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The government of Indonesia is preparing to do mass relocation’s of people living on islands considered vulnerable to rising sea levels over the next three decades.

Experts and Government officials fear that about 2,000 islands across the country will be underwater by between 2030 and 2040 due to rising sea levels caused by global warming. Indonesia has over 17,000 islands, of which, about 6,000 are populated.

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The sheer enormity of the tragedy already unfolding for so many people (Bangladesh has a population of more than 150 million) is mind-boggling. Hari describes whole villages losing their agricultural livelihoods, their health and — sometimes — their childrens’ lives as rising sea levels cause saltwater to seep underground below once-fertile rice paddies. He visits island communities whose older residents now point to treetops jutting out from the sea when asked where their homes once stood. And, chillingly, he meets with a new and growing generation of jihadists — unusual until recently in Bangladesh — who are seeking out scapegoats as their futures visibly wither away.

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The report, Scientific Assessment of the Effects of Global Change on the United States, was released today by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. According to the Government Accountability Project, the study was “years overdue under a requirement of law” and was prepared only after a federal court order last year set a release deadline of May 31, 2008.

Among the report’s highlights (or lowlights, depending on your perspective):

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If you see a woman marking a long, blue line down a New York City street, sidewalk or park with a wheeled chalk-line marker, please stop her to ask her what she’s doing and why. One of Eve Mosher’s goals in her High Water Line art project is to engage people along the way and let them lead the discussion once they find out the purpose of her work: to draw public attention to the very real impact that climate change could have on the city’s coastal areas.

"High Water Line seeks to engage people on the street, in the neighborhoods where they live, work and play," Mosher writes in the description about herself on her Website. "The work is an intervention in routine - the public’s as well as my own."

Mosher’s chalk-line artwork is both beautifully simple yet provocative in concept: Determine where the city’s coastline could face flooding of 10 feet above sea level — currently a 100-year event — every four years as the climate continues to change, then mark that boundary to see what would be underwater. But just as important to Mosher is being out among people as she lays down that chalk line, talking with them if they’re interested, and learning how they feel about climate change and conservation.

"My artwork has always been abstractly about humans and their environment," Mosher said during a telephone interview this week. However, she said, the High Water Line project marks her first large-scale, public artwork, one that actively uses one-on-one social engagements to explore how people view their environment once they see how it might be affected by global warming.

"I have a chance to have a conversation with them, with the direction formed by that person," she said. "My point is not to go out and argue the science, because the science is there."
As contentious as global warming is in some circles, Mosher said she has encountered only two skeptics out of the 100-or-so people she’s engaged in conversation since her project began with the first chalk line on May 17. And even those two doubters were interested in speaking with her about how to save money by conserving, how to reduce the U.S.’s dependence on foreign oil and other issues.

Mosher established the path for her 70-mile chalk line starting with a map from the U.S. Geological Survey showing how increased flooding reisks would affect coastal areas of New York. She then transcribed that line onto a Google map, and began her plans to show, with a simple chalk line, how entire neighborhoods could be placed at risk by the effects of advancing climate change.

Looking at the line on a map was one thing, Mosher said. But translating it onto real neighborhoods was an eye-opener for both herself and the people she’s spoken with.

"When you go out onto the street, you see, ‘Oh, it’s that house and that playground,’ " she said. Similarly, many people watching her respond with comments like, "Wow, I had no idea it was this far inland."

In fact, Mosher said, while some areas would lose only a small amount of land to coastal flooding, other areas could see the sea encroach by as much as a mile-and-a-half inland.

Mosher’s spent many hot days chalking streets and neighborhoods throughout the summer, and still has a ways to go. She’s welcoming the cooler days of fall now, but still has three areas to chalk before her Oct. 7 closing party: the Verrazzano Bridge to Battery Tunnel & Red Hook Recreation Area (Sept. 13 through 16), Battery Tunnel to Williamsburg Bridge & Brooklyn Bridge Park (Sept. 28 through 30) and Williamsburg Bridge to Newtown Creek (Oct. 6 through 7). So if you see her, stop and chat: it’s the part of the project she said she enjoys and values the most.
"The whole project has really been transformative for me," she said. "The community-building is really important."

To read more about Mosher’s experiences throughout the High Water Line project, visit her Website, where you’ll find a lengthy blog detailing every stage of the project, tips and downloadable action cards for reducing your impact on the environment, and links to resources about climate change, action networks and environmentally focused art.