island nations go under - population - Japan war

SOS call as island nations go under
By Cynthia Banham and Richard Macey
January 5, 2006
Australia is being pressed to come to the rescue of drowning Pacific islands which face a homeless crisis due to rising sea levels caused by global warming.
wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuvalu While blaming the island's problems on climate change has gained the island much publicity, there are other factors that affect it. One of these is the population boom on a resource-scarce island which has wreaked environmental damage. Since 1980, the population of Funafuti has more than doubled from 2,000 to 4,500 or almost half of Tuvalu's citzenry. Another major factor contributing to gradual sinking of the island and salinization of its fresh water source is the consequences of runway construction (contructed by the Americans during WWII), which has brought a sizable part of island's area within inches of sea level and caused significant damage to the island's coralline base.