesses. So climate related illnesses like
dengue, mosquito borne illnesses are supposed
to increase with, you know, climate effects.”
“So we've had we have three different health
issues we're dealing with right now on the
Marshall Islands. The first, of course, is
dengue fever that's been going on for about
eight months now. We've been in a state of
health emergency. The second one is we've
had over twenty five cases, twenty five hundred
cases of Dengue since last July. And so that's
been our major battle. We're fighting right
here now. And then secondly, we've had measles,
which we haven't had a case yet before. We've
put in all kinds of preventative measures.
And of course, coronavirus in the same category.
We're just trying to prevent it. We haven't
had any yet, but we're being very strict with
how people come in.”
“Actually, the way I feel is that most of
what we're seeing right now is climate change
a result of climate change.”
With rising temperatures come more mosquitos,
increasing the risk of transmission for insect-borne
diseases like Zika and Dengue. More severe
water cycles—flooding, high rainfalls, drought—all
propagate contaminated water supplies, increasing
the spread of cholera, e. coli, and other
diarrheal diseases. In fact, for almost every
infectious disease out there—malaria, ebola,
lyme, west nile, typhoid—research predicts
that climate change will make it worse. According
to the World Health Organization, over the
next 20 years, over 2 million people will
die as the result of climate change-related
disease.
“This is, like, not normal. This is not
nothing that we've ever experienced before.
We're in the eighth month of a state of health
emergency. The Marshall Islands has never
been in a state of health emergency this long.
Ever. We've never seen a bigger disease outbreak.
We've never seen all these deaths throughout
the Pacific in recent times from things like
measles that we thought were gone. So I think
the really important thing that people have
to understand is this is not the way things
used to be. But this is the way it's becoming
now normal. And that to me is as a result
of the massive climate change and the massive
warming that's been going on.”
“You have to start talking about health
when you and connecting it to climate change,
cause there's no other explanation for this.
There really isn’t.”
When you combine it all—inundation, land
loss, crop death, coral bleaching, drought,
disease—a single, clear picture forms:
“These are all becoming a potent package
which are linked to the adverse effects of
climate change. And that potency is a bit
too much or beyond the capability of small
atoll nations to respond to. And so all of
these packaged potent adverse effects are
proving to be catastrophic.”
The future that the Marshall Islands fought
so hard to prevent is already coming to pass.
The islands are dying, and soon, they’ll
be truly, permanently, and irreversibly uninhabitable.
Two options have emerged: stay and fight a
losing battle, or leave and start a new life.
In truth, though, those options are the same.
The only variable is time.
Thousands of miles away, far from the fury
of the ocean, a new atoll is emerging—one
encircled not by sea, but by streets. A land
made not of coral, but of concrete. One where
abundance is measured not by the size of your
family, but rather the sum of your money.
One dotted not by palm trees, but by poultry
plants.
Hope is not plentiful for the Marshallese,
but there’s a spark of it here, nestled
in the northwestern corner of Arkansas.
“Springdale is, I would describe it as more
of a blue collar working class community in
the midst of a thriving area of northwest
Arkansas—one of the top five fastest growing
areas in the country.” “We are a very
diverse city. We've got 44 languages spoken
in our school district. We've got we're probably...
our two largest minorities would be Latino,
which is probably somewhere around 35 to 40
percent--could be a little higher, we'll find
out in the 2020 census--and and a large Marshallese
population, we've been told, the largest Marshallese
population outside of the Marshall Islands.”
Exact figures vary. 2010 Census numbers peg
it in the low thousands, but that figure is
almost certainly inaccurate. In reality, currently,
it is believed that as many as 15,000 Marshallese
live in the Springdale area—1/5 of all Marshallese
people, tucked away in this small Ozark city.
Of course, in a country of countless options,
the question to some might be: why Springdale,
Arkansas?
The story, as it’s told, begins in 1979.
A Marshallese man named John Moody was awarded
a scholarship to the University of Oklahoma—a
dream coming from a nation yet to have a single
college. Moody soon decided, though, that
he wasn’t cut out for the academic life.
He shifted paths, taking a job at a poultry
plant in Muskogee, Oklahoma, earning $3.25
an hour—multiples more than any comparable
job in the Marshalls.
Soon, though, the business took him to the
largest poultry processor in the world, Tyson
Foods, headquartered in Springdale, Arkansas.
Pay was decent, openings were plentiful, and
English was optional, so word soon travelled
from Moody to his family in the Marshalls
that Springdale was the land of opportunity.
So they came and spread the word to others,
and they came, and spread the word, and more
came, and spread the word, and soon enough,
as the social networks of a small nation saturated
with the promise of a better life, Springdale
established itself as the destination for
Marshallese emigration to the US.
Now, decades on, what started as one man in
a chicken plant has turned into the largest
population of Marshallese outside of the islands
themselves. The city has 30 odd Marshallese
churches, has become a key campaign stop for
Marshallese politicians, and it’s even home
to a tiny consulate representing the Marshallese
government itself. The mission is one of just
eight the Marshalls have abroad. Sharing a
modest two-story building with a barber, accountant,
and lawyer, it is the only consulate of any
nation for hundreds of miles and one of only
two in the state of Arkansas. It’s staffed
just by an assistant, the consul’s wife,
and the consul-general himself.
“My name is the Eldon Alik. I'm the consul-general
for the Republic of the Marshall Islands here
in Springdale, Arkansas.” “The job of
the consulate is to, number one, provide consular
service to the Marshallese citizens here and
assist the Marshallese population here with
whatever they need…” “…and try to
be the eyes and ears of the government of
the Marshall Islands here."
Call it luck or call it intuition, but Moody
and the thousands that followed were right
to choose Springdale as their new homes. This
city has been experiencing a decades-long
economic boom.
“We have an entrepreneurial spirit here
in in northwest Arkansas, not only Springdale,
but we've seen many Fortune 100 companies—Wal-Mart,
of course, about 30 miles north. We've got
Tyson right here in Springdale, which is the
first or second largest protein producer in
the world, and they're they're headquartered
here in Springdale. We have we have a because
of our growth. Certainly the building industry
that we're building trades, there's a lot
going on here that, you know, our unemployment
right now is just barely over 2 percent in
Springdale.”
Pretty much anyone who wants one, no matter
their age, origin, or education-level, can
get a job in Springdale.
“Well, Marshallese, we generally like to
follow one another. We come here to be near
our families and the poultry industry doesn't
really take a lot of skills and education.
People just come in and they can work. They're
going to arrive today and work tomorrow.”
Under the Compact of Free Association, any
Marshallese citizen can live and work in the
US—a right others, at best, wait years or
decades to attain. But there are still barriers.
Perhaps the most significant is the first—getting
there. A one-way plane ticket from Majuro
to Springdale costs about $1,500—a substantial
sum for anyone, but a fortune in the Marshall
Islands. There, $1,500 is half a year’s
wage. In Springdale, though, it's less than
a month’s.
“Some families, they come here little by
little. Sometimes they just send the father
first and then the mother and then the kids
and then the parents, grandparents. So they
just do a little by little.”
Each earns enough to pay for the next—over
time, bringing the entire family to Springdale.
“So we did a study and the majority of the
people that actually took this study replied
that family responsibility was the first reason
why they moved. You know, and usually their
departure from the islands are very, very
unplanned. That's because, you know, a sister
would call in and say, hey, I have some money,
I have some money to buy you a ticket. Get
ready. You're going to be on the plane in
the next two weeks so you can come and help
me with my mom or, you know, with someone
so I can find a job and while you take care
of the family member, you know, I have a way
to to bring income into the house.”
Despite their political, economic, and social
connections, though, the Marshall Islands
and the United States are not the same, and
the adjustment is not always easy.
“There is so many cultural barriers that
there are that we see on a daily basis. One
is Marshallese culture is a very sharing culture.
You know, one property is owned by everyone.
It is not individual ownership of their property,
but, you know, everyone in that clan owns
it. So that's, and when you look in terms
of households it is perfectly okay for for
multiple family members to live under one
roof. Whereas, you know, here, you know, you
have those, they enforce code where it's prohibited.”
“You know, I don't know what the codes and
ordinances in the Marshall Islands look like
but I can I can be pretty confident they’re
quite a bit different than ours here in Springdale,
Arkansas.”
“We came from we came from a world that
money really didn't mean anything for us,
but here it is. People in the United States,
you know, they're very they're economically
driven, but we're not.” “We never had
to pay rent. We never had to worry about having
a lot of money so we can buy food because,
you know, you have our biggest refrigerator
was the ocean and it was right there and readily
available. So we really didn't have to worry
about saving.” “You're comparing a very
small world to a big world.”
Nonetheless, in making the difficult transition
to America, having a familiar community makes
it easier.
“You're surrounded by over thirty five churches.
That's amazing. And you have a consul-general’s
office here. You have our office as well.
You have other nonprofit offices as well.
And the people are very supportive in this
area, very supportive of the Marshallese community.
It kind of like gives you that value in preserving
your culture and I think that's why I refer
Springdale to as Springdale atoll, because
this is really the culture. This is the hub
of the culture.”
Popular media might predict that the story
of a group of people, from a far off land,
descending on and settling a small southern
city would end in tension and animosity. That
is not the story of Springdale.
“You know, I wish I knew what the secret
sauce was for that, because I think we could
use that in a lot of places throughout our
country--this openness and willingness to
accept change--and I don't want to candy coat
it. You know, there are other people who grew
up here just like me that continue to talk
about the good old days and the days, you
know, when we grew up and things were different.
But, you know, I'm just reminded that we're
somebody's good old days right now. The people
growing up here right now look back will look
back on this time as the good old days, no
matter what it looks like. And so I think
I think a willingness on the part of the people
of Springdale to to treat people as human
beings, surely, surely there's nothing special
about Springdale. Surely everyone every place
can do that.”
Springdale, as it exists for the Marshallese,
is fortuitous—fortuitous because John Moody
and the early migrants who followed had no
idea of their islands’ bleak fate. They
migrated for a brighter economic future, but
now, with the direct threat of a rising ocean,
Marshallese are starting to migrate to escape
the water.
“I think some some people have moved because
of sea level rise, and that wasn't the case,
maybe, five, ten years ago. People were coming
here for better opportunities but I've talked
to some people and they've come here for sea-level
rise.”
“Plan A is staying and live there and fight
the climate change. But if plan A doesn't
work, you know, this is where I feel the calling.
This is where I need to be at, but it really
if that happens, that’s wow, that that's
taking away our identity. You know, that's
that's basically stripping us down to the
bare skin, and I'm not sure how I'm going
to take that. That will be very hard for me
to to process. However, I feel that I can't
just cry and feel sad because that happened.
I have to do something. I have to make reestablished.
I feel like reestablishing somewhere else
that is safe, that, you know, that provide
to the freedom, the freedom to make a choice
is probably my next thing that I will focus
on.”
Plan A is still very much in motion for many.
Most Marshallese are still at their home,
fighting to hold onto their lives as long
as the waters will allow them. Those who can
buy a few additional years by building a wall
between them and the ocean.
“Well we call this a concrete wall. So,
first we build the concrete base about five
to six feet wide and two feet from the ground.
So it goes down, to the bottom, one foot,
and then one foot up. So the base is five
to six feet wide and the wall, here, is one
foot wide, and this wall here, maybe nine
or ten feet long from the ground.”
“Well, when the high tide king tides comes,
it destroys the whole village. The water coming
to the, comes to the road, and after I build
wall there, people there, they're living happy.
I see that the seawall has been protecting
them but there's other people, the same village,
there are other people live on the other side.
You know, about two to house from the outside
of the seawall. Now they're affecting because
there's no wall there.”
“If the wall wasn’t here, if there was
no wall here, I know that all the water, the
trash, the rocks, they would be coming right
here and going, one, two, how many houses
there? Yeah, and it’s been happening over
and over. Every king tide that comes it, it’s
always like that. They’re bringing rocks
and trash.”
“Oh, no. Don’t—trust me. Believe me.
Even though we're making wall, it's not gonna
protect because we're, we're damaging the
reef and as long as you drill the reef and
building concrete wall, you're messing with
Mother Nature, you know.”
At this point, the goal is not to prevent
the destruction of the Marshalls—just to
delay it.
“If the time limit is in five years, then,
you know, it's we move in five years. But
between now and five years, we want to make
sure that we spend every minute thinking about
how to survive on these islands, just like
our ancestors did.”
Land is supposed to be the embodiment of permanence—a
nation is nothing without its land—but now,
the Marshall Islands is temporary. In the
back of everyone’s mind is the realization
that the soil they stand on will eventually
be submerged.
“You know, with our infrastructure projects.
You know, what are we doing? Why are we doing
this? You know, 20, 30, 40 years could be
swamped under water. I don't know. It's like,
you know, part of the work you do is try to
prepare for the, you know, the future of submerging.
And then part of it is you just carry on with
your day to day activities, which means you
know, look. These projects are still funded.
They're on the books. They're approved. We
still got do them now. When is that going
to change? I don't know. I don't know. It's
going to take some kind of visible tipping
point somewhere. And I think for that to happen,
I mean, really mean significant, not just
the high king tide. You know, we've had those
or another El Nino again. We've had those
things going to take something else maybe.
Unfortunately, may be worse for us, too. I
don't know. Then get to the realization, well,
this is it. Gotta stop this avenue of activity
and divert the energies into some other kind
of future.”
“Well, when you think when people say to
me that they think the Marshall Islands has
a time limit, I think they have to start thinking
about the bigger picture here. We're the canary
in the coal mine. If we have a limited time
here, then so does everywhere else. I mean,
this is the way this is the way it's evolving
and so many times we've been the canary out
there. We were the canary in the coal mine
for nuclear testing. Now we're the canary
in the coal mine for climate change.”
“The ocean that gives us the resources crawling
closer and closer to our living rooms. We're
ocean people and the reason why this our ocean
is mad and it is crawling closer to our lagoon
living room is because the same people that
brought in the nuclear testing to the country
are the same people that are doing this. They're
trying to find resource. First they try to
find the power to control the world by using
our islands to test a nuclear weapon. Then
they went back and tried to find the best
way to gain resources in a short period of
time by using things that would destroy the
world and we're all… Mother Nature is not
happy, so she's coming back to us. But in
a very roaring way.”
“We as Marshallese people enter the conversation
of climate change, as survivors of the nuclear
legacy, as in we already understand what it
means to have lost homes, to have lost that
connection to land to have something ripped
away, ripped away from us for globe because
of global needs. And, you know, because of
a global concern or whatever. Right. The US
decided to test nuclear weapons in the Marshall
Islands because we were seen as disposable.
And now with climate change happening, more
or less, unless, people care about it. You
know, there are very few people who care about
it. And the ones in power don't care about
it because, again, we're seen as disposable.
That's the intersection between climate change
and the nuclear legacy. You know, we've experienced
that already. And that's why we're fighting
even harder against climate change. We don't
want to lose the rest of our islands. We've
already experienced that loss and that trauma.”
“We are going to be the first climate change
refugees. I truly believe that.”
“That's happening and people are in denial
of it because they're responsible for it.”
“This is my country. This is where I live.
This is where my kids go to school. I'm from
[unknown], but I'm from here, too. My family
grew up here, too.”
“This is where I. I want them to all be.
And this is the society I want them to contribute
to. I think it's you know, it's a tough concept
to think about. It's like thinking if you
have children thinking about them being in
a car accident or getting a terminal illness,
you don't want to think about it because it's
so painful and it's the same way.”
“I don't know the culture [in America].
I don't know the way of life. I want to I
want to stay here in my own culture and live
in my own culture.”
“You know, we love our culture, we love
our custom, and we love the way of life that
we have here. If we do leave and go somewhere
else, we'll probably lose our custom, we will
probably lose our ability to look after ourselves
as a people.”
“Right now, it's still a debate in many
of these first world nations. What do we do?
Can we do it? What are the changes we can
make? Do we believe in it? Is it even real?
Is it worth the funding? Can we change? That's
not where we're at. Where we're at is very
much: it’s going to happen. We have to figure
out how to plan for it.”
“We probably will be looking back on our
country from higher ground.”
“This is going to be wow, this is going
to be something that I just can't describe
in terms of, you know, culturally as a people,
civilization, what this is going to mean for
the kids and grandkids.”
“Well, to be honest, I'm worried about my
generation and the next generation and the
future. Because, you know, when when we migrate,
the main the main thing I'm scared of i our
culture. If everyone leaves here, where will
our culture go? And our culture will slowly
fade when no one knows about our culture or
people. And especially Marshall Islands.”
“Yeah, it hits me every time. But like I
I really try to ignore it, but it I can't
because it's always trending and so is getting
talked about. And we really can't put it aside
because we're really affected now. And if
we can do anything now, the future will be
affected. If we don't do anything now.”
“Personally, I mean, I really don't want
to go to other countries. I really want to
stay here and live the best life in the islands
and really share of life full of joy and right
here, right here in the Marshall Islands.”
“This this island really means a lot and
just imagine if different countries, if we
told them that their country doesn't matter
and they can just move here and they would
feel the same with it. It feels special for
us to have this place because it's unique
and our culture really lies here.”
People can move. A nation cannot. And though
they’ll try, any transposition loses fidelity.
With each generation, the pictures fuzzy—the
memories fade. The Marshall Islands has endured
for millennia, but it was never immortal.
Nations have ended before. Nations will end
again. Of all the ends the Marshall Islands
could meet, though, this one stings most:
to be killed by the ocean, its creator, turned
against it by people who don’t even know
its name.
