Thursday, February 23, 2012
The Island President
This post I wrote originally appeared on Care2.com:
If you follow climate change news, then you’re likely familiar with Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed, the first democratically elected leader of the small island nation. President of the lowest country in the world, with 80% of its land rising only a meter above sea level, President Nasheed has been a global voice for action to address the climate crisis. In 2009, he and Maldives government officials held an underwater cabinet meeting to make a statement about what will happen to the island by the year 2100 if the world does not act on climate change.
In September the Maldives pledged to go carbon neutral by 2020, which would make it the first nation to do so. On January 23, Radiohead’s Thom Yorke announced that the band’s music “was used to help tell the story” of President Nasheed in new documentary The Island President. This week’s news on the Maldives hasn’t been quite as positive. A military coup in what seems to have been carried out by police forced President Nasheed from office on Tuesday morning, at gunpoint and with threats of violence. He was placed under house arrest, and Bill McKibben’s organization 350.org put out an alert stating that his life could be in danger. That same day, President Nasheed’s successor, Mohammed Waheed Hassan, the former vice president, was sworn in as the President of the Maldives.
To read the rest click here - you'll be taken to the original post on Care2.com. Then head here for today's update from 350.org!
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The climate change is in progress and I doubt things will go better...
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