Atlantis

Male, capital of the Maldives

It's no secret that the world is warming. The real debate lies in if this is another one of earth's climate cycles, increased solar activity, or the result of human activity. Let's just say, if climate change were solely a human created phenomena ad Al Gore wanted us to believe, we would all be living in a 130 degree world, gagging on smog and battered by constant wildfires and hurricanes. Don't get me wrong, the current warming trend is alarming. For instance, the island nation Maldives, located in the Indian Ocean, has much to worry about. This mountain chain island has the lowest natural high point of any country at only 2.4m (7ft 10in). During the 2004 Tsunami, only 9 of its islands escaped flooding, while fourteen had to be totally evacuated, and six were destroyed. This may sound bad, but it could have been much worse; the coral reefs surrounding the islands absorbed much of the energy from the waves. These are the same reefs now seeing widespread bleaching from increased ocean acidity due to absorption of atmospheric CO2. Besides natural disasters, the Maldivian government is acknowledging a scary reality. The president Mohammed Nasheed, has set up a special fund from tourism revenue to buy land for his people in either Australia, India, or Sir Lanka, in the event that rising water will force his nation of 350,000 to evacuate their homes. This scary reality brings many questions to the forefront on the topic of climate change and its effect on human populations. One such question is how will the world cope with mass migration of populations near rising oceans? 350,000 people is one thing, but what of millions, like in the area of New Orleans and lower Louisiana? The world's resources are already strained as is. Where would these people go and if they do find somewhere, do we have enough basic resources like food to support them? The grim reality is that it may be to late for the Maldives, however with the world's oceans rising, government's around the globe should begin to focus their energy platforms on green, sustainable energy to minimize the effect of human populations on the volatile changes in the earth's climate.

This Sept. 16, 2012, image released by NASA shows the amount of summer sea ice in the Arctic, at center in white, and the 1979 to 2000 average extent for the day shown, with the yellow line. Scientists say sea ice in the Arctic shrank to an all-time low of 1.32 million square miles on Sept. 16, smashing old records for the critical climate indicator.