Open Your Eyes: Rising Waters

This image shows a deserted Maldivian island. It's amazingly beautiful. It's romantic with the waves hitting the white sandy beach, three palm trees in the background, cotton candy clouds hanging in the deep blue sky. The island is a dream.

It will also be gone soon.

In the picture you can see that if the water surface rises only 30 centimeters, the island will be wiped off the maps. But it's not just about this island. It's a metaphor for all the insular states around the world, whose populations will have to look for a new home soon. It's a metaphor of the effects of globalization, because whatever the Western states do for their gain affects countries on the other side of the globe in one way or another.

In this case, one state's gain is the loss of another state.