Kiribati

The president of Kiribati, a small country that makes up of many small islands in southern Pacific, made a horrifying prediction in the UN's World Environment Day: his country would be submerged within this country.

The speech was, no doubt, an excellent marketing strategy of the UN.

But, before jumping up and say we should do this and that, let's sit quiet for a while and consider the followings:

1. Is the sea level rising ?
2. If yes, what causes the rise ?

I am no geologist and could answer neither. Nonetheless, the sea level was apparently significantly higher than today over the past 500 million years, and long term changes in sea level are the result of changes in the oceanic crust. (Interested ones may like to read a recent paper by R. Dietmar Muller in the 7 March 2008 issue of Science.)

PS. Oh, I don't mean we can do what we want - but we should not have the grandiose idea human beings are all that important.