GOP Destroying Islands with Climate Change, Businessweek Says

Climate change hysteria requires increasingly taller tales. The latest issue of Businessweek blamed Republicans for the alleged future destruction of a small chain of islands in the South Pacific. Despite this finger pointing, this same article contradicted many of its own arguments.

The islands, called Kiribati, are in danger from rising sea levels, according to a Nov. 21 cover article by Businessweek [1]. Author Jeffrey Goldberg claimed that higher tides will contaminate the island’s water, even though he later admitted that the water was already contaminated.

 “This entire country is about to be wiped out by climate change. It won’t be the last,” the story’s headline hyperbolically proclaimed.

But the climate change apocalypse model used for the story claimed that the islands are doomed no matter what. Sea levels will rise a mere three feet by 2100, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, contaminating the fresh water on the Kiribati islands. However, according to the same report, even if carbon emissions drop to zero, ocean levels would still increase by two feet.

Regardless, the Kiribati president attempted to blame American Republicans for inaction on climate change, saying “[t]here are people in Congress who are allergic to the term ‘climate change.’ He continued, “[t]his is not caused by us. This is caused by you!”

Dangers of water contamination may have more to do with the inhabitants of Kiribati, than Republicans over nine thousand miles away. Most of Kiribati’s freshwater lies six feet underground, in what is called a “water lens.” According to Marella Rebgetz, a nun working to preserve this water supply, most inhabitants are “basically defecating into the lens,” according to the same article.

Kiribati burial practices are apparently also resulting in water contamination long before sea levels rise. Rebgetz said “the bodies are buried – next to wells, and often at the exact level of the water lens.”

Overcrowding and disease in small, underdeveloped regions is a great tragedy, but it can hardly be blamed on climate change skepticism. The Australian high commissioner to Kiribati, George Fisher confirmed that contamination problems do not depend on rising oceans, saying, “Put aside the issues of sea-level rise and saltwater inundation, we have all the conditions necessary for a cholera epidemic.”

This story provided the latest evidence that Businessweek is steadily deteriorating into little more than a liberal mouthpiece. In March the cover story targeted the NRA [2], and in October the outlet published a cover story mocking Ted Cruz [3]. Businessweek also famously blamed Hurricane Sandy on climate change [4], in its November 2012 cover story, declaring “It’s Global Warming, Stupid.”