Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren vogelbon here. For more than eight hundred years, a
Speaker 1: series of mesmerizing statues have towered over Rapa Nui, a
Speaker 1: remote island just fifteen miles that's twenty four kilometers wide
Speaker 1: in the southeast Pacific Ocean. These forty foot or twelve
Speaker 1: meter tall statues, known as the moai, have survived nearly
Speaker 1: a millennium, but the effects of climate change now threatened
Speaker 1: to topple the island's mysterious ancient history. The nearly one
Speaker 1: thousand moai, erected between the tenth and sixteenth centuries on
Speaker 1: Rapa Nui, also named Easter Island by an eighteenth century
Speaker 1: Dutch explorer, are being battered by rising sea levels, high
Speaker 1: energy waves, and increased erosion. Ancient human remains are buried
Speaker 1: beneath many of the works, which appear as giant faces
Speaker 1: gazing over land and sea. We spoke with Adam Marken,
Speaker 1: Deputy director of Climate and Energy at the Union of
Speaker 1: Concerned Scientists. He said some of the moai have been
Speaker 1: knocked over in the past, including by tsunamis, and they
Speaker 1: have been restored, so not every site is in pristine condition.
Speaker 1: The difference now is that the danger is even greater
Speaker 1: the rate of change is faster than ever. The volcanic
Speaker 1: island of Rapa Nui, now part of Chile, is the
Speaker 1: most isolated inhabited land mass in the world, located some
Speaker 1: two thousand, two hundred miles that's three thousand, five hundred
Speaker 1: kilometers from Chile's mainland and some two thousand, five hundred
Speaker 1: miles or four thousand kilometers east of Tahiti. Part of
Speaker 1: the vulnerability of Rapa Nui lies in the fact that
Speaker 1: it is an island, and many of the moai and
Speaker 1: the ahu or platforms on which they stand are perched
Speaker 1: around its edges. As Markham points out, all of the
Speaker 1: world's islands have been made vulnerable to erosion with rising
Speaker 1: ocean levels. Some climate models predict that increased melting of
Speaker 1: the world's ice sheets could cause oceans to rise by
Speaker 1: five to six feet that's one point five to one
Speaker 1: point eight meters by the year twenty one hundred. Higher
Speaker 1: sea levels means shores face flooding and inundation by crashing waves.
Speaker 1: On Rapa Nui, signs of damage from the incoming waves
Speaker 1: is already apparent. On the island southern coast. Blocks of
Speaker 1: a ten foot that's three meter high stone wall at
Speaker 1: historical site or Orango Temhina toppled over last year. Beaches
Speaker 1: that used to be covered in pink sand have been
Speaker 1: eroded by waves, leaving behind rocks, and nearby burial sites
Speaker 1: have been left exposed and vulnerable to erosion themselves. Conservationists
Speaker 1: are testing a newly built sea wall at one part
Speaker 1: of the island to see if it can offer protection,
Speaker 1: but it's not certain that walls can hold off the
Speaker 1: ocean's onslaught. Further inland, a site called Orango, which encircles
Speaker 1: a volcanic crater, also stands vulnerable two storms and erosion.
Speaker 1: Hieroglyphics at the crater site tell the tale of an
Speaker 1: annual relay race, and now landslides and erosion triggered by
Speaker 1: storms threatened these stone carved images. As Markham points out,
Speaker 1: the increasing frequency of intense storms is another hallmark of
Speaker 1: climate change. He said, as you get more and more
Speaker 1: of these events, damage builds upon past damage. Moving the
Speaker 1: hieroglyphics and some of the most vulnerable noi into protected
Speaker 1: enclosures might help ensure their survival, but Relocating the statues
Speaker 1: could not only harm the works, it would disregard the
Speaker 1: role at many of the sites as burial markers for
Speaker 1: remains of the islanders ancestors. The recognition of Rapa Nui
Speaker 1: National Park as a UNESCO World Heritage Site acknowledges the
Speaker 1: importance of the statutes preservation where they now stand. Markham said,
Speaker 1: it's the same problem that anyone would have when thinking
Speaker 1: about moving generations of history buried within a cemetery. A
Speaker 1: lot of very hard choices will have to be made,
Speaker 1: but I would doubt that much moving of artifacts will
Speaker 1: take place on Easter Island. This isn't the first time
Speaker 1: the island has faced ecological destruction. Some have pointed to
Speaker 1: Easter Island's history as a cautionary environmental tale. Pollen grains
Speaker 1: found the island settlements suggested it was covered in a
Speaker 1: palm forest when it was first settled around twelve hundred CE.
Speaker 1: By the time a Dutch settler came upon the island's
Speaker 1: shores and the seventeen hundreds, he described the land as
Speaker 1: being of singular poverty and barrenness. What had happened to
Speaker 1: the islands trees? One ecoside theory popularized by US biologist
Speaker 1: Jared Diamond in his two thousand five book Collapse, How
Speaker 1: Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, suggests that the islands
Speaker 1: human population may have overexploited the land by cutting down
Speaker 1: most of its forests. The depletion of forests would have
Speaker 1: left soil vulnerable to erosion, making it difficult to plant crops.
Speaker 1: That account, however, is still up for debate. Subsequent research
Speaker 1: has suggested that other factors, including the introduction of the
Speaker 1: Polynesian rat and shifts and climate, could have contributed to
Speaker 1: the islands deforestation. Markham said there's a lot of ongoing
Speaker 1: argument about the island's history and what were the driving
Speaker 1: factors of its deforestation, but in general, there are hundreds
Speaker 1: of other places around the world where we can demonstrate
Speaker 1: that overusing resources and not caring for the landscape can
Speaker 1: lead to huge problems. Today, the island is mostly covered
Speaker 1: in meadow and is home to a year round population
Speaker 1: of about five thousand, seven hundred people. The island's economy
Speaker 1: is totally dependent on tourism, and last year it was
Speaker 1: visited by some one hundred thousand people who spent more
Speaker 1: than seventy million dollars at local businesses. Economics are one
Speaker 1: part of what's at stake should the islands artifacts be
Speaker 1: destroyed by climate change. Perhaps even more profound is the
Speaker 1: vulnerability of a historic legacy that's vital not only to
Speaker 1: the people of Easter Island, but also to the world.
Speaker 1: Markham said Easter Island matters to local people who live there,
Speaker 1: but is also a place of global heritage. The island
Speaker 1: carries an ability to connect with people's sense that it's
Speaker 1: important for all of humankind. Today's episode was written by
Speaker 1: Amanda Onion and produced by Tyler Clang, with kind engineering
Speaker 1: assistance by Ramsay Yacht. For more on this and lots
Speaker 1: of other environmental topics, visit our home planet, how stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com.