The Disappearing Islands

How We Survive

Marketplace

Business, News

5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 2 October 2024

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On Jan. 20, a 20-foot wave crashed into a community center on a U.S. military base in the Marshall Islands. The wave broke down the door, smashed windows and even dragged people under. Waves and storm-driven flooding aren’t uncommon in the Marshall Islands. But this one hit a base that’s vital to U.S. national security. It’s where the United States conducts missile testing. Very few people ever see this remote and fortified location on a tiny island halfway between Hawaii and Australia. Host Kai Ryssdal treks across the Pacific to find out how our military will respond to the existential climate threat, and asks: What do rich countries and major carbon emitters like the U.S. owe to the people and nations bearing the brunt of the climate crisis?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Tell me who you are and why you're famous.
0:04.0	I'm Eric Hansen. I work here as a radar engineer and I was here when the flood broke down the doors and just happened to be recording a video and it went viral as soon as it got
0:14.6	posted. On January 20th of this year a series of unexpected intense waves 20 to 30 feet
0:22.4	tall came crashing onto an army intense waves, 20 to 30 feet tall,
0:23.4	came crashing onto an army base in the Marshall Islands.
0:27.0	Eric was with friends at the Outrigger.
0:29.2	Think of it as a community center of sorts,
0:31.6	but with beer and pizza. You see a couple of people as this
0:35.4	video starts standing outside the front doors of the outrigger and then all of
0:40.0	a sudden comes the way. That's where you hear me saying hold the door that's where you hear me saying hold the door
0:45.0	literally trying to hold back the ocean.
0:46.0	Well, you know, it's just a piece of it.
0:48.0	I didn't think it was going to be too big, but the second one totally took out the door.
0:52.0	Coming in. Get out the door. Coming in.
0:53.0	Get out of here.
0:55.0	My buddy Buck, he was holding somebody,
0:58.0	picking somebody off the ground that actually grabbed the person that went through the door.
1:02.0	So he got most of the damage from... grabbed the person that went through the door.
1:02.6	So he got most of the damage from just sliding 30 feet
1:07.1	underwater with this wave.
1:10.0	But it was terrifying.
1:11.3	Six months. But it was terrifying.
	...

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