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“Does more need to be done about climate change in Hawai‘i?”
Dr. John Marra, Regional Climate Services Director for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, shared his perspectives in response to this central question in a video interview with Honolulu Civil Beat.
In the interview, Dr. Marra and Honolulu Civil Beat reporter Joe Rubin discuss some of the realities that Hawai‘i faces under a changing climate: increased threats to infrastructure from storm surges and high tides; coral bleaching and ocean acidification leading to coral death, with cascading impacts on fish and marine ecosystems; and even the potential disappearance of Waikiki’s famous sandy beaches with just a foot or two of sea-level rise.
Dr. Marra explains how new policies and adaptive measures can “climate proof” the islands. Some of these measures are the same as actions taken to avoid the worst impacts of storms and coastal inundation that Hawai‘i already periodically experiences.
“If you are citing development further inland to avoid potential flooding during hurricanes, you’re also doing climate adaptation planning, and you’re increasing sustainability because you’re decreasing the potential impacts on your infrastructure.”
Dr. Marra spoke with Honolulu Civil Beat at the Waikiki shoreline and in his Honolulu office at the East-West Center, where he often collaborates with Pacific RISA on initiatives such as the recent Pacific Islands Regional Climate Assessment (PIRCA), mentioned in the video. He was also one of the featured speakers at the international climate change conference “Waves of Change” held at the University of Hawai‘i last week.
Watch the video:
Hawai‘i conference on Pacific Islands climate change featured in ClimateWire
Last week, the University of Hawai‘i Center for Pacific Island Studies (CPIS) along with various partners hosted Waves of Change: Climate Change in the Pacific Islands and Implications for Hawai‘i. The two-and-a-half-day conference, Thursday April 4 through Saturday April 6, convened leaders from across the Pacific to discuss strategies for confronting climate change impacts, already a sharp reality for vulnerable Pacific nations, including the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, French Polynesia, and Kiribati. The conference turned a special focus to climate-induced migration and the implications for Hawai‘i and other places where climate change victims are likely to relocate.
Pacific RISA participated in the conference with great interest. Dr. Melissa Finucane was part of a panel of experts who presented scientific information about the the state of climate change impacts in the Pacific Islands on Friday, April 5, while Pacific RISA Project Specialist Richard Wallsgrove led a panel on the legal implications on Saturday, April 6.
An April 8 ClimateWire article about the conference, “Island countries facing watery demise confer on survival strategies,” quoted Asterio Takesy, the Federated of States Micronesia’s ambassador to the United States; Tony deBrum, Minister in Assistance to the President of the Republic of the Marshall Islands; and UH law professor Maxine Burkett. Additionally, an April 5 ClimateWire article reported on Mr. deBrum’s key note address for the conference and his statements regarding the possibility of the Marshall Islands bringing the issue of climate change to the International Court of Justice.
ClimateWire quoted Mr. deBrum on April 5: “We will leave no stone unturned in our search for justice in this manner. If that means approaching the ICJ — the International Court of Justice — that will be an option that’s left on the table.”
Small islands in Micronesia have already disappeared, Mr. deBrum said, adding that the Marshall Islands has received climate migrants from Tuvalu and Kiribati. In addition to the possibility of approaching the ICJ (which he offered in response to a question), Mr. deBrum emphasized a potential partnership with the World Bank that may enable the Marshall Islands to develop ocean thermal energy technology. He stressed that the most important function of such economic development in light of climate change is to give the people of the Marshall Islands options and confidence, rather than despair, in the face of rising sea levels that threaten their nation’s existence. He has also been pleased with interactions with United States officials at recent United Nations meetings, explaining that he has not seen such concern from the US delegation in his 45 years at the UN.
When asked if the United Nations is serious about the global threat of climate change or whether island leaders are “barking up the wrong tree,” Mr. deBrum responded, “The UN remains the last gathering of higher leaders who can deal with this. What else do we have?”
Read the full April 8 article here. (A ClimateWire subscription is required to view content.)
What can the rest of the Pacific learn from participatory approaches to applied conservation research in the Galapagos Islands?
Dr. Laura Brewington, Postdoctoral Researcher with the Center for Galapagos Studies at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, will be visiting the East-West Center next week to present a lecture about integrated human-environment studies and environmental change in the Galapagos Islands.
Besides the obvious island connection, Pacific RISA is interested to learn from Dr. Brewington’s work for several reasons. In particular, she will present approaches to research spanning geographic and temporal scales that could potentially inform Pacific RISA’s methods for research across the Pacific Islands region. We are equally interested to hear about her experience implementing a bottom-up approach to stakeholder engagement and participation used in a study of invasive species management in an agricultural zone and a surrounding protected area in the Galapagos; and, how her team has raised community awareness about the invasive species risks associated with goods imported to the islands, an issue Hawai‘i and other Pacific Islands have struggled with for centuries.
Also potentially instructive is Dr. Brewington’s most recent work, which takes a local-to-global perspective on shoreline vulnerability to climate change and other human disturbances throughout the Galapagos archipelago. She asserts that in the Galapagos Islands, as well as other similar settings worldwide, data gathering and monitoring are needed at multiple scales to understand the processes that cross disciplinary boundaries, especially between nature and society.
Join us for this informative lecture!
Where: John A. Burns Hall, Room 3012, East-West Center, 1601 East-West Road, Honolulu, Hawai‘i
When: Monday, April 8, 2013 – 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
For more details, see the event description on the East-West Center’s website: http://www.eastwestcenter.org/events/seminar-geographies-conservation-in-the-galapagos-islands-ecuador
Pacific RISA presents the latest on Pacific Islands drought at National Forum
The 2013 United States Drought Monitor Forum will be held April 16 – 18 in West Palm Beach, Florida. Pacific RISA Research Fellow, Dr. Kati Corlew, and LT Charlene Felkley, Outreach Officer at the Pacific ENSO Applications (PEAC) Center will attend the forum and share information and updates on the status of drought issues in the Pacific Islands.
In addition to providing an opportunity for state and regional drought monitoring groups to come together and examine locally-relevant issues, the forum serves as an international meeting place to compare drought impacts and monitoring efforts. Participants review the latest data on how drought is impacting important sectors, such as agriculture, energy, fisheries, and tourism, and they trade tools and techniques that help improve their outreach to vulnerable communities.
One focal point for the forum is the U.S. Drought Monitor, an interactive map that contains weekly information on the status of drought across all regions of the United States. Data for the map is sourced from a group of 250 climatologists, extension agents, and others across the nation. Each week, the previous map is updated with observers’ reports of changing conditions (rain, snow, etc.) and how drought is affecting crops, wildlife and other indicators. The new map is released every Thursday morning.
This year’s forum is hosted by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the National Drought Mitigation Center, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), The National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), and the South Florida Water Management District.
Registration for the United States Drought Monitor Forum is now available online at http://drought.unl.edu/Home/USDMForum/Register2013.aspx.
Upcoming forum on water resources and climate change in Hawai‘i
Hawaiian Islands Science (HI Sci) will host a forum titled “Water Resources and Climate Change in Hawai‘i” at 5:30 PM this Thursday, March 21, 2013 at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies, 2645 Dole Street, Room 101.
Here is a description of the event from HI Sci’s Facebook Page:
“Together, we ask what climate change might mean for our islands’ water resources and communities. Invited speakers include educator Kahale Saito, mahi‘ai kalo (taro farmer) Charles Reppun, Kamehameha Schools land manager Kaeo Duarte, and UH researcher Tom Giambelluca. We have also invited representatives from UH’s Ka Huli Ao program, Honolulu Board of Water Supply, and the State Water Commission to share briefly on their areas of expertise. Following the speaker presentations, we will hold an open fishbowl discussion where Cafe participants are invited to ask questions, share perspectives, and engage in conversation with the speakers and each other. We welcome your families, friends, and colleagues to join us on the 21st! For updates, follow our Facebook event.”
Refreshments, including ‘awa, will be served during the event. Street parking is available on Dole St. and at the Hawaiian Studies parking structure, at $6.00 per vehicle.
The event’s organizers ask that participants familiarize themselves with the “fishbowl” discussion methods beforehand. (A quick tutorial is available at http://www.kstoolkit.org/Fish+Bowl.) They also suggest reading up on climate change on our PIRCA page.
Schedule for Water Resources and Climate Change in Hawai‘i Forum:
5:00 PM- 5:30 PM: Pupu and ‘awa open
5:30 PM: Opening Pule
6:20 PM: Presentations wrap up
6:20-6:30 PM: Break
6:30 PM: Open Forum/ Fishbowl begins
7:20 PM: Open Forum/ Fishbowl Closed
7:30 PM: Closing Pule
7:30 PM- 7:45PM: Last ‘apu**
8:00 PM: Pau
Hawaiian Islands Science (HI Sci) is a University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Native Hawaiian graduate student-driven initiative. They raise awareness and conversation between Native Hawaiians, the UHM student body, members of the Hawai‘i science community, and other communities of the Hawaiian Islands.
US Pacific Forces Chief calls climate change the biggest security threat
This week a Boston Globe article reported that the top military official for the Pacific, Navy Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III, has named climate change the most dangerous long-term threat to security in the Pacific. The Globe quoted him saying that upheaval related to the world’s changing climate “is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen . . . that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about.’’
As the leader of United States Pacific Command (PACOM), Admiral Locklear is in charge of monitoring an area encompassing about half of the earth’s surface, from the waters off the west coast of the U.S. to the western border of India, and from Antarctica to the North Pole. His office monitors high profile security issues such as hostile actions by North Korea and tensions between China and Japan.
“You have the real potential here in the not-too-distant future of nations displaced by rising sea level. Certainly weather patterns are more severe than they have been in the past. We are on super typhoon 27 or 28 this year in the Western Pacific. The average is about 17.” Admiral Locklear described the magnitude of the threat facing Pacific Islands, recognizing the likely forced migration of entire populations of Pacific Island nations and the increased vulnerability to seasonal events, including storms and fluctuations in sea-level. He views sea-level rise as a major destabilizing force in the region, noting that 80 percent of the world’s population lives within 200 miles of the coast.
As further evidence that PACOM is taking seriously the threats of climate change, its Hawai‘i-based headquarters is developing strategies to respond. Working with Asian nations, PACOM will stockpile supplies in strategic locations and run a major exercise in May with nearly two dozen countries, to practice responding to various possible scenarios.
Read the article on The Boston Globe’s website.
Cover photo: Thunderbolt II flying over Hawaii Island during RIMPAC 2012 aerial exercises. Courtesy of PACOM.
Pacific Island documentary: The Hungry Tide screening free online through March 3
Worth watching and sharing this week is the Australian-made film The Hungry Tide, available free online for viewing through March 3. The Hungry Tide chronicles the story of Maria Tiimon, from Kiribati, who advocates for island communities in Australia and in the international policy arena.
As a group of low-lying atolls, Kiribati is extremely vulnerable to sea-level rise, and it may become uninhabitable in the next century. Climate change affects the 105,000 people who live in Kiribati at 2 meters above sea level. This film looks at Maria’s experience as a Pacific Islander speaking on behalf of her community at international climate policy negotiations convened by the United Nations.
Free viewings of the film are offered in conjunction with the Warrior Day of Action—a day when Pacific Islanders from across 15 nations and territories will come together and perform war challenges, songs, and dances to signify that they will fight to protect their land, their existence, and their identity from rising sea levels.
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Posted on April 23, 2013 by pacrisa
Psychology of climate change: social instability
Pacific RISA Research Fellow Dr. Kati Corlew contributed an article about climate change and social instability to the Community Psychology Practice blog last month, and we are pleased to share it with you here. Her timely article explains that a well-established tenant of community psychology–that context matters–can be helpful in predicting how societies may be impacted by climate change. The article offers research documenting how change or variability in the natural environment affects our physical and psychological well-being as individuals and communities.
Dr. Corlew received her Ph.D. in Community and Cultural Psychology at the University of Hawai`i at Mānoa. Her dissertation explored the threat of climate change to both land and culture in the Pacific Island Developing Country (PIDC) of Tuvalu. Now, she is developing a social network analysis of climate change professionals in the Pacific Islands region as part of her work with Pacific RISA.
Psychology of Climate Change: Social Instability
By Kati Corlew, Ph.D.
Pacific Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments
East-West Center
American Navy Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III is the top military officer for the security of the United States in the Pacific, including trans-Pacific security threats from North Korea and other Asian locations. He is the leader of the United States Pacific Command (PACOM), which monitors security for a region covering approximately one half of the earth’s surface.
In March, 2013, Admiral Locklear stated that climate change is the largest threat to security in the region, as reported by the Boston Globe.
Admiral Locklear stated:
Storms of this magnitude damage infrastructure and disrupt the stability of societal functioning. Crops are destroyed and freshwater is contaminated. With basic needs and social structures thrown into disorder or destroyed completely, communities (or even entire countries or regions) are left in a state of heightened instability that threatens security.
Additionally, sea level rise threatens the long-term ability of coastal and island communities to continue to be communities. The Boston Globe goes on to report:
“The ice is melting and sea is getting higher,” Locklear said, noting that 80 percent of the world’s population lives within 200 miles of the coast. “I’m into the consequence management side of it. I’m not a scientist, but the island of Tarawa in Kiribati, they’re contemplating moving their entire population to another country because [it] is not going to exist anymore.”
Wholesale migration of entire populations due to climate instability is expected to overlap heavily with the experiences of refugees from political instability and war. Climate refugees will be populations who have lost everything, perhaps even their country. Without their community structures and relationships, property, and political power, populations who are forced to migrate because of climate change may wind up in a nebulous, uncertain, and inherently unstable position. Instability is often coupled with violence.
In Community Psychology, we explore the ways in which our social, political, and natural environments affect the physical and psychological well-being of individuals and communities. In essence, context matters. Researchers have been documenting the effects of climate change and variability on community well-being. It has been shown, for example, that countries experiencing El Niño are more likely to also experience war.
Of course, the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO, which includes El Niño and La Niña) is a seasonal weather pattern, not climate change. Do these things even relate? A recent consensus report about climate change in the Pacific indicates that they do.
Despite rumors of perfect and unchanging island weather, the Pacific is actually home to some pretty dramatic seasonal changes. A strong El Niño year can mean some island nations run out of drinking and irrigation water while others are plagued with storms. La Niña years can have similarly dramatic effects. In fact, the difference between an El Niño year and a La Niña year can be so strong that in the coming decades, the effects of climate change may be overwhelmed.
That is to say, in some years ENSO may greatly exacerbate climate change, while in other years ENSO could reverse the trends entirely. This means that we cannot expect to see a smooth slope of increasing impacts with climate change. We will instead see periodic upswings in disasters and climate change impacts, coupled with periods of relative calm.
In the coming decades, we can therefore expect periodic upswings in social instability. These “human dimensions” of climate change impacts on communities must be addressed along with the physical impacts.
References
Bender, B. (2013). Chief of US Pacific forces calls climate biggest worry. The Boston Globe, March 09, 2013. Retrieved 3/15/13 from http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/03/09/admiral-samuel-locklear-commander-pacific-forces-warns-that-climate-change-top-threat/BHdPVCLrWEMxRe9IXJZcHL/story.html.
Burke, J. (2012). Maldives’ political instability allows gang violence to flourish. The Guardian, October 22, 2012. Retrieved 3/15/13 from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/22/maldives-political-instability-gang-violence.
Burkett, M. (2011). The Nation Ex-Situ: On climate change, deterrritorialized nationhood and the post-climate era. Climate law, 2, 345-374. Retrieved 3/15/13 from https://www.law.hawaii.edu/sites/www.law.hawaii.edu/files/content/coliver/345-374%20Burkett.pdf.
Duddy, P. D. (2012). Political unrest in Venezuela. Council on Foreign Relations Contingency Planning Memorandum No. 16. Retrieved 3/15/13 from http://www.cfr.org/venezuela/political-unrest-venezuela/p28936.
Keener, V. W., Marra, J. J., Finucane, M. L., Spooner, D., & Smith, M. H. (Eds.). (2012). Climate Change and Pacific Islands: Indicators and Impacts. Report for The 2012 Pacific Islands Regional Climate Assessment. Washington, DC: Island Press. Retrieved 3/15/13 from https://www.pacificrisa.org/projects/pirca/report-materials/#.UUN9tByG3D4.
Kovats, R. S., Bouma, M. J., & Haines, A. (1999). El Niño and health. World Health Organization Protection of the Human Environment Task Force on Climate and Health. Retrieved 3/15/13 from http://www.who.int/globalchange/publications/en/elnino.pdf.
Schiermeier, Q. (2011). Climate cycles drive civil war. Nature, 24 August 2011. Retrieved 3/15/13 from http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110824/full/news.2011.501.html.
Smith, H. (2013). Greece’s fragile political stability at risk as violence escalates. The Guardian, January 23, 2013. Retrieved 3/15/13 from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/23/greeces-political-stability-violence-escalates.
Turchin, P. (2012). Dynamics of political instability in the United States, 1780-2010. Journal of Peace Research, 49(4), 577-591. Retrieved 3/15/13 from http://jpr.sagepub.com/content/49/4/577.abstract.
Vidal, J., Saeed, S. (2013). Bangladesh’s climate refugees: ‘It’s a question of life’ – audio slideshow. The Guardian UK, January 29, 2012. Retrieved 3/15/13 from http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/interactive/2013/jan/29/bangladesh-climate-refugees-audio-slideshow.
Williams, N., & Pradhan, M. S. (2009). Political conflict and migration: How has violence and political instability affected migration patterns in Nepal? Population Studies Center Research Report No. 09-677. Retrieved 3/15/13 from http://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/pubs/abs/5938.
Cover photo: Local risk reduction actions, such as using coral rocks to build temporary walls in Kiribati to break the swell of increasingly large king tides, is one example of communities acting to reduce their vulnerability. Photo by UNISDR; used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license.