Five Solomon Islands Disappear Into The Pacific Ocean As A Result Of Climate Change (go.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Climate change strikes again. A paper published in the journal Environmental Research Letters says five of the Solomon Islands have completely submerged underwater due to man-made climate change, and six more have experienced a dramatic reduction in shoreline. The Solomon Islands has a population of a little more than 500,000 people, many of whom have been adversely affected by rising sea levels in recent years. NASA scientist James Hansen estimated that seas could rise by seven meters within the next century. In 2014, Losing Ground issued a report that shows how large areas of the Louisiana coastline are being lost to rising sea levels. A 2011 study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey determined that the state's wetlands were being lost at a rate of "a football field per hour." Michael Edison Hayden writes from ABC News, "The Solomon Islands provides a preview of how sea-level rise could affect other coastal communities in the coming years, according to the study, largely because the speed which erosion is taking place has been accelerated by a "synergistic interaction" with the waves that surround it.

Comments

SAVE THE BAGS

[For a Free Internet]

Only a socialist planned economy can save human culture. The only way out of this crisis passes through the dictatorship of the proletariat. Reforge the Fourth International!!!!!!!

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[MightyMartian]

How about just pricing fossil fuels to take into account extant and future climate change, and then let the market find the solution? Is the market capable of finding solutions to finite and/or expensive resources or not?

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[frovingslosh]

How about just pricing fossil fuels

Yea. The oil companies are not making enough money already. They should just do like you suggest and raise prices so their profits can be higher. Lets raise prices until people start freezing to death and no one without a Tesla can get to work.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[Anonymous Coward]

The markets cannot override the laws of physics. Hell, the markets routinely disobey what economists think are the rules of the markets. The markets are imaginary. They were invented to justify the actions of amoral people.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[Sowelu]

I think the idea is that it's a tax, which goes into a fund to ameliorate climate change effects. Doesn't help the oil companies (unless you count preventing them from being sued for climate change because it's now out of their hands). Sucks for energy availability to the poor though. I wonder what fifty years of suffering through that would do to our infrastructure though. Mass deaths? Cheap and ubiquitous mass transit and subsidized heat efficiency improvements to housing?

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[Anonymous Coward]

They could take the revenue from the taxes and hire China to make the islands bigger.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[TheGratefulNet]

did he say that ALL the profit should go to the oil companies?

of course, they own the congress and no one says anything bad about our FRIENDS, the texans (even if not from texas).

but I could imagine pricing fuel so that it motivates everyone to find better choices; and the excess should go into REBUILDING our infrastructure.

how's that for a plan?

nah, would never work. sounds too much like that word that the R's hate that starts with an S.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[Anonymous Coward]

because that would make them too expensive to be used which would cause societal failure now rather than 100+ years from now. You can't just jack up taxes on something and hope it'll go away. We need working solutions first, ones that can offer the energy density/cost needed, then we can talk about switching. Even the market must conform to physical laws. It's too bad political ideologues (and their religious cousins) don't have to.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[Anonymous Coward]

Based upon a $3.00 gallon of gasoline, the average break-down is as follows.

Gasoline Retailer $.01 cents per gallon
Oil Company $.08 cents per gallon
Refining $.29 cents per gallon
Marketing/Distribution $.32 cents per gallon
Cost of crude $1.71 per gallon (delivered)

Taxes $.59 cents per gallon - no one in the gubmint got their hands dirty supplying oil but they take the lion's share.

Who is gouging who?

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

The idea is that if you increase the taxes on something that's destroying our planet, the green alternatives will become cheaper than oil by default and people will be forced to make the right choice.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Except that doesn't solve the issue he points out.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[Applehu Akbar]

"How about just pricing fossil fuels to take into account extant and future climate change"

One approach could be to tariff imported oil to keep the gasoline price in the US at, say, $3.50/gal. If a Republican is elected this year, we can include Canadian production in the 'domestic' side of the tariff area. This will cause several good things to happen at once, videlicet:

1. The Ay-rab world is screwed and will go bankrupt. Good riddance as funding for international terrorism disappears.
2. Domestic oil production is encouraged, and employment in the oil patch maintained.
3. A somewhat higher but stable gas price encourages electric vehicle proliferation.
4. The revenue can be earmarked for carbon-free energy independence infrastructure. Our Navajo would no longer have to sell most of their uranium to France.
5. If we can replace enough domestic oil usage with carbon-free energy, we might even export domestic oil. Everybody wins except for OPEC.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[Trogre]

Tariffs.

You, a sovereign state, can't force the oil companies to charge more, but you can raise the tariffs on them. Then the oil companies don't get more money per barrel, but you do.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

Apart from the cost of buying the car itself, the green alternatives are usually barely more expensive than fossil fuels. And for electric cars, they're cheaper in the long run.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[jblues]

Australia briefly introduced a carbon tax, some of which went to the poor and elderly whose portion of daily living costs towards energy was so significant that their quality of live would be significantly effected. Carbon emissions went down and the economy was stimulated by R&D in high-tech renewable energy - solar, wind, nuclear, etc.

The situation, of course, did not last long. Rupert Murdoch and his friends went hard against it in the media. When laws forced them to provide balanced points of view, social engineering was used - flooding the comments section with "anonymous" contrarian opinions and "misinformed" data. They got their preferred oil-interest backed party back into power, who, it seems, successfully argued that wind-mills are utterly offensive while coal is as good for humanity today, as it was at the start of the industrial revolution.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[AmazingRuss]

This is going to be hard for you to accept, but you got modded down because you said something stupid, and may, in fact, be an idiot.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[dcooper_db9]

no one in the gubmint got their hands dirty supplying oil

Are you joking? Did you not see the price tag on the second gulf war?

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[JonWan]

I don't know where you got those figures, but the retailer makes more than $.01 per gallon. In 1972 the gas station I worked at made about $.05 per gallon on regular and that was when prices at ~$.38 ish cents per gallon (~ $1.40 now). I doubt they make less than that now.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[Anonymous Coward]

Based upon a $3.00 gallon of gasoline, the average break-down is as follows.

Gasoline Retailer $.01 cents per gallon Oil Company $.08 cents per gallon Refining $.29 cents per gallon Marketing/Distribution $.32 cents per gallon Cost of crude $1.71 per gallon (delivered)

Taxes $.59 cents per gallon - no one in the gubmint got their hands dirty supplying oil but they take the lion's share.

Who is gouging who?

I work in the oil industry providing logistics software as a service. Let me reformat your list, again based on $3.00 per gallon of gasoline (your numbers are off but they're mostly besides the point):

$0.01 per gallon Gasoline retailer
$0.08 per gallon Oil company
$0.29 per gallon Oil company (refining)
$0.32 per gallon Oil company (marketing and distribution)
$1.71 per gallon Oil company (crude extraction and delivery)
$0.59 per gallon taxes

Totals:

$2.40 per gallon Oil company
$0.59 per gallon Taxes (seems like a good price for the roads and infrastructure and environmental cleanups involved, no?)
$0.01 per gallon Gasoline retailer

And at every step of the way, the oil companies push off every last inch of risk and liability they can, but hook and by crook, on whomever they can force it.

You, sir, are ignorant and a fool. And spewing your ignorance and foolishness all over the 'net is a detriment to us all.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[Layzej]

British Columbia has one now that's been quite successful: "We've grown our economy at the same time we've had what the World Bank calls the most successful carbon taxes in the world." - http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[Anonymous Coward]

One approach could be to tariff imported oil to keep the gasoline price in the US at, say, $3.50/gal.

You haven't been paying attention. The USA is now a net oil exporter, thanks to fracking and horizontal drilling.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[thunderclap]

Nah, just back to $100 a barrel is fine. That way the places that are warm year around (which coincidentally happen to be oil producing regions) don't have any short falls.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[ShanghaiBill]

Gasoline Retailer $.01 cents per gallon

Within 5 miles of my house, gas prices vary by 40 cents per gallon (Chevron is the highest, Rotten Robbie is the lowest). So there is no way that the retail margin is only 1 cent.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[Anonymous Coward]

How stupid. That HURT the supply of oil. Obviously. If Dubya had put his arm around Saddam after 9/11, we'd have been awash in oil without spending a dime, and we'd have had an enormously more effective ally against Al Qaeda.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[funwithBSD]

Number 1 is already happening:

http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/1...

Saudi Arabia just made major replacements in it's government to deal with the collapsing income crisis.

Most oil countries based their economy on $100 or higher oil prices and their citizens do not want to give up the perks now that it is in the $40s.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[Skuld-Chan]

I don't think anyone has seen the final sticker price for that.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[Gavagai80]

The goal of war is not to improve the supply of oil, it's to profit. Halliburton and many others made their money from contracts they'd never have gotten without the war.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy a gas station and then publish the books. Prove it wrong.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[dryeo]

Does the retailer or the oil company set the price? Where I am, all gas stations go up and down in price in lock step and talking to the cashiers, they get a phone call that sets the price.
It would be nice to have some actual competition instead of the most expensive gas in N. America, but at least locally, the independent gas station is dead and the 5 or 6 oil companies don't seem to have any interest in competing, at least in gasoline sales. Diesel does vary and all gas stations sell junk food which is where they make their money.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[sycodon]

That, by definition, is in no way related to the Market.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as it pains me to do this, your assertions are so one sided that I'm afraid I'm gonna have to ask you to provide as least a suggestion of where you got these numbers.

Because as we all know, ACs can make up whatever shit they want.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[thegarbz]

Look up the terminal gate price. You'll be amazed at just how many companies take a loss in retail and move those accounting figures around. Now this may not be the case ink the USA but certainly in all the parts of the world I've lived in the margains were indeed razor thin and boosted by ludicrously overpriced "additional services and products" such as a service garage or my favourite the stat that BP is the largest coffee provider in New Zealand and that coffee is by an order of magnitude the largest margain item at a service station.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[MrL0G1C]

It may well be treated as a loss-leader, cheap gasoline, expensive everything else.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[Anonymous Coward]

Gasoline Retailer $.01 cents per gallon

Do you work for Verizon?

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[ledow]

Already done by most first-world countries.

It's GBP 1.20 per litre, here in the UK. Do the conversion and exchange - that's about $6.5 per gallon.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[sociocapitalist]

"no one in the gubmint got their hands dirty supplying oil but they take the lion's share"

How much does it cost to subsidize the entire road infrastructure of the country?

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[Anonymous Coward]

Based upon a $3.00 gallon of gasoline, the average break-down is as follows.

Gasoline Retailer $.01 cents per gallon ....
Taxes $.59 cents per gallon - no one in the gubmint got their hands dirty supplying oil but they take the lion's share.

Who is gouging who?

Seriously? You're complaining about 20% tax on your fuel? And I bet that tax is deductable anyway if you set up your affairs correctly.

Try coming to the UK, where we have fuel duties that are significantly higher than that, and then they add the standard sales tax on top *as well*.

But understand this: I'm not complaining. I full support high taxes on fuel. People need to quit complaining about it; all you need to do is buy a more fuel efficient car, or you know, maybe even try walking occasionally.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[ChunderDownunder]

nuclear

Say what?

Bob Hawke and Jay Weatherill want to build a nuclear waste dump but there's no suggestion in the report released on Friday that there's any urgency to embrace nuclear power. The NIMBYs have killed that idea stone cold except for a few maverick Liberals.

Dr James Jansson of the Science Party is the only one seriously floating nuclear technology as a climate change busting option in this forthcoming election. I'm hardly pro-nuke but I welcome his pragmatic boldness on the matter - having Nick X and the black wiggle holding the balance of power isn't necessarily optimal; the more diversity of opinion in the senate the merrier.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[Errol backfiring]

I use a whike, you insensitive clod!

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[silentcoder]

My aunt went on a diet but, like so many, she didn't lose much weight and regained what little she did - based on your logic, I can therefore conclude that losing weight was never the intention of going on a diet.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[Anonymous Coward]

Ostensibly, nearly the entire point of fuel levies is to pay for road maintenance (since there's usually a strong correlation between fuel use and road use). The secondary purpose is economics - with margins as low as they are fuel prices are dependant on the underlying costs, which tend to vary. But when fuel price fluctuates too much it pushes a rather undesirable form of consumer inflation, but this can be mitigated by varying the fuel levy so that the the fuel price remains stable. (to maintain the roads, the relevant department needs a reliable source of funding over time, but is not affected much by short-term fluctuations, so it makes sense to offload the variability onto them)

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[silentcoder]

Generally speaking the green alternatives are actually cheaper in many cases.

In fact - you don't know how much cheaper.

My father is an electrical engineer - he is actually encouraging people now to BORROW money to go full solar - because the gains are so big that even while paying interest on the capital outlay you are still making a profit compared to remaining on the coal grid. It's a fairly complicated set of equations -starting with a highly conservative estimate of a mere 10% per annum increase in the coal electricity price (it's been consistently higher than that for years). A consideration of likely interest rates on a 20-year loan for the typical cost of a full solar+battery setup on a home and the monthly repayments. By year 5 the solar savings exceed the repayments. By year 7 (again conservative as they are actually rated for 10 years) you need to replace the batteries but you've already saved more than they cost (assuming less than half the annual decreases in costs that have been the trend so far). Etc. etc. etc.
Oh and the calculation assumes no solar subsidies at all (they don't exist here, they used to exist for solar water heaters but those ended last year)

NOTE: These calculations were done in South Africa - they may not be true in your specific country, the cost of local grid power varies widely and will influence the math and timelines - they are merely given to illustrate how competitive green tech can actually be.

For large scale central grid generation green energy can also be more economic. Again - in South Africa the government is currently trying to negotiate a deal (with the builders of Chernobyl of all companies) to build 5 new nuclear generators. The 5 nukes are estimated to reach completion in 20 years and cost 15 billion dollars - each. That's 20 years before the first one comes online and due to the high cost we can only afford it if we build them in series (i.e. we'll be busy building nukes for the next 100 years)

No nuke in history has ever been finished on time or on budget and there are strong economic arguments that it's actually impossible to do so - but let's be generous and assume that they can manage it. How would it compare if we were to build equivalent large solar installations (maybe using molten salt towers as those are better for grid power since they operate at night as well) ? Building a decent sized molten salt tower takes about 2 years, costing maybe 1 billion. You can build multiple in parallel. To get the same output as all 5 nukes would give us in a century would cost maybe 12-billion (less than one nuke) and we can have them all by 2018...
And that's nuclear, probably the most cost effective and least harmful fossil fuel there is (to the extent that uranium can be called a fossil fuel).

The reality is that fossil fuels have been outdone in both economic and technological terms for a long while now - it's political corruption and nothing else that keeps it entrenched.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[silentcoder]

>The Ay-rab world is screwed and will go bankrupt. Good riddance as funding for international terrorism disappears.

And instead we get world war 3. How enormously stupid are you ?
Yes we need to get rid of fossil fuels - we also need to do it without screwing the middle east... you do not want a bunch of countries with powermad dictators and big armies with lots of powerful weapons pissed at us.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[Anonymous Coward]

Gasoline Retailer $.01 cents per gallon

Within 5 miles of my house, gas prices vary by 40 cents per gallon (Chevron is the highest, Rotten Robbie is the lowest). So there is no way that the retail margin is only 1 cent.

One word explanation, futures.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[dcw3]

The goal of war is not to improve the supply of oil, it's to profit. Halliburton and many others made their money from contracts they'd never have gotten without the war.

Ah yes, because the Cabal doesn't mind killing off thousands of young soldiers, and injuring thousands more. We hear this rhetoric frequently, but nobody seems to be able to point a finger at who these mysterious bastards are. Can you?

Disclaimer: Certainly there are plenty of companies that profit off of war. I've worked in/around them (including being heavily involved in bidding on contracts), for nearly 40 yrs., and never come across anyone pushing for a conflict in order to make more profits, nor doing anything that would intentionally cause a soldier (on our side) harm.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[dcw3]

Just because your country decided to tax fuel more than ours does doesn't mean we shouldn't be able to complain about our own.

As for your suggestion that we walk more, there are no homes within walking distance of my office (and fwiw, I walked an hours just for the exercise yesterday). The U.S. is vastly more spread out than the U.K., so please stop trying to make a comparison...it's apples vs. oranges. We're not going to rebuild our entire infrastructure, and in many places you can't find affordable housing near work. In the DC area, many people commute for more than an hour because ... traffic sucks here, and the cost of housing is much cheaper 20+ miles out, so sure tax the people who can't afford to live closer more.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[danbert8]

It is. Most retail stations make more on pop, coffee, and hot dogs than they do on gas.

Re: SAVE THE BAGS

[Type44Q]

but nobody seems to be able to point a finger at who these mysterious bastards are.

But since they most definitely have (hell, these guys tend to brazenly out themselves), I have to call bullshit on your blatant attempt to frame the debate.

Really, should you be so quick to out yourself as a shill like that?)

Re: SAVE THE BAGS

[Anonymous Coward]

A minor assure, will you drive home on a road created by Tesla? Ford? GM? That's why the tax.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[jittles]

Gasoline Retailer $.01 cents per gallon

Within 5 miles of my house, gas prices vary by 40 cents per gallon (Chevron is the highest, Rotten Robbie is the lowest). So there is no way that the retail margin is only 1 cent.

That fluctuation in price may very well have to do with the cost of the location. If you're across the street from a very busy mall then your real estate prices will be higher. The margin is so razor thin that many mom and pop gas stations in California offer a cash discount because the 1-2% credit card fees really eat into their margins.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[Applehu Akbar]

These are nations whose warmaking power, conventional or terroristic, is purely dependent on their oil revenues. Take away most of that revenue, and they have to spend what they have left on scrambling for basic supplies, rather than anything resembling WW III.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[i_ate_god]

It will drive more people towards more efficient means of commuting. Whether it be more fuel efficient cars, electric cars, public transit, or decreasing the length of the commute by moving closer to work or finding a job closer to them, or may be even further encouragement for remote working.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[fche]

That sounds like a plan ... but the market value for 1-5ha reef islands washing away is pretty close to zero.

Re: SAVE THE BAGS

[Anonymous Coward]

It must hurt, then, that they have made it so easy for me to pay at the pump with my debit card and never have to go into their dirty building to pay for my fuel.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[ComputerGeek01]

Ugh, another goon who gets all of their news from the internet. Gasoline is a futures market; by the time it hits the retailers storage tank what they paid for it is so far removed from the current market price that is almost no correlation with crude oil. Yet if you looked at the prices side by side historically they appear to be tied together even though it takes a refinery two to three weeks to break a barrel of crude into useful products. That is because you are not being charged based on what it cost the gas station to get what they have. You are being charged based on what it would cost the station to replace that amount if they had to purchase it again that same day. Think about it, how often do you see the price of gasoline change at a station? Like eight to ten times a week? How often do you think that delivery truck stops by to fill the tanks, maybe once a week give or take based on location? Don't get me wrong, gas isn't some power house profit center. I am all too aware that it cannot compete with the kind of markup you get with coffee, energy drinks or junk food. But the crap about them only making one cent on each gallon was basically propaganda so that red necks would stop torching gas stations.

Why are we talking about gasoline and oil company profits anyway? Although the demand will always be there, gas is not, was not and has never been the most profitable part of a barrel of oil in terms of profit per unit of input. It's almost regarded as a waste product, and you see this periodically when refineries need to make room for other products and so they flood the market; name one other commodity that behaves like that. Oil companies will make literally any other product they can rather than waste it on producing gas.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[Anonymous Coward]

Less than the taxes collected on gas. That's why a lot of the gas tax goes towards subsidizing buses, trains, and airplanes - not just roads.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[dcooper_db9]

The US EIA doesn't break down the costs to sufficient detail. The Association for Convenience and Fuel Retailing claims that the markup on a gallon of gas is approximately 2 to 3 cents per gallon averaged over a five year period across all retail outlets. Even so, that 2-3 percent markup is not profit. The retailer still has to cover utilities, staff, rent, etc.

It's unusual for gas prices to consistently vary by 40 cents between two stations in close proximity. Most stations will vary by less than 10 cents. The most significant cost variation is driven by variations in rent. Higher traffic=higher rent. The next most significant factor is the retailer's strategy. Some stations will accept a lower margin in the hope they will make money on other products and services. A station with a lower price can sell more lottery tickets, cigarettes, and beer. Those stations make less per gallon but more total sales may add up to the same return on gas.

http://www.eia.gov/energyexpla... http://www.nacsonline.com/your...

Re: SAVE THE BAGS

[ifderpthengarp]

Do you know what markets are?

Re: SAVE THE BAGS

[Anonymous Coward]

At least in the UK you have the option of public transportation. Here in upstate NY the buses only stop "if the driver wants to" and a cab to work can cost as much as a tank of gas. I have lost so many jobs to our wonderful infrastructure.

Re: SAVE THE BAGS

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is corrupt politics keeping the alternatives artificially expensive.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[amicusNYCL]

Another way to think of it would be if the oil companies raised their own prices, and used the additional income as a revenue stream to increase their own offerings of alternative energy sources. They would charge more for oil and put that investment into clean energy. They're not always going to be "oil companies", not when there isn't any more oil (obviously that's a really, really long way into the future, but even so). The smart move for any company making money on fossil fuels is to use part of that money to position themselves to be a provider of clean energy as well.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[amicusNYCL]

The point that AC was making wasn't with the actual numbers, it was the claim that the oil company is making a profit every step of the way. AC even said this:

your numbers are off but they're mostly besides the point

Re: SAVE THE BAGS

[dcw3]

And yet you've supplied zero evidence of your claim, or of the claim that I'm a shill. And as for the shill part, anyone can look up my history here, it's quite a bit longer than yours, so feel free to link some of my shill commentary.

My claim stands, that I believe the GP's point is nothing more than conspiracy theory, with virtually no evidence, and all you've done is substantiate it.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

A Pigouvian solution has worked pretty well at reducing carbon emissions in British Columbia. I think you have to be careful about how you implement it, but it's probably the best way I've heard.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

Ah yes, the "war for oil" claim again. Tell me, do you know how much of Iraq's oil actually went to the US? Because it's pretty much none of it. Most oil companies operating in Iraq aren't even American companies.

Re:SAVE THE BAGS

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

This garbage got +4? Really? Most oil companies don't do all of the above steps - most refineries aren't the same company as the people who pump it out of the ground. And all of those steps cost quite a bit. Furthermore, it seems like with $0.59 per gallon, American roads and bridges should be in a much better state than they are.

Then why is the WH stonewalling AGW doc release?

[Anonymous Coward]

A federal court has ruled that the Obama White House was stonewalling in its refusal to turn over global warming documents requested under the Freedom of Information law

In this most recent case, the Competitive Enterprise Institute was trying to force the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to release documents backing up Director John C. Holdren’s finding that global warming was making winters colder — a claim disputed by climate scientists. Mr. Holdren’s staffers first claimed they couldn’t find many documents, then tried to hide their release, saying they were all internal or were similar to what was already public.

But each of those claims turned out not to be true. “At some point, the government’s inconsistent representations about the scope and completeness of its searches must give way to the truth-seeking function of the adversarial process, including the tools available through discovery. This case has crossed that threshold,” the judge wrote.

The judge also ruled that they will now proceed with “discovery”, in which the courts will force the administration to release documents, under penalty of contempt.

The article also notes that this is the third time the courts have been forced to go this route with the Obama administration.

subduction, try it, its free!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh noes! AGW!

it's called subduction. while LA has land management problem not a sinking problem. as if the sea would only rise so dramatically in two specific remote (from each other) locations.

queue the standard agw noise. we have to rasie taxes to save er something....

Re:subduction, try it, its free!

[MightyMartian]

So you have some actual evidence that these islands sinking is due to subduction, right? As well as evidence that there is no sea level rise, right?

I mean, you wouldn't just be making this up because you have an infantile attitude towards life and are too much of a coward to ponder that maybe ,just maybe, the universe doesn't care about your tender little feelings.

Re: subduction, try it, its free!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've noticed you get incredibly angry in the comments of these AGW articles. Whenever someone questions AGW, you become unreasonably angry and lash out at people. It's like you're so desperately wanting AGW to be real that whenever someone says it's not, you respond like they just kicked your dog or something similar. Get over yourself.

Re: subduction, try it, its free!

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, i do. i used this thing called "google" and from there learned all about plates and subduction and building patterns in LA.

i didnt have an email scandal, faked hockey stick graphs, destroyed raw data, tweaked up fake data for the public, rewritten historical data, or have to threaten my academic opposition with jail via the RICO act. have you any actual clean data tp back up your religious silly feelings?

i laugh when i see hansen is quoted as saying anything. hes on record saying he makes fake mountains out of tiny science mole hills to push his agenda.

oh and for the record, i dont get paid by anyone in any way related to any of this stuff. im not on the take. can you honestly say the same thing?

Re: subduction, try it, its free!

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

AC is right. AGW is not real, one plus one equals three, god created everything and systemd is better than Arduino.

Re: subduction, try it, its free!

[PopeRatzo]

yes, i do. i used this thing called "google" and from there learned all about plates and subduction and building patterns in LA.

i didnt have an email scandal, faked hockey stick graphs, destroyed raw data, tweaked up fake data for the public, rewritten historical data, or have to threaten my academic opposition with jail via the RICO act. have you any actual clean data tp back up your religious silly feelings?

I had a feeling the ACs weren't going to like this story one bit. No sirree. You can't pull any of that climate change nonsense over their eyes. They're too smart for that.

Re:subduction, try it, its free!

[ShanghaiBill]

So you have some actual evidence that these islands sinking is due to subduction, right? As well as evidence that there is no sea level rise, right?

There is plenty of evidence that sea levels are rising ... by about 2.5mm per year, or about an inch per decade. There is no way that is enough to "sink an island". This article is the kind of stupid over-the-top alarmism that drives more people into the denialist camp.

Climate change is a serious problem that needs to be addressed, but it is not an imminent crisis. We don't need lies and hyperbolic exaggerations to scare people into taking action. That is counter-productive, and just leads to crisis-fatigue and loss of credibility. Nothing did more damage to the credibility of climate scientists than the wild exaggerations in the 2007 IPCC report, and this is just more of the same garbage.

Re: subduction, try it, its free!

[Anonymous Coward]

To my knowledge no AC has ever denied the existence of "climate change".

The climate has never not been changing.

Try using a term that actually describes what you're talking about,

Re: subduction, try it, its free!

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, we are too smart for it. thanks for noticing.

if you or martian, who i suspect is a paid shill, but like agw, there is no way to prove that, actually did any research into land use patterns in LA or how the rest of the earth actually works (uncontested by anyone that plate techtonics, subduction, earthquakes, etc are reesl, unlike agw), then youd easily see this so called paper for the garbage it is.

my HS science teacher would reject anything i turned in so poorly researched or backed, yet these clowns want us to change society globally, without any proof or questions allowed (RICO Act), based solely on their agenda driven nonsense.

ive posed several questons and only been markd down by agw religious silly nutters and otherwise ignored, but my questions and statements are real and serious, whereas the replies from agw religious nutters are barely coherent or on topic.

im not surprised. go smoke another bowl before replying again.

Re:subduction, try it, its free!

[terjeber]

So you have some actual evidence that these islands sinking is due to subduction, right?

I don't think he needs it. According to the most alarming numbers, sea levels have risen some 10 cm in the past century. If we have already lost three islands to increased sea level, those islands would have to be on average 10 cm tall or so. Even assuming that the rise in sea level has strong local variations, we're talking about some really flat islands here.

In most places I've been to around the Pacific, the tide variation is more than 10 cm. So, how do we know that these islands are primarily sinking due to subduction? Easy. Here's how we know that they are gone because of rising sea levels. if the islands, 100 years ago, were under water every time the tide was high, and now are under water permanently, it is possible (but not demonstrated) that the islands are gone due to rising sea levels. If the islands were permanently dry, and they were significantly taller than 10 cm 100 years ago, then we know that their "disappearance" is due to subduction since it couldn't be cause by rising sea levels.

Re:subduction, try it, its free!

[goose-incarnated]

So you have some actual evidence that these islands sinking is due to subduction, right? As well as evidence that there is no sea level rise, right?

With a sea rise of (best case) 2.5mm/year, I really have to ask - how short do you think these islands were?

Re:subduction, try it, its free!

[rworne]

There's another, easier answer:

Erosion due to weather, wave, and tidal activity. This can be quite fast compared to the glacial rise of the sea level or tectonic plate movement.

From the paper in question:

Using time series aerial and satellite imagery from 1947 to 2014 of 33 islands, along with historical insight from local knowledge, we have identified five vegetated reef islands that have vanished over this time period and a further six islands experiencing severe shoreline recession

Reef islands? These are formed by coral that do not grow above the surface of the water. It's the sand and other junk that pile up on these reef islands that has washed/eroded away.

From Wikipedia (Solomon Islands):

while many of the smaller islands are simply tiny atolls covered in sand and palm trees.

I suppose mentioning that would be counterproductive to the scare-mongering.

Re:subduction, try it, its free!

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell is a "denialist"?

www.wattsupwiththat.com
www.climatedepot.com

Re: subduction, try it, its free!

[Type44Q]

To my knowledge no AC has ever denied the existence of "climate change".

That's an impressively large body of "knowledge" you've got there..

Re: subduction, try it, its free!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod down this throwaway, mods.

Re:subduction, try it, its free!

[amicusNYCL]

Wave action is what erodes and ultimately destroys islands, and any increase in the water level is going to have an effect on wave action.

That being said, from looking at the pictures in the PDF report it kind of looks like this can be explained by extreme weather events, like a cyclone. One of the islands has completely moved since the 1940s. As in, its current boundaries and its boundaries in the 1940s do not overlap at all. That sounds like "regular" erosion of island land brought on by extreme weather events. Whether those events are related to global warming would be another issue.

Re:subduction, try it, its free!

[Anonymous Coward]

>Climate change is a serious problem that needs to be addressed, but it is not an imminent crisis.
The greenland ice is melting way faster than expected. I live in the netherlands, so I beg to disagree. Or rather, I sort of agree. The crisis is not 'imminent'. It's just a plain old crisis *right now*.

Re:subduction, try it, its free!

[CaptainLard]

then we know that their "disappearance" is due to subduction since it couldn't be cause by rising sea levels.

Do "we" really know that or did you just pick something out of the "hat of earth's physical effects not including global warming"? Scientists know quite a bit about plate tectonics including where major faultlines are and how to measure drift and subduction. You want to find something other than rising sea levels to blame it on? Great! Go find it. Don't just pick it.

Re:subduction, try it, its free!

[lamer01]

Not true about reef islands being just atolls. Anguilla for example is a 'reef' island but those reefs are gigantic and ancient. The island has peaks that are quite high although overall the island is rather flat.

Re:subduction, try it, its free!

[terjeber]

You have a point. Science is about falsification. Science can not say much about what we know as such, it can only say things that we do not know. Now, at the moment, there are two known ways an island can disappear into the sea, subduction and rising sea levels. Since we have excluded rising sea levels, there is only one possible explanation at the moment. If someone can come up with other possibilities, then that would be another alternative to rising sea levels, which we still know it is not.

If you have alternatives to subduction and rising sea levels, I am all ears.

Re:subduction, try it, its free!

[rworne]

That may be true, but the ones talked about here are just the smaller ones that were created more recently, geologically speaking.

Re:subduction, try it, its free!

[gzuckier]

Wave action is what erodes and ultimately destroys islands, and any increase in the water level is going to have an effect on wave action.

That being said, from looking at the pictures in the PDF report it kind of looks like this can be explained by extreme weather events, like a cyclone. One of the islands has completely moved since the 1940s. As in, its current boundaries and its boundaries in the 1940s do not overlap at all. That sounds like "regular" erosion of island land brought on by extreme weather events. Whether those events are related to global warming would be another issue.

that was the point of the paper.
"Discussion
At least eleven islands across the northern Solomon Islands have either totally disappeared over recent decades or are currently experiencing severe erosion. However, islands in the more sheltered Roviana area of the southern Solomon Islands did not experience significant coastal recession." http://iopscience.iop.org/arti...

Re: subduction, try it, its free!

[dywolf]

http://www.npr.org/2016/05/10/...

Meanwhile Miami Beach is already underwater

Re: subduction, try it, its free!

[dywolf]

Inches not centimeters

Re: subduction, try it, its free!

[terjeber]

No, centimeters. about 4 inches.

Lies

[legRoom]

...five of the Solomon Islands have completely submerged underwater due to man-made climate change...

That's a bold-faced lie. The total global sea level rise since 1880 is less than 25 cm (10 inches), according to the EPA. The natural tidal range of the oceans is of the order of one metre (several feet). Any island that has "submerged" during that time period did so primarily because of other factors, such as the ground subsiding, or erosion driven by the wind and the waves.

This is especially obvious when you consider that anthropogenic global warming is not believed to have reached significant levels until around 1950 (if then).

As for houses washing away and such - any land that can be "submerged" solely by a sea level change of 25 cm was already getting scoured regularly by waves, storm surges, etc.

Re:Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Except you forget about how much those Republicans hate us. They want the poor to drown. To drown. That's how they be.

Re: Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

They are truly the party of death.

Re:Lies

[JoeMerchant]

Wave driven erosion can be dramatically accelerated by a small rise in water level. Were these islands on their way out anyway? Maybe not, if sea level were moving in the other direction.

Re:Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

...five of the Solomon Islands have completely submerged underwater due to man-made climate change...

That's a bold-faced lie. The total global sea level rise since 1880 is less than 25 cm (10 inches), according to the EPA. The natural tidal range of the oceans is of the order of one metre (several feet). Any island that has "submerged" during that time period did so primarily because of other factors, such as the ground subsiding, or erosion driven by the wind and the waves.

This is especially obvious when you consider that anthropogenic global warming is not believed to have reached significant levels until around 1950 (if then).

As for houses washing away and such - any land that can be "submerged" solely by a sea level change of 25 cm was already getting scoured regularly by waves, storm surges, etc.

Read the paper. It is short, linked, and not technical.

They aren't claiming that the island got submerged due to sea level changes. They are claiming that it got eroded.

As sea levels go up, erosion (in the form of waves) gets worse. They claim that the increased erosion has completed wiped out the islands. This is a separate effect from your silly claim of a lie. You can read the paper for how they try and separate the erosion from other effects like El Nino and tides.

Re:Lies

[mrchaotica]

It's "bald-faced lie." (As in, a lie so brazen that you don't even use facial hair to hide your smirking expression.) If you're going to use the idiom, at least get it right!

Re: Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

The republicans are sinking our islands!

Everytime you vote republican, an island sinks somewhere!

Re:Lies

[Gussington]

As for houses washing away and such - any land that can be "submerged" solely by a sea level change of 25 cm was already getting scoured regularly by waves, storm surges, etc.

Ok I don't want to get involved in stupid AGW arguments, but I used to live in a place that lost it's beach when a new ferry service started up nearby.
The ferry only generated wake of a few cms, but the constant wake, along a water system that wasn't used to it caused a significant change in the ecosystem.
So yeah, there's probably a bit more to it than just raw numbers.

Re:Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Got the evidence to support that nonsense?

Re:Lies

[legRoom]

Did you look at the EPA graph? I'm being waaaaayyyy too generous when I make it sound like AGW sea level rise-to-date could be as much as 25 cm.

The rate of rise was astonishingly constant from the beginning of the record in 1880 (allegedly ~70 years before man-made warming became meaningful), up until about 2000.

There is a small bump at the end representing approximately the last seven years. The size of that bump? About 2 cm. (Also, the bump is shrinking now and was never there to begin with in the satellite record; it's only present in the tide gauge data. There's a good chance it's just noise.)

The average annual sea level rise prior to the bump was about 0.15 cm, meaning that the bump accelerated the inevitable natural end of the "islands" by less than twenty years, even if you want to blame a non-linear increase in wave erosion. Colour me unimpressed, seeing as real islands generally don't have expiration dates that are humanly relevant, at all.

Re:Lies

[legRoom]

They are claiming that it got eroded, and that it wouldn't have if the sea level were a tiny bit lower. There is no way they can know that, especially since the actual sea level rise-to-date which is possibly attributable to AGW is more like 2 cm, not 25 cm.

This is a separate effect from your silly claim of a lie.

The statement in the summary, at least, is a lie because they are asserting a definitive cause-and-effect relationship where there is - at best - an unprovable possibility of one, rather than actual solid evidence for one. The claim is being sensationalized.

Re:Lies

[legRoom]

The point is, that if the land was at such low elevation, or so fragile, that it could be submerged or destroyed by a tiny rise in sea level (probably more like 2 cm, than 25 cm), there is no way that anyone can assert a definitive cause-and-effect relationship between CO2 emissions and the islands disappearing. There is a high probability that it was going to disappear anyway, even without the extra 2 (or if you insist, 25) cm.

Re:Lies

[legRoom]

"Bold-faced lie" is also an English idiom, albeit likely of more recent origin.

Also, since the phrase makes sense by itself, even without having heard it before, it is a valid, meaningful English phrase even if you refuse to acknowledge idioms coined after [insert arbitrary date here].

Re:Lies

[raind]

Misleading /. headlines for click is how this corp rolls, doesn't mean I won't sell you some land on the FL coast - interested?

Re:Lies

[dwywit]

Wait - you're quoting this very slashdot discussion to support your argument?

Well done.

Re:Lies

[phantomfive]

We're doomed, actually, check out this study that predicts seven meters of sea level rise by the end of the century. That is not a joke: it's a real, peer reviewed scientific paper.

Re:Lies

[legRoom]

Unless it's at least 10m above sea level, it was always a dumb place to build anything you don't want to get wet. Hurricanes are not new...

Re:Lies

[legRoom]

Sorry, I forgot the post I linked doesn't include the link to the EPA graph which is my actual source: https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/science/indicators/oceans/sea-level.html

Re:Lies

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

CNN had an article a few years back hyperventilating about GW and a small island nation sinking and slowly evacuating over the years. In the fine print they admitted it was the land sinking, not oceans rising, but seas rising our future!

In another after the terrible tsunami, they hyperventilate again with the headline "sea rise from GW will be like the tsunami zomgggg!" In the fine print they meant 30 feet not over seconds but 300 years.

Also New Orleans is sinking because the river delta is bottled up instead of meandering back and forth over centuries and no longer deposits fresh silt everywhere to boost the slowly compressing silt. This was figured out long ago.

Re:Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you mean they can't know that? They have plenty of records of the erosion patterns of islands of various sizes over the years.

Re: Lies

[Bartles]

Of course they were on the way out. It's called entropy.

Re:Lies

[chipschap]

Unfortunately it seems like there are lies and deception and agendas on both sides of the AGW issue.

If we would only take an objective look at objective science, we'd actually have an answer that all reasonable people should agree on.

I say "should" because of course they won't. It seems like even reasonable people lose reason when it comes it AGW.

Re:Lies

[dmbrun]

The natural tidal range of the oceans is of the order of one metre (several feet).

That's at sea. NOT on the coastline.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Lies

[edibobb]

Global warming is affecting the ocean and waves and that affects the islands, but the islands were definitely not submerged. They were eroded, which can occur for a lot of reasons. It's kind of funny that one of the islands rose by 60 cm because of an earthquake.

Re:Lies

[legRoom]

The post you replied to is addressing claims that AGW-induced sea level rise is already causing significant damage, which is clearly bogus. One of the reasons I am sceptical of the claims of sea level doom, is the fact that its prophets seem incapable of distinguishing clearly between predictions about the future, and present reality.

That is not a joke: it's a real, peer reviewed scientific paper.

And there are other "real, peer reviewed scientific paper"s that say the number will be more like 2 meters. Almost as if the science is not settled...

Moreover, all of the catastrophic sea level prophecies depend upon the larger anthropogenic global warming theory, which has several problems:

1) It's predictive record is very poor; numerous specific claims from prominent individuals and organizations have already been falsified by the passage of time. We have already overshot some of the worst-case CO2 emission predictions from early in the movement, and yet we have also undershot some of the best-case temperature predictions, suggesting that the climate's sensitivity to additional CO2 is far lower than claimed. The AGW movement has quietly adjusted their predicted temperature rise downward quite substantially, while still maintaining that the situation is as dangerous as ever.

2) The models are extremely vague, imprecise, and mutually contradictory. The only specific thing they seem to agree on, is that we're doomed. :eyeroll:

3) The data with which the models are calibrated is of very low quality; the error bars are huge on almost everything, especially prior to about 1990 (or 2000?) when modern sensor networks started coming online. Definitive claims are frequently made about time periods for which we have no solid data at all, and the past data that we do have is constantly being "adjusted" and "corrected" - conveniently, usually in a direction that magnifies any upward temperature trends.

4) We've already passed several of the drop-dead dates set by the AGW prophets - the "If you don't act by XXXX, it will be too late!" dates. But of course they just set new ones and pretend like the last round never happened...

(Yes, there are sources for all of the above. But it's exhausting to compile all the links to the standards required by internet critics, so I'm not going to do it right now. Maybe later if someone asks, but really - it's not that hard to Google it if you really care - you just have to be willing to read the heretical websites of the dreaded "climate deniers" like WattsUpWithThat.com, who will in turn link you back to the relevant government, peer-reviewed, and mainstream media sources if you look hard enough.)

Finally, even if it really happens, a seven meter sea level rise over the course of a century or so obviously will not "doom" us. The vast majority of land on Earth is at a much higher elevation than that. Some specific areas (like Florida) would be hit pretty hard, but the predicted rise is still slow enough to give people plenty of time to relocate further inland/uphill if required. It would be expensive - but so would giving up all fossil fuels.

Re:Lies

[legRoom]

Unfortunately it seems like there are lies and deception and agendas on both sides of the AGW issue.

This is true. In the absence of clarity though, I think the sensible thing is not to panic, discard the foundation of the world's energy economy, and cede power to a global government. That may just be me, though.

Hopefully renewables and/or nuclear (fission or fusion) will eventually get good enough (actually good enough, without excessive subsidies) that people won't want to mess around with fossil fuels, and then we can put the whole argument to rest.

Re:Lies

[mrchaotica]

Your post reminds me of a story in South Sea Tales by Jack London in which people ride out a hurricane on a low-lying island by tying themselves to the palm trees.

Re:Lies

[Terakkan]

They also don't mention that the flooding controls they put in place in Louisiana are keeping the natural silt deposits which replenish the coastline being lost to natural processes from rebuilding the coast.

Re:Lies

[legRoom]

"Of the order" is a science/engineering term meaning "very roughly", within a factor of two to ten (depending on the context). I was just too lazy to go look up the actual numbers, so thanks for the link.

It looks like the actual range is 0-16 meters depending on the location, but with most beaches being very much at the lower end of that range.

Re:Lies

[rubycodez]

the oceans have been rising since the last ice age, these islands essentially at sea level already of course were on their way out this century or two centuries from now. Good thing the people got out now before there were even more people that had to evacuate

Re:Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot.

Re:Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Got the evidence to support that nonsense?

You're asking us to give you a link to the very paper we're talking about, It's the first link in the summary.
Your question is explained in the paper, and in more detail in a referral paper.

This has got to be the among the most stupid posts possible.
What do you want from us? Should we read the paper for you into a video and post it on youtube?
Do we need to explain the big words as we go along?

Re:Lies

[quantaman]

They are claiming that it got eroded, and that it wouldn't have if the sea level were a tiny bit lower. There is no way they can know that, especially since the actual sea level rise-to-date which is possibly attributable to AGW is more like 2 cm, not 25 cm.

This is a separate effect from your silly claim of a lie.

The statement in the summary, at least, is a lie because they are asserting a definitive cause-and-effect relationship where there is - at best - an unprovable possibility of one, rather than actual solid evidence for one. The claim is being sensationalized.

The summary definitely overstates things. But the paper itself is guilty of none of the things you imply.

There's actually a link to the entire paper with the abstract, I'll even helpfully bold the important bits:

Low-lying reef islands in the Solomon Islands provide a valuable window into the future impacts of global sea-level rise. Sea-level rise has been predicted to cause widespread erosion and inundation of low-lying atolls in the central Pacific. However, the limited research on reef islands in the western Pacific indicates the majority of shoreline changes and inundation to date result from extreme events, seawalls and inappropriate development rather than sea-level rise alone. Here, we present the first analysis of coastal dynamics from a sea-level rise hotspot in the Solomon Islands. Using time series aerial and satellite imagery from 1947 to 2014 of 33 islands, along with historical insight from local knowledge, we have identified five vegetated reef islands that have vanished over this time period and a further six islands experiencing severe shoreline recession. Shoreline recession at two sites has destroyed villages that have existed since at least 1935, leading to community relocations. Rates of shoreline recession are substantially higher in areas exposed to high wave energy, indicating a synergistic interaction between sea-level rise and waves. Understanding these local factors that increase the susceptibility of islands to coastal erosion is critical to guide adaptation responses for these remote Pacific communities.

I don't see these definitive claims you speak of, instead I see "sea level rise predicts X, here we observe and analyze some X that's consistent with sea level rise". I'd be more careful before making sensational claims of sensationalization.

Re:Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is, that if the land was at such low elevation, or so fragile, that it could be submerged or destroyed by a tiny rise in sea level (probably more like 2 cm, than 25 cm), there is no way that anyone can assert a definitive cause-and-effect relationship between CO2 emissions and the islands disappearing. There is a high probability that it was going to disappear anyway, even without the extra 2 (or if you insist, 25) cm.

What you just said is a well-justified complaint against the summary. However, the summary has no relationship whatsoever to what the authors of the paper on iop.org say. It's an interesting read and cover all ground.

BTW, the actual measured local sea level rise in the Solomons since 1994 is 15 cm. It should be noted that the Solomons sea level rise is among the highest globally.
The paper goes on to say that this local rise may return to the global average, or perhaps not depending upon factors discussed in the paper.

Re: Lies

[Pseudonym]

Can entropy ever be reversed?

Re:Lies

[legRoom]

I have now read the entire paper. It is true that it does not ever directly attribute the sea level rise in the Solomon Islands to AGW. (The linked ABC news article does though - surely the scientists will be publicly denouncing the media's gross distortion of their claims any minute now... ?)

On the other hand, the premise of the paper is that sea level rise is responsible for significant loss of land area in the Solomon Islands (and the authors worked very hard to connect sea level rise to AGW at every opportunity, even though they didn't quite come out and say that AGW has actually caused any sea level rise yet).

That's a problem, because nowhere in their paper (that I could find, anyway) do they actually offer any evidence that the local sea level rise experienced by the Solomon Islands contributed meaningfully to the loss. They point out several other factors that likely dominated, one of which was erosion by wave action. They then attempt to connect this back to AGW with the following statement:

Wave energy can interact synergistically with localised sea-level rise (through changing wave refraction dynamics and more wave energy propagating across reef crest onto the coast) to exacerbate coastal erosion (Storlazzi et al 2015) and thus may be a key driver of the rapid coastal recession in the Solomon Islands. Further work is required to determine the relative importance of extreme wave events or incremental changes in incident wave energy and their interactions with sea-level on shoreline dynamics of islands.

Notice the operative words there: "can", "may be", and "further work is required". They don't actually have anything to say on the subject - that is, on the causal connection between sea level rise and increased wave erosion - other than "maybe you should read these other guys' papers" and "give us money and we'll write something too". But, they decided to name their paper after it anyway, and the media ran with it.

The main actual content of the study - once all of the background material and discussion is filtered out - is basically just:

1) Some statistics about the rates of erosion and accretion on various islands in the Central Pacific, including the Solomon Islands.
2) More statistics about the atmospheric and oceanic conditions over time around those islands - much of which was extrapolated, not measured.
3) A few anecdotes about communities that need to relocate - all of whom, from the sound of it, were in poor locations to begin with.

As someone else pointed out, the last graph clearly shows (if you know how to read the axes, anyway), that there was a net increase in land area for the islands chains studied; the authors simply chose to focus upon a specific few tiny islands that shrank.

Re: Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

With our current understanding of how things work, only locally. The average appears to be one way only.
Maxwell presented a thought experiment for entropy reversal, but that relied on deterministic/predictable particle movement.

Now, I'm not saying that it isn't possible, but apart from the universe existing it doesn't appear to happen naturally and any attempt at making it happen artificially have failed.

Re:Lies

[quantaman]

I have now read the entire paper. It is true that it does not ever directly attribute the sea level rise in the Solomon Islands to AGW. (The linked ABC news article does though - surely the scientists will be publicly denouncing the media's gross distortion of their claims any minute now... ?)

Welcome to science journalism, we're lucky they didn't talk about a nuclear war.

On the other hand, the premise of the paper is that sea level rise is responsible for significant loss of land area in the Solomon Islands (and the authors worked very hard to connect sea level rise to AGW at every opportunity, even though they didn't quite come out and say that AGW has actually caused any sea level rise yet).

That's a problem, because nowhere in their paper (that I could find, anyway) do they actually offer any evidence that the local sea level rise experienced by the Solomon Islands contributed meaningfully to the loss. They point out several other factors that likely dominated, one of which was erosion by wave action. They then attempt to connect this back to AGW with the following statement:

Wave energy can interact synergistically with localised sea-level rise (through changing wave refraction dynamics and more wave energy propagating across reef crest onto the coast) to exacerbate coastal erosion (Storlazzi et al 2015) and thus may be a key driver of the rapid coastal recession in the Solomon Islands. Further work is required to determine the relative importance of extreme wave events or incremental changes in incident wave energy and their interactions with sea-level on shoreline dynamics of islands.

It does make sense that sea level rise is going to increase wave erosion and it looks like they've seen ~15cm rise in sea level in that region which is pretty significant.

3) A few anecdotes about communities that need to relocate - all of whom, from the sound of it, were in poor locations to begin with.

As someone else pointed out, the last graph clearly shows (if you know how to read the axes, anyway), that there was a net increase in land area for the islands chains studied; the authors simply chose to focus upon a specific few tiny islands that shrank.

Figure 7? It's possible, they should have addressed it. If looks like smaller islands in specific were really shrinking, I'd be curious about the mechanism for how the bigger ones got larger. Is wave erosion spreading out sediment from the island itself making a larger beach or something?

I think there's also a scope question. This study isn't supposed to be a general overview of island erosion, they were narrowly focused on the smaller islands and the mechanisms that were causing them to shrink. The bigger atolls might be there for someone else to look at.

Re:Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately it seems like there are lies and deception and agendas on both sides of the AGW issue.

The problem here is the urge to see everything as having two sides. In the AGW debate, there is a large camp of proponents, with politicians in the front shouting the loudest, and a small group of deniers, incidentally also with politicians in the front, along with the fossil industry. And then there's all the people in the middle, who consider both sides to be as trustworthy as the politicians (i.e. not trustworthy at all), asking for falsifiable predictions rather than preaching - and we keep getting accused of being part of the small group of deniers.

By accusing us of being part of the group of deniers, all the proponents accomplish is:
1. It gets harder to convince us without solid proof (if you lie about me, why would I trust the rest of your message?
2. Putting their focus on the small already decided group, rather than trying to convince the large undecided group.

Re:Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

A paper published in the journal Environmental Research Letters says five of the Solomon Islands have completely submerged underwater due to man-made climate change

It is a complete and utter lie. I read the paper and nowhere in it does it mention man-made climate change. The person who submitted this story is trying to push his own agenda by piggybacking on to someone else's work.

Stay classy AGW nutjobs.

Re:Lies

[AmiMoJo]

That source doesn't show a 2 cm rise due to AGW, it just shows a 9cm rise since 1880 with no explanation. Also note that this is the global average, but some areas have experienced more and some less.

Re:Lies

[AmiMoJo]

Notice the operative words there: "can", "may be", and "further work is required". They don't actually have anything to say on the subject - that is, on the causal connection between sea level rise and increased wave erosion - other than "maybe you should read these other guys' papers" and "give us money and we'll write something too". But, they decided to name their paper after it anyway, and the media ran with it.

This is how science works. You don't start from scratch every time, proving basic physics and maths until you build up to your main point. You base your work on the work of others, building on it to advance the field. You avoid making definite statements when you can't be entirely sure, but suggest promising areas of further work.

I agree that the media has puffed this up into more than the paper warrants, but the paper itself is perfectly fine. You use a lot of weasel words and make baseless accusations, like saying they chose to focus on the islands that shrank as if it's part of some sinister plot to prove AGW is bad, when actually it was just the focus of the study. Not every study has to be a holistic review of all possible related issues, you know.

Re: Lies

[oobayly]

Is there a reason why increases in sea level vary globally. I can understand they may differ between - for example - the Atlantic and Mediterranean. But differently around the Pacific?

Re:Lies

[BinBoy]

Erosion isn't mentioned in the article until the second to last paragraph. Makes it nice and scary without being completely false.

Re: Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

That is a very good question...it would make a good last question...
LOL

Re:Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess people shouldn't live in Forida...

As the average height above sea level is only 6 feet.

Re:Lies

[angel'o'sphere]

1) It's predictive record is very poor; numerous specific claims from prominent individuals and organizations have already been falsified by the passage of time.
Nature is already way above predictions, it is warmer than predicted the last ten years, the sea level is higher than predicted. All evolutions are above the upper end of the error bars.
No idea what you are talking about.

4) We've already passed several of the drop-dead dates set by the AGW prophets - the "If you don't act by XXXX, it will be too late!"
No idea again, what you want to say here. Yes, we probably missed the chance to prevent the disaster.

Re: Lies

[Type44Q]

Only by life.

Re:Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

>You use a lot of weasel words and make baseless accusations

Sounds like legRoom and the authors of this study have something in common. "can", "may be", and "further work is required" are the very definition of "weasel words".

Re:Lies

[dywolf]

so what you're saying is that someone needs to explain to you, once again, the difference between a global average and a regional or local value, which can be markedly different from said average?

hell, you even named the cause of the main threat: storm surge.
even if the rise WAS limited to 10 inches, that 10 inches can cause an increase in storm surge volume of 30-60%, or more.

Re: Lies

[vel-ex-tech]

Sure it can. All you need is a good array of Heisenberg compensators and a source of chronoton radiation.

Re:Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

They are saying climate change is to blame. I'd believe the impact on storms alone could have done it. But when you add in sea level changes... look at the impact of storms in the US and how they change if you add even a few inches.
 
Getting real tired of anti-climate change apologists trying so hard to sound serious and correct.

Re: Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

There is insufficient data for a meaningful answer.

(Great story, BTW. One of Asimov's best.)

Re:Lies

[guardian-ct]

From the Key Points sidebar on that page: "After a period of approximately 2,000 years of little change (not shown here),...."
1880 is pretty close to being the end of the Second Industrial Revolution. That graph doesn't show what you think it does.

Re:Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

.his is especially obvious when you consider that anthropogenic global warming is not believed to have reached significant levels until around 1950 (if then).

Damn, so the Rock'n'roll revolution is never gonna happen.

Re:Lies

[centered]

I have a new Internet acronym to propose. :) RTEP.

It's based on a post by legRoom further down in this discussion, which I'm re-posting so everybody sees it. Here's the first sentence in their comment:

"by legRoom ( 4450027 ) on Monday May 09, 2016 @10:23PM (#52081427)
I have now read the entire paper."

So legRoom, this comment where you say "That's a bold faced lie..." was posted before you read the entire paper. I just can't believe how you posted links and argued so vehemently and you were so sure and yet you had only read a summary (and you are probably not a scientist if I had to guess).

RTEP legRoom. Read The Entire Paper.

Re:Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

They could hire China to build the islands up again. They definitely have the experience after their activity in the South China Sea.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/30/world/asia/what-china-has-been-building-in-the-south-china-sea-2016.html?_r=0

Re:Lies

[legRoom]

so what you're saying is that someone needs to explain to you, once again, the difference between a global average and a regional or local value, which can be markedly different from said average?

The "sea level rise" in the Solomon Islands was much larger than the global average. However, since gravity will naturally distribute melt water evenly across the world's oceans, that greater local rise cannot logically be attributed to global warming melting the ice caps.

What is causing it then? Often the land itself rises or sinks considerably faster than the actual sea level does; the original paper, for example, mentions that one of the islands studied sunk by 60 cm due to a large earthquake. The paper also says that by far the majority of the observed land area lost appears to have been due to erosion via wave action, often exacerbated by local construction activity, like dredging.

Shifts in regional weather patterns can also cause rapid changes in local sea level - however, these changes are bounded because the larger the local change, the harder gravity fights against it to return the water to the global average sea level. Thus, changes in weather patterns cannot, by themselves, cause long-term, sustained sea level rise; increased melting of the ice caps is the only plausible climate-related mechanism.

The paper mentions the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) as a likely major contributor to the rise in the Solomon Islands. AGW advocates will, of course, always attempt to blame any and every change in climate on mankind's CO2 emissions, but variation in the PDO is not new - that's why it has "Oscillation" in the name. Moreover, it has a cycle time measured in decades, and our (non-junk, direct observation-based) records of it only extend back a hundred years of so, so realistically we simply haven't observed it in detail for long enough to be able to tell whether the recent PDO cycle was within the normal range or not.

hell, you even named the cause of the main threat: storm surge. even if the rise WAS limited to 10 inches, that 10 inches can cause an increase in storm surge volume of 30-60%, or more.

The sea level has been rising at about the same rate for the entire period over which we have been measuring (since 1880). AGW is alleged not to have reached a measurable strength until some time after World War II. The rate of rise has not accelerated meaningfully since then; the reasonable conclusion (regardless of what may happen in the future) is that, as of today, all observed sea level rise has been natural in origin.

(The warnings of sea level rise-induced doom are all based upon a predicted - but not yet observed - rapid increase in the rate of sea level rise over the next hundred years or so; few people could say with a straight face that another 8 inches will destroy Florida or whatever.)

Re:Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty ballsy to call it a lie there, legRoom.

For it to be a lie it has to be a knowing untruth. What evidence do you have that the writer knew it was untrue?

And for the record, I've seen numerous public statements by Solomon islanders and their government, that they believe sea levels are rising and that AGW causes it. They may not be right but that doesn't make them liars. So maybe tone down the rhetoric about 10 notches because it's pretty clear you don't want to believe in AGW.

Beyond that, I'll take the words and beliefs of someone living in that situation, a lot more seriously than the words and beliefs of someone who is comfortably unthreatened by AGW, regardless of whether it exists or not. Which, I'm guessing, is what you are.

Re:Lies

[legRoom]

So legRoom, this comment where you say "That's a bold faced lie..." was posted before you read the entire paper.

I quoted the part I was arguing against, which was from the summary. Why am I only allowed to pick on the original paper, and not the summary? Are we supposed to just accept bogus headlines, summaries, and news articles (the ABC news article linked says the same wrong stuff as the summary) without comment now?

Also, I did look at the paper before posting; I just didn't read it in detail - because my original comment was directed primarily at the summary and the ABC news article, not the paper.

Re:Lies

[legRoom]

From the Key Points sidebar on that page: "After a period of approximately 2,000 years of little change (not shown here),...."

I saw that. It's basically made up though - there is no global tide gauge data going back that far, and certainly no satellite data. The graph starts when it does because any numbers before that are basically speculation.

(Yes, archaeology and historical records can have some interesting things to say on the subject, but it's extremely difficult to reliably differentiate between the sea rising, versus the land subsiding or eroding without the modern measurement methods. Many scientists and archaeologists claim to have found evidence that the sea level was rising slowly during that period, just like it is now.)

1880 is pretty close to being the end of the Second Industrial Revolution. That graph doesn't show what you think it does.

It shows an almost perfectly steady (by the standards of nature), linear rise in sea level since 1880. Do you really think the sea level was static before that, and just suddenly started rising at a constant rate the minute people started burning coal?

Moreover, the CO2 levels in the air have been rising exponentially since 1800 or so; they are now about 10x greater than they were in 1880, at the start of the EPA sea level graph. How does an exponential rise in CO2 emissions produce a smooth linear rise in sea level? (And if an exponential rise in emissions does produce only a very slow linear rise in sea level, why should we worry about it?)

Re:Lies

[legRoom]

This is how science works. You don't start from scratch every time, proving basic physics and maths until you build up to your main point.

Sure. But it would be nice if their paper actually had anything new to say, at all, with respect to its titular topic. I could not find anything new in the entire paper about the " Interactions between sea-level rise and wave exposure on reef island dynamics", except the unsupported "can", "may be", and "further work is required".

Re: Lies

[vovin]

No.
All work creates entropy so all work done to "reverse" entropy makes more entropy.

Think of entropy as heat. Think of an entropy reversing machine as a fridge.
You can 'reverse' the heat (entropy) of something inside the fridge, but the net result is an increase in total heat (entropy) due to inefficiencies of the compressor and insulation.

Hence the 'heat death' of the universe.

Re:Lies

[legRoom]

For it to be a lie it has to be a knowing untruth. What evidence do you have that the writer knew it was untrue?

For a start, how about the fact that the actual research paper never says anywhere that the islands which disappeared did so due to man-made climate change? The summary plainly states:

A paper published in the journal Environmental Research Letters says five of the Solomon Islands have completely submerged underwater due to man-made climate change, and six more have experienced a dramatic reduction in shoreline.

The bolded part above is simply a lie, as several others in this thread who read the original paper (including pro-AGW people) have pointed out.

It's not just the Slashdot summary either; the linked ABC news article also lies about the content of the paper:

Five of the Solomon Islands have submerged underwater and six more have experienced a dramatic reduction in shoreline due to man-made climate change, according to a paper published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

You could suggest that the writers never actually read the paper - but how is it not a lie to open with a definitive statement about the contents of a paper that they never even read?

And for the record, I've seen numerous public statements by Solomon islanders and their government, that they believe sea levels are rising and that AGW causes it. They may not be right but that doesn't make them liars.

I didn't call the Solomon islanders liars. I called the writers of the Slashdot summary and the ABC news article liars.

Re:Lies

[khallow]

One obvious rebuttal is that the title of the paper is "Interactions between sea-level rise and wave exposure on reef island dynamics in the Solomon Islands". But they don't actually measure the effects of sea level rise and thus, can't say anything about the interactions of sea level rise and wave exposure. This can be seen in the conclusion to the study:

This study represents the ïrst assessment of shoreline change from the Solomon Islands, a global sea-level rise hotspot. We have documented ïve vegetated reef islands(1â"5hainsize)thathaverecentlyvanishedand a further six islands experiencing severe shoreline recession. Shoreline recession at two sites has destroyed villages that have existed since at least 1935, leading to community relocations. The large range of erosion severity on the islands in this study highlights the critical need to understand the complex interplay between the projected accelerating sea-level rise, other changes in global climate such as winds and waves, and local tectonics, to guide future adaptation planning and minimise social impacts.

In other words, we have nothing to add to the particular issue of sea level rise interactions with wave exposure on reef island dynamics, contrary to our title, but we think they're probably important.

And if these researchers think that the media is misrepresenting their research, then they are free to correct the media presentation of it.

Re:Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

I have now read the entire paper. It is true that it does not ever directly attribute the sea level rise in the Solomon Islands to AGW. (The linked ABC news article does though - surely the scientists will be publicly denouncing the media's gross distortion of their claims any minute now... ?)

So after a series of misinformed posts that grossly misrepresented real science in a pretty obviously ideologically motivated attack by a science denier and pollution shill, I'm supposed to sit up and pay attention now?

Sorry, you already completely discredited yourself. Good on you for finally reading something, sadly long after making up your mind, but it's a bit rich for you to be calling on others to clean up their misinformation.

Like most slashdotters, you don't want to feel guilty about leaving your computer turned on 24 hours a day, so you pretend pollution doesn't matter. Sad, really.

Re:Lies

[legRoom]

I'm not going to make an exhaustive list, but I will offer a few sources.

1) The predictive record:

a) Temperature and CO2: James Hansen - one of the most prominent climate scientists in the world, and former head of the NASA Goddard Institue for Space Studies - gave highly influential testimony to the United States Congress in 1988 based on his efforts at numerical modeling of future AGW. The actual increase in temperature is approximately that of his best-case scenario, in which he assumed far lower CO2 emissions than have actually occured; the actual increase in CO2 since that time has exceeded his worst-case scenario.

(Despite this unambiguous falsification of his models, Hansen continues to prophesy CO2-induced doom real soon now to this day - and the media still takes him seriously.)

The temperature predictions of the early IPCC reports have also been falsified; over time the group has gradually lowered their estimation of the climate's sensitivity to CO2, while maintaining that doom is as imminent as ever (or more so).

b) Sea level rise: "A senior environmental official at the United Nations, Noel Brown, says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if global warming is not reversed by the year 2000. Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of "eco-refugees," threatening political chaos, said Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program." - San Jose Mercury News (June 30, 1989)

2) Vague, mutually contradictory models: Amusingly, this very thread contains a fine example about sea level rise - phantomfive's "real, peer reviewed scientific paper" predicts seven meters of sea level rise in the near future (and I have seen other papers predicting even larger rises), but both the Guardian article he linked, and the Solomon Islands paper in the OP have other climate scientists are predicting a rise of less than one meter.

Another good example of the self-contradictory nature of the "settled science", is the myriad efforts to explain away the unpredicted 15+ year long "pause" in statistically significant global warming that has occured since about 2000 (although the strong El Nino this year may finally end it, at least temporarily): there are now 50+ official excuses, ranging from "the missing heat is hidden in the oceans" and "excess volcanic dust is dimming the sun", to "the pause isn't real; it's just an error in the measurements". Many of these excuses are mutually contradictory - the pause cannot be just a measurement error and also have a real physical cause.

(Suspiciously missing from the above, is any serious consideration of the possibility that the models were just wrong about the magnitude of the climate's sensitivity to CO2.)

3) Low quality data: There are two main problems with the data sets upon which modern climate science is based. The first is that claims about the long-t

Re:Lies

[angel'o'sphere]

You are cherry picking idiots instead of serious climate researchers.

Fact is:
a) sea level rises are above the IPCC predictions of the previous 15 - 20 years
b) same for temperature

I don't care that some "alarmists" made idiotic claims and you are upset about them.

is our last chance to act.
Right now we are indeed at the last chance to act. If you don't grasp that, please refrain from climate discussions or any other scientific talks.

If we can not get CO2 emissions to zero very very rapidly we likely suffer from runaway self reinforcing effects in the near future. And then: the planet will change catastrophically.

No idea about how near that is. Can be 30 years but also 50. Point is: if we don't get CO2 emissions down to zero in this century ... most likely earlier ... nothing will prevent all the ice melting. And it will melt much much much faster than conservative "spokesmen of the IPCC" make us believe right now.

Re:Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Has anyone thought about the fact that the Solomon Island chain sits directly on the edge of the Pacific Plate and the Australian-Indian plates? Maybe plate tectonics has a little to do with this issue? Just google search a map of the global plates and you will see this is a highly volcanic area. If land can rise due to this factor; isn't also possible that it can also sink for the same reason? The islands are directly on the ring of fire.

Re:Lies

[BranMan]

    Well Angelo,
      I guess you had better get used to the idea of an ice free planet. It is not even remotely possible to get CO2 emissions down to ZERO - [Really?? ZERO - not stabilized, not substantially reduced, but ZERO?? Pfffft] in any timeframe, much les "very very rapidly".

      Also, since I have seen the evidence that CO2 levels have been higher in the distant past, the notion of a "runaway self reinforcing effect" is ludicrous. If that were even possible it would have already happened sometime in the last 4 BILLION years and would never have reversed.

      Stop self aggrandizing - you are not vital, are not alive in the pivotal moment of Earth's history - all this vitriol is simply to feed your own ego, and has nothing to do with hard science.

      I'll still be around in 20 years, so will you, and you will find the world is still spinning, same as it always has, same as it always will. The sky is not falling Chicken Little.

Re: Lies

[gzuckier]

Can entropy ever be reversed?

that's why god gave us the ability to run videos backwards.

Re:Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Natural "tidal range" of 1m? I guess you have never been on an island in the Pacific Ocean, otherwise you would know in those areas, you will barely notice any tidal change at all. That's why that area is the first to be seriously effected by rising global water levels. A lot of those islands don't even have any part 1m above sea level to begin with...

Re:Lies

[angel'o'sphere]

Also, since I have seen the evidence that CO2 levels have been higher in the distant past, the notion of a "runaway self reinforcing effect" is ludicrous.
In the distant past the situation was completely different. E.g. no frozen methane on the ground of the ocean or permafrost areas that will release methane.
CO2 alone is not an indicator.

If that were even possible it would have already happened sometime in the last 4 BILLION years and would never have reversed.
That is nonsense. The "runaway" effect obviously stops when all CO2 and CH4 is in the atmosphere. How should there be any more "running away" afterwards?

The sky is not falling Chicken Little.
Very funny :D

It is not even remotely possible to get CO2 emissions down to ZERO
Of course it is. Before we where burning coal and later oil we had ZERO emissions. And probably in our lifetime we will be back on that level.

Disagreeing would be very unscientific if I may reuse your words.

Re:Lies

[gzuckier]

They are claiming that it got eroded, and that it wouldn't have if the sea level were a tiny bit lower. There is no way they can know that, especially since the actual sea level rise-to-date which is possibly attributable to AGW is more like 2 cm, not 25 cm.

This is a separate effect from your silly claim of a lie.

The statement in the summary, at least, is a lie because they are asserting a definitive cause-and-effect relationship where there is - at best - an unprovable possibility of one, rather than actual solid evidence for one. The claim is being sensationalized.

What they are doing is comparing two different environments in the ocean, in one of which the erosion is faster than the other even though sea level rise is the same for both, and trying to characterize what is making the difference in order that we can apply some reasoned predictability to any future sea rises from any cause, for instance from AGW.
This is pretty clear even just from the abstract, which ends with "Rates of shoreline recession are substantially higher in areas exposed to high wave energy, indicating a synergistic interaction between sea-level rise and waves. Understanding these local factors that increase the susceptibility of islands to coastal erosion is critical to guide adaptation responses for these remote Pacific communities."

Re:Lies

[legRoom]

People keep talking as though the islands were destroyed primarily by sea level rise, plus some other lesser factors. However, even the original paper basically acknowledges that the actual dominant causes of land area loss in the Solomon Islands were things like wave erosion (driven mainly by changes in regional weather patterns, not sea level rise), local human activities such as dredging, and seismic activity.

The effects of the tiny sea level change over the studied period (even taking into account the higher-than-average rise in the Solomon Islands), seem to have been completely dwarfed by those other effects. In order to have some excuse to blame AGW anyway, the paper speculates - but never offers any real evidence for - a non-linear increase in wave erosion due to the small sea level rise.

A more accurate title for the paper would have been, "Wave-Driven Erosion in (a few of) the Solomon Islands, with Many Gratuitous References to Anthropogenic Global Warming".

Re: Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

The question is how is one is consistently full of shit as you so consistently modded up how many sock puppets do you have?

Re: Lies

[dywolf]

now you're just quoting the deniers handbook verbatim with well-worn and will rebuked bs

Re:Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

And if these researchers think that the media is misrepresenting their research, then they are free to correct the media presentation of it.

Moron.
http://www.examiner.com/articl...

Re:Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Want to see real sea-level rise look here. Clovis people lived through this.
http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/mcfaddin/
My god, what did the poor butterflys do?

There's a term for this

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called erosion. It happens naturally. It's not global warming. It's a geologic process. This is geology, not climate change. Everything gets blamed on global warming, which is a big reason why I don't believe global warming is real. When the hypothesis supposedly predicts every possible outcome, it's no longer a hypothesis. Global warming is pseudoscience.

Re:There's a term for this

[EzInKy]

No worries then B-)

What a relief!!

Re:There's a term for this

[Anonymous Coward]

But it does not predict anything, it reinterprets everything after the fact as being have been caused by climate change.

AGW is classic misdirection. Politicians tell the media to blame climate change of everything. That way, there is no need to look for the real political causes of disasters such as californian droughts. It is the exact equivalent of "the devil did it", but replacing it with "capitalism", and then they tell you that if you blindly follow their guidance, they will beat the evil capitalism for you so that this no longer happens.

The solution somehow is not to pollute less, the idea is to pollute the same but move all production to third world countries where labour is cheaper, plus taxing you for breathing.

Except it's not actual sea level rise...

[cirby]

Not climate change.

"Ten houses from one island were washed away at sea between 2011 and 2014"

Oddly enough, the Solomon Islands were struck by Tropical Cyclone Freda in 2012. What a coincidence. And they've lost five low-lying reef islands in the last 70 or so years. Out of ten THOUSAND islands in the Solomons.

Here's part of the paper's abstract:555

"Using time series aerial and satellite imagery from 1947 to 2014 of 33 islands, along with historical insight from local
knowledge, we have identified five vegetated reef islands that have vanished over this time period and a
further six islands experiencing severe shoreline recession. Shoreline recession at two sites has
destroyed villages that have existed since at least 1935, leading to community relocations. Rates of
shoreline recession are substantially higher in areas exposed to high wave energy, indicating a
synergistic interaction between sea-level rise and waves. Understanding these local factors that
increase the susceptibility of islands to coastal erosion is critical to guide adaptation responses for these
remote Pacific communities."

Actual story: "People built houses near the beach on islands that were being washed away in the first place, and we're going to blame it on the SIX INCHES of global sea level rise since the mid-1930s."

They also casually toss in the fact that the Solomons are very geologically active, and a lot of the sea level rise they refer to is RELATIVE sea level rise - in other words, the water didn't rise, the land sank - often by as much as three times the amount of actual sea level rise over time.

Re:Except it's not actual sea level rise...

[Anonymous Coward]

Get your big-oil "facts" out of our two minutes of hate orgy that passes for "modern science"!!

Re:Except it's not actual sea level rise...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't start interjecting facts into a perfectly good Christian oil burner guilt article, Break out your wallet and pay penance to absolve your SUV driving sins.

Re:Except it's not actual sea level rise...

[Anonymous Coward]

b. b.b .b but the white house scientists have spoken.

Re:Except it's not actual sea level rise...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah!

It's just like Venice!
Global Warming is real.

Re:Except it's not actual sea level rise...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for this reasoned, fact based response. Very refreshing. It's a shame that I consider it bold to stand up and quote facts contrary to the predetermined positions of this vocal crowd, but I certainly do.

Re:Except it's not actual sea level rise...

[Anonymous Coward]

They also casually toss in the fact that the Solomons are very geologically active, and a lot of the sea level rise they refer to is RELATIVE sea level rise - in other words, the water didn't rise, the land sank - often by as much as three times the amount of actual sea level rise over time.

On this item, you misread the paper and got the facts backwards.

The area that subsided up to 60 cm due to tectonics (Roviana) is the area that did not experience loss.
The area that had the eroded islands, (Isabel), had not experienced tectonic displacement.

Why the Roviana did not erode relative to the Isabel area is well explained in the paper and central point of their argument.

Re:Except it's not actual sea level rise...

[cirby]

No, Roviana is mostly handwaved - and the five islands that eroded away did just that: eroded. They didn't submerge to due the sea rising, they just disappeared due to wave action because of normal changes in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (which has not been tied to AGW in the real world), along with a few big hurricanes.

Roviana didn't experience as much loss because they're sheltered from the worst of the wave action. The islands that "disappeared" were on the side with both greatly increased wave action and a steep dropoff into deeper water (so the sand washed off of the shores would go away, rather than collecting in shallow water to be redeposited).

In pretty much the whole paper, when they talk about sea level increase, they really mean "relative" sea level increase, not absolute. Which really means subsidence in that region. In the islands with "low" tectonic uplift, the rate is claimed to be 1 mm per year - with an _error bar_ of 1.4 mm/year.

Re:Except it's not actual sea level rise...

[Anonymous Coward]

It needs to be considered against a rising backgroud level. But we already knew that.

You disgust me sir.

Re:Except it's not actual sea level rise...

[Anonymous Coward]

The last sentence of your first post (contains the water didn't rise, the land sank) is what I am addressing. Your statement is misleading.
The tectonic subsidence had NOTHING to do with the island erosion and loss, mainly because that subsidence did not occur in the area that the loss occurred in.

Idiot

[For a Free Internet]

How about you try thinking instead of just arranging sounds that you heard somewhere, moron?

Re:Then why is the WH stonewalling AGW doc release

[frovingslosh]

You freakin' conservative wack job. Obama has nothing to hide when he refuses to release public funded studies. And Hillary had nothing to hide when she deleted all of those emails from the server that she wasn't allowed to use. And Obama was just showing his love for this country when he released all of those dangerous terrorists back to the mid-east, and when he releases all of those felons, including murders, from federal prisons, and didn't even deport the illegals.

Put back on your tinfoil hat. Clearly there is nothing to see here.

did sea level rise only on that part of ocean?

[sittingnut]

and how much did the sea level rise?
to say whole islands and coastlines that were permanently above(not land that go below due to tides and seasonal weather for instance) are now below sea through rise of sea level(instead of soil erosion, effect of currents, artificial land/jetty creation, volcanic activity, etc ) means sea level must have risen considerable number of centimeters.

if sea level rose uniformly (and it must), coastline should be lost on all parts of the world to similar significant extent, and this needs be observed more broadly.

-
i live on the sea shore in tropics, for very long time, i for one don't see any change whatever . but it is not scientific to generalize from my experience, nor should we generalize from isolated observations, about a phenomenon, which if true, should be observed more generally.

Louisiana erosion man-made,not climate change

[Anonymous Coward]

The erosion in coastal Louisiana at the mouth of the Mississippi River *is* man-made, but not attributable to climate change.

As the Mississippi river was "controlled" for flood prevention and shipping, less and less sediment from upstream flooding and erosion has been available to replenish the delta at the river outflow. That is why the coast is eroding

Re:Louisiana erosion man-made,not climate change

[110010001000]

100% correct. The threat is not AGW, but other man made constructs. This is why AGW is such a scam. It keeps us from addressing real problems, like LOCAL pollution, unsafe water, disappearing wetlands due to to development, etc.

China can fix that

[Anonymous Coward]

> Five of the Solomon Islands have completely submerged underwater.

Maybe they can come back as a Chinese military base.

Timeframe?

[Velox_SwiftFox]

It appears from the PDF that most of the island area that disappeared did so between 1947-1962. If it is accelerating, the data presented seem inadequate to show it.

Alert: a 50 meter rise in sea level ...

[BoRegardless]

Whoa, it has already occurred in the last 15,000 years or so.

This is based on geologist's measurements of core sediments along shorelines.

So now you tell me that we should have no more than 50 meters rise and that the god of all gods, the United Nations shall decree there shall be no more seal level rise? What is normal given past history? Does it stop at 50 meters after the end of an ice age?

When will the Earth start cooling and then sea levels go down and coastal communities loose their harbors and beachfronts? Wah, wah, wah.

What a bleeping joke.

Global warming hysteria

[p51d007]

How many hundreds or thousands of islands appeared and disappeared on this planet, LONG BEFORE man even set foot on it? The islands in the ring of fire have been coming and going for centuries, but with the DOPES in the world who actually believe this "man made" global warming crap, they are easier to control thinking their even breathing is causing ice to melt, polar bears to drown (because of the ice melting)...they can be told how to act/live, which is the entire desire of this garbage.

Re:Global warming hysteria

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Hog Island, New York - I'll be amazed if any of the Man Made climate change folks knew about it before frantically googling it.

The climate is changing. Eventually we'll lose Lake Michigan because the topology of the area will continue to revert to pre ice age conditions. I won't be alive when Illinois is tropical again. Growing up in Lockport , Illinois and seeing the shale with fossils embedded sorta made me look farther than less than 50 years of data.

But I'm silly that way :)

Re:Global warming hysteria

[Anonymous Coward]

Hog Island, New York - I'll be amazed if any of the Man Made climate change folks knew about it before frantically googling it.

The climate is changing. Eventually we'll lose Lake Michigan because the topology of the area will continue to revert to pre ice age conditions. I won't be alive when Illinois is tropical again. Growing up in Lockport , Illinois and seeing the shale with fossils embedded sorta made me look farther than less than 50 years of data.

But I'm silly that way :)

You should share this groundbreaking insight with the worlds scientists, they have overlooked this completely, good thing you didn't.

Re:Global warming hysteria

[angel'o'sphere]

As long as the latitude of Lake Michigan does not change magically, it never will be tropical.

Regardless of global warming you will have occasionally a harsh winter.

Re:Global warming hysteria

[Anonymous Coward]

Forests burned before man existed. Therefore arsonists don't exist.

Re:Global warming hysteria

[Anonymous Coward]

Sssssh! Somebody might figure out the truth here.. A good example is Holland, which wasn't *always* 8 feet below sea level. The sea started rising in , I think the late 1800s after the mini ice age was over.. We hadn't been at the pollution game long enough then yet, to influence sea levels, and yet the climate change then was drastic. I'm not saying that we haven't had a major impact on the climate. Of course we have. And, , yes, it's a big concern. But it's not nearly the biggest problem we are facing. The entire solar system is facing drastic climate change, and instability. If we face the same, then, that would be, instead, earthquakes and our nuclear energy plants... Can you imagine 50 Fukushimas around the world?
And the Solomon Islands? I'd still move there in an instant if I could, and buy one of the flooded islands. Just a little landscaping to reclaim the beaches, and then place dykes around the center where all the land was scooped out. It is absolutely awesome lliving on an island where the sea is literally inches lower than the land. It just requires a bit of preparation.. for instance, I'd place a tough mesh all around the island a few hundred feet out from the beach to stop the jellyfish from coming in any closer. Nasty pieces of work those things are. but since the water level out from the beach is only a couple of feet for a very long ways... the deeper water fish like sharks don'rt come in, so that would be sufficient. You can then place your patio in a foor of water to keep them feets cool! After all it's a beauriful spot.. bar none...

So?

[Anonymous Coward]

The planet is in the middle of an interglacial. Islands, and coastlines, being inundated happen during interglacial. Just ask Alexandria Egypt

Re:Alert: a 50 meter rise in sea level ...

[dadelbunts]

I wonder this every day. I believe we are warming up the earth sure, but it also naturally goes through changes. It seems to me like climate change people are more concerned with keeping it exactly as it is right this moment (i guess more like 100 years ago) instead of actual climate change. I find it insane to think that the earths climate needs to stay exactly as it is now to suit our needs, when it hasnt even been stable in human history.

It s alie, they are actually growing.

[thesupraman]

Not even that fortunately.

Read the article, the summary is a bald faced lie.

In fact, the total land area of the Solomons is growing relatively quickly, there are a few exceptions, which are
basically old unstable low lying reefs that were washed away in a couple of major tropical cyclones, which is
very normal. They are selectively reporting a very few examples where it is not..

Add to that a couple of islands where, due to human pollution the coral has experience die back (remember, many
of these islands are natural growing coral, when it dies, they erode away..)

Its actually quite impressive that the total land area is growing..

Of course that doesn't suit certain political agendas, and doesn't generate free money (aid..), so....

Re:It s alie, they are actually growing.

[sjames]

Yes, clearly the real problem is those damned kangarelephants won't quit hopping on the islands. Yeah, that's it.

Re:It s alie, they are actually growing.

[Anonymous Coward]

A growing land area can still lead to a reduction in shoreline if the extra land is filling indentations in the shoreline, turning a fractal shape into a smooth curve.

Re:It s alie, they are actually growing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sea levels are rising at a rate of about 1" per decade - how short were those islands to start with?

Re:It s alie, they are actually growing.

[quantaman]

Not even that fortunately.

Read the article, the summary is a bald faced lie.

In fact, the total land area of the Solomons is growing relatively quickly

Is this from the paper? I saw no indication that the total land area was growing in the paper.

Re:It s alie, they are actually growing.

[legRoom]

Check out the last graph in the original paper. It shows (pay attention to the axes) that the Central Pacific island chains studied, as a group, increased significantly in land area.

However, the Solomon Islands, specifically, may be an exception to that. (I'd need the raw data to tell for sure; the net change is close enough to zero that I can't just eyeball it from the graph.)

In any case, the specific islands which are the main focus of the paper were all tiny (the largest was only 0.25 (km)^2) and not at all representative of the Solomon Islands as a whole. They were selected for further scrutiny specifically because they were eroding quickly; in a chain with hundreds of islands, there were bound to be at least a few getting smaller.

Re:It s alie, they are actually growing.

[quantaman]

Check out the last graph in the original paper. It shows (pay attention to the axes) that the Central Pacific island chains studied, as a group, increased significantly in land area.

However, the Solomon Islands, specifically, may be an exception to that. (I'd need the raw data to tell for sure; the net change is close enough to zero that I can't just eyeball it from the graph.)

In any case, the specific islands which are the main focus of the paper were all tiny (the largest was only 0.25 (km)^2) and not at all representative of the Solomon Islands as a whole. They were selected for further scrutiny specifically because they were eroding quickly; in a chain with hundreds of islands, there were bound to be at least a few getting smaller.

Figure 7? They don't have a mean but it really looks to me like the mean would be negative.

Re:It s alie, they are actually growing.

[rworne]

Yes, clearly the real problem is those damned kangarelephants won't quit hopping on the islands. Yeah, that's it.

Just as Rep. Hank Johnson. He's an expert on islands, particularly Guam.

Re:It s alie, they are actually growing.

[legRoom]

Figure 7?

Yes.

They don't have a mean but it really looks to me like the mean would be negative.

As I said: pay attention to the axes. Notice how all the shrinking islands are on the left side of the graph? That means it's the small islands that are shrinking. The large islands on the right are mostly growing. Moreover, it is a logarithmic scale, so the islands on the right are 100x the size of the islands on the left. That means that a single growing island on the right cancels out many shrinking islands on the left.

The original article is bait

[Anonymous Coward]

It only considers 'man-made climate change'. This denies the fact that the earth's climate changes naturally, and that the generally accepted sciences trying to prove it is only 'man-made' also suggest that the climate has changed wildly before man even existed.

Bait article is bait. And shit.

You are free to disbelieve.

[EzInKy]

Still, the evidence was presented. The cost of denial is upon you, you pick wrong you pay. My money is going to investment into Appalachian Ocean Front properties.

Re:You are free to disbelieve.

[khallow]

Evidence distinguishes between hypotheses.

Population continues to grow at 2%/yr

[Anonymous Coward]

Making things a lot worse. But you know, infinite exponential growth is such a widespread thing in nature.....

Mitigation

[Tenebrousedge]

You're either underestimating the future change or overestimating the past change. Generally there isn't a goal temperature/CO2 level, just a pre-industrial baseline. We've already done enough to change the planet drastically. At this point we're just hoping that we don't continue to make things worse. At this point, we're still emitting ever-greater amounts of carbon year after year. At what point do you imagine that we should maybe dial back the things that we know raise the equilibrium temperature of the Earth? How quickly do you think plants and animals can adapt to 3-5 degrees of global temperature change? Because it looks like people would rather find out the answer to these things by massive uncontrolled experiment rather than simulation at this point. Buckle up.

Re:Mitigation

[BoRegardless]

Well, Wikipedia's notes on ice and sea level are brief but referenced:

"During the most recent North American glaciation, during the latter part of the Wisconsin Stage (26,000 to 13,300 years ago), ice sheets extended to about 45 degrees north latitude. These sheets were 3 to 4km thick.

During the last glacial period the sea-level has fluctuated 20–30 m as water was sequestered, primarily in the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets."

There go the conspiracy theorists

[Anonymous Coward]

All building their homes on the tops of mountains.

Total clickbait SJW liberal article

[Anonymous Coward]

5 sand bars submerged. SJW liberal media decided to call them islands.

Yet I don't see any reference to platonic shift???

[Anonymous Coward]

Everybody jumps on the global warming bandwagon yet ignores the fact that the earth's crust isn't solid.. its in motion (though very very slowly)

You can't just inject sea-level global warming without acknowledging that the sea-bed is moving. Even the most junior geologist knows how the Hawaiian islands are built and fade over time....

Peace out.

https://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/HCV/haw_formation.html

All about the sand.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the real reason isn't oceans rising but something else: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAPfwwb59uY

Former Climate Change Skeptic Here...

[Anonymous Coward]

Until recently, I was your typical far-right climate change skeptic. After seeing for myself the changes in places I once lived, speaking with people from around the world who have seen the changes first hand, evaluating the data for myself (I'm a healthy skeptic).

What's not being discussed is Africa. The water shortage in Africa is becoming a real problem. Wars are on the verge of happening because of water shortages. I lived on a certain island for years, and as a child, it never got above 80 in the summer or below 40 in the winter. Now? Routinely over 90 in the summer, with the warmer months three months longer. The people there are losing flora, the animals are having issues dealing with the newer temperatures since the mid-late 80s. It's real. Things like this are happening all over the world. The Pacific Ocean is losing it's oxygen levels because of the rise in sea temperatures. This is starting to happen in the southern Atlantic, which in turn affects the Gulf Stream, which affects fishing, currents, people's lives.

Re:Former Climate Change Skeptic Here...

[Anonymous Coward]

So anecdotes changed your mind? You're an idiot.

Re:Former Climate Change Skeptic Here...

[Anonymous Coward]

ONE anecdote without evidence does not make a fact.
ONE with physical evidence presents a fact.
Hundreds with physical evidence presents a possible trend.
Thousands with physical evidence is a trend.

Guess which one applies.

Why is the sea level only rising in the 3rd world?

[Anonymous Coward]

In nearby Australia, geologically stable, sea levels have risen ~100-200mm since the 1880s.

Now, if I turn off the taps and keep still, the level at one end of my bathtub is exactly the same as the other, however if I let my foot sink, it will be covered in water... Heyyy!! Maybe that's what's really happening in the Solomons; ground subsidence, erosion, frickin plate tectonics, they're fairly close to the ring-of-fire action in those parts.

florida

[Anonymous Coward]

who cares about some non-murkin crap, its florida we want to see flooded.

sigh. Sheep.

[Anonymous Coward]

Impossible, because there is no such thing as "man made climate change".

Still waiting on the explanation on why the last ice age ended without mammoths tooling around in their gas-guzzling SUV's

"Global Warming" is nothing more than regular cycles that have happened for millions of years being hijacked by radical progressive liberals trying to take down capitalism.

Landfill

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, the Solomons could of avoided all of this and been "green" too.

Import all of Mumbai's trash and create a giant land fill. Tamp, compact, pour on more. After all Mount Trashmore in Michshitagain is 65 feet high. Good enough to thumb algore in the eye.

Bullshit

[SensitiveMale]

Bullshit

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

This guy knows something special! *in fact, the islands are cloaking themselves as to be the new home for secret projects. An Area-52 if you will.

My congressman

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

Tells you all to shut up about "climate change" or he'll hit you in the head with a snowball. The Bible says that mankind has been given domain over the planet, it's ours to do what we want to with and nothing we can possibly do can possibly mess it up. Even if it does, Jesus will fly in and save us all anyway. /sarcasm

Sandbanks come and go

[Anonymous Coward]

Those sandbanks were hardly islands and sandbanks come and go. Maybe in a real estate sales brochure...

Anyhoo, in most parts where everyone blames 'rising sea levels' (e.g. most of the Caribbean coast of the USA) it is actually the continent that is sinking.

LOL. More 'Climatedot' bullshit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just rename the site 'Climatedot' and have done with it.

There is no such thing as 'catastrophic man-made global warming', and LOL at the article for "due to man-made climate change" - LOL at the "man-made" part! Have they given up saying just "climate change" now?

www.wattsupwiththat.com
www.climatedepot.com

BS

[Anonymous Coward]

You can prove water displacement is totally due to 'climate change' and you know it. There are several other naturally occurring things that cause it.

Re:sigh. Sheep.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is pretty hard to get funding for research in the world of academia, but adding the "global warming" tag to your research proposal seems to do the trick. Actually, it seems specially easy if you are from the University of Florida, one of the biggest donors of Al Gore's party, and probably the ones behind this stupid non-issue. They start the lie and then they get a lot of money from federal funding to spend in researching this fake issue.

You know it is not science when it is based on social consensus, and when using the scientific approach, that is, trying to disprove rather than prove your hypothesis, gets you fired from your job.

Fine Art of Denial

[JimSadler]

Ok, so here is what to expect from the right wing. Those five islands have not submerged. You just can't see them because Satan is blocking your vision. Besides, you are not a scientist so who are you to tell me those islands submerged? It's just a scheme to cover up Obama's real place of birth!

Re:Fine Art of Denial

[mysidia]

Those islands submerged, but the suggested causal chain regarding why or proposed reason due to CO2 emission is a real stretch, not real science, but makes a nice story or anecdote.

Can we crowd-fund one way tickets for the deniers?

[Kevin by the Beach]

Lets see them deny the impact of climate change as their standing knee deep on what was once an island.

Life is good by the Beach... (my house is presently 16ft above sea level)

Re:Then why is the WH stonewalling AGW doc release

[DirkDaring]

"You freakin' conservative wack job." When losing an argument always begin with insults.

Science

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit

Mic drop. Case closed. I just don't see how you can possibly argue with such science based discourse.

Also, the article says that it was due to erosion. Has there been increased wave and current action due to the mythical AGW?

Woosh

[mpercy]

When the lead-in inflammatory comment is the sarcasm flag...

So these islands had no ground higher than 19cm?

[mpercy]

Sea level rise has been about 8 inches in the last 100 years.

It sounds like these islands would be barely above water on a calm day, and any day with any wave-action would submerge them every few seconds anyway.

But it sounds better than "5 reefs, usually only 10 inches below the surface of the ocean 100 years ago, are now under almost 20 inches of water!", which I'm sure a generally true condition somewhere in the Solomons, too.

Lake Agassiz

[mpercy]

The final drainage of Lake Agassiz contributed an estimated 1 to 3 meters to total post-glacial global sea level rise. Much of the final drainage may have occurred in a very short time, in two or one events, perhaps taking as short as a year.

Can we go a fucking week...

[Anonymous Coward]

...without a climate change article? Come on editors, we know you have an agenda to push, but good lord. Give it a week without here and there.

More detail please

[FrozenGeek]

What was the maximum altitude of the 5 lost islands prior to them submerging? What effects did wave erosion have on the islands? How deeply submerged are the islands?

Efficient markets are not idiotic

[Geoffrey.landis]

I'm not sure why you accuse this of being thoughtless.
This is the classical "efficient market" approach to a problem of consequences: the people who cause the consequences should pay the cost of those consequences. Classical economics argues that markets are inefficient when a person (or corporation) can gain benefits from an action, but somebody else pays the cost.
So, if carbon dioxide emission has a cost, in terms of effects of global warming, the efficient market solution would be that the people emitting carbon dioxide should pay that cost, and hence allowing them to adjust their usage in such a way as to incorporate the consequences.

Re: Efficient markets are not idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

Government intrusion via a "market-like" mechanism is not the free market.

Re: Efficient markets are not idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when is the market free? There are all sorts of subsidies and regulation. It hasnt been free in a looooong time.

Re: Efficient markets are not idiotic

[pixelpusher220]

unless of course the consequences of waiting for the market to act would actually be more expensive than harnessing the market to effect the cheaper solution earlier...

Re: Efficient markets are not idiotic

[thejarhead]

Are you breathing in? Your body inhales oxygen and exhales carbon dioxide; you, I everyone who breathes creates carbon dioxide. Plants inhales carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen. How about we stop cutting down trees?

Connect with AGW for the Grant $$

[BCGlorfindel]

I have now read the entire paper. It is true that it does not ever directly attribute the sea level rise in the Solomon Islands to AGW. (The linked ABC news article does though - surely the scientists will be publicly denouncing the media's gross distortion of their claims any minute now... ?)

On the other hand, the premise of the paper is that sea level rise is responsible for significant loss of land area in the Solomon Islands (and the authors worked very hard to connect sea level rise to AGW at every opportunity, even though they didn't quite come out and say that AGW has actually caused any sea level rise yet).

That's a problem, because nowhere in their paper (that I could find, anyway) do they actually offer any evidence that the local sea level rise experienced by the Solomon Islands contributed meaningfully to the loss. They point out several other factors that likely dominated, one of which was erosion by wave action. They then attempt to connect this back to AGW with the following statement:

Wave energy can interact synergistically with localised sea-level rise (through changing wave refraction dynamics and more wave energy propagating across reef crest onto the coast) to exacerbate coastal erosion (Storlazzi et al 2015) and thus may be a key driver of the rapid coastal recession in the Solomon Islands. Further work is required to determine the relative importance of extreme wave events or incremental changes in incident wave energy and their interactions with sea-level on shoreline dynamics of islands.

Notice the operative words there: "can", "may be", and "further work is required". They don't actually have anything to say on the subject - that is, on the causal connection between sea level rise and increased wave erosion - other than "maybe you should read these other guys' papers" and "give us money and we'll write something too". But, they decided to name their paper after it anyway, and the media ran with it.

The main actual content of the study - once all of the background material and discussion is filtered out - is basically just:

1) Some statistics about the rates of erosion and accretion on various islands in the Central Pacific, including the Solomon Islands.

2) More statistics about the atmospheric and oceanic conditions over time around those islands - much of which was extrapolated, not measured.

3) A few anecdotes about communities that need to relocate - all of whom, from the sound of it, were in poor locations to begin with.

As someone else pointed out, the last graph clearly shows (if you know how to read the axes, anyway), that there was a net increase in land area for the islands chains studied; the authors simply chose to focus upon a specific few tiny islands that shrank.

That's how grant applications work these days. Mentioning a connection to AGW means more publicity and more potential grants and other research funds. Academia has been biased for a long time towards whatever topics will garner research grant dollars. That's not saying academics are selling out and falsifying their research, but that they have been pushed towards selecting paper topics that will get grant money which often does mean stretching to connect research with popular topics like AGW.

How do they attribute guilt?

[mi]

A paper published in the journal Environmental Research Letters says five of the Solomon Islands have completely submerged underwater due to man-made climate change

Ok, they know, the islands slowly went under — that is quite observable.

How do they know, it happened "due to man-made climate change"? Tasmania, for example, became an island about 10 years ago — was that due to humanity's activities too? Some shamans of the times, probably, said so... Kodiak islands used to be connected to Alaska (either by land or by ice-fields) recently enough for Kodiak bears to be genetically close to other grizzlies, but long enough ago for them to qualify for being subspecies today. Do we blame humanity inventing fire for that?

There are vast ancient cities underwater. Some of them submerged rapidly due to earthquakes, for others the explanation is not so obvious — but tectonic changes (slow or rapid) are most likely to blame.

What makes us so sure about these 5 islands?

Sin Taxes, for the children!

[BCGlorfindel]

Australia briefly introduced a carbon tax, some of which went to the poor and elderly whose portion of daily living costs towards energy was so significant that their quality of live would be significantly effected. Carbon emissions went down and the economy was stimulated by R&D in high-tech renewable energy - solar, wind, nuclear, etc.

The situation, of course, did not last long. Rupert Murdoch and his friends went hard against it in the media. When laws forced them to provide balanced points of view, social engineering was used - flooding the comments section with "anonymous" contrarian opinions and "misinformed" data. They got their preferred oil-interest backed party back into power, who, it seems, successfully argued that wind-mills are utterly offensive while coal is as good for humanity today, as it was at the start of the industrial revolution.

Carbon taxes are similar to other 'sin' taxes on things like tobacco and alcohol. The major difference being that EVERYBODY gets hit by a carbon tax. Everything from the cost of shipping food to your grocery store, to the cost of getting yourself to the store and back again to the cost of keeping your lights on and house cool/warm.

Sure, increasing the cost on something will lower usage. Let's also be honest though, governments around the world have almost zero interest in the curbing of emissions. The carrot for them is another means of taxing their people which means another level of wealth redistribution that they control and it's that control which has everyone lining up to support this 'solution'.

Re:Sin Taxes, for the children!

[jblues]

Australia does have very high taxes on alcohol and tobacco. One of the effects are that the life expectancy is among the highest in the world, since there are less deaths directly attributable to overindulgence in these habits. Another is that Australia is able to offer an excellent standard of healthcare, even for people who choose these habits. (Universal availability is both more efficient and therefore cheaper, as well as arguably more fair).

Sure, the cost of everything goes up temporarily, but so does the standard of living. Australia is already a high-income country that is able to provide an envious standard of living to its citizens. As already argued, tax dollars are used to compensate those whose standard of living would go significantly down. Those moderately or unaffected are participating in nation building. And costs didn't go up as much as fear mongers said: other sources were quickly stimulated - wind and solar are already in many cases at grid parity costs.

This kind of thing doesn't just happen in Australia. Take Los Angeles. For a time it had an excellent public transport rail system. Automotive industry interests used astro-turfing - fake grassroots movements - to lobby for more roads and thus sell more vehicles. Los Angeles had terrible smog problems. A tax was introduced on vehicle pollution. Very rapidly vehicles produced far less pollution, and today Los Angeles has far less smog than, say Beijing.

Regulated markets raise the human development index faster than non-regulated, just as the standard of living in countries with a functioning legal system is better.

Re:Can we crowd-fund one way tickets for the denie

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd gladly fund one way tickets for global warming liberal nutjobs to be dropped inside of an active volcano so they can see first hand how the new Samoan islands form.

LOL!!

[Anonymous Coward]

yes a whole 2cm of ocean rise caused 5 islands to disappear??! BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA my god, you GW zealots will beleive anything that supports your moronic theory. Climate change really has become the new priesthood.

I blame Algore

[Anonymous Coward]

Algore gallivants around the world in an old gulfstream that isn't even legal to fly into most US airports because it hasn't yet had the required emissions abatement for its power plants, to preach to third world citizens just scraping by about how they need to use cleaner methods for energy and farming.

Well, Algore, I'm sorry if burning pig shit is the only way I have to heat my undersized dinner, you insensitive little fuck. BTW thanks for bringing me the Internet that you invented. It's so useful when we have a hard enough time getting clean drinking water because your country's last military exercise polluted the only aquifer in town with toxic explosives residue.

Fucking Americans...

Free market transactions

[Geoffrey.landis]

Government intrusion via a "market-like" mechanism is not the free market.

Absolutely. And a totally "free" market includes transactions of the following sort: "I point a gun at you and give you the choice, either I take your money, or I shoot you and then take your money." That's a free market transaction with no government interference. But this transaction is beneficial to the robber only because the consequences to you are not included in the robber's profit calculation.
The government's role is as a mechanism to say "if your actions create a consequence to other people (such as, say killing them), your actions need to be regulated."
We have already established that this is what the government does. We're just arguing in which circumstances government intervention is needed.

Re:Free market transactions

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

Classically, the term "free market" meant that sellers could set their prices, not that there was no government intervention - that is, a market free from price controls, but not necessarily free from regulation.

Re:Free market transactions

[pixelpusher220]

In the above example, the robber is setting the price of the 'customer' living - it's amazingly the same amount of cash the 'customer' has but sometimes is higher.

regulation by default is a price control. Regulation that my produce isn't contaminated with listeria or salmonella increases my costs and thus my price.

Re:Free market transactions

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

I'm not sure that actually counts still; generally one wouldn't count violence or threats of violence as being part of any market, and it's hardly a voluntary transaction.

No, it's not a price control. It influences prices, but does not set them directly. Businesses don't have to change prices when new regulations are introduced, although they often do.

Re: Free market transactions

[pixelpusher220]

We aren't debating the definition of price 'control'. As you said it affects the price and that's all that's required to debunk that it's a true 'free' market.

Re:Free market transactions

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Why would a truly free market (regulation free that is) not include threats of violence?

Re: Free market transactions

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

Not in the classical sense. More recently, some people use it to mean a market that has no restrictions, but that wasn't what the term was intended to mean.

Re:Free market transactions

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

Well, depending on how you achieve that market, it could - but generally, market transactions are supposed to be voluntary, and you could have an unregulated market while still having a government that prohibits assault or threats to commit assault. An unregulated market doesn't have to exist in an anarchy.

Re: Free market transactions

[pixelpusher220]

It's exactly what the people using it intend it to mean. They don't like regulation and want a free market that doesn't have regulation. That's actually what they are asking for.

Now, you clearly understand this is an insane request...the point is they don't. Which is why it needs to be pointed out that a truly 'free market' isn't what they think it is.

Re:Free market transactions

[Marxist Hacker 42]

still having a government that prohibits assault or threats to commit assault
 
Would that not, by definition, be a regulation?

Re:Free market transactions

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

It's a regulation on the people, not on the market.

Re:Free market transactions

[Marxist Hacker 42]

So the market isn't made up of people? And we can get away with any regulation that is on people rather than on the market?

Re:Free market transactions

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

Of course markets are made up of people, but to say that any regulation on people is also regulation on the market is asinine. Laws prohibiting hate speech do not affect the market for teddy bears. Laws regulating one market may not even affect other markets; saying that golf courses must trim their grass to certain heights, for instance, probably has negligible effects on drug prices.

I'm not sure what you're asking with the second question.

Re:Free market transactions

[Marxist Hacker 42]

" Laws prohibiting hate speech do not affect the market for teddy bears."

Affects the market for at least three types of historical teddy bears I'm aware of. There were many hate-based toys prior to 1940.

I can think how grass height can affect drug prices, and you probably can too if you think about it a while.

As to what I'm asking with the second question- is given your theory that a law affecting *personal action* is not a law regulating the market, what would say a law against earning more than 200x your lowest paid employee be? Isn't that a law against personal action?

Re:Free market transactions

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

It may affect the market for stuffed toys, but not teddy bears specifically. More importantly, making a toy that is offensive to some people isn't actually covered by most "hate speech" laws that I'm aware of. I will concede, however, that what I said was poorly phrased. Regulations on people even if they affect the market are not necessarily regulations on the market itself.

No, that would be a law regulating the actions of a company (setting salaries). It is not a law that controls personal action.

Re:Free market transactions

[Marxist Hacker 42]

It specifically affects (not to trigger a godwin- but) the sale of white polar teddy bears with small black mustaches, for instance.

Ok, so regulation of *CORPORATIONS* is what you are against, rather than regulations against people. Still, my example isn't a regulation against a company. Corporations would still be free to pay people whatever. My regulation is specifically against PEOPLE- sole proprietors who are using their own social security number as their TIN when paying payroll for their personal household staff. Thus making it a law that specifically covers personal action.

What is wrong with that, in your point of view?

Re:Free market transactions

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

First off, I'm not sure it would - I doubt they'd sell well, but you could call them a Charlie Chaplin bear if you wanted to. That used to be quite a popular style for facial hair.

Who said I'm against regulation of corporations? I'm just saying what a free market is. I haven't been arguing for or against a position.

If I understand your proposed regulation, you're saying that somebody (Person A) who works for (or is in charge of) a company has household staff. These staff are not part of the company, and are paid directly by Person A. This regulation would prevent Person A from earning more than 200x more than the lowest amount they pay their household staff, yes? That is an instance where it would regulate both personal action and the market, in that it directly sets price controls on an unincorporated individual.

Re:Free market transactions

[Marxist Hacker 42]

And thus, would it still be a free market?

Re:Free market transactions

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

I would argue no, because it sets a price control on the market.

Re:Free market transactions

[Marxist Hacker 42]

In which case then, you also do not favor regulations on individuals.

Re:Free market transactions

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

As I said before, I haven't been arguing for or against regulations. Someone saying that regulation X, which regulates both individuals and the market by setting price controls, would make the market not free, is not the same as saying "regulations on individuals are bad". The law you proposed sets price controls on individuals, and thus the labor market. That means it's not a free market, but there is no moral judgement in what I've said.

If I may summarize my point to (hopefully) prevent you from misunderstanding it further, it's that regulation on individuals may also be regulation on the market, but even when it affects the market, it isn't necessarily regulation on the market itself. Laws against individuals killing each other, even though they have implications on the market, are not laws governing the market itself.

biggest hoax of all time

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was growing up, the big hoax was the impending ice age, now the big hoax is 180 degrees from that... Hell, the whole state of Florida was supposed to be under water 15 years ago (what up Al Gore?). When the same beach I've been visiting in Tampa for the past 50 years is under water, somebody wake me up.

Re:biggest hoax of all time

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was growing up, the big hoax was the impending ice age, now the big hoax is 180 degrees from that... Hell, the whole state of Florida was supposed to be under water 15 years ago (what up Al Gore?). When the same beach I've been visiting in Tampa for the past 50 years is under water, somebody wake me up.

I'm an old guy and was in college at that time. No one believed that story.
Some of the media ran with the story for like a week, but most of the articles were debunk stories.
Even Weekly World News didn't repeat it.

The 144 character critique

[dcooper_db9]

The more I think about this thread the more it bugs me. Why did my post get five points? It's not because it's especially insightful. It's because I crafted the post to score points. I made it short. I phrased it so it was slightly confrontational. And, I left out the answer I would like to have given:

Whether the tax reflects the government's contribution to delivering fuel is irrelevant. In many parts of the country people have voted to impose taxes on themselves to cover the cost of building and maintaining infrastructure. That is not gouging. That's taxation WITH representation.

But the post that gave that answer was too long and too late. It's buried in this thread having garnered a single point.

We are living in an age where people are persuaded by tiny bits of information. We don't take the time to consider nuances. We don't think through complex problems. We just toss little arguments back and forth to score popularity points.

Slashdot Pushing Rothchild agendas again

[Anonymous Coward]

Solomon Islands, taken over by jews, to promote jewish zionist agendas, using jewish names

Bullshit from 'Climatedot' - sickening.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the truth about the whole matter:

http://www.examiner.com/article/sinking-solomon-islands-and-climate-link-exaggerated-admits-study-s-author

Re:Bullshit from 'Climatedot' - sickening.

[clovis]

This is the truth about the whole matter:

http://www.examiner.com/article/sinking-solomon-islands-and-climate-link-exaggerated-admits-study-s-author

Good link.
http://www.examiner.com/articl...

However you should have explained that the study's co-author (Dr. Simon Albert) is saying that OTHER people are exaggerating the Solomon Islands - climate change connection.

From the Examiner article:

Dr. Simon Albert, the report's co-author told the Guardian today that numerous media outlets, like the Washington Post and NY Times and Think Progress, have misinterpreted their work by trying to link sea level rise with climate change. According to Albert, the researchers did not study climate change and how it influences shoreline erosion and submersion of certain low-lying islands.

He stands by the his paper and the conclusions they made.

quick everybody, don't read the original paper!

[gzuckier]

Or you'd see that their point was to study erosion of the islands in relation to past ocean rise OF WHATEVER CAUSE to be able to predict effects of ocean rise due to FUTURE climate change. oh slashdot, you make me cry..

Lousiana wetlands

[Anonymous Coward]

Losing Ground issued a report that shows how large areas of the Louisiana coastline are being lost to rising sea levels.

No, it's mostly from the Mississippi river levees blocking silt from being deposited in the wetlands which would prevent the natural erosion from eating the wetlands away.

what about Hawaii?

[tygreen101]

Without trying to claim anti- or pro-climate change(or even human-caused) if 5 of the Soloman Islands are now flooded due to sea level rise, how much acreage has Hawaii lost? I mean Hawaii is an island chain AND one of the 50 states so it is "closer to home" than the Solomon Islands. Is there any documented evidence--that I am allowed to read for myself--showing Hawaii has lost ground to the sea?

False studies again

[Anonymous Coward]

This article like others fails to mention that most Salomon and other small island chains are GAINING ground. This study done from looking at photographs from 1947 and after does not actually measure the sea level so it is not known if these "islands" measuring feet in diameter were lost to sea level rise or to other effects unrelated to sea level rise. Overall land area of the salomons is growing not decreasing. This is due to either the rising of the land underneath or to accumulation of sand from breakup of coral. Several studies as mentioned in the article have shown in 2010 and 2014 that there is no loss of land in the small islands contrary again to the "theory" of global warming. It is amazing that these articles never make it to the press yet this flawed article which actually has no attribution of the loss of these islands are published and distributed widely. Evidence of incredible bias in the reporting of news related to this topic. If you want to know other amazing things about climate change that turned out to be false predictions visit my blog https://logiclogiclogic.wordpress.com/category/climate-change.

We better use genetic engineering to survive

[billd10]

Extrapolating this information to the future means we'd better get cracking on genetically engineering gills into our bodies, as very soon, no land will be left to stand on. Anyone want to mate with a fish, or should we just do this in the laboratory?