Island Nations May Be Flooded by Dubious Intentions

Using the Pacific nation of Kiribati as a poster child for the ravages of rising seas is not only misleading, it may also be harmful

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With only three days left in a long research trip, I finally witnessed what I had traveled halfway around the world to document. I saw sea-level rise.

A northwest gale blew across the typically calm lagoon of the Tarawa atoll, the capital of the Pacific island nation of Kiribati, now an icon of the places most likely to drown as climate changes and sea levels rise. By high tide that afternoon, waves were breaching seawalls, flooding roads and swamping homes along the crowded islands of South Tarawa.

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