by H. Sterling Burnett, June 27, 2025 in WUWT

Yahoo News recently posted an article from the environmental website The Cool Down claiming that the native residents of the very small Panamanian island, Gardí Sugdub (also known as Cartí Sugdupu), are being forced to flee due to fast rising sea levels swamping the land as a result of climate change. This is false. Sea levels at Gardi Sugdub aren’t rising unusually fast, and the best evidence is that most of the island’s residents are voluntarily abandoning it with government help due to overcrowding and insufficient services and infrastructure on the small island.

Grace Howarth, the author of the article, “Residents forced to flee from ‘disappearing island’ due to heartbreaking crisis: ‘There were no more friends, no more kids playing,’” writes describing the situation there:

Rising sea levels are splitting communities apart in Gardí Sugdub and leaving people behind, possibly in danger.

. . .

One year ago, around 1,200 Indigenous Guna people were transported to the mainland by the Panama government for their safety as ocean waters encroached upon their community.

Climate Realism debunked an earlier article from the BBC making the same claims in February of this year; nothing has changed in the four months since then.

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