{"id":385677,"date":"2025-06-29T12:01:26","date_gmt":"2025-06-29T10:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=385677"},"modified":"2025-06-29T12:01:28","modified_gmt":"2025-06-29T10:01:28","slug":"wrong-yahoo-news-the-cool-down-panamanian-island-residents-flee-poverty-and-overcrowding-not-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=385677","title":{"rendered":"Wrong, Yahoo News\/The Cool Down, Panamanian Island Residents Flee Poverty and Overcrowding, Not Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From ClimateRealism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By H. Sterling Burnett<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yahoo News recently posted an article from the environmental website The Cool Down claiming that the native residents of the very small Panamanian island, Gard\u00ed Sugdub (also known as Cart\u00ed Sugdupu), are being forced to flee due to fast rising sea levels swamping the land as a result of climate change. This is false. Sea levels at Gardi Sugdub aren\u2019t rising unusually fast, and the best evidence is that most of the island\u2019s residents are voluntarily abandoning it with government help due to overcrowding and insufficient services and infrastructure on the small island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grace Howarth, the author of the article, \u201cResidents forced to flee from \u2018disappearing island\u2019 due to heartbreaking crisis: \u2018There were no more friends, no more kids playing<\/a>,\u2019\u201d writes describing the situation there:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rising sea levels are splitting communities apart in Gard\u00ed Sugdub and leaving people behind, possibly in danger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

. . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One year ago, around 1,200 Indigenous Guna people were transported to the mainland by the Panama government for their safety as ocean waters encroached upon their community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Climate Realism<\/em> <\/a>debunked an earlier article from the BBC making the same claims in February of this year; nothing has changed in the four months since then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concerning the claim that rising seas are causing the residents of Gardi Sugdub to flee the island, the facts are these, the sea level around Panama has been rising at an average of about 1 to 3 mm per year, a rate consistent with natural post-Little Ice Age trends, a rate that has not increased during the recent period of climate change. As such, there is no indication of an impending climate catastrophe as described in Climate at a Glance<\/em><\/a>. At this pace, it would take centuries before Gardi Sugdub would face submersion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, nearby islands in Panama\u2019s San Blas Island chain, of which Gardi Sugdub is one, have increased in size in recent years, as described in the article, titled \u201cSan Blas Reborn: New Islands Emerge Amidst Climate Change Hysteria<\/a>.\u201d The author of that article notes, \u201c[o]ff the coast of Maoqui in the Dutch Cays, a new island is gradually taking shape. What started as a mere speck of land, approximately 5 meters by 8 meters, has grown over the past decade to a remarkable 40 meters by 80 meters.\u201d What\u2019s happening in and around the San Blas islands, island expansion and growth, is also happening to island chains and nations across the globe, as discussed in several Climate Realism<\/em> posts, here<\/a> and here<\/a>, for example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If not rising seas, what has finally encouraged the vast majority of Gardi Sugdub\u2019s residents to accept Panama\u2019s offer to relocate. The truth is less glamorous or attention grabbing than the climate crisis narrative, but its it the truth none the less. Gardi Sugdub is severely overcrowded, with more than 1,000 people packed into a tiny space of just 0.028 square miles. That\u2019s a population density higher than New York City! As my colleague Anthony Watts detailed in his February post on the Gardi Sugdub\u2019s abandonment in response to a false BBC article on the topic, the real reason for the relocation of Gardi Sugdub\u2019s residents has nothing to do with climate change. Instead, it comes down to basic infrastructure challenges:<\/p>\n\n\n\n