18/01/2024
"Alongside international climate advocacy, land reclamation and shoring up sea defences, Fainu hears about a new idea: to preserve their nationhood and administration โ and their culture โ Tuvaluans are planning to create a โdigital twinโ of their island."
โThe Guardian
It is no longer new to us to hear about the trials that the adversity of the global climate change brings to mankind. However, our ignorance will at times be shaken by these fiction-like, catastrophic events.
Like how a whole country is going to sink and disappear.
Tuvalu has long been at risk of submerging, but now, that risk has been realized. It has been predicted by scholars and professionals that an estimated sea level rise of 20-40 centimeters would make the island completely uninhabitable.
This would mean the loss of everything: the Tuvaluansโtheir culture, their identity, their life.
However, due to the proposal to integrate the nation with the global cutting-edge technologyโeffectively synthesizing a digital copy of the islandโthere may be a chance that this great loss will not happen.
There is hope that the digital realm has provided.
The idea to preserve culture, to save identity with the help of the internet is nothong short of amazing. It goes to show how beneficial technology can be once utilized appropriately, free from ill intent and filled with idealistic purposes.
However, this also begs a very morally ambiguous question. One thay has been asked billions of times. One that could either save or erase our race.
How far will technology go in becoming our life?
By: Anne Maniago
Source: https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/27/tuvalu-climate-crisis-rising-sea-levels-pacific-island-nation-country-digital-clone
Photo Credits:
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/11/10/australia-offers-refuge-to-tuvalu-residents-threatened-by-rising-sea-levels.html