Wednesday 13 April 2011

Oxfam uses people in need to spread false climate change propaganda



Oxfam Australia has also used Ursula Rakova in spreading its climate change propaganda


Yesterday Oxfam Ireland and the Mary Robinson Foundation - Climate Justice hosted a discussion in which two "women leaders from the developing world bring their experience of climate change to Dublin, the first city on their Climate Wise Women European Tour". Former President Mary Robinson participated in the discussion which included presentions by Constance Okollet from Uganda and Ursula Rakova from the South Pacific Carteret Islands.
Following on from global climate talks in Copenhagen in 2009 and Cancun in 2010 the world will address these issues in Durban, South Africa at the end of 2011. Voices like those of Constance Okollet and Ursula Rakova bear witness to the impacts of extreme drought, flooding and rising sea levels on their respective communities.
Mary Robinson explained “When we focus on the human dimension of climate change, we see the effects of the problem differently and we then approach the solutions differently. Giving voice to the experiences of these women, allowing them to bear witness to their experiences can influence policy outcomes and instruments of adaptation”.
Ursula Rakova Executive Director of Tuele Peisa of the Cartaret Island of the South Pacific, will describe the urgent situation facing the Carteret Islanders that has required the community to relocate to Bougainville, a larger island that is part of Papua New Guinea.  Climate change has played a major role in the destruction of the Carteret atoll, with unprecedented king tides destroying the soil for food production and rapidly covering the land mass forcing the community to move.  Ursula will explain the how the community has been pro-active in meeting the challenge, the delicate process of negotiating with the communities on Bougainville for land and home construction for the Carteret Islanders and, just as essential, the acceptance of her people within the new community. 
The case of the Carteret Islands is another blatant example of how alarmist NGO´s actively spread false information in order to promote their alarmist cause. The truth is that global warming (climate change) does not have anything to do with "the urgent situation" facing Carteret islanders. The latest research by University of Auckland professor Paul Kench, shows - as most people probably know by now - shows that Pacific islands are not sinking due to global warming.
Australien blogger Brian Darcey already in 2009 explained what has been happening in the Carteret Islands:
The Carteret Islands, also known as Kilinailau Atoll are a low lying group of islands north east of Bougainville Island. The sea is slowly invading them as they sit perched on the encircling reef, just a few feet above the surrounding sea, and the global warming Industry has used the plight of the people there as an example of the ill effects of climate change.
There is no question that the Carterets are being flooded by ever increasing erosion from the invading sea, or that this will continue until they disappear, and that rest of the world, including Australia is morally obliged ensure that the Carteret Islanders are relocated in a new homeland. Some have already left for Bougainville, and the rest will follow once the painfully slow task of confirming ownership of new communal land is completed.Attermpts to portray the islander's plight as an illustration of the fate awaiting us all unless we heed apocalyptic warnings on rising sea levels continue unabated and should be shown up and resisted.
But despite all this, the sea is not rising at the Carterets any more than it is rising on nearby Bougainville or, for that matter on Bondi Beach as a visit to either will demonstrate. Tide levels worldwide are much as has been predicted and continue to show no appreciable increase overall, nor are they expected to do so: published tide tables for anywhere on the planet will confirm that this is so.

The inconvenient truth is that the sea is not rising: Kilinailau Atoll is sinking, and will almost certainly continue to do so because it is on the wrong side of the junction between two opposing tectonic plates on the sea bottom.
The Carteret's fate has nothing to do with surface weather or global temperatures, rising or otherwise. The under sea fault alongside this island group follows the Ring of Fire which runs from New Zealand through PNG and The Phillipines up to Japan and then over to Alaska and down the Americas to Antartica with active volcanoes at irregular intervals along its entire length.
The fault is visible evidence of the result of vertical movements both up and down in the earth's crust. The huge slow-moving plates collide along it in tectonically induced conflict producing constant instability and this is what is drowning the Carterets. The earth under them is sinking and taking them with it.

Wikipedia gives us some additional information:

Another likely primary cause, is damage inflicted over decades by the indigenous fishing industry. Ammonium Nitrate bomblets, used to stun fish for harvesting, had the effect of breaking up the surrounding Coral beds which form the foundation of the islands. The effect was unintended, but devastating. The Coral is destroyed and is unable to recover for decades, once it is blasted. The foundation of remaining land is impaired, and the islands begin to sink. Exhaustion of the fresh water aquifer may also have exacerbated the sinking.
Additionally, the area is tectonically active, and subsidence is highly likely. NASA's Jason satellite data demonstrates a zero sea level change between January 2004 and present, +/- 20 mm.
The Carteret islands likely consist of a base of coral that sits atop an extinct volcanic mount. In the usual geological course of events first proposed by Charles Darwin, such islands eventually subside due to weathering and erosion, as well as isostatic adjustments of the sea floor. It has also been speculated that dynamite fishing [5] in the Carterets such as occurred in the island during the prolonged Bougainvilleconflict may be contributing to the increased inundation. Coral reefs buffer against wave and tidal action, and so their degradation may increase an island's level of exposure to those forces. Another suggestion is that tectonic movement may be causing the gradual subsidence of the atoll. [7]

Historically other populated islands, for example Tuanaki in the Cook Islands (last seen in 1842), are known to have sunk entirely and relatively suddenly for causes unrelated to rising sea levels.[8]

The other lady, Constance Okollet, is touring Europe to tell her story, which does not sound any more convincing as proof of human induced global warming:

Constance Okollet, Chairperson of the Osukura United Women Network in Eastern Uganda will speak of the dramatic changes in climate that have been occurring in her region of Uganda since 2006. Extreme cycles of drought and rain make it impossible to grow traditional crops, threatening the food security of the community and limiting their ability to earn a modest living. Death by drowning, starvation or disease and disruption to children’s education are some of the other impacts of climate change experienced.
Constance will tell of her own awakening to the causes and effects of climate change at a community meeting organised by Oxfam that led her to understand that the climatic changes her people experienced were not an expression in her words of God’s displeasure with them but were, in fact, caused by mankind

PS
It is quite clear that people in need - both in Uganda and the Claretet Islands - should get help, but to use their plight in order to promote false global warming/climate change propaganda is immoral, to say the least.





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