Guest essay by Eric Worrall
WUWT has reported several times about the ongoing story of the failed Kiribati Climate Refugee. Now the BBC has done a followup story, about Mr. Teitiota’s allegedly sad circumstances, now that he is back in Kiribati. But not everything is as it seems.
Mr Teitiota, his wife and three children are staying at his brother-in-law’s house. It’s a basic cinder block box with no chairs and virtually no modern conveniences.
He has two penned pigs in his yard and a pack of stray dogs scratch themselves under the palm trees. He warns me about the brown dog. That’s the dangerous one. And he doesn’t like it being so close to his kids.
The family relies on rainwater for drinking. The tank is too small, so they struggle to get enough. It’s a bitter irony in a place that’s constantly threatened with inundation.
They pump water from the ground too, but it’s filthy. The groundwater here is just below the surface, which makes it vulnerable to contamination from humans and animals above.
Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34674374
OK, so far so good. But then the BBC makes the following startling statement;
Mr Kidd sees politics in the mix. There are potentially hundreds of millions of people in low-lying areas that could be affected by sea level rises. He wonders if wealthy countries fear that cases like Mr Teitiota’s could turn climate migration from a trickle to a raging torrent.
But there hasn’t been a dramatic exodus just yet. The New Zealand immigration department sets aside 75 places a year in a lottery for migrants from Kiribati, and at the moment it can’t fill them.
President Anote Tong suggests that is because things aren’t desperate enough yet.
Whats up with that? If the alleged climate hardships of life in Kiribati are such a non issue, that Kiribati people can’t even be bothered to apply for lottery places to migrate to New Zealand, what possibly justification could there have ever been for the ridiculous waste of time and resources, represented by Mr. Teitiota’s application for climate refugee status? How can there be any doubt that the New Zealand High Court made the right decision, to reject Mr. Teitiota’s bogus climate refugee claim?
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Kind of like the question from ‘The Wheel’ by The Grateful Dead;
The wheel is turning and you can’t slow down
You can’t let go and you can’t hold on
You can’t go back and you can’t stand still
If the thunder don’t get you then the lightning will
Won’t you try just a little bit harder
Couldn’t you try just a little bit more?
Won’t you try just a little bit harder
Couldn’t you try just a little bit more?
Round, round robin run round
Got to get back to where you belong
Little bit harder, just a little bit more
A little bit further than you gone before
Read more: Grateful Dead – The Wheel Lyrics | MetroLyrics
Thanks, zek, this made my day and a good point, too.
Good to see some Dead Heads on this blog.
California, preaching on the burning shore
California, I’ll be knocking on the golden door
Like an angel, standing in a shaft of light
Rising up to paradise, I know I’m gonna shine.
–Estimated Prophet
Yup. More chilled than the Talking Heads.
Same as it ever was.
Not Fade Away!
pls remind me how many million climate refugees did the UN claim there would be by 2015 ( or do they still deny they said it)?
Well every great journey starts with one small step, or where in the world can we find more victims.
75 refugees is a milestone the UN hopes to achieve on their glorious climate journey and remain optimistic in their million refugee goal.
However if it that doesn’t work out they will come up with a new definition of a refugee, like a refugee is someone who at some point in their life considered moving.
Or someone that would like to move into your house.
Nobody in the northeast like NY, NJ, or Boston area has ever moved to Florida. And nobody from Colorado travels to Arizona in the winter. That’s why there are no climate refugees from the cold. (sarc)
The UN claimed 50 million climate refugees by 2010. That prediction was made in 2005. It has since tried to eliminate any such evidence of this prediction, but the media that reported it, has not:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2005/oct/12/naturaldisasters.climatechange1
“pls remind me how many million climate refugees did the UN claim there would be by 2015 ( or do they still deny they said it)?”
I expect they will claim that all those immigrants swarming all over Europe like a pack of rats are really climate refugees. After all, 75% admit that they aren’t actually from the war zone, just using the distraction to get themselves into cushy accommodation.
People watching the news TV couldn’t fail to notice that there are many young men without women or children in the “war refugees”.
It isn’t just apparent on TV, it is a recognised fact: when asked why they are without wife and children, they acknowledge that they are alone, and explain that “they will go back to Syria to take their family once they got an home”.
We are expected to believe that they will
– have no problem going back in a war zone?!!!
– have no problem finding their families in a war zone?!!!
– have no problem bringing back their families in a war zone?!!!
Or maybe most of them never were in or near a war zone?
This is just one of the many puzzling facts of the war/climate refugees narrative.
Here in europe they are already blaming the war in syria on climate change so yea they are preparing their “millions of refugees”
the hoax is: because of climate change there is a shortage of water that started the war and instability of the region which lead to war causing those refugees….
sarc of course! i believe that!!! /sarc
I think somee folks wanted to label him the worl’s FIRST climate refugee. There are a couple of problems with that as I show below.
Climate change refugees BEFORE 1975
Climate change refugees AFTER 1975
Have the 50 million climate change refugees been found yet? Or is that 200 million. What a joke!
Maybe the people of Kiribati are afraid of orcs.
What else does anyone know about New Zealand?
(Do they play rugby in Kiribati?)
NZ also has the dreaded Ballhog.
Balrog?
Or do NZ baskeball players have bad reputations for being selfish?
If I had the ability I would have created and animated Balrog dunk from the top of the key.
🙂
He is making an obscure reference to Bored of the Rings.
Six feet is your height,
180 your weight,
You cash in your chips,
’round page eighty eight.
Bored of the Rings is AWESOME!
Ballhog. That one takes me back. Laughed my head off.
Wow, how old is that???
I read Bored of the Rings sometime in the early ’70s
Yeah, I laughed so hard I woke my parents up in the middle of the night. I just couldn’t help myself.
Hippie freaks Tim Benzedrine and Hashberry.(Tom Bombadil and Goldberry)
Gimlet son of Groin.
Goddam (Gollum)
Some of the references are so old they’ve lost relevance, like Goodgulf (Gandalf)
But Bored of the Rings is one of the funniest books ever written. They should update it and do the movie, like they did with the Twilight movies (Vampires Suck)
Climate change hasn’t done their Sauvignon blanc industry any harm.
Certainly it has improved their Pinot Noir!
Rugby, Courtney? They think it water polo!! (/s)
This is the PSMSL info page for Christmas Island, Kiribati and goes back to 1974. Looking at the monthly plot, it looks to me like there isn’t really any trend, except spikes up during El Nino years.
http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/stations/1371.php
If you go to the neighbouring plot, which ended in 1972, there had been a downward trend from the 50’s but the average stayed around the same level (7100mm).
http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/stations/801.php
Misread that acronym for a moment! Most appropriate.
Do you think that the proponents (Mr Kidd and President Anote Tong, if they are the proponents) of this farce could be put in a straight jacket and made to look at this data for hours at a time until it sinks in and that they admit that this supposed SLR has all been made up?
From the data at the psmsl site, the sea level there is rising by about 0.9mm/year. Irony: the rate measured at NZ’s capital is 2.7mm/year.
So an inch of sea level rise every 27.78 years. I just looked up this guy’s story. He arrived in New Zealand with his wife in 2007 work visas. They had 3 kids in quick succession in NZ, but overstayed their visas and were ordered deported. All of a sudden, he claimed he was a climate refugee. At 38 years old, based on the info in the following article, he would be 121 years old before the sea rose a massive 3 inches.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/01/28/the-making-of-a-climate-refugee-kiribati-tarawa-teitiota/
Not really much going on in the longer term either. Putting all the tide gauges together reveals a very uninteresting sea level rise. By my calculations the rate even upto last month is still about 1mm per year from 1949.
https://eyesonbrowne.wordpress.com/2014/04/25/kirabati-sea-level-rising-or-falling/
“Mr Teitiota, his wife and three children are staying at his brother-in-law’s house. It’s a basic cinder block box with no chairs and virtually no modern conveniences. …..The family relies on rainwater for drinking. The tank is too small, so they struggle to get enough”
Isn’t this the exact world the greenies envision, free of evil modern conveniences that make a real difference in peoples lives.
Tom,
The green equation forgot to calculate that if it all comes about, there will be NO-BODY alive to reap the benefits ha, green wet dreams!
Hmmm no chairs. There are eastern cultures that do not use chairs. I guess this supposed to make us westerners who like chairs to feel bad.
I am not making fun of poverty or their low stand of living, I am mocking the authors lame attempt to gather sympathy for these people in a climate change context when their poverty has nothing to do with climate change.
It’s just incredibly stupid. Instead of exploiting these people in the name of climate change how about getting these people larger containers to collect rainwater.
Hmmm no chairs.
===========
The custom across the Pacific Islands is to sit on the ground on woven mats. Which can be uncomfortable to westerners, so it is one thing they notice right away.
The problem is the reporter is insensitive to local customs. Projecting their own lifestyle on the native population. It is like someone from Kiribati coming to your house and saying you are poor because you don’t have an outrigger canoe or a fish trap.
I once visited Japan. The people were so poor they didn’t even have knives and forks to eat with. We were forced to use sticks of wood to pick up our food. I hear the people in China are no better off.
The problem is of course due to Global Warming. It has made them too poor to afford metal, so they have to eat with wood.
Alx – how right you are : “…….their poverty has nothing to do with climate change”. It is overpopulation – pure and simple. I have heard that the British in the late 1940’s estimated that the Gilbert Islands (Kiribati)could only ever sustain a population of less than 25,000 because of lack of water. Now there are in excess of 100,000. The water “bubbles” under the islands are exhausted because of too much water drawn up (thus causing salt water to flow in). It was ridiculous to ever grant them independence – they should have been an UN protectorate with strict control on population numbers. A coral island is a silly place to live and expect to have a modern civilisation : storm surges during the cyclones flow over the whole islands. As Darwin figured out this builds up the height of the islands : in effect, a coral island is actually the safest place in the world to live be during sea-level rises. They grow with it!!! 20,000 years ago they were still at sea-level which w2as then about 120 meter lower. Yes, the world ought to assist the islanders to get away from a place like that – but they are not “climate refugees”.
Most Americans are so poor they have not a single horse, and must get around in large metal boxes, which become hot enough to kill a person if left to sit in the sun, and freeze so cold in winter that ice must be scraped from the windows before they can even be used.
Well, no chairs is a big deal. Remember what the wise sage Tolkien said about such things.
So, clearly, the presence of something “to sit down on” is a major indicator habitability. /sarc
Wrong. Kill all of the non-indigenous species, including the dogs, pigs and people. Only then will the greens have their paradise. (sarc).
It’s an amazing statement about the lack of resourcefulness of humanity if people need chairs and can’t improvise to make any.
The last quote from Mr. Teitiota says it all…there’s better life elsewhere. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with climate change but with a lack of resources and poor standard of living where he is now.
One would wonder why UN representatives didn’t offer their premises to house Mr. Teitiota and his family..
But Greenies still require chardonnay – preferably cold!
and just a 2Mbps internet connection between them!
Some nice lodges there on Kiribati. Maybe the climate refugees can stay there. I would go there for vacation. The interesting thing is that many refugees come from countries we still go to on holidays.
https://www.google.nl/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=kiribati%20hotels
So the problem is not Glo.Bull Warming, the problem is he’s POOR !!
Exactly
Levels of poverty, filth, corruption, laziness are inversely proportional to the average intelligence of the population they affect. That’s the basic problem. Good luck on fixing that or even the powers that be acknowledging it.
Global Warming is a sham invented and foisted by those who want to control society. CO2 plays almost no part in the Earths temperature, either @ur momisugly 300ppm or 400ppm or 500ppm. Water vapor is the only green house gas that counts on this planet.
Expat
Intelligence – or education?
Auto
Intelligence. Lack of education is just an excuse, like poverty. Same with athletics. No amount of training can make up for lack of natural ability.
“Expat
November 7, 2015 at 2:11 pm
Intelligence. Lack of education is just an excuse, like poverty.”
Really? Lack of education and poverty an excuse? Really? Sheesh…
Music cue….”Officer Krupkie” (West Side Story).
Some nice lodges there on Kiribati. Maybe the climate refugees can stay there. I would go there for vacation. The funny thing is that many refugees come from countries we still go on holidays.
https://www.google.nl/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=kiribati%20hotels
Hard to believe some liberals fell for this scam !!! A utility company claims if you voluntarily agree to pay extra every month , they will only send ” GREEN ” electrons to your home !!!! …..Seriously !!!
http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/31483448:WKEyJ8yNG:m:1:752120182:7241D5BDF8C67F8B85BE6E3F6B9A3D92:r
Does this mean we can pay less if we agree to only use the dirty brown electrons?
I can just hear the protests now. “What do we want? Green Electrons! When do we want them? Now!”
You can buy many things (incl. sex and love), but one thing is not for sale: electrons.
Last summer, I went to my local garden supply store to buy some perlite. I got to the checkout, and laughed when I read the label: “Organic perlite,” and told the clerk that perlite is the very definition of INorganic. Oh no, she assured me, the company has a whole line of organic products. Trying again, I told her that perlite is basically puffed rocks. Nope, no idea what I was talking about.
This is precisely why the f r a u d-ulent green industry continues. They have no idea what they’re lying about and the general public are too stupid to catch them out.
I always look for the inorganic bananas at the grocery store, but can never find them.
I have a basket full of them on my dining room table. My husband bought them in the home decor department many years ago. They look perfect every day!
They meant kosher perlite.
LOL!
What is worse is that some people actually believe it. Try asking them to point to which power line on the street is carrying the green electrons if you want an exploded head.
There is a blogger I read on non-climate matters. The blog is enjoyable except,for the part where he maintains all his power comes from wind, because he pays for wind-only electricity.
I have a business card from a landscaper that boasts his landscaping is all organic including concrete drive, patio walls, flagstone, tile work, wood fencing, color rock, etc.
he seems to know how to market his work and products to the lefty geniuses.
That should be ‘recycled green electrons’. 🙂
Every electron is recycled.
There is no other matter as well recycled as electrons.
The true story of why this undesirible individual was deported from New Zealand.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/-a-dark-underbelly-sex-allegations-made-against-kiribati-climate-change-refugee-q12092
Utility company promises to only send you electrons made with renewable energy IF you voluntarily pay extra ?? I didn’t know they could tell the difference once they were in the power lines !! Truly amazing….
http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/31483448:WKEyJ8yNG:m:1:752120182:7241D5BDF8C67F8B85BE6E3F6B9A3D92:r
Sounds fine to me. I like that “voluntary” part. If that word actually meant what it meant, we could resolve this thing right quick-like. But I am not holding my breath.
You really think they can separate the GREEN electrons from the rest ??
Since the drift velocity of the electrons is typically millimeters per second, it may be some time before they actually deliver those green electrons you’re paying for. Come to think of it, if you’re using AC, they will probably never arrive. Better ask for your money back. : > )
Oh, come now. . . of course you know that electric companies must be able to tell the difference between dirty brown electrons and the more virtuous green backgrounds.
After all, for decades sign makers have been separating red electrons from yellow and blue electrons in their neon signs. . . . . . . . . 😉
Interesting. I think I have a new “green” energy
scamer business. AC current doesn’t move the electrons around it just sloshes them back and forth Speed of Electrons, so even if you pay for “green” electrons your house has those dirty “brown” electrons in it. My company (for a large fee) will come out and flush those dirty electrons out of your system with DC current containing only “green” electrons. You can then feel safe that your family will not be contaminated by those brown electrons that have been contaminated with CO2.The electric company is probably gonna be unhappy with your DC messing up their power factor. For a modest finder’s fee I can put you in contact with a recently retired Volkswagen engineer who can ‘adjust’ the utilities’ instrumentation to remove this problem.
What about the airlines who claim you can fly “green” by paying a bit extra on your ticket! Perhaps you must sit in your seat and pedal.
Robber, that and you also have to sign a form saying that you won’t touch that great big twisted rubber band running down the aisle.
As a French green politician once said (allegedly) (*)
someone: you can’t do that, it violates Kirchhoff law (#)
green politician: then we will abolish this law.
(*) I couldn’t find a reliable source, I don’t remember the name of guy, and this is pretty realistic anyway
(#) Kirchhoff law in French is just “the law of nodes” (“la loi des nœuds”); maybe the foreign name “Kirchhoff” would have been a sufficient hint to the politician that it isn’t a law of La République française
I figure I’ll probably undergo catastrophic climate change in around 3 years. I’ll pick one and go.
By which I mean what is generally defined as catastrophic climate change.
I recently experienced this catastrophic change when I went to the US’s 50th state. I inadvertently left my ‘normal’ 5°C climate at home, and ended up in 32°C. To this day I don’t know how I even survived. /sarc
I recently suffered catastrophic climate change when it unexpectedly rained for 2 days. I didn’t know it was going to happen. Now my lawn has grown sharply upward and my mower is in danger of stalling. Climate change affects lawn mowers for realsies. This is a living hell. I must apply for refugee status to the atacama desert where this can’t happen – at least for the foreseeable future.. 😉
Olaf, apparently you missed the news of the huge bloom event in the Atacama.
http://en.es-static.us/upl/2015/11/atacama-desert-chile-flowers-Yuri-Beletsky-11-2-2015-e1446765923792.jpg
What’s all this fuss about about “climb-it refusees”? If they don’t want to climb then they shouldn’t, nor should anyone make them.
and violins on television? What about that??!!
Darn. As a non-English-speaker, this is new and funny. Why do you write w in rite and b in niml??
So-called “climate change” is the universal excuse- for governments that choose irresponsible policies, to lazy individuals who cannot be bothered to take care of themselves.
Us unbelievers in CAGW should form a corporation to buy up ocean-front properties in the south sea islands. I wonder what the greenies who are aware of their own scam would think of that speculation?
Why south sea islands?
Because the CAGW people has already bought all the north sea ocean-front properties?
Us non-believers in CAGW should by up ocean-front properties in the South Sea Islands. I wonder what the greenies who are aware of their own scam would think of that speculation?
I wonder if the refugee didn’t like the free offer and went for what was behind door number 3?
#B^D
This “Refugee Status” business reminds me of the Obama Noble Peace Price:
Obama got the price even though he never did anything to justify the honor. It was for the future deeds he will surely do (and oh, how he did! He probably managed to start the third world war – this time the Islam against everybody else).
Mr, Teitiota’s “Refugee Status” is also in advance – to be on the safe side, you see: for when the islands drown in the wake of the Globul Worming. Why wait for it to happen?
Or Nobel, even.
“the Obama Noble Peace Price”
I agree but you got the spelling wrong: it’s spelled igNobel now.
Hello alarmist shills at the BBC – have you ever actually LOOKED at the tide gauge trend from Betio Kiribati? I suggest that you do, here it is – http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO70060/IDO70060SLI.pdf
(Oh noes, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has been bought off by Big Oil!)
I suspect this character did not apply for the underused lottery places because he would get a better deal being registered as a refugee. more money free house etc whereas ‘just moving there’ he would have to work!!!
The 75 slots weren’t reported in the NZ media, I don’t think, although coverage was never that favourable to the applicant.
“basic cinder block box with no chairs and virtually no modern conveniences…They pump water from the ground too, but it’s filthy. The groundwater here is just below the surface, which makes it vulnerable to contamination from humans and animals above.”
I’m sorry, but this looks like the real reason for refugee claims. How can it be today that there are still people who can’t arrange to provide clean water for themselves? They did it for 10s of thousands of years before western aid came along. This is apparently a third worldwide problem. What on earth have NGOs been up to with their billions other than personal safaris? What on earth have western nations been up to with their 100s of billions of dollars laid out? Every person knows that water, food, shelter/clothing are the order of emergency requirements.
Now, in case you think I’m a sheltered, selfish and well provided for westerner, I was doing projects in Nigeria in the 1960s doing (among other things) hydrogeological studies and laying out town water supplies. Most medium sized villages had a deep well that was constructed to preserve the water from contamination. I was a Nigerian civil servant -interviewed and hired by the Nigerian High Commission in London, not an NGO well-meaning but generally ineffective person. At least in those days, NGO’s tended to go for projects of their own choosing – more glamorous than sewer and water. The obvious (but unwitting to them) reverse racism that guided them was central to their projects. “Teach a man to fish” kind of stuff. I wonder if we have made these people wards of the international aid industry. The 100’s of billions being asked for now by the UN Clime Syndicate is just more of the same. I wonder if third world people would have solved at least all their most basic few survival problems long before now if left alone. It seems to me that this is fundamental for their sustainability. At this late date, common sense dictates that first priority for any transfer of wealth is to at least get these people providing the basics of survival before we go saving the planet.
A good start would be to shoot and dispose of the feral dogs.
Apart from the physical threat they carry hydatid disease, scabies and fleas while destroying wildlife.
He could get a few mates together and do it himself.
I suspect those dogs have another name…the larder.
Shoot the Holiday dinner?
Then they’d have to go fishing for protein. The fact is the people are right to want to leave the mess they’ve built themselves, not because the atoll is sinking but because they’ve made it unlivable. One day a tsunami will come through and make it ready for a do-over. It is an island ghetto and will continue to be until charitable types stop enabling that life style and they have to shift for themselves, or until ISIS decides to expand into the South Pacific. Actually, the charitable types provide only enough charity to mandate that life style. Things would change if a great deal more or a great deal less was offered. Giving more doesn’t scale, though, and the population would grow to absorb and additional gifting. The population nearly doubled between 1990 and 2010 in Tarawa.
(Mainly sarc). Don’t worry, Gary Pearse.
Because Bill Gates is on the verge of solving the problems of access to sewage treatment and clean water.
Using his gazillions to create a technologically advanced waste processor.
As an expert in this area – perhaps you will have an opinion on this strategy.
Soon everyone in the developing world will be “omniprocessing” their waste.
And already, a large number of individuals have been aided by Gate’s generosity.
But, as yet, they are all grant and award seeking scientists and technicians here in the developed world.
Here’s the project described on the Gates Blog:
http://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Omniprocessor-From-Poop-to-Potable
The clean water issue was addressed here recently. The amount of green subsidies the US has given in the last 10 years, would have been more than enough to give clean water to every person on earth who currently does not have access to clean water.
Ioane Teitota was an overstayer in NZ who tried to fight the mandatory deportation when caught. In 1974 I turned down an offer of a government contract position in Kirbati for similar reasons: It didn’t seem like an upgrade from Samoa where the family had spent the last 7 years. Tarawa then it was unfit to live in and with a population of about 10,000 water was reported to be scarce and seas too close for comfort. Most of Tarawa, the main island, is not occupied being strung out along a few causeways around a lagoon. The high point may be 3 metres but the average was given then as 1 metre.
Now there is about 25-30,000 in Tarawa. We know from Willis that the water lens below the coral can be damaged by compression and that is what the BBC are reporting. Water is scarce because Tarawa is seriously equatorial and they do have droughts. Water shortages for the local population is compounded by tourism.
There is it seems a sea wall and I have encountered advocacy to have this made higher essentially ring fencing the living areas. However a tropical storm would likely smash it or dump sufficient water within the newly created lake to drown people.
Kiribati,Tarawa in particular, is a good example of population exceeding resources without the application of common sense. If it was Europe they would have all left. Expect more; the BBC report is not unreasonable from an outsiders perspective and lack of cultural understanding. The soiled groundwater coupled with drought has the potential for disaster from disease.
Climate change and parrot fish dining on coral is not the problem in Tarawa.