By: Lauren Kane,
International News Editor-
A screening of the academy-award nominated short documentary Sun Come Up brought the issue of climate change refugees to Salve’s attention on Wednesday. At 6pm, both Salve students and members of the public gathered in Bazarsky Lecture Hall for the 38-minute showing and the following discussion.
The screening was part of a nationwide showing sponsored by the Catholic Coalition for Climate Change. The dates, October 1-4, were chosen to coincide with the Feast of St. Francis Assissi, the patron saint of ecology. The Catholic Coalition provided the documentary to the Catholic institutions that signed up to participate in the screening.
Media Credit: Mercy Center
The goal of the screening was mainly to raise awareness. Anna Mae Mayer, Director of the Mercy Center for Spiritual Life, made a short introduction.
“[We should] think more deeply on the issues of climate change and what it means for our world.” said Mayer in her introduction.
Sun Come Up is the story of the Carteret Islanders, a people living on a chain of islands in the South Pacific Ocean. They are also one of the first refugees of climate change. Global heating has caused the sea to rise, essentially swallowing the Carteret Islands, while first drying out the islands’ soil, making farming impossible. When asked in an interview whether the islands will sink first, or everyone will starve, an islander replied that the Carteret people would indeed starve first.
The documentary follows a group of Carteret Islanders as they are forced to travel by motorboat across 50 miles of open ocean to the war-torn mainland province of Papa New Guinea called Bougainville. Once there, the Islanders must make appeals to the often aggressive mainlanders, asking for a section of land where the Carteret Islanders can relocate to.
Any government help comes in the form of insufficient rice shipments to help feed the Islanders. Once the Carteret Islanders get a plot of land, they have to clear it of brush and build shelter all by hand, without any kind of governmental aid. By moving to the mainland, the Carteret people will lose the culture of their island life.
After the screening, there was time for about a half an hour discussion led by Dr. Jameson Chace, associate professor in the Biology and Biomedical Sciences as well as the Environmental Studies Department.
“So often we focus on what the cost is…it’s more than just a cost to us economically.” said Chace, opening the discussion, “What’s the cost of losing cultures?
The discussion centered around those in the audience brainstorming ideas and possible solutions that both students and the public could work toward to reduce global warming and in effect, prevent tragic situations like the Carteret Island environmental refugees happening in the future. Their story is not an isolated incident. According to a study in the journal Scientific American, this will be a growing problem if the climate continues to change as it has been doing.
“Human-induced climate and hydrological change is likely to make many parts of the world uninhabitable, or at least uneconomic. Over the course of a few decades, if not sooner, hundreds of millions of people may be compelled to relocate because of environmental pressures.” said the article in Scientific American.
One of the active solutions mentioned during the discussion was “The Water Initiative” on campus, started by the Environmental Club. This initiative put filtered water stations in campus academic buildings, reducing plastic water bottle use on campus. The president of the Environmental Club, Rebecca Longvall, says that the club is working to put filtered water fountains in dormitory buildings and distributing Brita water filters to upperclassmen.
Upon entering Bazarsky, attendees were given a small card with the St. Francis pledge printed on it, and the Prayer of Intercession. Upon leaving, the Environmental Club gave out bookmarks they had designed, which had tips on how to be more environmentally active on them.
