The geniuses at National Geographic have finally figured out why Tuvalu isn’t going to disappear.
“If you were faced with the threat of the disappearance of your nation, what would you do?”
That’s the question Enele Sopoaga, the prime minister of the tiny Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu, asked fellow world leaders at the United Nations climate summit in Lima, Peru, in December.
It’s a question that leaders of Pacific Island states have been asking for decades. As a warming climate drives sea levels upward, low-lying island nations face an uncertain future—or no future at all, say these leaders, who warn of their nations’ imminent disappearance.Officials in Tuvalu, 600 miles (965 kilometers) north of Fiji, have been some of the most vocal critics of the world’s large greenhouse gas emitters—industrialized nations such as the United States and China—which they accuse of not doing enough to curb emissions, contributing to the melting of ice sheets and rising seas.
“I carry a huge burden and responsibility,” Sopoaga told the climate summit delegates in Peru. “It keeps me awake at night. Will we survive? Or will we disappear under the sea?”
These are desperate questions. But how real is the threat? Are island nations like Tuvalu, where most of the land is barely above sea level, destined to sink beneath the waves, like modern-day Atlantises?Not necessarily, according to a growing body of evidence amassed by New Zealand coastal geomorphologist Paul Kench, of the University of Auckland’s School of Environment, and colleagues in Australia and Fiji, who have been studying how reef islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans respond to rising sea levels.
They found that reef islands change shape and move around in response to shifting sediments, and that many of them are growing in size, not shrinking, as sea level inches upward. The implication is that many islands—especially less developed ones with few permanent structures—may cope with rising seas well into the next century.
Will Pacific Island Nations Disappear as Seas Rise? Maybe Not
This is what Charles Darwin figured out in the 1830’s. Coral atolls are constantly taking a beating from the ocean, yet they stay just above sea level by pulling CO2 out of the water and turning it into rock.
Ocean World …: A Description of the Sea & Its Living Inhabitants
This process is how very thick coral reefs like this one in West Texas formed. As the seas rise, the coral grows with it.
Climate experts are the ultimate anti-science buffoons, having to re-discover 200 year old science before they begin to understand how stupid they are.
Reblogged this on WeatherAction News.
Darwin simply made a lucky guess. Everyone knows that people are smarter now, and that experts better understand the human impact on small islands…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cesSRfXqS1Q
Good one gator
I have met the lady who is my congressional representative. She is not, I think, any brighter than Rep. Johnson. She once railed against US foreign policy in the imaginary Marx brothers country of Freedonia — and yet she has held her seat for over twenty years. How does she do it? As near as I can tell, through a system of demagoguery, patronage, threats, bribery, and political payoffs. I believe that certain stupid but controllable people are specifically chosen for office by more powerful operators behind the scenes.
sadly politicians are representative of the people that vote for them we have the same problem here in the uk. too many soft gullible assholes incapable of wiping their own ass without instruction.
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” — H. L. Mencken
Unfortunately, there’s plenty of competition for stupidest house member. There’s your embarrassment Corrine Brown, Maxine Waters, Sheila Jackson Lee, and of course the great Hank Johnson, just off the top of my head.
But on the senate side, California’s very own Barbara Boxer is in a class of her own.
WE’RE NUMBER ONE! WE’RE NUMBER ONE!
If we can make it just more year, we’ll be done with this waste of oxygen forever.
Well, since you mentioned Corrine Brown, yep, she is my representative. .. I remember when she was still a Florida state rep. She was trying to pass a bill to build a state museum to honor great female athletes from Florida. She wanted to name it the Corrine Brown Female Athletes Blah Blah Blah. She ran track in college and decided she deserved the honor.
When I met her, she was wearing the worst wig I have ever seen on an adult. No, really.
Rep Johnson must be thinking of the infamous “tipping point” which CO2 has popularized.
It really is incredible. But Nat Geo used to print accurate information…it us only with the advent of CO2 as control knob of everything climastrology that they flaked out and jumped on board the sntiscience bandwagon.
One does not have to think about this very hard to know that these atolls move with sea level. Just imagine at the end of the last glacial maximum…sea level was hundreds of feet lower. Does anyone think that these atolls were sticking up hundreds of feet? Or that, as the SRA rose to present levels, these islands all just happened to lie just above where the sea happens to be right now?
When the sea falls, erosion takes over and the islands get ground down. As seas rise, coral growth keeps the reefs ringing the islands a few feet below sea level, and the waves pile up the material that creates and maintains the islands.
One might think that at least a few inhabitants of these places would have gotten a real education and learned about the geography if the place they live.
Nat Geo still does print accurate information when it doesn’t have anything to do with Climate. Here is an excellent example of a current Nat Geo pictoral article showing the artifacts being found in London.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/artifacts-found-under-london-archaeology-text?utm_source=NatGeocom&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=inside_20160121_Adventure_0121_AA&utm_campaign=Content&utm_rd=693980501
Menicholas at 1:14 pm
“One does not have to think about this very hard to know that these atolls move with sea level. Just imagine at the end of the last glacial maximum…sea level was hundreds of feet lower. Does anyone think that these atolls were sticking up hundreds of feet? Or that, as the SRA rose to present levels, these islands all just happened to lie just above where the sea happens to be right now?”
Excellent point. Thanks for the post.
It seems to me that NG is covering both scenarios. No matter what happens, they will claim to have covered it. When the GHG hypothesis is finally in the garbage bin, and nature continues to determine climate, NG will take some credit for whatever happens. [If they are still publishing— which is doubtful]. IMHO
Willis nailed it Why The Parrotfish Should Be The National Bird of Tuvalu.
Yes, one of his better posts!
So, again we are fed a boatload of guilt about sinking islands when the science behind that is bogus at best.
Let’s take a peek at Funafuti International Airport, Tuvalu.
Built in 1943.
Now
http://khm1.googleapis.com/kh?v=192&hl=en&x=16347&y=8581&z=14&token=10295
Then
http://www.pacificwrecks.com/airfields/tuvalu/funafuti/1943/funafuti-airview.html
How can you look at those pictures, and still doubt global warming? How much more proof do you need? The change since 1943 is almost 90 degrees.
It is heartening to see that quite a few Alarmist/Warmist publications are covering both realist and alarmist scenarios. They must be sensing that there is a tipping point coming and the wheels could be coming off CO2 Warmism. Mother Nature is still in charge and will make matters clear in the end.