The first giant waves overflowed the nine atolls of Tuvalu (once called Gilberts and Ellice) in February 19th 2004, an archipelago-state situated below the Equator in Oceania, not far from the “changing date line”: the worst thing happened in the next two days, when the tide caught up three meters and twenty of height, submerging houses, governative offices and part of the airport and making the marine water emerge even in the inside of the islands, hundreds of meters far from the coast, creating salty lakes that destroyed the cultivations of alimentary plants.

   The phenomenon has appears more and more frequently and with greater intensity in the last years.

   By now it is written that within the end of this century the nation of Tuvalu, a bunches of atolls scattered in an immense area of the Pacific Ocean, is destined to disappear, unless drastic measures won’t be adopted world-wide in order to reduce the greenhouse effect, that provokes the dissolution of glaciers and the consequent elevation of the sea level. It’s said by one of the report of the UN, moreover unheard, if it is true that the "Protocol of Kyoto" for the control of the polluting agents that provoke to the greenhouse effect, has not been underwritten by various Countries of the world, some of the most technologically progressed nation, which are the greatest responsible of the carbon dioxide breaking in the atmosphere.

   Tuvalu will be only the first nation to be submerged, because its maximum heigh on the sea level is just 4,5 meters, and because the effect of the elevation of the oceans is greater in proximity of the Equator, caused by the spin of the Earth, but the first tragic consequences of this slow but inexorable catastrophe is already very visible also in the others coralline archipelagos.


   It’s well known by Terje Dahl, an alone Norwegian navigator aboard its "Coco Loco", a boat of approximately 22 feet, who has been sailing for 4 years from Norway to the Salomone Islands, where the boat got damaged and unrepairable.

   He went back to his Native land, few months after he returned in Polynesia, where he got married with a woman of Tuvalu, Emma Toematagi, who is still his partner.

   With her he moved to a little coralline and deserted island of Motuloa, in the atoll of Nukulaelae, where he lived for six years and where two sons were born. Although situated along equatorial belt (between 5° and 11° the parallel south) the atolls of Tuvalu are not more protected from hurricanes, as it was supposed since some years ago: the change of the climate combined with the greenhouse effect is more and more perceptible, the hurricanes and the level of the oceans, induced Terje to bring his family back to the cold Norway.

   The strict decision to leave was taken at the end of the fifth year of permanence in Motuloa, after the third consecutive hurricane in the arc of some months, a frightful and devastating cyclone, that destroyed in few minutes trees, constructions and everything that came along its way, threatening the life of Terje, Emma and of their sons.

   - I had just realized that the time was changing - Terje writes quoting the words of the mother in law Fakalei - but I had never seen winds so strong like this, before: I understood that the sea level would be increased and I was sure that the next hurricane would have carried waves much greater. We should have climbed on the top of the coconut trees , until we’d die by drowning: it does matter to me - the mother in law of Terje Dahl says again - now I am old, but the children must live! -.

   The dream of the Norwegian navigator and its family suddenly vanishes , but among the mists of the icy Norwegian winters, Terjehe didn’t give up: he informed the Norwegian Authorities and the public opinion in every way, on television and radio, on numerous articles about the change of the climate, resumed by the international press and published on its Internet newspaper, but few persons have the courage to react and to help him.

   I wrote to Terje Dahl offering him my aid, but his answer wasn’t encouraging.

   - "Norway is living economically by selling oil and as far as the public opinion, the news that I publish on my portal are so ugly and worrying that every sane person would have to react! I imagine that people by now get tired listening to this problem, to the point to close the eyes and the ears." -

   Terje dismissed wishing to me and my family the best things, but with a bitter observation: - "The future for our sons isn’t hopeful: I don’t like saying it: I have two children too." -

   The portal of Terje Dahl quote with many particular the vicissitude that I have told to you in the web address http://www.sydhav.no/terje/index-en.htm

   The website is very interesting and contains many news and photo on its permanence in Tuvalu, about the Polynesian life and culture in general and above all the climatic change of the entire Planet.

   In order to this last argument, I quote some alarming data, taken from the report "GEO-3" of the UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) in which 1,000 scientists from all the world contributed.

   Within the end of this century, because of the greenhouse effect we will assist to the following phenomena:

- the sea level will grow 25-90 centimeters: more than 100 million inhabitants of the coasts the Planet will be evacuated.

- extreme meteorological phenomena will increase (first of all Hurricane).

- the increment of the temperatures will provoke a greater diffusion of tropical diseases (up to 80 million new cases of malaria every year).

- agricultural productions will reduce, at least in some of the poorest zones of the world.

- the desertification of many areas of the Earth will soar and 1/3 of the forests of the world will suffer significant changes.

- the medium temperature of the Earth will increase from 1 to 4 degrees.

   Moreover, a fall of 60 % of the emission of CO2 in the atmosphere would be hardly enough in order to stabilize the amount of CO2 to the actual level: well, the "Protocol of Kyoto" of 10 December 1997 foresees that the underwriter Countries undertake to reduce, in the period between 2008 and 2012, 5% of their gas emission regarding the levels of 1990.

   Although such target is widely inferior than what is necessary, some of the most industrialized Nations of the Planet have refused to underwrite that agreement.

   But the destiny of the Blue Planet does not depend only from the powerful ones of the Earth: in order not to resign ourself to this mess, we can all engage in our small daily gestures.

   I just give you some examples: re-using the back of the badly printed letters, making the use of light bulbs save energy, turning off unused lights, turning off the stand-by of the electrical apparatures, wasting water without reason, collecting the rain water in a reservoir, differentiating the refuses conscientiously, equipping with solar paddles to warm water or photovoltaic panels to produce electric power (can be finanzed by state and regions), using public vehicles when it is possible.

   Regarding mobility, I have converted my car to methane (using public funds), that pollutes at least 10 times less than motor vehicles using fuel or diesel oil, while in order to warm my house I adopt a pellets heater, that uses refuse material that would be however destroyed (pressed sawdust) and with a particular system of combustion does not generate CO, but CO2, absorbed by plants with the normal chlorophyl function.

   Do you think that would so little affect the ecological equilibriums of the Planet if we all put into effect only the half of the behaviours previously cited?

   Do you really believe that the ecological problem is not our business, but competence of the "powerful ones" and the "politicians"?

   Every time you will do one of the daily gestures I was previously taking about, we remember Terje Dahl, forced to escape from its paradise, more and more threatened by extreme meteorological phenomena: remember people of Tuvalu, condemned to be submerged by the sea level that grows inexorably for our errors.

   - Tuvalu will continue to exist as sovereign Nation - asserted the Premier of the small Saufatu Sopòaga in an interview - even if the bigger part of his territory (24,3 Km²) will be submerged by the Ocean because of the global warming of the Earth. -

   A most recent study of a group of scientists of the Center for the Total Atmospheric Monitoring of the University of Reading, published on the British review "Natures", asserts that the dissolution of the ice within 2050 will involve also Greenland, the greatest island of the World: in this case the sea level would increase much more than the most pessimistic forecasts, putting into risk the city of London, that could be submerged too.

   Perhaps this news can persuade the Industrialized Countries to assume drastic initiatives in order to reduce the greenhouse effect: Tuvalu is far and it is less frightening to the persons who are not sensitive to ecological themes, London begins to worry also the West.


   But we can do something more in order to help the populations of the Oceania hit by hurricanes.

   In the near Nation of Vanuatu (once called Ebridi New, with a surface of 12.194 Km² and 193,000 inhabitants) on the 26 of February 2004 the “Ivy” cyclone destroyed the entire archipelago, with winds that have blown for approximately 12 hours at 200 km/h.

   The AGESCI, the Association Italian Catholic Guide and Scouts, that has supported the "Lamlu Plan” for a long time to open a birth room in the homonymic island of the Republic of Vanuatu, organizes the shipment of aids for the 24,000 persons who endured damages caused by hurricanes, many of them remained also without house.

   You can find all the details of the operation (in Italian) to the page web http://www.gdecarli.it/fb/lamlu/l_index.htm, clicking on the link on the top, called " LAMLU PLAN", and subsequently on the links on the left, that describe the violence of the “Ivy” cyclone and what is needed by the local population.

   In order to support the "Lamlu Plan", the references are:

   Deposit on Account Mails them n° 42168203 intestate to AGESCI Lombardy Region Discount on Banking Account n° 893/00 - ABI 03069 - CAB 09487 - intestate to AGESCI Lombardy Region near Bank Understanding - Ambroveneto ag. 16 Milan, indicating in both cases the motive "Lamlu Plan".

   Donate our "superfluous", we can make smile our brothers who have nothing else because of our indifference.

Other links:

About the hi-tide of Tuvalu:
http://www.zeusnews.it/index.php3?ar=stampa&cod=2897&numero=999

About to the probable dissolution of the glaciers in Greenland:
http://www.spiritualsearch.it/files/index.cfm?id_rst=8&id_art=6202

Tuvalu has a portal "TUVALU ONLINE", in English news language, assorted of news about the history, the legends, the maps and the photographic album at the web address:
http://www.tuvaluislands.com

The TUVALU.TV portal is specialized on all the arguments that regard the small Nation of the Oceania, to the address:
http://www.tuvalu.tv/nuke/

 Ermanno Sommariva

Translated in english by Luigi Lugli