SeaState


p 18:

World Net News: Three million citizens of the Republic of Bangladesh watched their farms and villages wash away as early monsoons burst their hand-built levees...These are the die-hards, who have refused all prior offers of resettlement...If they accept full refugee status...it will mean taking all conditions attached, particularly ...population restricting oaths...it's expected some will refuse even this last chance and elect instead the harsh but unregulated life as citizens of Sea-State...already, spokesmen for Sea-State are asserting sovereignty over the new (Bangadeshi) fishing grounds...

 


Status: Open

The novel depicts the plight of displaced people as global warming causes sea levels to rise; submerging their villages, towns, and nations.

 

While some nations offer shelter for refugees in various resettlement programs, many find the attached strings too onerous to bear, and instead, they join an increasing flotilla of ramshackle boats and barges that makes its living from the ocean. Sea State is a rough and ready environment: the 'wild west' of Earth. It's 'police force' consists of remnant units of the Helvetian Navy, and its environmental qualifications are none too clean!

 

Although the predicted consequences of global warming are looking increasingly worse, it has yet to have an effect on population centres. (New Orleans notwithstanding)

 

Reality:

The world is currently experiencing a massive movement of refugees, and recipient nations are becoming increasingly intolerant of the newcomers. However, so far, the root causes are more to do with political and religious intolerance than any large-scale environmental disaster (at least, not directly).

Whether such draconian policies as mandatory detention will drive the desperate and desparately poor into forming a sea state is moot.

 

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