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Kwajalein Atoll & Einwetak Atoll, Marshall Islands Anna Green, Tom Reznick, Nicole Wessen The Marshall Islands
Marshall Islands History How did weather affect early migration to the Marshall Islands?
Early Settlement of the South Pacific Interestingly, settlement to the vast area east of New Guinea began around 1,500 B.C. (Finney 1996). This migration moved eastward to the islands of Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa before expanding further into Eastern Polynesia. Finney points out that “a branch of this migration swept northward from eastern Melanesia to Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, and the Caroline Islands…” (Finney 1996). This theory of eastward migration from Southeast Asia was not always prevalent. Finney notes that the “first European explorers to enter the Pacific discovered to their surprise that the islands they chanced upon in mid-ocean were already occupied” (Finney 1996). Finney even adds that some explorers thought the island inhabitants had been brought by earlier Europeans or had been put there by God (Finney 1996). In the late-eighteenth century, Captain James Cook began to believe that South Pacific Islanders could have migrated to their islands when he recognized their sophisticated navigation and sailing skills (Finney 1996). Trade Winds and Navigation The direction of the trade winds from east to west represents the average wind direction over the year. In fact, there are periodic shifts in wind direction which blow eastward that Finney argues were utilized by navigators to migrate eastward. During the summer, solar radiation heats the Australian continent and forms a low pressure system over northern Australia. At the system rotates clockwise, westerly winds blow across the northern part of the circle. This system will sometimes stretch and bring westerly winds east out into the Pacific. These periodic shifts in westerly winds explain how early navigators could have migrated eastward across the Pacific. Finney points out that the easterly trade winds with occasional westerly shifts could have benefited early explorers rather than significantly hindering their progress eastward. Explorers traveling eastward with the westerly winds could have utilized the predominant westerly trade winds to return home if their voyages were unsuccessful or they needed to return for supplies (Finney 1996).
Marshall Islands Stick Charts The charts represent a combination of wave refraction and reflection. As a deep-water swell approaches the shallow water of an island or atoll, it is slowed down and bent around the land ( Davenport 1960). As the wave moves around the island, it continues to be bent around until it is almost perpendicular to the original direction and the two sides clash. The amount of refraction varies according to the size of the island and the amount of shallow water surrounding it ( Davenport). Wave reflection occurs when a wave hits an island and sends a smaller wave back in the opposite direction.
These stick charts diagram the interaction of reflected and refracted waves in relation to an island. They represent the Marshallese navigator’s deep connection and knowledge of the land. Davenport writes of the Marshallese navigator, “He learns to lie on his back in the bottom of the canoe and to interpret the wave pattern by noting the rise and fall, yawing, and slapping of sea against the hull” ( Davenport 1960). The stick charts were used to teach navigators the patterns of wave refraction and reflection. They were not carried on a voyage and referenced like a map. Rather the navigator carried the knowledge in his head and relied on the feeling of the waves to tell him where he was.
Identifying Islands
Radioactivity and Introduction to Climate Change The Marshall Islands lie in open ocean, and the islands are generally very close to sea level. The vulnerability to waves and storm surges is at the best of times precarious. Although the islands have by no means been completely free from weather extremes, they are more frequently referred to in folklore as "jolet jen Anij" (gifts from God). The sense that Marshall Islands were a God-given sanctuary away from the harshness of other areas is therefore part of the socio-cultural identity of the people. However, given the physics of wave formation and the increasing frequency and severity of storms, the Marshall Islands will likely be at even greater risk in the future. The relative safety that the islands have historically provided is now in jeopardy. It is likely that evacuation would have to be effected long before inundation is total. The Marshallese would become among the first of many environmental refugees. This would be a devastating disruption not only for the culture and the people of the island countries, but also for the countries that would need to accommodate the refugees. The impacts are not limited to the Marshalls and its immediate neighbors. The Marshall Islands are often referred to as a "front line state" with regard to the climate change issue. It is important to realize that once the potentially catastrophic effects begin to appear there, it is likely already too late to prevent further warming that will threaten virtually all of the world's coastal regions. Bikini Atoll Devastating effects occurred primarily because the weather turned officially "unfavorable," i.e., the wind blew in the wrong direction, however the United States military detonated the bomb anyway. These factors help explain why the islands were hit from 20 miles beyond the perimeter of the "safety zone." The military did nothing to prevent the nearby Marshallese inhabitants from being exposed to the deadly fallout. Clouds of snow-like particles deposited radioactive fallout on the people below and irradiated them with doses of “cloud shine,” radiation produced by the blast itself. The people on surrounding islands suffered burns from beta radiation. They also ingested radioactive iodine from the water and food.
Bravo was hardly the “routine atomic test” as described by the United States military, and “some radioactivity” does not come close to describing the islanders’ dosage, which was the equivalent of the amount received by Japanese citizens less than two miles from Ground Zero at Hiroshima. The Bravo-dusted islanders entered history as unique examples of the effects of radioactive fallout on humans. The bomb’s detonation set off a chain reaction of events over the last half-century. Following the testing, the Marshallese inhabitants became unwitting subjects in secret U.S. research on the effects of nuclear fallout and ultimately were forced to leave their idyllic homeland, which remains uninhabitable to this day due to radioactivity. It remains apparent that the climate change to not only Bikini Atoll, but to all of the atolls located in the Marshall Islands will in the future have a devastating effect. Damage done by military testing, global warming and climate change will no doubt have far-reaching consequences over the islands in the years to come. The culture of the people and their way of life could be potentially wiped out permanently. Bikini Atoll is expected to be a dangerous place to live until the late 21st century--more than one hundred years after the bombing. The Origin of the Bikini
Technological Imperialism in Australian – Marshallese Debate on Climate Change Throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first centuries, the major scientific geopolitical debate has been the global warming controversy. Various attempts have been enacted to curtail the malicious effect of human progress on climate. This controversy is inexorably linked to existing scientific geopolitical debates. For example – many multilateral attempts to harness the exponential increase in greenhouse gas emissions leave exceptions for developing nations under the pretext that their local threat of economic collapse outweighs the global threat of climate change. Another example, which will serve as the focus of this paper, is the effects of increased pollution by developed nations and its malicious effects on more developed nations. Numerous facets of this problem are present in the modern world – from acid deposition to watershed issues – but with relation to climate change, none of these aforementioned scenarios can eclipse the threat of rising sea levels to small island nations, in terms of effect on less developed nations and relative consequences. Neither mass of acid deposition nor severity of aqueous contaminant can cast its shadow upon the catastrophe of losing a sizeable percentage of a nation to the seas. Often, this form of technological imperialism becomes amalgamated with nationalistic and borderline ethnocentric sentiments. Such is the case in relations between Australia and the Marshall Islands. Australia
The Marshall Islands
The Conflict
Australia is reluctant to ratify the Kyoto protocol citing job loss as a direct result. While "most other industrialized countries, including Canada, which have similar economic structures and less room to reduce emissions by shifting away from coal, undertook to cut their emissions," (“Australia Sinks Climate Talks.” Courier Mail, 2000). Australia has yet to make this move. South Pacific nations have taken on an almost “apocalyptic” view of rising sea levels, and this has been casually dismissed by the Australian government (“Australia Sinks Climate Talks.” Courier Mail, 2000), yet given that only 16.67% of the land in The Marshall Islands is arable, land loss is a very significant issue. The IPCC projects a relative maximum of sea level rise (given factors of uncertainty and compiling multiple computer scenarios) of approx. 0.83 m (IPCC Third Assessment Report, 2001). The tone of Australia’s remarks to South Pacific island nations is reminiscent of Cold War mentality that justified nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands. Remarks similar to the technocratic and paternalistic statements, that revolved around the greater good of the more western nation, sent from Washington during the Cold War, were uttered from Canberra. While nuclear testing poses a greater and more immediate threat to a nation than rising sea levels, the assumed hierarchy is present in the dictum from Australia. Conclusion There is no quick or easily applicable fix to this problem – both nations have vested interests in their viewpoints and from the perspective of developed polluter nations, land area loss in the south pacific is hardly first on the agenda. Hopefully, morality will prevail in this issue, but it is not likely. Given the haste with which the United States tested nuclear arms in The Marshall Islands, and then the extreme reluctance with which it began to clean up the damage done, the odds of a reduced emissions treaty passing on the grounds of Marshallese land loss are slim. References Davenport, William. 1960. “ Marshall Islands Navigational Charts” Imago Mundi. 15: 19-26. Finney, Ben. 1996. “Colonizing an Island World.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Association. 86:71-116. Goetzfridt, Nicholas J. 1997. “Navigation in the Pacific” Encyclopedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Lamb, H.H.; Climate, History and the Modern World; 2 nd Edition; Routledge, New York, NY. ©1995. Bikini Atoll www.bikiniatoll.com Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change www.ipcc.ch/ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration www.noaa.gov Republic of the Marshall Islands http://www.rmiembassyus.org/nuclear/exhibit/introduction.html 1 Carbon Dioxide sinks are an example of geo-engineering that is incapable of seeing beyond the borders of its premise. The concept of the aforementioned sinks is that by replanting vast amounts of trees, a country can seek to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. While the theory seems logical at first, it neglects the effects of increased biomass, evapotranspiration, changes in the albedo, and long term succession events. The concept stems from the desire to apply a technical fix to a global problem. The research behind such technical fixes is grounded in a technologically determinist view point with an obvious political bias. |
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scattered over three-quarter million square miles, with the average height above sea level residing at seven feet or two meters. Fragile coral reefs fringe the atolls, and serve as the only line of defense against the ocean surge. The clearance over the reef in the sections that are covered by water is usually no more than a couple of feet. In other places the reef is commonly only barely submerged. 
Women exposed to the radiation have conceived children less often than expected. They have experienced more miscarriages and stillbirths. The Bravo shot is referred to today as the worst single incident of fallout exposures in the entire U.S. atmospheric testing program. Never before in history had an isolated human population been subjected to high but sub-lethal amounts of radioactivity without the physical and psychological complexities associated with nuclear explosion. Islanders would not learn the true nature of the experiment for 40 years, until 1994, when President Clinton ordered thousands of documents declassified in the wake of a national scandal involving human radiation experiments. 
Australia, while having a relatively low population (19,913,144) (CIA World Factbook, 2004), releases about 1.5% of the total global emissions (Human Development Repots, 1999). This is a substantial percentage given the small population size of Australia. Also, it must be stated that Australia’s largest export is coal and that the largest industry is mining (CIA World Factbook, 2004). Australian Prime Minister John Howard has repeatedly stated that ratifying the Kyoto Protocol “would disadvantage Australian industry and cost jobs” (AAP Newsfeed, 2004). The Australian Conservation Foundation has released a statement condemning “continued lobbying [from polluting companies] of the federal government to oppose the Kyoto Protocol was risking jobs in the renewable energy industry. 
Most of the islands of the south pacific have a very low average elevation above sea level. One of the major issues of the global temperature debate has been the threat of rising sea levels. The highest point in The Marshall Islands is 10m above sea level and the area is approx. 181.3 km 2, about the size of Washington D.C. (CIA World Factbook, 2004). Given a topography model of a conical land mass with a base area of 181.3 km 2 and a height of 10m, a sea level increase of 1m would entail an 18% decrease in land area. That computes to approx. 0.6 km 2 per capita lost. This estimate does not take into account increased permeation throughout the soil and sustained effects on the ecosystem, so a greater deal of damage should be factored into the numbers. Also, a simple conical approximation does not completely describe the situation. The Marshall Islands is constituted of several archipelagos each containing numerous islands. Many ot these islands have a distinct ecological and cultural significance and are in danger of being effaced by sea level changes of much less than 1 meter. Subsequently, The Marshall Islands favors international attempts to limit atmospheric waste. President Kessai Note has urged “ Australia and The United States to sign the Kyoto Protocol