[ISL] "50% of Lennox Island, P.E.I., could be underwater in 50 years"

[rfmcdonald]

CBC News' article on Prince Edward Island's Lennox Island tells a tale of catastrophe. That Lennox Island is also the dominant cultural focus of the Island's Mi'kmaq further the catastrophe.

Lennox Island, a small First Nations community on Prince Edward Island, is beginning to disappear amid the rising waters of the Atlantic Ocean, having already lost one square kilometre of land in a single generation.

Dave Haley, the property manager for Lennox Island, lives just six metres from the ocean but is losing about a metre of his backyard each year as water continues to creep closer. In a few years, his house could be gone.

"A lot of people don't realize the power of water," says Haley. "A lot of people want to turn a blind eye, but, look, it's happening."

On average, Lennox Island is just four metres above sea level and is eroding twice as fast as the rest of P.E.I., losing nearly one hectare every year, says Adam Fenech, a Nobel Prize-winning climate scientist and the director of the Climate Research Lab at the University of Prince Edward Island. He believes shorelines will continue to rise in the next 50 years.

"A lot of the most recent science is telling us it could rise as much as three metres during that time," says Fenech. "Probably in about 50 years, with the three-metre increase, we'd probably see half the island in the water completely."