In the Gay Maldives – Passport Magazine

Maldives - Pixabay

While Sri Lanka is benefitting from a rising tide of tourism, the Maldives (www.visitmaldives.com), an archipelago nation of nearly 1,200 tiny islands scattered 642 miles to its southwest in the Arabian sea, has been sounding the alarm about literal rising tides.

The award-winning 2011 documentary, The Island President, is a compelling, well-worth-watching account of the efforts of Maldives’ then-president Mohamed Nasheed to help generate international awareness and action around climate change.

As one of the world’s lowest-altitude countries, with an average height of less than five feet above sea level, the gay Maldives would be one of the first nations in the world to be completely submerged if the oceans continue to rise with global warming.

Some calculations, which don’t necessarily take into account coral growth and the degrees to which islands can rise with sea level, not strictly be overtaken, suggest that this holiday paradise could become a real-life Atlantis in less than 50 years. But the film’s hook is really more a conceptual stroke of genius than an imminent death knell.

By Jim Gladstone – Full Story at Passport