bonmot,
So finally we all appear to come to the conclusion/common view that we can't stop global warming/rising sea level. That was exactly the gist of my argument.
I have long advocated allocating resources for this very scenario in lieu of sending money. My argument is that no tax will stop global warming but physically moving people & infrastructure will help towards future generations' strategies. I'm convinced future generations have only two options, get smarter than we are or go under.

morganzola,
before you get all upset about my (in your opinion only) insensitivity may I suggest you get to know these people & their culture. The social dislocation you refer to would merely be a repeat of what happened in the past 150 years over which the mainly melanesian south pacific occupiers colonised the Torres Strait. Only this time it would be the descendants of the colonisers having to move themselves.

Indy,

If you understand the enhanced green-house effect you would know that the planet is already committed to a warming - it's in the 'pipeline'.

What most people don't seem to understand is that we have the capacity to limit that warming to levels that we can adapt to.

We have been strongly urged to limit the warming to 2 degrees centigrade (global mean) by 2100.

We have been strongly advised on ways and means to do that - and only fools think it will not cost money.

But the costs of not doing something early will only cost a lot more later - particularly if the global mean temperature exceeds 2 degrees C.

That money has to come from somewhere, but it appears we are a greedy and selfish lot.

Tax dollars will help to both adapt (e.g. infrastructure for transport) and reduce our dependency on fossil fuels (e.g. alternative energy resources).

The way the dissenters would have it, we can't do anything about our future so let the future take care of itself - or go under.

I would suggest we can do something about it, if we really want to - most people don't.

Sadly, most people have been 'dumbed-down' by those who want to gain/maintain power and control.

Interesting thread indy, thanks.

@individual:

As it happens, over the years I've met quite a few TSI people and their families, some of whom originated in Saibai. That's why I know that there'll be a bit more to it than simply removing the Saibai Islanders and establishing them somewhere else. Interesting that you claim that the colonisers were Melanesians - I've always understood that the colonising power was Britain prior to Australian Federation, after which the region has been part of Queensland.

Or are you referring to the London Missionary Society, who did indeed employ Melanesian missionaries to spread their religion in the first concerted effort by European interests to destroy the religious aspects of Island culture? Why do you seek to elide from your scenario any positive comment about the landowners who are the subject of your strategies? While it's clear that you're contemptuous of the Islanders who are losing their homes - likely because of AGW that they had no part in creating - why do you dismiss their side to the situation?

It's becoming clearer to me that your problem with the involvement of "academics" in developing AGW amelioration strategies is that they are open to information from a range of sources, not just that which supports your preference - from which, so far, the local Indigenous perspective is entirely absent.

So many questions... I'll be interested in your answers. Do you still want to give the author of then lit review a "clip behind the ear" for including sources of which you don't approve?

morganzola,
I have met quite a few people sharing your mentality of twisting everything possible to be twisted into something that someone who is non-indigenous to these shores is remarking on.
Be it in favour of indigenous or in favour of curbing academic/bureaucrat incompetence/indifference to wasting/misappropriating hard earned tax payers' contribution. In fact, anything positive for society is in stark contrast to your mentality.
Back to your question. I'm referring to the descendants of the beche-de-mer fishermen & pearl shell fishers who in general came mainly from Samoa. They have successfully taken over the Torres Strait & since that takeover they have become the proud Torres Strait Islanders of new. I am not contemptuous, that is simply your racist attitude emerging whenever you get cornered. I am contemptuous of people who lack integrity yet accuse others of being so.
If you bothered to really find out for sure about the reality then you would be just as disillusioned as so many I speak with about the attitude of these people towards anyone not from there, even their closest neighbours are treated with contempt. They actually want the Australian Government to stop providing medical assistance to people in the western PNG province, a mere 4 km away.
Just google Torres News & other media. Google Warren Entsch's reply to the Mayor's call to stop assistance.
morganzola,
I am not here to run people down although your perverse attitude would like to see me do that, Sorry, can't do. Why don't you speak with people who go there to help the Island & ask them how much assistance they get & how much effort the people themselves are putting in. Don't bother to reply until you've done that.
Subject closed. Thank you for participating.

@ individual:

As I suspected, we've reached the point where it's clear that it's not so much about people not answering questions, as it is about you not liking (or perhaps not understanding) the answers your overly simplistic questions elicit.

Despite the fact that you now want to take your bat and ball and go home, I'm grateful to you for raising a topic that actually has very broad ramifications for adaptation to rising sea levels. While the degree of sea level rise and its effects on coastal-dwelling peoples will obviously vary from place to place, the questions of relocation and retreat are very likely to raise all kinds of thorny questions of the kind that you now apparently wish to avoid.

In contemporary Australia, neither State nor Federal governments can simply move entire communities from land that they own without compensation. Imagine if the house you own in Cairns is declared to be uninhabitable due to sea level rise - would you willingly cede title to land that you own in order to go... where? Even if you do, who pays?

I understand that there are something like 15 clans with well-documented claims to Native Title on Saibai. Your use of the term 'colonisation' to describe the traditional absorption of immigrants, typically by marriage, is mischievous. The only colonial power in the area in recorded history was that of Britain, and the London Missionary Society is well-documented as its representative agency for assimilation on the ground, employing Melanesian preachers from Fiji.

I think your story about Samoan fishermen probably has a kernel of truth to it (as do many myths that colonisers tell about the colonised) but immigration by marriage in no way constitutes colonisation under any definition of which I'm aware. One hint as to the apocryphal nature of your story is your description of Samoans as "Melanesian" - under the classificatory system used by anthropologists during the colonial period, Samoans were typically described as "Polynesian".

As usual, you seek to delegitimise Indigenous people and culture. Little wonder you don't like the answers you get to your "questions".

morganzola,
Obviously you're not aware of the term clan in that area otherwise you wouldn't use the term. 15 clans divide into a population of 200 makes the term no more than the meaning of family.
You call an influx of polynesians/melanesians who literally takes over within two generations ok but when australians pour millions of dollars into a swamp than that you call that mischievous. My house in Cairns ( I wished I could afford one) goes under than I lose. A house on Saibai goes under the australian taxpayer loses twice. First the house then building another one somewhere else including the cost of moving the occupant.
The myths as you call them aren't myths , they're an inconvenient truth being swept under the carpet by those who want to continue the money trail at the expense of the australian taxpayer. Telling a fact is only delegitimising people & culture to those who want to the wool over the taxpayers' eyes to stay on.
I'm asking again now to look up Saibai on Wikipedia & tell us if you still think it ok to keep pouring millions into that obviously subsiding island.