Noise #183: The moonscape of Nauru

The world's smallest republic moves towards environmental health.

As Andy Borowitz poignantly noted, mainstream American media leaves a lot of the world out. Borowitz’s commentary sent me down a fascinating research rabbit hole—which led me to discover Nauru.

Nauru is a tiny Micronesian island nation. Sitting northeast of Australia, it’s the world’s smallest republic. I’d never heard of it before this week.

The Papua New Guinea Post-Courier describes a sad situation there. Over 80% of Nauru’s landmass has been “gutted by more than a century of open-cut phosphate mining,” the article says. The resulting territory resembles the desolate surface of a pockmarked moon.

Announced last week, Nauru is partnering with Australia’s Monash University to help families relocate to safer areas and source clean water, among other measures.

Nauru also introduced this month a program where wealthy foreigners can invest $100K+ (USD) in exchange for fast-tracked citizenship; the funds will be used for climate adaptation and sustainable development projects, RNZ reports.

I recorded Noise #183 thinking about how, while the largest nations hyper-focus on their conflicts and leaders and rivalries and reputations, life elsewhere moves on in ways that are intricate and impactful. The melodies I use in Noise #183 are multi-faceted to reflect multi-faceted issues; compositionally, the piece moves between grand and microscopic gestures. I hope you enjoy listening: