It is the year 2027 and Nadi has become an underwater ghost town. The former ‘jet set’ town of bustling tourists, taxis without taxi meters, and persistent salespeople now belongs to the fishes and coral of the sea.

At least thats what is predicted by Professor Patrick Nunn, who’s part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and apparently it’s quite serious. Since Nadi is built on a delta, and the forests upstream have been deforested, water is coming down alot more often and is bringing with it silt and soil, resulting in an increase in drainage blockage and thus flooding. More soil and silt means more weight, which means Nadi’s going down, ‘abondon ship’ style.

All’s doom that ends in doom. And the Nadi Town Council agrees. Infact, they’re so shook up by the statement of Professor Patrick Nunn, that they’ve gone all religious in the hope that the Almighty One will intervine intervene and save the town from its wicked ways from its own weight. Of course, it’s either divine intervention or GTFO/relocate, the later option being less popular with the Council, since nobody likes shifting house, forget a whole town.

20 years is a long time to wait to see whether all this is going to happen (though there’s nothing in the way of saying that it won’t), and a lot of things could occur between now and then. The Nadi Town Council could order a relocate for the whole town. Or they could look into trying to save the town by looking into investing into proper drainage systems, though with the current worldwide economic slowdown, that could remain a dream and nothing more. Or they could just wait and see if what the overseas scientists predicted would come to pass. After all, one statement at a conference is one thing, official orders from the government to relocate after a million dollars of research from top scientific communities in the Netherlands (I’ve always had the notion that the most brilliant scientists came from Europe) finds that the town is indeed sinking, is another.

What will this mean for Nadi and the rest of Fiji?

Obviously, Nadi is going to lose its status as the coolest town in Fiji. I mean, let’s be honest here. When you think Nadi, you think Airport, hot tourists, and 24 hour beach parties. With that gone, Nadi’s going to end up as the town without its mojo. After all, Labasa’s the edge of civilization, Sigatoka’s got their sand dunes (which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, bonus!), Lautoka’s got their sugar sweet status, and Suva is…well…only like the capital city of Fiji and all that.

This won’t bode well with our fellow Nadi…arians. Here’s hoping that either science will get it wrong, or divine intervention will play its part in the years to come. That or in 20 years time, there’ll be a new town in Fiji called “New Nadi”.

You heard it here first folks