Photo credit: Terratern
Australia has given the 10,000 residents of the South Pacific island of Tuvalu the chance to enter a lottery so that the winners will get special climate-change visas entitling them to live, study and work in Australia indefinitely.
The Telegraph Online reports that 3,000 people applied and 280 will be picked as winners.
The problem of Tuvalu is that its nine coral atolls are very low-lying with two already mostly flooded. They are all projected to be underwater by 2080 or sooner if sea-level rise speeds up as melting Antarctic and Greenland glaciers slide into the sea.
The visa policy is not just for once as Australia intends to be giving out 280 visas every year. And what’s more, New Zealand is providing another 75., It’s all in an effort to le3t everybody leave the islands before they disappear.
However, Tuvaluans may lose their language and culture as they are being dispersed among populations much bigger. Their only consolation is their survival
