1 a) My view on climate change and how it is affecting Pacific islands.

Environment   Aug 16, 2017 by Alexander Reeson - Pimlico

Yes, this is a humorous picture to represent rising sea levels in the pacific, but this is a serious problem that is already causing island to go below sea level.  In 2016 Simon Albert a renowned researcher from The University Of Queensland (Australia), who has a background in the fields of natural resource management, water quality, marine ecology and climate change, released an article on the Scientific American explaining that "at least five reef islands in the remote Solomon Islands have been lost completely to rising sea levels and coastal erosion, and a further six islands have been severely eroded". This is proof that rising sea levels are a real threat and that action must be taken to try and stop this from becoming worse.

Below is an image of an island that went under.

(Image by Simon Albert)

Furthermore, for the past 20 years, the Solomon Islands have been a hotspot for rising sea levels. Here the sea has risen at almost three times the global average, around 7-10 mm per year since 1993. This higher local rate is partly the result of natural climate variability. "Natural variations (a process which individuals are better adapted in the environment to survive and reproduce) and geological movements will be superimposed on these higher rates of global average sea level rise, resulting in periods when local rates of rise will be substantially larger than that recently observed in Solomon Islands" (Javier Leon - May 7, 2016 7.16am AEST). Therefore the current conditions in Solomon Islands as an insight into the future impacts of accelerated sea-level rising. 

(Image by Simon Albert)

- Many homes are close to sea level on the Solomon Islands.

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