First of all:
The Falepili Union, an agreement letting Tuvaluans escape the impacts of climate change and move to Australia, came into effect last month.
The program is expected to start in nine months and will allow up to 280 people to migrate each year through a random ballot.
Really? The entire population Tuvalu is like 11,000 people. Even if they all showed up at once, Australia’s (population ~27 million) demographics wouldn’t even fucking notice. Hell, they could all move to the same neighborhood in a city like Sydney or Melbourne and even people in the rest of the city would barely notice! What the fuck even is the point of bothering with limited quotas?!
Second:
“It’s a sad situation because we Tuvaluans contribute less to the cause of climate change but we are the ones suffering,” she says.
It is singularly infuriating that even while Tuvaluans take responsibility for their “contribution” to climate change – even though with <$6000 GDP per capita and a whopping 5 miles of paved roads it’s honestly fucking negligible – most Americans and other rich westerners still won’t make any acknowledgement at all of their own. This is Oliver Twist “please sir I want some more” levels of wretched groveling, and our reaction to it is goddamned appalling!
Because the goal is not to decimate Tuvalu?
They are still a functioning country, if we just took everyone place would cease to exist even earlier.
280 is 2.5% of their population each year leaving.
We also limit NZers moving over here because to avoid issues with braindrain.
Please understand that I am making an extreme effort to be charitable and polite when I say that trying to spin this tiny quota as being somehow for the benefit of the Tuvaluans themselves is… less than persuasive.
Frankly, we’re already at 1 degree C warming today and Tuvalu is 100% doomed. Forcing many of them to wait until the bitter end – paternalistically imposing that decision on them rather than allowing them to decide what’s best for themselves – is hardly doing them any sort of favor!
But hey, maybe I’m wrong: maybe the Tuvaluan leaders themselves asked for this quota, not the Australians. I don’t believe that for a fucking microsecond, but if you can cite something that supports the notion then I’ll reconsider how I’ve judged you for posting the… comment… you just wrote.
What brain drain? They’re evacuating, not casually popping over to the mainland for a bit of fun.
“Oh no! The nearby volcano erupted and it’s gonna flood a city of millions! We’d better start evacuating one person at a time so they don’t experience brain drain.”
C’mon man.
The island hasn’t sunk yet. So no, they’re not evacuating.
It’s going to happen within their children’s life time, but it’s not an immediate volcano-esque emergency.
Completely collapsing the country isn’t in anyone’s best interests in the meantime.
Slowly is fine.
Now why don’t you go save your moral outrage for the 193 countries that aren’t doing shit for Tuvalu.
Literally “sinking” isn’t the issue. Becoming uninhabitable due to frequent inundations and saltwater contamination of their aquifer is the issue, and that’s starting to happen already. “Within their children’s life time” is incredibly optimistic.
