What happens to the Tuvaluans when their country sinks?

Great Debates
41

The latest reports from The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change can be found here.

Scylla, I do not have the time or inclination to be drawn into a contest with you of picking apart each other’s cites. In any technical article I cite, I am sure you will find hedges and qualifications - as you clearly understand, that is the way scientists write.

Has global warming (and concomitant sea level rise) been observed? Yes.

Has it absolutely and incontrovertibly been proved to be due mostly to human activities, according to the most rigorous scientific standards? No. But that’s probably true of the majority of generally accepted scientific theory.

Is there very strong evidence that global warming is largely due to human activities? Yes, according to the overwhelming consensus of climate scientists, including Dubya’s own hand-picked panel.

At this point, the preponderence of evidence is clearly on the side of a major anthropogenic factor in producing global warming. In my personal opinion (and, FWIW, I served as a representative on the U.S. Interagency Committee on Global Change Research under Dubya’s daddy, and am pretty familiar with the technical literature), the evidence also exceeds the criterion for reasonable doubt. But, what level of “doubt” is considered reasonable varies a lot between observers - after all, OJ is walking around a free man.

Scylla, you are perfectly free to believe whatever you want about climate change and its causes, and I’m sure you can find some research somewhere that will back you up. However, your views on the subject are definitely in the (small) minority among climate scientists.

42

Ahem. Copra is dried coconut meat. Needless to say, it is not mined.

You are evidently confusing copra with phosphates. The island nation of Nauru, which consists almost entirely of phosphate deposits, is largely degraded due to mining. However, due to income from mining Nauruans have one of the highest per capita incomes in the Third World, and they have established a trust fund to deal with the transition once the deposits are exhausted.

43

Colibri:

Well, why does the first site I linked on say exactly the opposite and back it up with original source material?

Thank you for the link. I haven’t plowed through it yet, but a casual perusal suggests that the data do not conflict with what is at http://www.globalwarming.org.

I’ll read it and respond.

44

Bear in mind that globalwarming.org is a mouthpiece of the National Consumer Coalition, a pro-market and anti-government organization that’s big on low regulation and strong property rights. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re telling any lies about global warming, but they definitely do have their own slant on the issue.

45

If you will look down at the bottom of globalwarming.com’s page, you will see they advertise a book published by the “Competitive Enterprise Institute,” and mention the “Cooler Heads Coalition.” A web search for the latter organization mentions that the page is a “project of the Cooler Heads Coalition, formed to dispel the myths of global warming by exposing flawed economic, scientific, and risk analysis.” It seems to me to be a highly biased site established by business interests, although the site is curiously silent about its actual affiliation. IMO, most of the nay-saying on the issue is due to economic and political agendas, not science.

(One thing I do agree with you on, Scylla is that DPWhite is not the best advocate for the case of human-induced global warming. He doesn’t appear to have read his own links before posting them.)

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, I should mention, is a UN-sponsored group composed of the most prestigious climate scientists from around the world. (The report cites a total of 122 Co-ordinating Lead Authors and Lead Authors, 515 Contributing Authors, 21 Review Editors and 337 Expert Reviewers. The report was ratified by 99 IPCC member countries.) The IPCC’s reports are the most authoritative statements by the world scientific community on the issue.

Let me reiterate, Scylla, in such a scientific publication you will find many caveats, hedges, and cautionary notes about aspects of the research. You will no doubt be able to make some case for your viewpoint by quoting some of these statements. I do not want to get involved in trying to refute every single objection to the research, or this thread will go on for 10 pages. I concede there are many doubts, questions, and uncertainties, especially about the magnitude of effects. However, the bottom line is that most of the scientific community agrees that global warming is occurring, and that humans are in part responsible for it.

PS. Kimstu, thanks for the link I see you added in preview.

46

Yes, these folks are part of a network of well-funded global warming greenwash groups. They’re smart enough not to lie outright, they just engage in, shall we say, “selective reporting.”

47

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by vorfod *
**

No.

48

I wonder if we’re getting a little ‘previous’ with our concerns for the people of Tuvalu. Isn’t the fate of (most of) Iceland of greater concern, especially given that our esteemed poster bonkers bJorn might need to emigrate to a non-melting environment ?

49

Oh. Whoops. Stupid brain. I won’t forget that one.

50

The weblogs I cited contained scores of citations to scientific data and papers. You refuse to read them or offer opposing sites or cites. Your post was arrogant, racist and ignorant. Global warming, like evolution is a fact one that you can’t change by refusing to read the evidence. And frankly I’ll quote your whole post if it is useful to show your lack of backing information. As for your name calling, grow up.

51

Does bjOrn actually live inside the ice sheet? (Actually, that wouldn’t surprise me.)

Besides Tuvalu, sea level rise is of great concern to many other small island states, including Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, the Maldives, and the Bahamas. Even a one-meter rise would wipe out a large part of these nations. Maybe they could all move to Iceland and Greenland, which will have more habitable land.

Look, DPWhite, as I noted in a previous post you are not helping the case. You don’t seem to have read your own links - in fact, the first one you cited was an anti-global warming site. Scylla is quite correct that you shot yourself in the foot.

Please be a bit more selective with your “research.” And I agree that you should quit quoting entire posts. You may annoy Scylla, but you piss off everybody else too.

52

Here are a number of articles, reviewed prior to publication by other people in the field, that is, peer reviewed, that make clear that air temperatures are getting warmer and sea levels are rising. This is fact. In my search, I encountered no peer reviewed papers suggesting that air temperatures are stable or cooling, or that ocean levels are stable or lowering. While there were the usual number of qualifications in these articles discussing possible sources of errors, they have not been shown to be error. The many popular internet sites saying this is all malarkey incorrectly seize upon the possible sources of error (standard in any scientific paper) as cause to ignore the data. There is no proof that these possible sources of error in fact explain rising sea levels and temperature levels. I do not purport to state the cause of rising sea levels or temperatures, other than to say that anyone who ascribes the reason to Polynesian Islanders removing sand from their beaches in an effort to get foreign aid that they don’t need because they have money in the bank is acting as a provocateur and not getting to the cause.

Is the cause of rising sea levels higher temperatures (causing melting ice southern ice cap and possible coefficient of expansion in ocean water)? Quite possibly, but I don’t know. The consensus of the articles I searched suggest this is the case. Is that caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases? I don’t know. Again, there seems to be consensus among the scientists that such is the likely cause. Those opposed are not doing peer reviewed articles, but again seizing on possible sources of error. If they have a case to make, they should start collecting and modeling the data, they certainly aren’t going to convince me that they are correct because they don’t know for sure.

Possible sources of error: land masses are sinking and the compressed area causes the compressed land to heat up. (This is a joke.)

Further questions: If the air has increased a half a degree Celsius world wide in the past 100 years, calculate how much more energy the entire atmosphere is holding. Further research: Has the temperature of the oceans increased, if so, make that calculation also. Further research: if the northern ice cap melts, will it increase sea levels? Remember, it is already floating in water. If all the ice on land melts worldwide during summers, (including Antarctica, Siberia, Canada, Greenland, etc. by how much will the oceans rise?)

James G. Titus and Vijay Narayanan. 1995. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 186 pp. EPA 230-R95-008
http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/publications/impacts/sealevel/probability.html

Greenhouse Effect and Sea Level Rise: The Cost of Holding Back the Sea (928K pdf) was originally published in Coastal Management (1991), Volume 19, 171-204. The report’s Abstract, Introduction and Summary and Conclusions sections are available below.

http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/publications/impacts/sealevel/cost_of_holding.html

Greenhouse Effect, Sea Level Rise, and Land Use (1.8M pdf), by James G. Titus, was originally published in Land Use Policy, April 1990, Vol 7: issue 2, pp:138-53. You may view the article below in its entirety or download it in pdf format.
http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/publications/impacts/sealevel/landuse.html
Global sea level change: Determination and interpretation
Bruce C. Douglas
NOAA, National Oceanographic Data Center, Washington, D.C.
http://earth.agu.org/revgeophys/dougla01/dougla01.html
The Coming Climate
Meteorological records and computer
models permit insights into some of the broad
weather patterns of a warmer world
by Thomas R. Karl, Neville Nicholls and Jonathan Gregory
http://www.sciam.com/0597issue/0597karl.html
Is the Temperature Rising?
By S. George Philander
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998
If you’re not convinced yet, you might be after you read this book by Princeton geoscientist Philander. While the author is careful to explain the uncertainties inherent in any attempt to forecast the effects of global warming, he argues that yes, the temperature is rising, and if we wait too long for more ‘accurate’ scientific predictions, it may already be too late to avoid catastrophe.

The Risk of Sea Level Rise: A Delphic Monte Carlo Analysis in which Twenty Researchers Specify Subjective Probability Distributions for Model Coefficients within their Respective Areas of Expertise (1996, 881k pdf), by James G. Titus and Vijay Narayanan, was originally published in Climatic Change 33: 151-212, 1996. The report’s Abstract is available below.
http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/publications/impacts/sealevel/risk_of_rise.html
Maps of Lands Vulnerable to Sea Level Rise:
Modeled Elevations along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf Coasts
By James G. Titus and Charlie Richman
http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/publications/impacts/sealevel/maps/index.html
http://www.meteor.iastate.edu/gcp/sealevel/sealevel.html
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ogp/papers/varekamp.html

53

Happy to piss you off too! You guys don’t mind demanding that other people hand you the research on a silver platter, but you simply refuse to make citations. The burden of proof is not put on the person who is stating the scientifically accepted norm beyond the most general pointer (which like childish pills you reject), but those espousing the looney notions that rising sea levels are caused by people digging sand off of their beaches in some twisted conspiracy to get foreign aid. Please. I’ve said long ago that this racist thread belongs in the pit, and it does.

Sea levels are rising. Global temperature is rising.

54

Colibri:

Well, I read that position paper twice. I’m a little torn on how to deal with it. My first instinct was to say that it was contracted to solicit opinions and therefore is not strictly a scientific paper. As you readily agree, the paper so notes that this is so.

Secondly, being a political paper, the opinions and positions of those writing it may be called into question. It does not meet the challenge for “peer-reveiwed” cites that I requested in reponse to DP’s ignorant blathering. In any other context it would be an excellent cite.

However, you did not state that there no peer-reviewed papers arguing against global warming, you conceded that there most likely were. Your point was simply that the majority seem to think there is a strong case for it. Your cite does an excellent job of backing up that point. Unfortunately, that was not the point I had disputed with DP.

Nevertheless, a concession of some sort seems to be called for on my part, and clearly you have shown that a majority of elite scientists in this area are in agreement that global warming is being influence and accelerated by human events.

Oddly though, I did note a few things in the paper as regards to my arguments concerning the Tuvaluans. The paper did note that surface temperatures and melting of glacier material in Antarctica was not observed. Rising sea levels have merely been projected as a consequence of global warming (depending on cite we have .5-.6 of a degree over the last 100 years.) To my untrained mind this would seem to fall within the category of expected fluctuations. However they do make a case that this is an accelerating trend, so I won’t bother to dispute it, as it really isn’t germaine to my argument. As I’ve said before, I’d be surprised if temperatures weren’t rising.

Rising sea levels are only projected. They have not yet been observed.

Surely you would agree that the Tuvaluans can hardly blame an event for the destruction of their living space that has not yet occured. Wouldn’t you?

Surely you would agree that clear-cutting a fragile windswept atoll and carting away the beach is the preferred explanation to the erosion of Tuvalu rather than an event that has not yet occured. Wouldn’t you?

Let me ask point blank, as you seem to be debating fairly. Is it your argument that Tuvalu is eroding due to rising sea levels, or to erosion helped along by the actions of it’s inhabitants?

If your argument is that it’s both, in what proportion do you attribute these causes?

DPwhite:

Oh, I forgot to mention, If you do care to link or quote to a peer reviewed paper claiming to prove global warming, or claiming that such an opinion is unanimous, I will happily provide you the countersites you requested. However since my first click on your last effort (which listed 75 sites,) seemed to be arguing my case, I find it difficult to take you very seriously, and it hardly seemed to merit my clicking on to read sites you had not bothered to examine on your own but still felt justified in using as evidence.

Nevertheless, I think education and helping those with challenges and handicaps is an important thing, so I’ll give you another chance.

Why don’t you (and no help from the studio audience please,) try reeeeaaaaallly hard, and pick a single cite to a single webpage that contains a peer-reviewed article supporting the theory of global warming? For bonus points try doing this for one supporting the theory that sea levels are rising, And, for the grand prize, why don’t you try quoting a brief passage that succinctly corrobates your argument.

Do this and I’ll throw you a biscuit. Otherwise it’s time to run along.

55

DPWHite:

Cite #1 (what happens if sea levels rise.) Very nice. It suggests that if sea levels rise, the Tuvuluans will be screwed.

Unfortunately that cite doesn’t suggest that this has happened yet, and the Tuvuuluans will be hard pressed to blame an event for the observed recession of their islands which has yet to occur, and is in fact only projected.

Clicking through the 2nd 3rd and 4th link I note that these are actually the same link as the first, and share the same drawback. That is, the discuss what will happen if sea-levels rise as they are projected to do.

from your 4 in 1 link:

Well gee, that should set the Tuvaluans minds at ease. They must be just imagining the whole thing. Clearly they don’t have to worry about their islands sinking for several decades, or at least not due to rising sea levels

You really do have a talent for undoing your own arguments, you know. Comic genius.

The one link that you have that claims to suggest that sea-levels are observably rising, is from what appears to be a ::chuckle:: high school textbook, and the link they provide doesn’t work, which they note before the fact.

So, the one piece of corroborating evidence you have found is a nonexistent link from a high school textbook?

This is too funny.

56

The above is ignorant, bigoted blathering. Still not a single cite for a site or otherwise supporting the racist theory that Tuvaluians are destroying their island. Hope to meet you someday and see if you can swim.

57

And no they are not the same cites and yes some do show evidence of sea levels rising and global warming. But then I am not claiming that they are unilateral. Misrepresent all you want.

58

5 of your 8 links are to EPA.gov’s global warming site. A moment’s work finds the index page from which you produced the cites, apparently without even bothering to read them.

I’ve looked through them, and I see nothing that says sea levels are rising, though several suggest that are expected to in the future.

If you feel otherwise, provide a quote and the link you got it from. That’s the way it’s done.

Failing an acceptable link and quote from you (you do need both, I’m not wasting any more of my time searching sites you haven’t read for things they aren’t saying,) I will continue to cling to my “racist” doctrine that sea-levels have not been observed to rise and cannot be held responsible for the erosion of the Tuvaluan islands.

59

Bumped.

The country’s islands and atolls now total less than 10 square miles. I wonder if Australia or some other generous and helpful nation might be willing to cede that much land, or more, to Tuvalu and its citizens, so they have somewhere to live together?

For more: Tuvalu - Wikipedia