Do you remember Mohamed Nasheed, the charismatic young president of the Maldives who dramatized the threat of rising sea levels to his low-lying island nation in the Indian Ocean by holding his first Cabinet meeting underwater, with all the ministers in scuba gear?
"This is what will happen to the Maldives if climate change is not checked," he told the cameras as the fish swam past him. (Well, not exactly "told," because you can't talk when you are underwater, but he held up a sign saying that.) Were you wondering where he is now that the great conference to curb global warming is getting under way in Paris?
Nasheed can't be in Paris, unfortunately, because he was overthrown in a coup in 2012 and was then jailed for 13 years last March for "terrorism." And the promise he made to set an example for the world by achieving a carbon-neutral economy (zero net carbon-dioxide emissions) in the Maldives within 10 years has been modified a bit by the new government.
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