Slashdot Mirror
Facing Oblivion, Island Nation Makes Big Sacrifice
Damien1972 writes "Kiribati, a small nation consisting of 33 Pacific island atolls, is forecast to be among the first countries swamped by rising sea levels. Nevertheless, the country recently made an astounding commitment: it closed over 150,000 square miles of its territory to fishing, an activity that accounts for nearly half the government's tax revenue. What moved the tiny country to take this monumental action? President Anote Tong, says Kiribati is sending a message to the world: 'We need to make sacrifices to provide a future for our children and grandchildren.'"
How does this protect their children and grandchildren?
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
so we wait until they drown and then fish?
Corruption is much louder than their message.
I wish the people and governments of these island countries well and I certainly think they should try whatever they can to get attention for their plight, but the lesson learned in COP15 is that the major industrial powers of the world are not willing to make major changes in their greenhouse gas emissions. And basically the rest of the world can't do a damn thing to make them.
What do you expect from a bunch of island savages?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Quite enjoyed J. Maarten Troost's The Sex Lives of Cannibals which takes place on the island of Kiribati. A great beach book.
It's interesting to hear the government making a commitment like this. As the article has the president saying: "One million is 1+1+1 and so on. Every person and every action is important." Too often forgotten methinks. The cynic in me is losing out today; facing extinction of their islands, I can hope enough that they're sincere, and they others will listen.
They're gonna feel like fools when the doom and gloom prophesies don't pan out.
According to the South Pacific Regional Environment Program, two small uninhabited Kiribati islets, Tebua Tarawa and Abanuea, disappeared underwater in 1999.
And in other parts of the world:
-A tiny island claimed for years by India and Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal has disappeared beneath the rising seas, scientists in India say.
-Over the last century, sea levels have risen about 20 centimetres (8 in);[17][18] further rises of the ocean could threaten the existence of Maldives, being the lowest country in the world, with a maximum natural ground level of only 2.3 metres (7 ft 7 in), with the average being only 1.5 metres (4 ft 11 in) above sea level.
If only we could get all the ostrich-minded lot like you to move there. Still, it'll be small consolation being able to say "I told you so" when it's going to affect the rest of us anyhow. In a more just reality, there'd be two planets, one that could be stewarded responsibly, and one that denialists could ruin.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Getting the American marketers to stop getting the rapidly expanding middle class of China on the consumerism gravy train simply wont happen until something collapses.
Studies show that atols and coral islands maintain their height above sealevel. The coral grows upwards as sealevel rises.
Does this somehow help them? The article doesn't say.
How much of their fishing territory does this eliminate (article says 150,000 square miles, but doesn't mention the current total area)?
Basically, the article is poorly written, even mixing units - square miles, then square kilometers. Has all the appearance of a "puff piece."
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
The doom and gloom prophecies for fish-stock collapses, at least, are pretty much already halfway through panning out.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
as far as google maps is concerned the islands have already sank in to the pacific
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
They've already been starting to pan out and once it becomes obvious to everyone, the Fox News and talk radio morons who now blabber continuously about the "global warming hoax" will find a Democrat to blame for the entire problem. Just as they blame the housing bubble and economic crash on Barney Frank (ranking opposition member of the House banking committee during 2002-2006 when the GOP controlled the WH and both houses of Congress), oh, maybe 100,000 times a day.
>>>They're gonna feel like fools when the doom and gloom prophesies don't pan out.
Not really. Even if 2100 arrives and nothing terrible has happened, they'll still benefit from a smaller population and abundant food supply. So it's a win-win solution.
In fact I think population control, like China's 1 baby per family, will eventually become necessary... especially after oil becomes scarce and skyrockets to $1000/barrel (~$30/gallon of gasoline). Simply put either WE will impose population limits, or nature will do it for us (via starvation in the cities).
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
The claim about the island by India/Bangladesh was discussed here on /. recently and was shown to be total bunk.
As of right now no island or territory had sunk due to rising sea levels.
Any islands that have disappeared in the last 100 years or so did so due to erosion - either natural and slow or, on occasion, due to storms and hurricanes.
As far as Kiribati goes, there is precisely 0 chance of them sinking due to rising sea levels. The real problem is the unregulated phosphate mining that essentially destroyed their island and, likely, undermined (pun intended) the natural strength of island formation. If it disappears beneath the sea - they can only blame themselves.
Good on them for closing their waters to fishing, though. Of course with ever-increasing world population that wants to eat (go figure) that just means some other place will be over-fished.
It's not a "prophesy," it's a measurement. (Unless you think that trend will suddenly reverse for some unexplained reason?)
Welcome to the cycles of nature.
New land is being formed as well, and new islands, even with rising sea levels.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
It was better when we talked about pollution. Air and water quality, acid rain, ozone, etc. Now you all put your eggs in one basket with AGW. As the AGW hypothesis is shown to be flawed.... it makes the rest of the environmental movement look like liars.
And there are many problems with the AGW hypothesis.
THL phish sticks
Plenty of speculation in the article, "facts" however are completely missing.
Got Code?
Oil costing $1000 per barrel will happen if the dollar hyperinflates(then we can probably suspect $1billion/barrel) or if everyone stops using oil for anything for a few decades and you buy an authentic barrel of 2010 BP as a collectors item.
Barring massive market manipulation, inflation or some semi-apocalyptic event there will never ever be a time when oil could rise to $1000 a barrel while our dependence on it is kept at a level similar to today. Long before it would hit that price it becomes economically viable to use non-fossile sources for all our hydrocarbon needs.
Oh, and for nature to impose population limits for us she better start working now, because we're nowhere short of stopping technological advancements allowing us to be more than ever before, in increasingly smaller spaces. Heard about vertical hydroponics? It's like skyscrapers for plants, allowing us to grow more than ever before per square meter of earth surface. It's extremely unlike that we'll suddenly freeze the earth population at 6b, it's a pipe dream of the crazy enviromentalist lobby. By year 3000, we'll be a hundred billion people, on approximately the same footprint, with a higher standard of living.
The claim about the island by India/Bangladesh was discussed here on /. recently and was shown to be total bunk.
Well, if that was established in a discussion on Slashdot then I don't think there's anything more to be said on the matter. Talk about citation overkill! There's a monk out back with a ladder.
Someone who cared about islanders would suggest they actually solve their problems (in the event those problems actually happen) by building some small seawalls or other simple structures to deal with a modest rise in sea levels.
WTF... did you even bother to read the article? He's doing this to protect marine diversity and fish stocks, you know, kinda like how the US has national parks. It has absolutely nothing, whatsoever, to do with dealing with rising sea levels.
Seriously, its times like this, when a blatantly uninformed post gets modded up to +4, that I wonder why the hell I even bother with this place anymore...
Fish stocks haven't gone down, it's a global liberal conspiracy which has altered all historic records ... just like with global temperature records (everyone knows that not only is there no AGW, there is no global warming period).
Both the summary and the article go to great lengths to make a vague connection between rising sea levels and cutting off fishing. It's a mystery to me (and apparently most of slashdot) how they're connected, and neither the article or summary say what the connection is, but it's definitely implied.
Someone who cared about islanders would suggest they actually solve their problems (in the event those problems actually happen) by building some small seawalls or other simple structures to deal with a modest rise in sea levels. Whining and making ridiculous and destructive spectacles is useless and childish.
Limiting the areas the locals are allowed to fish to protect coral reefs is hardly a good example of government oppression. It's merely a publicity stunt to raise awareness of their plight which advertising their nation for international tourism.
Your saying that one of the poorest countries in the world would be able to exist below sea level on tiny flat islands without contaminating their fresh water supplies by building walls? Please provide more details about these magic walls and how high and thick you think they will need to be, what materials and how 100,000 fishermen could afford it?
Do you even know anything about Kiribati? The country is so small that in New England towns that size still use town meetings for most government decisions. He is closing the fishery to protect fish stocks and to make a point for the world at large. As for sea walls, those would do nothing against the salinization of groundwater on those islands. When your well draws sea water, you have to leave the island anyway, which is what is happening in those islands.
WTF... did you even bother to read the article?
Seriously? This is Slashdot. Do the editors even read the articles?
The summary talked about islands threatened by rising sea levels. People who live on tropical islands have many, many years to prepare simple structures to deal with rising sea levels (if they rise at all).
Furthermore, the idea that billions of people who don't live on tropical Pacific islands should give up leading prosperous lives to protect a few thousand people from (the risk of) having to build a 30-40 centimeter seawall over the course of the next 100 years... Well, it seems like an unwise choice.
Your paranoia is palpable, but you really must get yourself a passport and see the world.
One would have thought the recent BP disaster and the machinations of that AMERICAN corporation to limit their liability would be enough to wake your people up, but alas, you're all too obese, insolvent, unemployed, and glued to television, to care. Now that is sad. I hope you have your guns loaded (I just assumed you were a gun nut).
It makes perfect sense if you understand that when they speak of "our children and grandchildren", they're speaking as residents of Earth, not of Kiribati. They're taking a step toward conservation of the planet's biosphere (to the limited but measurable extent that they are able), and setting an example for others to follow, to help preserve it for future generations of humans, not just future generations of I-Kiribati.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Perhaps they think the fish will drown?
"Any islands that have disappeared in the last 100 years or so did so due to erosion - either natural and slow or, on occasion, due to storms and hurricanes."
However, increasing the base ocean level greatly increases erosion. The height of waves is something like Gaussian distribution, and increasing the level greatly increases the number of high waves in the 'long tail'.
How do you know this was forced on "the people"? Where did you get that info? Seeing as the islands will cease to be inhabitable shortly I'd say they aren't losing anything here. I'm sure they considered seawalls and such but constantly holding back the open ocean when your land is only a couple of feet above sea level isn't a simple task. However, you know it is a conspiracy with those awful environmentalists with their concern for our collective future and all that.
Enjoy your paranoid axe-grinding.
Don't forget earthquakes. Those tend to mess up the lay of the land pretty hard too. I hear they've had a few big ones in Asia lately.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
It takes a little bit of insight and inductive thinking to figure out the connection (i.e. doing what good they can do while they can still do it) Something most /.ers are incapable of.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
The sad fact of the matter is there are very few pristine coral reefs left in the world. Build a few 5 star eco logdes on these islands and they will be worth MAGNITUDES more in revenue than fishing will ever hope to bring in.
(I have lived on islands in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean, so I have a clue - unlike most knee jerk global warming deniers on here)
"Now you all put your eggs in one basket with AGW. As the AGW hypothesis is shown to be flawed.... "
Now you put your head up your ass. As your ass has been shown (repeatedly) to be deep enough - you can't see the light.
Do you even know anything about Kiribati?
Of course not. Is that a rhetorical question? Do the people of Kiribati know about me? Are they interested in my problems?
He is closing the fishery to protect fish stocks and to make a point for the world at large.
Protecting people from eating and making a spectacle. Bravo.
As for sea walls, those would do nothing against the salinization of groundwater on those islands. When your well draws sea water, you have to leave the island anyway, which is what is happening in those islands.
I admit to not knowing about island fresh water supplies. I'm not sure I believe a small rise in sea levels would automatically change ground water to salt water. Perhaps there is something constructive to be done about it. But I'm pretty sure whining and prohibiting fishing isn't a remedy.
I don't understand why people automatically assume that scientists who spend DECADES studying a particular phenomenon are totally blind to the Captain Obvious answers and don't bother to check them out as part of their research. In your job, do you ignore the bleedingly obvious, to the point of gross incompetence? Why do you automatically assume the same of other people who know a HELL OF A LOT MORE about a subject than you do?
Yes, sea levels are rising, measured in many places with and without local tectonic activity. Yes, scientists have checked against such obvious things and have filtered any such "noise" from them out of their findings.
If you want to challenge the findings of scientific research, get your arse out of that chair and back into college, then get out there and DO the research to prove them wrong. Failing that, I'll take the word of people who know wtf they are talking about over some anonymous coward on the intarwebs.
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
Now, how many FISH does one need to sell to equal that? Answer: ALOT.
:::: zing::::
Don't have children! Then no grand children.
Problem solved!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Man... you are like my right wing friends when I tell them Palin is a mistake. They freak the fuck out just like you did now.
AGW might just be bullshit. It was better when we dealt with pollution. I'd bet if we met in person, and compared our "carbon footprints", recycling, energy usage... probably by any metric I would be more "green" than you. But you spout your nonsense about heads up asses because, what, I think the AGW hypothesis has some problems? You have been SOLD the AGW line, and now you bark at me like your masters told you to. "Burn the heretic!"
You are no different than Bill O'Reilly railing against net neutrality because his boss owns NewsCorp.
THL phish sticks
No.
Are you the genius who suggested sunglasses and hats as the solution to ozone depletion?
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Do you even know anything about Kiribati?
Of course not. Is that a rhetorical question? Do the people of Kiribati know about me? Are they interested in my problems?
They kind of have to, because your activities, and mine, are putting the very existence of their country into doubt.
And that is why they are speaking out.
He is closing the fishery to protect fish stocks and to make a point for the world at large.
Protecting people from eating and making a spectacle. Bravo.
Protecting fisheries so they don't get annihilated is the most important task for any Polynesian nation.
As for sea walls, those would do nothing against the salinization of groundwater on those islands. When your well draws sea water, you have to leave the island anyway, which is what is happening in those islands.
I admit to not knowing about island fresh water supplies. I'm not sure I believe a small rise in sea levels would automatically change ground water to salt water. Perhaps there is something constructive to be done about it. But I'm pretty sure whining and prohibiting fishing isn't a remedy.
Well, then, do a Google Image Search on Kiribati. And Tuvalu. You'll find pictures of beaches lined with dead palm trees. Those trees are dead because sea level rise raised the average salinity of the ground water they're rooted in. This is what they are "whining" about: our energy consumption is raising sea levels and making their islands uninhabitable.
Protecting people from eating and making a spectacle. Bravo.
This is utterly ridiculous. The PIPA is several years old now and isn't closed to fishing by people who live on the islands - it's closed to fishing by industrial scale harvesting operations, none of which are owned and operated by locals. Its government previously made half its revenue by selling fishing rights to international operators; this decision simply affirms that THE PEOPLE OF THESE ISLANDS think it's more important to maintain a healthy marine life and stock for their own uses than to raise government revenue by selling fishing rights. To them and their sensibilities it's like the U.S. government were to make money by exporting child porn; no matter how practical it's an affront and unseemly to have giant floating factory ships suck large swaths of their sea clean. They may also realize that the people who buy these rights don't give a flying f*ck about them and their well-being, that they're exposed - and that building out tourism may be a better alternative. Because people (unlike corporations) DO give a shit about other people. Selling commercial rights is a political dead end, while the alternatives allow forging of political alliances; while politicians in places like the U.S. and Australia would happily throw them under the bus at first opportunity, the voters in those places (having say been there on a dive vacation) may be of a differing opinion.
"Man... you are like my right wing friends when I tell them Palin is a mistake."
It takes one to know one. You're as big mistake as she is.
"AGW might just be bullshit."
[citation needed]
This reminds me of a study I read about a year ago, The author pointed out that most reefs were dying, obviously because of global warming. The only ones that are still healthy are the ones where the large predators (sharks, groupers, etc) are still present to control the smaller fish that eat the coral. But the conclusion was that removing the large predators wasn't the problem, it is obviously global warming. Obvious to that scientist anyway.
Where do you think all the fish you eat is coming from?
Ocean are over-exploited, people are talking to register Tuna to the list of endangered species (it is that serious). Quotas and catch management are barely working...
What you need is an area where fish can reproduce and grow. For migratory species like Tuna you need a big area, and because of el nino anyhow, the big area for fishing is the west Pacific, not the central Pacific where this area is.
Kiribati just did that.
Franck Martin
Avonsys
O RLY? Care to tell where? Some Kiribatians might be interested to move there. (And Bengalis, and Dutch.....)
"And the research showed similar trends in the Republic of Kiribati, where the three main urbanised islands also “grew” – Betio by 30 percent (36ha), Bairiki by 16.3 percent (5.8ha) and Nanikai by 12.5 percent (0.8ha).
Webb, an expert on coastal processes, told the New Scientist the trend was explained by the fact the islands mostly comprised coral debris eroded from encircling reefs and pushed up onto the islands by winds and waves.
The process was continuous, because the corals were alive, he said."
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/02/tuvalu-and-many-other-south-pacific-islands-are-not-sinking-claims-they-are-due-to-global-warming-driven-sea-level-rise-are-opportunistic/
Worries about the small islands are alarmist propaganda.
See also
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/19/despite-popular-opinion-and-calls-to-action-the-maldives-is-not-being-overrun-by-sea-level-rise/
So basicly you admit that you don't know a fucking thing, and you don't believe the problem exists... just because you're a cunt. Shut up now.
It's a question that establishes whether your assessment of the situation has any basis in reality, or it's simply a bunch of ignorant assumptions you just pulled out of the nearest orifice. Apparently it's the latter.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Sold? It's not a party political broadcast - it's science, done with studies. In the long run, science has proven to be a better path to knowledge than anything else. Some errors happen, but it's the best bet to go with academia.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
WTF... did you even bother to read the article?
You must be new here
Wow.
OK, what will you build this "simple" "seawall" out of? Riprap? Nope. These are coral atolls we're talking about. Very *remote* coral atolls. You'd have quarry enough granite to wrap 33 islands somewhere then transport it to the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Not cheap. Not easy. Not simple.
OK, what about concrete? Well, maybe they can use coral for aggregate, but they don't have limestone, so they've got to import cement. Any idea how much it would cost to import enough Portland cement to build a wall around 33 islands to the required height? And the steel? You're going to have a *huge* and *very expensive* engineering project just transporting and staging the materials. OK, so a concrete wall around the county is not simple either.
But of course, what you're really talking about is creating a system of dikes to transform the country into 33 empolderments. What are dikes made out of? Well, they are primarily earthworks stabilized with vegetation. What do these people have to work with? Coral sand. How do you propose to make it stay where it's put?
It's easy to sit in your armchair and call the people who have to solve this problem *for real* "childish" and call their problems "whining". In fact, the less you know the easier it is.
Furthermore, you obviously haven't read the article. The problem with the marine sanctuary is that fishing permits (for foreign tuna fleets -- a detail the article should mention) are a major part of *government* revenue. Kiribati thinks that it deserves some revenue for preserving this huge hunk of the Earth for everyone else, and they're right.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Taking more fish out of the sea will cause the water level to drop. They should be fishing everything they can find out of the water. For an added bonus they should invest in researching how to build walls out of fishbones.
872835240
Troll much?
A government restricts the lives of ordinary, innocent citizens, making them poorer in the process, while the government officials continue on without changing their lifestyles at all.
But they have changed their lifestyle.
Or the government officials make a profit from the change by getting payments (or something else of value) from environmental special interest groups or from the fishermen who use the other, non-restricted territory and have fewer competitors selling fish.
Or? What OR? Are you implying future tense of something you think hasn't happened already?
Governments using unnecessary force against people is oppression, even when the rulers are The Good People and they are doing it for The Good Reasons.
So?
I for one am thankful my government 'oppresses' you from being a murderer.
Is that seriously the argument you are making? Anarchy?
Someone who cared about islanders would suggest they actually solve their problems (in the event those problems actually happen) by building some small seawalls or other simple structures to deal with a modest rise in sea levels. Whining and making ridiculous and destructive spectacles is useless and childish.
And how would that solve the problem at hand?
That would do nothing but keep them above water for a tiny bit longer. 100% off topic.
Try reading the article and get back to us when you have a thought on it. (Or not)
The story said they would be one of the first, BUT when will that be? Let's see, some ice at the pole and HUGE oceans around the world. It will slowly rise and they will be under water in what...250 years from now?
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
A nation-state doesn't have to have residents in a territory to continue claiming it. If they are able to annex and occupy land somewhere to maintain their status as a nation-state (I assume the UN requires that for recognition), and at least some of the islands of Kiribati remain partially above water (albeit uninhabitable and uninhabited), the I-Kirabati people could maintain legal and political control over those islands just as the US does with Howland Island or Norway does with Bouvet Island.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
[citation needed]
Global temps cooled and stayed there for 40 years during the post-WW2 economic boom. When carbon dioxide emissions were rising, and atmospheric co2 was rising, temps decreased.
I can go on... the warming-at-altitude problem. Greenhouse-based warming is supposed to heat the mid troposphere faster than the surface. But that's not what is happening. The troposphere is warming much slower than the surface.
The 2500 IPCC scientists who are "all in agreement"? Yeah, quite a few of those aren't scientists. And quite a few scientists didn't agree but got counted anyway.
I'm not saying AGW is impossible. It sure as hell isn't an undisputed fact. And guys like you frothing at the mouth... is that "sticking it to the man"? Toeing the AGW line is so NOT punk rock.
THL phish sticks
>>>Like what?
I'm not a fuel engineer so i'm not sure on the specifics, but there are methods for deriving hydrocarbon equivalents or good enough substitutes from organisms that are only recently dead, biofuels you know, I also have a distinct memory of hearing about some technique to turn CO2 into fuel, that of course is probably something we'll only bother with when the coal run out in a few hundred years.
>>> We were supposed to have flying highways
We were also supposed to face global famine/population caps in the 20th century due to the old cliche of overpopulation, along came the green revolution and food suddenly could be made availible in abundance.
>>>Asimov described that future
And the Turner Diaries have the neo-nazis take over the US and exterminate all black people(according to wiki atleast). Just because a book paints a picture of doom and gloom doesn't mean reality will follow.
Energy wise we have an extreme abundance, it's just that the necessary technologies for utilization of it is lacking, geothermal, solar or fission, and if you are allowed to belive in fusion could all single handendly supply the entire earth with all our energy needs if refined and developed on a large scale, that's _all_ forms of energy, not just our electricity needs, and if we ever find ourself in need of ludicrous energy levels we can presumable paint the moon in solar panels or anchor huge arrays of them in the lagrange spots. Or start building that bloody dyson sphere if we find a need to support more than a few trillion people.
In recent history, no negative prediction fortelling catastrophic economical, societal or otherwise a really really bad turn of events have turned out to be true. I don't see why i should assume any future prediction along those lines should have any more luck, more likely we're getting better at adaptation and as such being more capable of mitigating he impact of whatever that's threatening to ruin our day. And no, the recent economic downturn does not qualify a catastrophic events, it was bad and ugly, but far from a catastrophe.
O rly?
Aside from that, you really believe that academia is never predisposed to a particular agenda or ideology?
THL phish sticks
If they were thinking just a little smarter....they would realize the planet is increasing its demand for seafood..therefore they should double the fish tax instead of halving it, use that money to purchase advanced good dredging equipment and some other heavy equipment, pick out the highest atolls they have of the 33, and start building them up with dredged seafloor stuff. If there are two atolls close to each other, pick the better one, strip the lesser one and move the material over, build it up.
What they are doing is a *gesture*, what they need to do is *go to work* and mitigate their problems in advance before it gets to be too late.
"every action is important"
Tiny Country to World: We're doing what good we can before we're wiped out by you people building all those highway bypasses.
World to Tiny Country: So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Kiribati looks to make the ultimate sacrifice by mid-century, when much of the country is projected to be largely uninhabitable
They are being awarded mighty enviro kudos for 'closing' their fishing territory AFTER they have migrated elsewhere.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Well, then, do a Google Image Search on Kiribati. And Tuvalu. You'll find pictures of beaches lined with dead palm trees. Those trees are dead because sea level rise raised the average salinity of the ground water they're rooted in. This is what they are "whining" about: our energy consumption is raising sea levels and making their islands uninhabitable.
I used to be on that bandwagon for a long time; the story made sense on the surface and independent research on the subject was very difficult to do. Measuring the behavior of the biosphere is not like researching most other subjects. Human history or astronomy or technology, where the observations and recordings are the sort of thing which are either set in amber or easily verified through observation, are far easier to research because the facts don't change in your hands. Biosphere measurements are hard to take because the whole thing is in a state of permanent flux, because we haven't been around taking measurements for long enough to know it very well, and because we are right in the middle of the thing we are trying to measure. It's hard to see.
But as the dust began to settle, it has become increasingly clear that there is a large scam in the works and that it is dependent upon the normal population being guilted into accepting totalitarian control. The end results being that the elite make even more money without there being any actual industrial carbon reductions. (Quite the trick!) People don't seem to realize that a "Carbon Tax" isn't some vague notion which affects only big companies and governments. Oh no! Carbon taxes are for you and me on the street level. We would have to pay an extra tax on virtually everything we do in our lives which can be traced back to energy consumption. A tax bonanza! Take a look into it to see what is being proposed.
This kind of story, (and note that Rockefeller is involved in this island thing. The Rockefellers are champions of population control and oligarchic power structures, so yeah, his showing up is an indicator of badness.)
And of course it's all based on bullshit. As has been already noted, this island situation doesn't just include shrinking islands but rather, growing ones as well...
One island, Funamanu, gained 0.44 hectares or nearly 30 percent of its previous area.
And the research showed similar trends in the Republic of Kiribati, where the three main urbanised islands also "grew" - Betio by 30 percent (36ha), Bairiki by 16.3 percent (5.8ha) and Nanikai by 12.5 percent (0.8ha).
Webb, an expert on coastal processes, told the New Scientist the trend was explained by the fact the islands mostly comprised coral debris eroded from encircling reefs and pushed up onto the islands by winds and waves.
The process was continuous, because the corals were alive, he said.
In effect the islands respond to changes in weather patterns and climate - Cyclone Bebe deposited 140ha of sediment on the eastern reef of Tuvalu in 1972, increasing the main island's area by 10 percent.
And while this article is critical of the base story, it still takes for granted that sea-levels are rising. I'm not convinced that this is A) even True, or B) if it IS true that it is due to ice pack melting; we've actually been seeing expansion of the ice packs in some areas. It has also been noted (quietly) that the planet has been spinning a little slower over the last few years, and that this is having a strong effect on the biosphere and the shapes of land masses and oceans.
There is no question that the weather hasn't been changing, but it has also been changing on the other planets in the solar system. And the Sun has been behaving oddly as well. There are theories as to what is going on, and they are more complex than the highly profitable Global Warming story. Just like real life, things are more complex than the simple black & white government brochure would lead us to believe.
Just some thoughts.
-FL
Increased demand from the aquifers-the islanders just using more fresh water that can be replenished from rainfall- would do the exact same thing, allow the saline water in. Happening all over the planet now, like in south Florida..and we do NOT have any major sea level rises anyplace. You are talking single digit millimeters at the most, an insignificant amount.
Bubble Domes!
DEAD DEAD DEAD DELETE ME
I have seen quite a bit of wild speculation here as to the motives of the I-Kiribati, and their President as concerns this initiative. I have had the opportunity to visit Kiribati, to install a SolarNetOne solar powered internet infrastructure package, as part of a project with the Internet Society http://www.isoc.org You might remember the SolarNetOne: http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/07/02/1330252 Having been to Kiribati and worked with the I-Kiribati, I would like to offer my perspective on this topic, as well as a little history.
Kiribati has been inhabited for several thousand years or so by people who have managed to not overfish their waters, not cut down all the trees, not drive the local wildlife to extinction, and not overpopulate their lands. They KNOW how to live in harmony with one another and with their environment. They have a complex system of protecting their own genetic stock that traditionally would not allow a young couple from the same island to mate. They have no homeless, hungry people, or crime. In addition, they are one of the most sincere, honest, and friendly peoples that I have had the opportunity to be around.
Most of the water for drinking and cleaning there is not groundwater. Coral atolls are essentially ancient coral reefs that have grown upon the rims of slightly more ancient volcanic caldera. Underneath a few meters of soil, which is mostly composed of a fine grit of coral dust, is the reef, or the fossil of the reef. In low areas of the ancient fossilized bedrock of reef, fresh water lenses develop. These are areas where fresh water will pool under the soil, and is isolated from the ocean. There is no aquifer to draw from. The fresh water lenses are a source for agriculture, to be sure, but not the main source of drinking and bathing water. That water is rainwater collected in cisterns or barrels for the most part. One of the main impacts upon them will be sea level rise, and no, it will not erode the ancient bedrock of fossilized coral reef away, but it is already taking a toll on the shoreline: http://gnuveau.net/kir/pict0614.jpg
Notice the old growth palms that have had their roots undercut. Here is the reef bedrock near the shore:
http://gnuveau.net/kir/pict0589.jpg
http://gnuveau.net/kir/pict0591.jpg
http://gnuveau.net/kir/pict0592.jpg
http://gnuveau.net/kir/pict0584.jpg
Notice in the last image there(584), how small the ankleslapper wave is breaking on shore, as opposed to the next to last image(592), where a 15 foot barrel is peeling 1/2 mile offshore. This is because the wave comes up on the shallow outer reef, which rises from VERY deep water, much like on the north shore of Oahu. This forces the wave to expend all its energy on the outer reef, with very little of that energy making it to shore, as one days photos above show. The following image is from the next day, when the wavers were a bit smaller... only 12' or so on the outer reef, and makes the point very well:
http://gnuveau.net/kir/pict0611.jpg
Kiribati is not in the path of Tropical cyclones to cause erosion, being in the region where many of the storms start their lives, like the tropical wave region over and off the east coast of Africa which leads to the Atlantic hurricanes.Needless to say, I do not buy the argument that normal erosion will cause this. Erosion with higher sea levels, which makes the outer reef deeper and allows more wave energy to reach the beach, however, will.
Government is essentially enacted for the most part in what is called Manaeba, or village council, which includes not only an open meeting to discuss events, topics of the day, and courses of action, but also includes a "coverd dish buffet" with each family preparing part of the feast, singing, dancing, and closes with time for socialization. Ideas therefrom are passed up to island council members, and on to members of Parliment, which meets on the capital island of Tarawa. There is no "slick politics" going on in Kiribati, unlike many more developed but imh
People totally bind to Captain Obvious answers, ignoring the bleeding obvious to the point of gross incompetence, is sadly not uncommon in many lines of work. In particular it appears desirable in the media, essential in politics and, interestingly perhaps, there appears to be a causal relationship with middle management.
Nils-Axel Mörner is a discredited scientist on the subject; there are a number of refutations of his supposed "research" on sea levels. Here's one:
Nils' research cut to ribbons
No wonder the Maldives president is ignoring him.
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
It is far more common in armchair quarterbacks than in hard-core researchers.
If you ignore Captain Obvious answers in your research, it will get peer-reviewed right into the wastebasket, where it belongs.
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c6HsiixFS8
This may explain some of the thinking of these people. They don't read, or learn. They just pull stuff out of their ass and think they are experts.
mongabay.com: Have Kiribati's reefs experienced coral bleaching?
President Anote Tong: I have certainly seen bleaching. Whether it is the product of climate change, I do not know.
A straightforward, honest answer from a politician?
Impressive!
Sounds like this man has a clue, and integrity. He's prepared to do what needs to be done, even if it's hard.
Sadly, that makes him a very dangerous man in the minds of "some countries".
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
Hawaii. The Big Island grows larger every single day of the week thanks to the ongoing volcanic eruptions.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I mentioned this in another reply, but it seems unwise to force billions of people to give up on living prosperous lives for the long term convenience of a few thousand tropical islanders.
Tropical islanders should take constructive steps to deal with their own problems. If your island is on the edge of being uninhabitable now, then it might be a good idea to find a place more resilient, or find a way to improve structures to make your own island more resilient. Don't ask everyone else in the world to assume an impoverished state so you can keep your preferred tropical lifestyle without any changes or challenges.
Every time I hear about this island nation, I have to wonder "why don't they build a wall around it?
Well, why don't they?
A ten foot wall would give them 10 feet of sea-rise additional lifetime. That could be *decades*, maybe longer.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/25/bengal-island-succumbs-to-global-warming-nonsense-ap-gets-nutty-over-loss-of-a-sandbar/
For convenience sake, we've selected commonly posted responses you may want to use.
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Thank you for agreeing to this trial of slashdot auto post. All hail our eventual machine replicant replacements!
What would Richard Feynman do, if he were here right now? He'd do some math and he'd follow through!
The sad thing, is that a few people out there read your comment and agreed with every word in a nonfacetious way.
That is such an utter straw man. First of all, these islanders are not dealing with "theiir own" problems. These problems are being caused by you and me. If I dumped garbage on your backyard and said "your yard, your problem", you would be right to see it very differently.
Trees DO die, you know. Oceans strip sand away from beaches. They dump sand upon beaches. My tuna fish sandwich has nothing to do with any of the above.
>>>Like what? I'm not a fuel engineer so i'm not sure on the specifics, but there are methods for deriving hydrocarbon equivalents or good enough substitutes from organisms that are only recently dead, biofuels you know, I also have a distinct memory of hearing about some technique to turn CO2 into fuel, that of course is probably something we'll only bother with when the coal run out in a few hundred years.
Well, I stopped reading after this paragraph I quoted. You don't have to be a "fuel engineer" to understand you don't have a clue of what you're talking about. Please go learn some basic, non-high-level, layman's chemistry.
They can only blame themselves? How often was the population of local area even asked (nvm informed of all the implications) before commencing guano strip-mining operation?
One that hath name thou can not otter
Who cares. They are people being governed. They can either accept the government they have (along with it their decisions) or try to change it (either through the peaceful process of voting or by violent revolution) However it is still their blame to take if they did neither.
You realize that's essentially "blame the victim" of course?
One that hath name thou can not otter
dead palm trees, dead polar bears. c'mon, what other proof of global warming do you need? I'm sure there are pictures of dead palm trees and that some of them died from salt-water, but the links to charts showing that the sea-levels have risen by 14 meters in 8000 years, what did that water come from?
I'm not sure what closing the fishing down has to do with a country whose population has increase by 12% in the last four years. Could be too many people are living in the 313 square miles of island land spread across 33 islands.
150,000 square miles of fishing territory seems excessive for a population of less than 100,000. Wonder if any of that territory is challenged by any other countries?
That chart shows, if anything, that global temperature (which zig-zagged, rather than increased monotonically in the 20th century) is statistically unrelated to sea levels rising.
11. Frosty Piss
12. Invoke Random Meme
13. First Post (but not really first)
14. @Twitter style response. #Herp-#Derp
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
It's because science says one thing one day, and weeks later says the opposite. Also, scientists argue among themselves about what the conclusion should be.
I can't find the original article off hand, but approximately 33 percent of research turns out to be wrong, according to one study. This article doesn't put a number on it, but estimates a lot higher.
Bottom line, journalism makes science look like a bunch of bumbling clowns because it can't summarize research correctly, and the scientists sometimes do a bad enough job themselves that they don't need help bungling the conclusion. I have this argument all the time with people who don't understand how the scientific method works, and the difference between internet news and peer-reviewed journals.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118972683557627104.html
(if it's blocked put the URL in google and click from there).
Finally, regarding gp post, you seem overly sensitive. I didn't read that as a "here's the obvious, maybe that explains it?" post. But maybe I give people more credit than they deserve.
Does that help you understand?
Atols don't "drown" when the sea level rises. They rise with the sea.
planet texture maps and more
Do you remember the story about peer review being highly sensitive to poor refereeing? It was only a few days ago, on this very website. Maybe this is one of those great experiments with an unsupported conclusion and will get peer-reviewed into the bin?
http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/09/17/1416201/Peer-Review-Highly-Sensitive-To-Poor-Refereeing
"A new study described at Physicsworld.com claims that a small percentage of shoddy or self-interested referees can have a drastic effect on published article quality. The research shows that article quality can drop as much as one standard deviation when just 10% of referees do not behave 'correctly.' At high levels of self-serving or random behavior, 'the peer-review system will not perform much better than by accepting papers by throwing (an unbiased) coin.' The model also includes calculations for 'friendship networks' (nepotism) between authors and reviewers. The original paper, by a pair of complex systems researchers, is available at arXiv.org. No word on when we can expect it to be peer reviewed."
I'm not saying AGW is impossible. It sure as hell isn't an undisputed fact. And guys like you frothing at the mouth... is that "sticking it to the man"? Toeing the AGW line is so NOT punk rock.
The consequences of AGW are so dire that, unless you can rule it out as impossible, it is worth spending some serious effort to avoid the possibility.
The very uncertainty of climate modeling makes it flat-out ludicrous for anyone to claim that AGW poses no risk. To your credit, you do not claim this, but a lot of global warming skeptics do.
Spending (say) 1% of global economic activity (about 600 billion dollars a year) on carbon reduction is well within the range of any reasonable cost/benefit analysis, based on our current imperfect understanding of global climate.
I might also mention, by the way, that the same argument is used to support anti-terrorism efforts, at least in the US: the consequences of a terrorist attack are portrayed to be so dire as to be worth paying almost any price to prevent. It is very interesting that the US Republican Party is willing to go to absurd lengths to thwart terrorist attacks, but opposes any measures whatsoever to combat global warming.
Says westerner who probably lives on a large continent far away from the ocean...
O RLY? Care to tell where?
Vanuatu, for one. After a recent 7.3 earthquake a few weeks ago, one end of the island I live on rose by about 30 cm. Google 'Subduction' for an explanation of the effect, and 'Rocky Mountains' for an example.
Some Kiribatians might be interested to move there.
There are a number of I-Kiribati (as they prefer to be known) here in Vanuatu already. Thanks for the kind thought, though.
Neighbouring Fiji, whose islands are also rising, has already stated they would be happy to take a significant chunk of Tuvalu and Kiribati's populace.
... But all of this does little to alleviate the feeling one gets when the place to which you are bound by blood and culture subsides beneath the waves.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
$46,381 per capita GDP seems excessive for americans, I wonder if other countries are protesting that americans are too rich... Seriously, this blindness to other (read non-western, non-white) ways of life and other problems is disappointing ... News for nerds indeed, more like news for ignorant ethnocentric hicks...
If the nation vanishes, their control over their land also vanishes. But their major threats are their own population and typhoons, which aren't going to be affected much by this because the locals can still get enough fish. If they're really threatened by rising waters they'd be exchanging fishing licenses for deliveries of rocks and concrete.
The summary talked about islands threatened by rising sea levels.
So, I take it you're defending your decision to attack the government of this island without actually reading the fucking article? I assume you also prefer to just skim the headlines in a newspaper, rather than actually reading the stories?
Christ, and we wonder why the US electorate is so god damned uninformed and gullible...
Do you really need to be a scienst to verify that indead the island is no longer ave the waves? I would guess Indian bakers could adequately verify this.
Slowly waving my hand - "This is not the sig you are looking for."
Precicely 0? A large meteor/comet strike on the south pole would likely sink them. The tide sinks a lot of islands daily, perhaps we should blow up the moon. Of course we should do this in an environmentally friendly way.
Slowly waving my hand - "This is not the sig you are looking for."
Well, unlike the vast majority of /. readers/posters, I actually read the paper in question. It might be a good idea if you read it, too.
It describes a hypothetical case of how the peer review process can go wrong, but does not provide nor reference any evidence where it has gone wrong.
That isn't to say that the peer review process, as it currently exists in vivo, is flawless; however, the paper does not address the current stringent efforts made by the most distinguished groups of scientists (such as the AAAS and the NAS) and journals (like Nature and Science), to maintain as high a quality as presently possible.
That's not a flaw in the paper, but it is a flaw in people ignorantly attempting to use it in any way to discredit the peer review process as a whole. Yes, sure, some instances of peer review have failed miserably (take, for instance, the Soon and Baliunas Controversy / Climate Research Journal), and it will happen again. However, like the vast majority of science and the scientific method, it is simply (a small) part of the process to improving our knowledge and understanding of the natural world.
Personally, I laud such papers, as they only serve to improve the quality of science and the process of pursuing knowledge and understanding through it for the betterment of all.
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
And it seems no sacrifice is too great as Kiribati is one of the few nations to back the Japanese in their 'research' whaling. You've seen Whales Wars, The Cove. This, an excerpt from Silence is Betrayal at blogspot: On June 13th (2010), the Sunday Times reported they had uncovered proof of Japan bribing nations for votes on ending the commercial whaling moratorium that has been in place for 24 years. Two undercover reporters posed as lobbyists for a fake billionaire who wanted to prevent the moratorium from being overturned. They offered £25m in aid over 10 years to six nations: St Kitts and Nevis, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Grenada, Ivory Coast and Guinea, in return for a vote against the whaling quotas at the Morocco meeting. They indicated they were willing to consider the offer.
this is not a flawless plan.. this is inspiration
I don't see what you're saying with that link.
Of course academia is sometimes predisposed towards ideas, but generally these ideas are more about the value of education - individual academes vary in their politics, but academia as a unit is not particularly political.
Academia remains the best path to truth, even given whatever inevitable biases may be part of either individuals or institutions. There are no credible alternatives.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
trade for a vital resource like food (fish) would be state of the art operating theaters. Unfortunately, we don't live in a resource based world. We live in a monetary based one.
I suppose if you want to define victim in this manner then sure but that's pretty disingenuous.
They can affect change, they chose not to, they suffer the consequences...
"Any islands that have disappeared in the last 100 years or so did so due to erosion"
Rising sea levels cause erosion, just ask the seaside residents on the east coast of the UK.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
It's because science says one thing one day, and weeks later says the opposite. Also, scientists argue among themselves about what the conclusion should be.
Despite your hyperbole, the fact remains that science is never static. No one EVER gets it right on their first try. Many don't get it right on their 20th try. That's the WHOLE POINT of the scientific method and the research process. Science isn't about proving anything; proofs are exclusive only to mathematics and can be dubious even then. Instead, science is about DISproving things. Like in a crucible, irrelevancies, false observations, improper procedures, incorrect conclusions, etc are burned away, usually a bit at a time, to get a PURER product (note not a PURE product, simply a PURER product) that enhances our knowledge and understanding of the world. Ongoing falsification is at the core of the scientific method.
As such, sure, science says one thing one day, then some time later, IMPROVES upon that, either refining it via specificity, OR refutation, even. Unlike what most people understand about science, refutation is a GOOD thing -- it demonstrates that the scientific method is WORKING. No true scientist wants to cling to the wrong answers!
Sure, scientists argue about a lot of things; it is in their nature. However, just because they argue doesn't mean they ignore each others' established and (thus far) unfalsified research. Two scientists could argue vehemently all day long over the specificity of a nearly insignificant point in a pair of competing research studies which otherwise support each other. However, when you ask them about the general consensus of their respective research, they will fully admit to being in near total agreement.
Bottom line, journalism makes science look like a bunch of bumbling clowns because it can't summarize research correctly, and the scientists sometimes do a bad enough job themselves that they don't need help bungling the conclusion. I have this argument all the time with people who don't understand how the scientific method works, and the difference between internet news and peer-reviewed journals.
That's why I pretty much ignore what journalists and pundits say; I go STRAIGHT to the science/research itself. Hell, I still consider myself a skeptic of what scientists say about a lot of things, but if I don't have the knowledge/training and haven't done the research, I will give a scientist who does/has the benefit of a doubt until such time as I do have better information from a more reliable source, or from my own research into the subject.
As such, I (and others) would appreciate direct links to papers, rather than regurgitation of "talking points"-style articles in popular rags, which often cherry-pick and distort salient bits to suit the whims of the article author/editor/publisher. Hence:
Here is Dr. Ioannidis's paper referenced by your linked article.
Just like in the Thurner and Hanel paper recently published, I think that Dr. Ioannidis makes valid and important points in his observations. However, again, they are hypothetical in nature. He doesn't actually review or provide specific evidence for statistical analysis to support his contention that "Most Published Research Findings Are False". Again, that doesn't invalidate his contentions (at least directly), but it also does not indict any specific body of research in any meaningful way. In simpler words, you can't use that as a litmus to automatically disregard any particular research paper "just because Dr. Ioannidis said that 'Most Published Research Findings Are False', thus this paper's findings are false". That's being grossly disingenuous and not a little intellectually dishonest.
Finally, regarding gp post, you seem overly sensitive. I didn't read that as a "here's the obvious, maybe that explains it?" post. But maybe I give people more credit than they
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
The modern world in wich you live was brought to you by science, if the method did not work then you would not have the tools to broadcast your hubris to the world.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
In Kiribati for starters.
Living below sea level didn't work for New Orleans either...
Good grief man, check your sources! Moner is a crank who believes in woo woo physics and was awarded "deciver of the year" by the Swedish skeptics society for organising university courses on dowsing.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Sure thing; as if there wasn't an avalanche of research that anyone with 5 minutes couldn't Google up for consumption. *rolls eyes*
Laury Miller and Bruce Douglas "On the rate and causes of twentieth century sea-level rise" Douglas has several seminal papers on the subject.
Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level -- if you want the raw data itself
Scientific reticence and sea level rise
The Impacts of Sea-Level Rise on the California Coast
60+ references on Current Sea Level Rise @ Wikipedia (yeah, it's wikipedia; take the article with a pillar of salt and read the referenced papers and articles instead.. durrr)
With respect to the original gp post, the PSMSL dataset "defined the following criteria for selecting records from the PSMSL which were long, reliable, and avoided large vertical geologic changes:"
1. Each record should be at least 60 years in length
2. Not be located at collisional plate boundaries
3. At least 80% complete
4. Show reasonable agreement at low frequencies with nearby gauges sampling the same water mass
5. Not be located in regions subject to large post-glacial rebound
So, yah, I think the scientists took into account the obvious issues asked about by the gp: "Is the sea level rising? Or are plate tectonics lowering the land level in relation to the sea?".
Need more? Or is that enough to keep you busy reading for a little while?
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
Your linked graph does not show a decrease, it shows a flattening of the curve between 1940 and 1970. This was caused by soot and sulphate areosols (also known as pea-soupers), it is the half truth behind the bullshit claim that "in the 70's we were told an ice age is coming". Dispite the large numbers of deaths attributed to pea soupers, the coal industry fought tooth and nail for almost a century against clean air regulations, they are now doing the same thing with CO2.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Otherwise it's just an attention-getting overture. They are in the news now, which means that people who have never heard of them are now thinking about visiting.
Just wait, six months from now, everyone will have forgotten about this and they will quietly back down.
Actually, in all of those cases, its them acting incompetent, inorder to deceive you of their true intent of screwing you over.
Apologies, that link is outdated.
Unfortunately, the original comment direct from Nerem et al is in a paywalled scientific journal, but this blog entry posts a goodly bit of it, along with a bit of character attack on Mörner, but the evidence against him is pretty serious.
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
FFS, Kiribalti is SINKING, has been for a long time!
They are playing a somewhat cunning game of finger pointing, however their own land use and coral damage is what causes this, as the coral naturally recedes, this is well understood, and known for a very long time.
They just hope someone else will come along with a ton of money, and little knowledge of history.
The sad thing is they will probably succeed, as peoples ability to identify BS seems to have flown away a long time ago, and headlines now seem to define reality.
Really? "Flamebait"?
That's just fear expressing itself. A little clear-eyed rational thinking might lead to scary realizations, but fear can be mastered, and then it goes away. Living a lie, by contrast, is just plain suicide. You can hum and whistle all you want, but the house will still be on fire. (Or vanishing under a mile of ice, as it were.)
That's a high cost for walking around avoiding uncomfortable subjects.
Time to grow up.
-FL
Blame themselves?
From what I have read, commercially viable phosphate deposits were exhausted by the time of independence in 1979. So _even_ if what you say is true, it's not themselves that they have to blame.
I don't assume that the scientists have not checked out the Caption Obvious answers. I assume they don't talk about them because they don't get paid to talk about them because they're obvious.
I see the situation like this:
Mr Climate Scientist studies sea levels. He (for he is a male climate scientist) wants to continue studying sea levels. However, in order for him to do that, someone must pay him to study sea levels. In order for someone to pay him to study sea levels, someone else with money must be interested enough in sea levels to pay him.
He finds that sea levels go up and down a lot all over the world for lots of different reasons. But saying that in a paper will not be interesting. So he writes a paper about how the sea levels are going up and lots of people are going to drown. He gets two friends who are also interested in continuing to be paid to study the climate to peer-review his paper, and a journal that's interested in being read by people with money who could be scared of rising sea levels publishes it.
I think there's a problem with peer-reviewed science.
Business/App ideas are like arseholes: everyone's got one, they're mostly shit, but very rarely they contain a diamond
Any island that gets swamped by the raising currents is probably offset by their more polar cousins, where habitable islands are uncovered from their melting glaciers due to global warming.
Not that one negates the other or either is from a desired process, but if someone might be counting net lost islands.....we can probably export everyone to around Greenland.
That's an important point that I make to a lot of people who decry the value of scientific research out-of-hand.
I ask them: Do you fly? If so, you are trusting your very LIFE on a consensus of scientific research on the subject of aerodynamics, let alone a mountain of research on materials science.
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
Please don't mod parent as a troll, jeez.
He made a fair request.
One other point I wanted to make is as I said in another reply below: don't listen to the goddamned media -- GO TO THE SOURCE(S) OF THE SCIENCE ITSELF! If you don't understand it, ASK someone who does that you trust to explain it to you, or learn enough of the science yourself to understand.
The thing is that good science has not really made such prognostications as claimed. As you say, it is the media's interpretation of the science that is at fault in the vast majority of those hyperbolic scenarios. You can even add pathological science items such as Polywater to that list, too, but I will point out that even Polywater was debunked thoroughly by the scientific method fairly quickly.
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
The fallacy in your take on it is that scientists can study the effects of climate change for a large number of reasons not necessarily directly related to climate change. Many researchers are paid to study things like ice thickness in the arctic for reasons like transportation/shipping and even energy reserve accessibility. There is (now) a lot money to study climate change directly, but a great deal of the existing research came about long before that money was even planned for appropriation.
Not identifying all known causal sources for sea level change in a research paper is just stupid, and such papers should/would never pass peer review. The problem is not that they aren't in the papers; the problem is that lay people don't read the damn papers and make assumptions based on their a priori ignorance of the subject.
Sure scientists want to be paid; it's their career, after all. That said, the vast majority of them want to be paid for doing valid research, especially since having it revealed that they were paid to generate garbage research to suit their employers is pretty much a career-ending scenario. ..and, that said, there are a few "scientists" who DO make their careers out of being paid to generate "research" for their "patrons". Ones like Dr. Fred Singer, who has whored out his scientific credentials and "research" to the tobacco and oil companies for decades.
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
If you're going to use a pompous turn of phrase, at least spell it correctly. They can "effect" change, not "affect". The point the poster was making, which seems to have gone swoosh straight over your head, is that if a population doesn't know it's in their interests to effect a particular change, they will be unlikely to do so.
I sure hope that we don't ever have to give up the act of slaughtering members of other species solely to satisfy our taste buds! That would be horrible. We might have to... eat something that doesn't suffer just as we do, like plants!
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Well, there's about one chance in three that that study is wrong, so I wouldn't pay any attention to it!
You are talking to a man that believes that finite resources don't run out. I really don't think it's any use...
"..Do you even know anything about Kiribati?..."
Yes, I do.
"..As for sea walls, those would do nothing against the salinization of groundwater on those islands. When your well draws sea water, you have to leave the island anyway, which is what is happening in those islands....I admit to not knowing about island fresh water supplies. I'm not sure I believe a small rise in sea levels would automatically change ground water to salt water..."
Correct. Fresh water forms a lenticular shape in the ground, supported by the saline around it. This is simply shrinking under pressure from overuse. See this World Bank report:
http://blogs.worldbank.org/eastasiapacific/drilling-for-water-in-kiribati
"...The population of South Tarawa has grown from only 3,013 in 1931 to over 40,311 by 2005. Such rapid growth has led to a population density as high as 15,000 people per square kilometre on the narrow atoll islands. Tokyo, famous for overcrowding, has a population density almost three times lower..."
"Well, then, do a Google Image Search on Kiribati. And Tuvalu. You'll find pictures of beaches lined with dead palm trees. Those trees are dead because sea level rise raised the average salinity of the ground water they're rooted in. This is what they are "whining" about: our energy consumption is raising sea levels and making their islands uninhabitable."
On the contrary. If you search scientific papers rather than activists' reports, you will find that the sea level at Kiribati is currently static. In fact, it has dropped quite far since 1950. People who claim that Kiribati will go under are just extrapolating rising sea level models - actual measurement on Kiribati shows it is in no danger whatsoever. Here is an open letter from Nils-Axel Morner to the president of Kiribati. But what does he know? He's only the Head of Paleogeophysics and Geodynamics at Stockholm University and President of the INQUA Commission on Sea Level Changes...
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=31&ved=0CBQQFjAAOB4&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmeteo.lcd.lu%2Fglobalwarming%2FMoerner%2FMaledives_Open_Letter_Moerner_Oct09.pdf&ei=38GVTIaGLN3NjAfx3N3GBQ&usg=AFQjCNGNdByTVrBigykwSBW5HUKkeFozYg&sig2=oD7ht7r8NwikUy04I53_rQ
I don't know about global famine, but we certainly had famines around the globe in the 20th century. And there were quite a few unfortunate side effects from the green revolution, aka the industrialisation of food production.
If it helps anyone here, I blogged about this last year; Rising Tides Submersing Kiribati http://is.gd/fhE6M
An island that's on the knife's edge of being uninhabitable is clearly the problem of the people who live there. Those people might want to make contingency plans in case something goes wrong. Things have been known to go wrong.
And you haven't addressed why billions of people should sacrifice their prosperity for a few thousand people to continue to live in a tropical paradise. And why is it the right choice to force the billions to face an impoverished future so the islanders can avoid some infrastructure challenges they have 50-100 years to deal with.
Just as an example, if it means billions of people get to have better lives, I personally would be willing to move. Moving is always a hassle, but it's something I can handle for the good of that many people.
Also, maybe you should look up what a straw man is.
So, I take it you're defending your decision to attack the government of this island without actually reading the fucking article?
How dare anyone question a government? When did governments ever do anything that wasn't 100% selfless and noble? Governments never hurt anyone, did they?
I assume you also prefer to just skim the headlines in a newspaper, rather than actually reading the stories?
Everyone does. That's what headlines are for. I guess you pick up a newspaper and read every word from the front page to the back in numerical order of the pages, without setting it down. No?
Christ, and we wonder why the US electorate is so god damned uninformed and gullible...
Was that in the article, or are you just prejudiced against Americans?
How do you know this was forced on "the people"? Where did you get that info?
All government prohibitions are forced on people. If everyone agreed, the government wouldn't have any activity to prohibit.
Those are some good questions. Luckily, the islanders have 50-100 years to come up with answers (if you believe the rising sea level predictions). If they start looking now, they should have plenty of time.
I don't understand why people automatically assume that scientists who spend DECADES studying a particular phenomenon are totally blind to the Captain Obvious answers and don't bother to check them out as part of their research.
If it's not in their paper, then it hasn't been checked... even if it has.
Why do you automatically assume the same of other people who know a HELL OF A LOT MORE about a subject than you do?
Because knowing a lot does not mean they know everything, and also does not mean that someone with limited knowledge can never ask a Good Question.
If you want to challenge the findings of scientific research, get your arse out of that chair and back into college,
A college degree does not a Scientist make. Nor is it a requisite. Some of the greatest scientists in history never attended any formal University.
Failing that, I'll take the word of people who know wtf they are talking about over some anonymous coward on the intarwebs.
The best way to learn, is to ask questions. It is, in fact, one of the fundamental portions of the Scientific process. In fact, if such questions bother you, I suggest a career in Religion; they welcome blind faith and discourage questions so it should be right up your ally.
+5 informative
(this is from one who things global warming is happening)
Uh, that's what tiny islands do: disappear!
Kiribati is superbly strategically located; with a friend in northern Africa and a slice of bread each, you can make a perfect earth sandwich.
Chuck Norris: Socialism == a thousand years of darkness.
The real problem is the unregulated phosphate mining that essentially destroyed their island and, likely, undermined (pun intended) the natural strength of island formation. If it disappears beneath the sea - they can only blame themselves.
You've got the wrong country.
The islands of Kiribati are atolls whose main income is derived from copra, fishing licenses and foreign aid. The only island that had phosphate mining is Banaba (Ocean) Island, which is not a major population centre and as the highest point in the country is probably not half as much of a concern to them as Tarawa atoll, the capital.
Nauru, located to the southeast of Kiribati, did indeed have their only island destroyed by unregulated phosphate mining.
Carbonate sedimentation don't work like clastic sedimentation
http://sepmstrata.org/seqstratCarbHierarchies.html
So leave the carbonates alone stop the destructive fishing which may be breaking them up and you give the island a chance. Main risk to carbonates is to great an influx of sediment muddying the waters.
The chinese only needed the USA market for a long enough period to exchange the dollars received back for more manufacturing related items and tech. Once they have "enough", which they do now, to expand their manufacturing base, they no longer need the influx of USA dollars, they need the larger influx of raw materials and energy sources, which they get outside the USA. Those areas of the world, then their own internal economy, is what will be driving the chinese economy in the future and will be their consumers of choice.
The days of "needing" the USA consumer for them are rapidly closing. That was a one to two generations effort only, it is no longer really needed, and is borne out by noting they have drastically slowed their purchase of US government debt instruments.
Yeah, because getting tourists to an isolated island does not generate any CO2, so it's great way to fight global warming...
Of course there is a global warming period. The question is which one are you talking about, since there have been several. The previous ones were all natural warming/cooling periods, unlike this one which even though it looks exactly like the others is totally caused my humans this time. Everyone knows it's all part of the global big oil conspiracy, who manipulated CO2 levels millions of years ago.
It makes sense only to rainforest people: throw your kids in the volcanoe or kill them, and then you will ot need to catch as much fish and gather as much resources.
Typically it's a Satanic principal for these bastards to downsize, when the should be in Research positions to travel abroad for insightful techniques to maximize and generate resources. People forget that plants collect sunlight and water to and create organic material that we should be running through enrichment processes toturn it into more useful minerals. More study on plants and how they transmute!
Supposed to pile it ontop of the land area to make the land rise higher! Just look to Haiti as an example of a pile of shit rising out of the Sea!
Yeah you're thinking of Corn ethanol and Biodiesel which solves the transportation problem, but not the starvation problem. Competition with the food industry for scarce land will create skyrocketing grocery costs, leading to the starvation I mentioned before.
As for genetically-modified food, yes yield was improved but at the cost of putting food production in megacorps control (like ADM) and THAT is leading to rampant starvation around the world. Search youtube for Food Inc (second half) for more information about how subsistence farmers are getting screwed out of their homes, and losing their jobs.
See.... even the present is not rosy, and it's only going to get worse, especially when oil wells start drying up and prices soar to $1000/barrel during the 2020s.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I'm giving this plan 12 months at best, this would be the same as the USA telling 50% of the farmers they weren't allowed to grow crops anymore. Food prices would rocket up faster than anyone could anticipate. Of course this negates the fact that farmers in the USA would raise arms against the government and a new civil war would start.
BTW, thanks for your input. While you were there, did you notice if they had any solar powered (solar thermal) desalination programs to help provide more freshwater over and above rainfall? That would seem to be another option for them.
even the present is not rosy, and it's only going to get worse, especially when oil wells start drying up and prices soar to $1000/barrel during the 2020s.
If slashdot and your account is still present when the 2020s start, i'll make sure to give you an annual reminder of this prediction until we're in the 2030s.
If it's not in their paper, then it hasn't been checked... even if it has.
Except that it *IS* in their paper, and HAS been checked. Most people (including probably you) don't READ the damn paper and just make stupid assumptions about what is and is not in it.
In the specific case of what the gp poster said about tectonics affecting measurements, the papers and data observations SPECIFY the quality of measurements based on a number of Captain Obvious criteria, INCLUDING tectonics. Durrrrrrrr...
Because knowing a lot does not mean they know everything, and also does not mean that someone with limited knowledge can never ask a Good Question.
While that may be true, the vast majority of the time, the latter part is not the case. Asking the obvious without even bothering to READ the research, and just armchair quarterbacking completely invalidates your otherwise salient point.
A college degree does not a Scientist make. Nor is it a requisite. Some of the greatest scientists in history never attended any formal University.
As it turns out, many more scientists DO have college degrees than don't; the exceptions don't make the rule. Not everyone is or can be an Einstein. For most real people, the college route *IS* the best route for such, as very few have the discipline or capacity to "roll their own" science credentials.
The best way to learn, is to ask questions. It is, in fact, one of the fundamental portions of the Scientific process.
I never said people shouldn't ask questions; in fact, I have said quite the opposite. Challenge everything. Just make sure you put forth some real effort to ask meaningful questions beforehand.
In fact, if such questions bother you, I suggest a career in Religion; they welcome blind faith and discourage questions so it should be right up your ally.
Stupid, willfully uninformed questions bother me.Religion has nothing to do with anything I said, despite your misguided attempt to paint it as such.
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
We are not talking only about low-level atols.
Atols maintain their elevation wrt sea level: if sea level drops, wind erosion lowers the atol. If sea level rises, the coral (yes - underwater) builds the reef higher. Beaked fish, e.g. parrotfish, and wave action partially reduce the face of the reef to sand and rubble, which is deposited on the atol above waterline. The coral has no trouble keeping up with sea level rise, about a foot in a century. The real problem is decimation of the fish by hunting. That can slow or halt the build up of coral sand.
For vegetation to grow on the atol, fresh water is needed. This comes from the lagoon enclosed by the atol, and is contained in a "fresh water lens" that is slightly above sea level under the atol. If the lagoon is breached or allowed to dry out and fill with sand, the atol becomes a coral island. To keep this from happening, the lagoon mush be protected and fresh water must be carefully conserved. Coral islands may have much less water, due to run-off, unless vegetation is firmly established and not destroyed in a typhoon.
These facts have been confirmed since Darwin first proposed his theory of atol growth.
A recent, refereed article studied the surface area of 27 atols in the Central Pacific. 86% of them increased in area or remained the same as sea level rose over a 20 to 60 period.
Global and Planetary Change, Article in Press, Accepted Manuscript, doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2010.05.003
The dynamic response of reef islands to sea level rise: evidence from multi-decadal analysis of island change in the central pacific
I know it's a crisis for them, but sea level changes all the time.
Current sea level changes don't even SHOW UP on this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Post-Glacial_Sea_Level.png 24 kyr graph.
To suggest that humans can breed nonstop and fill every nook and cranny of terrain on the planet, then cry when the tide comes in because they're getting wet is disingenuous and short-sighted.
-Styopa
How dare anyone question a government? When did governments ever do anything that wasn't 100% selfless and noble? Governments never hurt anyone, did they?
Wow, you *really* enjoy knocking down straw men...
Everyone does.
No, not everyone. Judgmental assholes? Yes. The rest of us try to avoid coming to snap judgments before actually investigating the story at hand.
I guess you pick up a newspaper and read every word from the front page to the back in numerical order of the pages, without setting it down. No?
If my intent were to form opinions about every story in said paper, of course I'd read the whole thing. Wouldn't you?
Oh, no, wait, you can't be bothered, right right...
Was that in the article, or are you just prejudiced against Americans?
Not at all. Just some of them. Specifically, I'm prejudiced against people who choose to be wilfully ignorant, and are too lazy to investigate things before they attack them. I'm prejudiced against those who are intellectually lazy and close minded. Who gain their news from the little ticker that appears at the bottom of their favorite fear-spewing cable news channel, or the big bold text in the newspaper box they see on their way to work.
In short, I'm prejudiced against jackasses like yourself.
Hey, pop quiz: did you actually read everything I wrote, here, or did you just read the first sentence of the first paragraph, and then stop 'cuz, you know, there's so many words 'n' stuff!
I lived on Tarawa for a couple of years in my childhood. The islands are overpopulated and very fragile. A popular picnic destination when I was there was the island of Bikeman. Here's what is looked like in 1975. The Japanese built a causeway in the 1990s, which altered currents around the atoll. Here's Bikeman now, although that story falsely attributes the loss to rising sea levels. If that had been the case, the entire island chain would have disappeared. Bikeman was just a large sandbank that got washed away.
J Maarten Troost's book The Sex Lives Of Cannibals is a humorous yet insightful story of life on the islands, and is well worth a read.
Ydco co
A prediction is not a measurement. No matter how much you want it to be.
"Disingenuous", really? "Affect change"?
Please, do tell us how a loose group of mere thousands of people (connected mostly just by similar origin and culture), living in a pre-industrial way on very small islands spread over an area of continental US, was supposed to say "NO" to a "requests" of one of the greatest naval and generally industrial powers of the era (while being under the colonial rule already anyway); all in times which didn't attach much value to "savages"... (again, all assuming they would be even able to give informed consent)
You really shouldn't hold it back, you know; this needs to be shared with the world - it will have monumental effects on it for millenia to come / you will be surely remembered as one of the greatest political thinkers in known history / etc.
One that hath name thou can not otter