sprep-pa
When Cardinal John Ribat of Papua New Guinea was young, he and his neighbors noticed that their well water tasted of salt. Crops also failed as the soil became salty. Papua New Guinea consists of a large island in the Pacific Ocean surrounded by smaller islands and atolls. Residents of the island where his family lived moved inland to higher ground. They did not realize that they were early climate refugees, displaced as rising sea levels turned their fresh water brackish.