Tuvalu was first settled by Samoans, Tongans, and other Pacific islanders about 700 years ago. The Spanish were the first Europeans to sight Tuvalu in the 16th Century and in the 19th Century, European whalers, traders, and missionaries settled Tuvalu. Blackbirders made sporadic visits. The British colonised the Gilbert and Ellice Islands in 1892 which were split into independent Polynesian nations in the mid-1970s comprising Kiribati (Gilbert Islands) and Tuvalu (Ellice Islands).

Pacific islanders are great rugby players and play in top teams all over the world. If Tuvalu is now concerned about inundation by rising sea levels resulting from global warming, Australia should restart the blackbirding trade, kidnap young athletic Tuvalu teenagers and educate them on Rugby Australia scholarships in the rugby-specialising private schools of Queensland and New South Wales.

Tuvalu is a deeply Christian country and blackbirded teenagers would continue to receive a Christian education, immigration would again have a Christian focus and the woefully poor feedstock for the Super Rugby and Wallabies would be improved. Australia might even regain its position as one of the top rugby nations of the world.

This scheme would start to depopulate Tuvalu well before it is inundated by a hypothetical sea level rise, successful Super Rugby and Wallabies players from Tuvalu would send money back to their families and the Australian taxpayer would be spared from providing hundreds of millions of dollars to assist Tuvalu with a hypothetical sea level rise.

If blackbirded Tuvalu teenagers received a Wokeless Australian education, they could bring back knowledge to their homeland and make Tuvalu a better place. They would learn from Charles Lyell’s 1830-1833 Principles of Geology that their atoll nation has been the centre of scientific interest for nigh on 200 years. Lyell’s three volumes showed that the planet changed over time and that we can use the past to understand the present. Lyell argued that Pacific island atolls were perched on top of volcanoes that were subsiding. As a volcano subsided, the capping coral atoll kept growing upwards and outwards. This is the same as a sea level rise.

Charles Darwin was greatly influenced by Lyell’s book during his 1832-1836 voyage of the Beagle and was fascinated by Lyell’s concept on the origin of atolls. Lyell was the key thinker who inspired Darwin to cement his ideas about evolution. Darwin studied Pacific Ocean atolls, especially Tuvalu, confirmed Lyell’s theory and in 1842 published his book, The structure and distribution of coral reefs.

In 1896-1898, Professor Sir Edgeworth David drilled Funafuti atoll in Tuvalu. Drilling stopped after intersecting 928 feet of coral but no volcanic basement. David showed that Lyell’s theory of coral atolls validated by Darwin was correct. Since the end of the last glaciation 14,700 years ago, sea level had risen 425 feet and the volcanic basement at Funafuti had sunk at least 500 feet. The rate of past coral growth far exceeds the projected rates of sea level rise so Tuvaluans can sleep safely with no fear of getting a wet big toe.

Climate catastrophists have predicted a sea level rise of 2 metres by about 2100. During the peak of our current interglacial 7,000-4,000 years ago, sea level was 2 metres higher than at present hence any speculated rise in sea level rise would equal the past measured sea level rise. As a result of this sea level fall, many coral atolls were left high and dry and died.

In the late 1940s in the Marshall Islands, there were 21 shallow and 3 deep drill holes on the Bikini Island and Eniwetok Island atolls. These were drilled by the Atomic Energy Commission and Los Alamos Laboratories in preparation for underground nuclear bomb tests. Two drill holes reached depths of 1,346 and 2,556 feet yet did not reach volcanic rocks. They intersected fossilised coral atolls separated by layers of beach rock. Deep holes intersected basalt volcanic rocks older than 34 million years at 4,610 feet depth (hole F1) and 4,158 feet (hole E1). All this can be checked in a US Geological Survey Report of 1960. The theories of Lyell, Darwin, and Edgeworth David were again validated.

On the Marshall Islands, a basalt volcano had been sinking for more than 34 million years while a coral atoll cap had been growing upwards and outwards in what was a relative sea level rise. During this 34-million-year period, there had been over 300 glaciations when sea level dropped, coral reefs died and beach rock formed. Other atolls kept growing while both the sea level fell and the substrate sank. During this 34-million-year period, there were more than 300 interglacials when sea level rose about 130 metres and island atolls grew.

Studies using 40 years of satellite imagery of more than 1,100 coral atolls in the Indian and Pacific Oceans have shown that most coral atolls have been growing in area, especially large atolls such as at Tuvalu. A few were static and some smaller atolls decreased in size. Some atolls had decreased in size because of compaction, extraction of coral for roads, airports, buildings and cement manufacture and groundwater extraction. Again, these satellite measurements confirm earlier theories that coral atolls grow when there is a relative sea level rise.

There is absolutely no science whatsoever to support the view that Tuvalu, or any other island nation, will be inundated by a speculated sea level rise. Only the contrary. The past shows that a relative sea level rise results in a growth of atolls. This has been known for nearly 200 years. The cash grab by the island atoll nations’ unctuous politicians and the UN should be called out for what it is. Maybe younger folk educated on Rugby Australia scholarships and with a Christian ethical foundation could change political thinking in the Pacific island atoll nations upon return to their homelands.

Come on Australia. Break away from your woke chains. Rather than hand out shedloads of cash to Pacific island nations for some silly hypothetical future catastrophe, bring back blackbirding for the sake of the Pacific island atoll nations and Australia. This is a win-win. You know it’s common sense.