Project Abby 2100 looks at Galapagos
May 27, 2015
S.C. environmental expert examines current and future impacts of climate change in the Galapagos Islands
By W. Thomas Smith Jr.
When it comes to the environment – and public awareness of climate change and its impact on the world’s fragile ecosystems – Tom Mullikin has led many creative research projects. Which brings us to his latest – Project Abby 2100 – a university based look-see at how climate change will affect the famed Galapagos Islands over the lifetime of a recently born Galapagos native, Abby.
“We are moving the debate beyond the extent of anthropogenic interference [human impact upon the environment],” says Mullikin, a S.C.-based environmental attorney and professor at Coastal Carolina University who also teaches a course on global climate change at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Galapagos Islands campus.
He adds, “The purpose of this project is to identify with and share the story of Abby, who will experience the issues of climate change and sea-level rise in her lifetime in the Galapagos. We hope that by pairing proven scientific knowledge on climate change with the stories of a real-life resident of the Galapagos, like Abby, we will be able to put a human face on a large and often impossible-to-grasp issue.”
Through Project Abby 2100, Mullikin and his students will examine the likely reality on the island in the year 2100, based upon, as he says, “the best peer-reviewed science.”
According to studies conducted by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, sea levels changed little from the first century A.D. through the year 1900. But Mullikin points to an unusual rate of rise since the beginning of the 20th century.
“The two major causes of global sea-level rise are thermal expansion caused by the warming of the oceans – water expands as it warms – and the loss of land-based ice such as glaciers and polar ice caps due to increased melting,” says Mullikin. “Since 1992, new methods of satellite altimetry, or the measurement of elevation or altitude, have indicated a stark rate of rise of the sea levels.”
The risks to the Galapagos, he says, will include among others, impacts from sea-level rise, coral bleaching, and the loss of biodiversity. These impacts on the islands’ complex ecosystem could be devastating and irreversible.
“So far our class has learned about the complex issues involved with climate change not only in the Galapagos Archipelago, but within the small community of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno,” says Mullikin, adding, “To many outsiders, the Galapagos are often thought of as a wild, untouched place, shrouded in mystery with uninhabited land and creatures found nowhere else in the world. While this is true in some regards, it is also a place with cultural and societal values and a population dependent upon the well-being of their land.”
Tourism is the number one source of jobs in the Galapagos archipelago, as well as the strongest stimulator to the economy. A disruption of this industry as a result of sea-level rise from climate change could be detrimental to the functioning of the economic health and well-being of the Galapagos. Moreover, island populations worldwide are at great risk for sea-level rise due to an inability to simply move to other higher ground. By 2100 a three-to-five foot rise in sea level is to be expected if current trends continue, with a rate globally of about 3mm per year. And in the case of the Galapagos, this poses a great threat to the islands’ inhabitants as the vast majority live in coastal cities.
“If sea-level rise reaches the aforementioned figures, the people of the Galapagos will be displaced and forced to move to higher ground away from their job sources and land,” says Mullikin. “This of course is dependent upon there still being higher land available for migration, which would not be the case if the island were to completely disappear, thus forcing relocation to the mainland.”
By the time she is 10-years-old, Abby’s experience in San Cristobal is expected to be quite different from the time she was born. Between climate change and estimated population growth, Abby will grow up in a much different world than that which she was born into. By 2025, it is projected that the population on the island will double, creating more demand for space and food as well as resulting harm to the fragile environment.
“Days normally spent at the beach and park, or biking around town with friends after school will become limited,” says Mullikin. “Abby will be growing up in the midst of change even when she is not aware of it.”
The project continues throughout the life of Abby. As she reaches the last years of her life (age 85), she will have seen great changes to her home in the Galapagos and dealt with the many issues associated with living on an island community impacted by sea-level rise and climate change. Issues she will have experienced would be an increase in population, and impacts on food and resource availability, public services, loss of viable land, and the loss of the jobs that easily exist today.
Through Project Abby 2100, Mullikin hopes that his and his students’ research and observations will help aid future efforts to prepare for, manage, and mitigate the future impacts that will result from global climate change and the resulting sea-level rise.
Mullikin –founding-partner of the Camden, S.C.-based Mullikin Law Firm and pres. of the non-profit Global Eco Adventures – also serves as commander of the S.C. State Guard. He has traveled extensively throughout the world, leading several fact-finding expeditions to the Galapagos. He is presently on track to become the first human to have climbed the world’s seven great summits and logged SCUBA-dives in all five of the world’s oceans.
