Beach volleyball athletes shine spotlight on island peril

By COURTNEY WALSH
Associated Press

BIRMINGHAM, England (AP) — Tuvalu’s beach volleyball team of Saaga Malosa and Ampex Isaac didn’t win at the Commonwealth Games but their presence drew great interest because of the peril facing their tiny Pacific island nation. It has been almost 10 months since Tuvalu foreign minister Simon Kofe’s speech to the United Nations Climate Conference in Glasgow caught the world’s attention. Kofe warned of the threat rising sea levels caused by climate change posed Tuvalu. Raised sea levels threaten the Tuvalu islands and there are concerns the nation of 12,000 people will become uninhabitable. Isaac says “There is sea level rising going on. It is going on everywhere.”