Global warming has been blamed for the sinking of two islands in the Pacific Ocean.
The islands, Tebua Tarawa and Abanuea, are a part of a large group of atolls strung out over two million square miles of the Pacific. Neither was inhabited.
"The sea-level rise is so horrible here the people just don't want to think about it," stated Jorelink Tibonn, general manager of the Marshall Islands' National Environmental Protection Agency.
So far only small uninhabited islands have actually sunk into the ocean, but populated chains are threatened in various ways. For instance, the coastline of the Marshalls has eroded into the sea and crops are becoming difficult to grow because the rising waters are poisoning the soil with salt ( The Independent on Sunday [Britain], June 13, 1999).
