The angry sea will kill us all

October 12, 2017 8:23 PM

"The respondents were asked to rate various statements that echoed their thoughts about climate change. A common reply was 'the angry sea will kill us all,' the line from the popular song which tapped into the national sense of futility. Many of the i-Kiribati have accepted migration may be necessary. Where do they go, when the sea rises?"

Previously

posted by Paragon (6 comments total)

The i-Kiribati are some of the warmest, smilingest, most welcoming people I have ever encountered. When I think about their nation's now almost certain fate, my heart breaks.

See also: Kiribati: words from the last generation

I would argue the pronunciation given in the linked article, though. Rather than "keer-uh-bas", it's more like "keer-ee-bess". A subtle distinction, but still

kam bati n rabwa for this post!
posted by deadbilly at 2:13 AM on October 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

Wow, the OP article is quite thorough and informative. Not as detailed, but here's a piece from Radio New Zealand's Insight last year: Fighting the Pacific's Rising Seas

The senior pastor of the village church, [in the village of Eita on Tarawa, the main island of Kiribati] Eria Maerere, says when the community first arrived there in 1980, the king tides were never a problem, but now they regularly inundate their homes.

"When we first heard about the rise of the sea-level, we thought that somebody made up a story, but at the beginning of the year 2000, that's when we begin to realise that it is not a fiction, it is a true story."

"Sometime around the year 2000 we had the first big king tide, where the water swept in and all the floors of the houses were breached with the water."

"All the families had to get up early in the morning because all the water had washed their mats, their pillows and all that."

A village founded in 1980 affected like this.
posted by XMLicious at 3:16 AM on October 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

This was a terrific, terrifying, eye-opening piece, Paragon. Thank you for sharing it.

(Sidenote: I'm amazed to see this kind of good journalism coming out of Stuff, of all places. They have some more reports like this, linked at the bottom of the Kiribati one; this one, about climate change affecting an Alaskan town, is also good but I haven't read the others yet.
posted by daisyk at 3:42 AM on October 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

Interesting contrast to the recent NZ debut of the Maori translation of Moana in which the producers faced a challenge:

Moana raging at the ocean, for example, contravened a Maori cultural rule to never curse or turn one’s back on the sea, so they turned it into a more humorous moment using careful wordplay.

posted by fairmettle at 3:48 AM on October 13, 2017 [8 favorites]

Interesting news from New Zealand. The Green Party are pushing for a climate change visa.
posted by Start with Dessert at 11:46 PM on October 30, 2017 [1 favorite]

Related issues: Article about the struggle to achieve more than tokenism in regards to indigenous peoples in Climate Conferences. Kera Sherwood-O’Regan in The Spinoff.
posted by Start with Dessert at 2:43 AM on November 9, 2017