You ever have one of those moments when you say to yourself? Oh now I get it. That was my
reaction when I did some research on the Maldives. I have been fortunate to have traveled the globe and I just sort of thought of Maldives as a tropical paradise. For me what also comes up is Madagascar and the Cape Verde Islands although they aren’t anywhere near each other. It’s just idea of the Maldives just being so remote and exotic. And even though I didn’t hear the President of the Maldives, Mohammad Nasheed‘s voice when he made an impassioned plea at the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen…I hear him now.
In a largely symbolic gesture to persuade world leaders to go green and demonstrate their commitment to renewable energy, President Mohammad Nasheed will install solar panels and green up the presidential residence. It’s hard to figure out why the White House rejected 350.org plea to reinstall solar panel at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, but if you see and hear President Nasheed speak you can understand the situation in the Maldives and recognize the real time effect of climate change.
The Maldives is a very small country of 1200 islands most of them uninhabited, which lie off the Indian sub-continent. The country is just 5 fleet above sea level. It has the distinction of being the lowest country on the planet. So you can easily see that rising sea levels from climate change will spell certain doom.
President Nasheed at the UN
So severe is the situation that in 2008 President Nasheed announced plans to look into purchasing new land in India, Sri Lanka, and Australia because of his concerns about global warming and the possibility of much of the islands being inundated with water from rising sea levels. The purchase of land will be made from a fund generated by tourism. Nasheed said, “We do not want to leave the Maldives, but we also do not want to be climate refugees living in tents for decades.”The solar panels are to be installed as part of 350.org’’s ”Global Work Party” on October 10.