REVIEW: Why the Pacific status quo is no longer an option

Abstract

Hezel, Father Francis X. (2015). Why the Pacific status quo is no longer an option. Pacific Journalism Review, 21(2): 195-196. Review of Idyllic No More: Pacific Island Climate, Corruption and Development Dilemmas, by Giff Johnson. Majuro, Marshall Islands: CreateSpace. 2015. 153 pp. ISBN 978-1-512235-58-6

Giff Johnson’s latest work, Idyllic No More: Pacific Islands Climate, Corruption and Development Dilemmas, is a call to serious planning and more. The Marshall Islands Journal editor summons leaders to recognise that life has changed in the country and the status quo is the road to disaster. There was a time when this might not have been true—when people who wanted to kick back and live a simple island life could quietly opt out of school and retire to the family land to provide for themselves as their ancestors had done for generations in an island society that offered the resources, physical and social, to support its population.