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Why Do the Maldives Still Exist?
Climate science has long been consumed by the politics of climate, at least as far as any work in climate change or global warming is concerned. All control of the project at the UN’s IPCC was put into the hands of activists and administrators in the 1980s, The lead scientist at the UN in charge of the question of carbon dioxide at the time, Tom Wigley, maintained that there was not yet sufficient evidence to show that man-made carbon dioxide was changing the climate, and it was unlikely to show up in the foreseeable future. Activists in third-world countries led by Brazil got tired of waiting for this evidence and so moved to proclaim the guilt of man-made carbon dioxide by fiat. The situation is detailed by Bernie Lewin in a chapter of the book “Climate Change: The Facts”. Those scientists who enthusiastically prostitute themselves to the climate narrative have been richly rewarded, and any scientist who failed to toe the warmist line was ejected and de-funded. In addition, a large number of low-level functionaries from third world countries were elevated to the status of “leading climate expert” and could therefore be counted on to give their unwavering support to the project.
The ability to predict future changes in the climate is, of course, the rai·son d’ê·tre of climate science, and it is remarkable how bad climate science is at doing that. There is a very long list of wrong predictions with the prediction of global atmospheric temperatures leading the pack. Environment Canada publishes its predictions about the climate every year. By law they must include their previous predictions and their performance in each report, and each report therefore includes a long list of failures, in some cases with disastrous results. But it doesn’t seem to matter. They go along making predictions using the same flawed methods year after year confident that nobody in authority will hold them accountable. The facts don’t matter. Only the thermageddonist vision as laid down by the IPCC matters.
One climate science prediction that struck me as remarkable with regard to the stubbornness of the facts was about the Maldives. The Maldives is a nation consisting of a group of islands in the Indian Ocean remarkable for the fact that none of them has an elevation of over 8 feet above sea level, and half of the 115 square miles of dry land that makes up the island nation is no more than 1 foot above sea level. Yet the Maldives has existed as a place of human habitation for 2500 years.
Going back 40 years thermageddonists have predicted that rising sea levels due to climate warming would submerge the Maldives any day now. In 1988 the prediction was that the Maldives would be gone by 2018. Since the year 1800 sea levels have risen 1 foot globally according to reconstructions of tide data and satellite data.* This means that half of the Maldives dry land that existed in 1800 should be under the waves by now. But it’s not. According to the best science the Maldives should be well on the way to disappearing, but it stubbornly continues to exist.
How can this be?
Climate scientists can come up with ways to explain what has happened even if they can’t predict what will happen. In this case they postulated that tides shift sediment to the islands to increase their area, which explains why the islands have remained about the same. Nevertheless, they say, accelerating warming will increase sea level rise to the point that the Maldives will be uninhabitable by 2100. Most of us won’t be around to see whether or not they are right. Based on previous performance I’m betting not.
The other major factor regarding the Maldives is the human capacity to respond to slowly moving disasters. Maldives residents have gotten large machines to move earth and build up parts of their islands, more as protection from storms than from rising sea levels. But therein in my opinion lies the most appropriate response to climate change if and when it shows up, which is to adjust to it. Basing trillions of dollars of policy on such flawed theories and their poor ability to predict problems is foolish. Better to deal only with the problems that actually show up.
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*Some scientists say the data shows that sea levels have not changed. Tide and satellite data are fragmented and difficult to interpret. Tide data is afflicted by the issue of land subsidence in some places which in most studies is not corrected for. And there are other issues. Link
Published in Environment
It is odd that environmental cult thinks it is just a coincidence that as the oceans have risen 100’s of feet since that last glacial phase, that these low islands just happen to exist. No. Wave action creates the islands. As for adaption, it is very cheap and efficient to pump sand from the surf to shore. After the Great Storm in Galveston in 1900 (the deadliest natural disaster in American history), the city built a big seawall and pumped up a *lot* of sand. Things are stable 121 years later.
So many dire predictions assume nothing else changes; that nothing and no one adapts to changing circumstances. Even inanimate components are part of the complex system that is the Earth that has many feedback subsystems.
Wait, I thought that the Maldives still exist because we were the ones we were waiting for, and we elected the Chosen One in 2008, and the seas started to recede . . .
The environmentalists are making the same arguments for Kiribati right now…
Thanks. A very good summation.
Despite the current desperate climate crisis, sea levels have risen at the same small rate since forever. At 3 or 4 mm/year the Maldives has a long lead time for contingency planning. They rushed to the head of the line when greenies started imagining climate reparations and have since demanded global attention to their imminent demise.
Anyone interested in following this issue should read the blog https://wattsupwiththat.com/
Here’s a thought: how about not settling on land in the middle of the ocean that’s almost at sea level. Or if your ancestors foolishly did, have a plan for getting out. Then it wouldn’t matter if the sea level were to rise a foot or two, which happens to be the range of values the IPCC projects by the end of this century.
Alternatively, if it’s feasible to do so, build dykes* and sea walls like the Dutch have done for centuries. A good fraction of the Netherlands is below sea level, yet somehow the Dutch seem to be able to keep heads above water — and all the rest of their stuff too. They even have some crazy story about a Dutch kid’s finger or something.
In short, figure it out or get out. Either way, quit yer whining.
*No lesbians were harmed in the course of writing this post nor is any harm suggested or implied.
Walter Williams summed it up well in this article (which I read every earth day)
https://www.creators.com/read/walter-williams/05/08/environmentalists-wild-predictions
I hadn’t thought of this, but clearly, he saved the Maldives.
And why his island fortress on Martha’s Vineyard is higher up on a bluff.
But we here at Ricochet salute their lesbianic courage in building massive, powerful, and steadfast dykes.
Yes, like a lot of other third world nations, they have been asking for a lot of money to address the problem. Many trillions of dollars are demanded of developed nations, which tells you why Brazil et al., hijacked the process at the IPCC.
And this isn’t just limited to island nations. Plenty of predatory real estate practices exist in places with serious flood issues like Louisiana, or areas that are frequently the target of hurricanes. Corrupt banks buy these properties up, with taxpayer help, then make big on the insurance settlements.
He’s scraping by with three mansions. Have some compassion. They’re probably not limited to temperatures below 72 degrees during the winter.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/01/obama_heat_as_i_say_not_as_i_d.html
And follow Tony Heller on Rumble or YouTube!
Wow, that was back in 2009 before he acquired the Martha’s Vineyard property. Did he not know they have winter on Martha’s Vineyard? Imagine the heating bill for that place! And where does the energy come from? Does MV have it’s own nuclear power plant?
Almost 200 years ago, Charles Darwin figured out how all of these coral atolls formed and why they were just above the sea level at any given time. His ideas have stood the test of time, and explain why they will continue to adapt to changing sea levels.
I find it amusing and ironic that the same people who predict futures in contradiction to that theory of Darwin will look down their noses at anyone who disagrees with Darwin’s other theory…