Rising waters

[Rexone]

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with global warming being caused by man made causes etc. the fact appears to be that ice is melting at a pretty alarming rate by comparison to recent history and waters are rising. This presents some serious issues for mankind in general in the coming 50-100 years with the possible implication of large scale migration and possibly wars as people and whole countries strive to survive the floods of coastal areas. Our children and grandchildren could very well be dealing with these issues in their lifetimes.
Your thoughts....?
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Many of Indonesia's islands may be swallowed up by the sea if world leaders fail to find a way to halt rising sea levels at this week's climate change conference on the resort island of Bali.
Doomsters take this dire warning by Indonesian scientists a step further and predict that by 2035, the Indonesian capital's airport will be flooded by sea water and rendered useless; and by 2080, the tide will be lapping at the steps of Jakarta's imposing Dutch-era Presidential palace which sits 10 km inland (about 6 miles).
The Bali conference is aimed at finding a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, on cutting climate warming carbon emissions. With over 17,000 islands, many at risk of being washed away, Indonesians are anxious to see an agreement reached and quickly implemented that will keep rising seas at bay.
Just last week, tides burst through sea walls, cutting a key road to Jakarta's international airport until officials were able to reinforce coastal barricades.
"Island states are very vulnerable to sea level rise and very vulnerable to storms. Indonesia ... is particularly vulnerable," Nicholas Stern, author of an acclaimed report on climate change, said on a visit to Jakarta earlier this year.
Even large islands are at risk as global warming might shrink their land mass, forcing coastal communities out of their homes and depriving millions of a livelihood.
The island worst hit would be Java, which accounts for more than half of Indonesia's 226 million people. Here rising sea levels would swamp three of the island's biggest cities near the coast -- Jakarta, Surabaya and Semarang -- destroying industrial plants and infrastructure.
"Tens of millions of people would have to move out of their homes. There is no way this will happen without conflict," Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar said recently.
"The cost would be very high. Imagine, it's not just about building better infrastructure, but we'd have to relocate people and change the way people live," added Witoelar, who has said that Indonesia could lose 2,000 of its islands by 2030 if sea levels continue to rise.
CRUNCH TIME AT BALI
Environmentalists say this week's climate change meeting in Bali will be crunch time for threatened coastlines and islands as delegates from nearly 190 countries meet to hammer out a new treaty on global warming.
Several small island nations including Singapore, Fiji, Kiribati, Tuvalu and Caribbean countries have raised the alarm over rising sea levels which could wipe them off the map.
The Maldives, a cluster of 1,200 islands renowned for its luxury resorts, has asked the international community to address climate change so it does not sink into a watery grave.
According to a U.N. climate report, temperatures are likely to rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees Celsius (2.0 and 11.5 degrees Fahrenheit) and sea levels by between 18 cm and 59 cm (seven and 23 inches) this century.
Under current greenhouse gas emission levels, Indonesia could lose about 400,000 sq km of land mass by 2080, including about 10 percent of Papua, and 5 percent of both Java and Sumatra on the northern coastlines, Armi Susandi, a meteorologist at the Bandung Institute of Technology, told Reuters.
Indonesia, the world's fourth-most populous country, has faced intense pressure over agricultural land for decades.
Susandi, who has researched the impact of climate change on Indonesia, estimated sea levels would rise by an average of 0.5 cm a year until 2080, while the submersion rate in Jakarta, which lies just above sea level, would be higher at 0.87 cm a year.
A study by the UK-based International Institute for Economy and Development (IIED) said at least 8 out of 92 of the outermost small islands that make up the country's borders are vulnerable.
TOO MANY ISLANDS TO COUNT
Less than half of Indonesia's islands are inhabited and many are not even named. Now, the authorities are hastily counting the coral-fringed islands that span a distance of 5,000 km, the equivalent of going from Ireland to Iran, before it is too late.
Disappearing islands and coastlines would not only change the Indonesian map, but could also restrict access to mineral resources situated in the most vulnerable spots, Susandi said.
He estimates that land loss alone would cost Indonesia 5 percent of its GDP without taking into account the loss of property and livelihood as millions migrate from low-lying coastlines to cities and towns on higher ground.
There are 42 million people in Indonesia living in areas less than 10 meters above the average sea level, who could be acutely affected by rising sea levels, the IIED study showed.
A separate study by the United Nations Environment Programme in 1992 showed in two districts in Java alone, rising waters could deprive more than 81,000 farmers of their rice fields or prawn and fish ponds, while 43,000 farm laborers would lose their job.
One solution is to cover Indonesia's fragile beaches with mangroves, the first line of defense against sea level rise, which can break big waves and hold back soil and silt that damage coral reefs.
A more expensive alternative is to erect multiple concrete walls on the coastlines, as the United States has done to break the tropical storms that hit its coast, Susandi said.
Some areas, including the northern shores of Jakarta, are already fitted with concrete sea barriers, but they are often damaged or too low to block rising waters and big waves such as the ones that hit Jakarta in November.
"It will be like permanent flooding," Susandi said. "By 2050, about 24 percent of Jakarta will disappear," possibly even forcing the capital to move to Bandung, a hill city 180 km east of Jakarta.

[OKIE-JET]

IMO, I'm not real sure that something can be done at all, short of stopping EVERYTHING that has to do with ANY warming, which would require the world to stand still. Planetary issues seem to be way too large scale for humans to change with any small actions (quickly that is). I also continue to hear about rapid rates of destruction, and if in fact it is happening that quickly, the only alternative to me would be to stop progress (if thats what you want to call it)
worldwide. I think we all know everyone globally would have to be in agreement, and thats just not gonna happen. Also when implementing any sort of plan to address such a large issue, it will be a LOOOONG waiting game to see if the changes have made any difference at all.
I only have one question though.
When can I start buying ocean front property in Ari-zo-na?

[OKIE-JET]

One more thing here. We as humans must determine just what part in this we have had, because thats just about all we can change or try to reverse, and just how much of this is nature, something that cant be controlled on this level.
Yes, Al Gore says we've done all of it, but thats bull. Honesty with ourselves is what its gonna take to come up with a viable solution to our problems.:idea:

[TonkaDriver]

One more thing here. We as humans must determine just what part in this we have had, because thats just about all we can change or try to reverse, and just how much of this is nature, something that cant be controlled on this level.
Yes, Al Gore says we've done all of it, but thats bull. Honesty with ourselves is what its gonna take to come up with a viable solution to our problems.:idea:
It is scientific fact that climate changes are on a cycle. We are simply warming from the last Ice Age as has happened many times in the past. The Ice age created the Great Lakes.
Anyone who thinks that the last 150 years of industrialization compared with the billions of years od past history is causing climate change is very simply an idiot.

[OKIE-JET]

Anyone who thinks that the last 150 years of industrialization compared with the billions of years od past history is causing climate change is very simply an idiot.
Kinda my point, and there are more of these out there than one might think.

[ULTRA26 # 1]

It is scientific fact that climate changes are on a cycle. We are simply warming from the last Ice Age as has happened many times in the past. The Ice age created the Great Lakes.
Anyone who thinks that the last 150 years of industrialization compared with the billions of years od past history is causing climate change is very simply an idiot.
Kurt,
It's amazing how someone like you, who isn't a scientist by any means, has the balls to call way more qualified people that yourself idiots. I personally don't know what effect man is having in climate change, but after living in the Los Angeles area for over 50 years, and watching first hand the amount of shit that man has been pumped to the atmosphere, I believe that man could be having some affect. I'm not sure that we have the ability to change the current warming pattern, but do believe that we need to reduce the amount of shit we pump into the air. I see doing so as a win win.

[TonkaDriver]

Kurt,
It's amazing how someone like you, who isn't a scientist by any means, has the balls to call way more qualified people that yourself idiots. I personally don't know what effect man is having in climate change, but after living in the Los Angeles area for over 50 years, and watching first hand the amount of shit that man has been pumped to the atmosphere, I believe that man could be having some affect. I'm not sure that we have the ability to change the current warming pattern, but do believe that we need to reduce the amount of shit we pump into the air. I see doing so as a win win.
Ultra,
I also see any gains we make in air polution as a win for us. The scientific fact is that one major volcanic eruption does more harm to the atmosphere and has a much larger affect on climate than the human impact could ever make.
On a lighter note I think we should impose a global ban on volcanos and any country that doesn't comply should be sanctioned.
The earth is a huge place with billions of years of history. The last 150 years have been equal a fly turd in the big picture.
OK Ultra,
I am not a scientist but I do have some knowledge from simply paying attention. CFC's are 48 times heavier than air (fact). How does something that heavy reach and destroy the Ozone layer as most global warming caused by human advocates espouse?
How many times has the scientific community flip-flopped on the risks and benefits of drinking coffee in the last 30 years?

[Moneypitt]

Kurt,
It's amazing how someone like you, who isn't a scientist by any means, has the balls to call way more qualified people that yourself idiots. I personally don't know what effect man is having in climate change, but after living in the Los Angeles area for over 50 years, and watching first hand the amount of shit that man has been pumped to the atmosphere, I believe that man could be having some affect. I'm not sure that we have the ability to change the current warming pattern, but do believe that we need to reduce the amount of shit we pump into the air. I see doing so as a win win.
John I would agree IF the sky is falling morons would just tell the truth. 1934 was warmer than 1998........The minute effect man has on this change on earth has been blown so far out of porportion that only the sheep here on earth believe it. The islands mentioned as going under have been under before. The entire planet was a giant ice ball more than once in the past. Are we as a people so arrigant to think we can change the earth's cycles of warming and cooling?.......Entire species have been wiped out by the changes in climate and sea levels. Mother earth has a way of re newing herself. True scientists are not screaming about the doom and gloom, they know it is part of the big picture. A picture we didn't paint, and have very little, if any, control over.......As the Nobel prize gone in the toilet, so has any credibility of anyone that follows algore into the abiss of fantasyland........Ray
PS: John, do you remember burning our LA trash in incenterators in our backyards?........Now that same trash in landfills is causing GW because of emissions....One evil to the other, but in reality, which was worse?..........We'll never know, will we.........

[ULTRA26 # 1]

Ultra,
I also see any gains we make in air polution as a win for us. The scientific fact is that one major volcanic eruption does more harm to the atmosphere and has a much larger affect on climate than the human impact could ever make.
On a lighter note I think we should impose a global ban on volcanos and any country that doesn't comply should be sanctioned.
The earth is a huge place with billions of years of history. The last 150 years have been equal a fly turd in the big picture.
It has only been the last 150 years that man has pumping mass amount of shit into the air. Has it been enough to tilt a delicate system, I don't know and neither do you.
John I would agree IF the sky is falling morons would just tell the truth. 1934 was warmer than 1998........The minute effect man has on this change on earth has been blown so far out of porportion that only the sheep here on earth believe it. The islands mentioned as going under have been under before. The entire planet was a giant ice ball more than once in the past. Are we as a people so arrigant to think we can change the earth's cycles of warming and cooling?.......Entire species have been wiped out by the changes in climate and sea levels. Mother earth has a way of re newing herself. True scientists are not screaming about the doom and gloom, they know it is part of the big picture. A picture we didn't paint, and have very little, if any, control over.......As the Nobel prize gone in the toilet, so has any credibility of anyone that follows algore into the abiss of fantasyland........Ray
There are more than a handful of concerned scientists.
Are we having an affect? Neither of us know for sure, Ray
Yes I do remember the thash incinerators in our back yards and I also remember not being able to go outside and play without coughing and getting a headache, when I was a kid.

[donzi5150]

Rex, I have also seen many studies showing that is is a cyclic process and that the Antarctica is actually gaining ice and area over the same period and that this has gone on for thousands of years......north to south and back again........But here might be a good question.....more water means more boating opportunities?
I just tend to believe our affect is mostly directly back at us and that in the big picture our affect is small in comparrison to what the earth cycles through naturally.....:idea: