Mood:
irritatedTopic: globalWarming
This writer has published (on then viable Sydney Indy Media in late 2006, and) here on SAM, that all this minimalist talk about a small sea rise (as bad as that is for beach erosion and coastal flooding during storm surge) as per ABC radio news this morning, is a form of denial and saccharine deception to the mainstram political economy.
As if to underline the point a report with more scientific integrity by Deborah Smith, Science editor in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald entitled "Sea rises faster than gloomiest predictions" is tucked away on page 6 and is not available online on their text archive.
The International Panel of Climate Change has released it's latest report on 2nd February 2007 which is already out of date, as new research on rapid levels of ice melt at both North and Southern Poles comes in. Every scientist we have heard in the last 24 hours keeps hammering the point that the real rate and extent of ice melt is unknown, or rather is known to be much faster and worse than the IPCC report has been able to address. Their conservative 50 to 80 cm rise by 2100 is all just so much false minimalism.
The serious climate scientists know the IPCC process is the most conservative consensus model of reporting from the science community.
Professor Tim Flannery recently awarded Australian of the Year said on Radio National and PM show yesterday that the 3 million year old ice caps of the North and South Pole could well be gone in 5 to 15 years at the most recent rates of melting measured. More conservative estimates are 2050.
This writer has read several estimates of 5 to 10 metre sea rise with the melting of the ice caps. Really. This is game over for large sections of coastal Sydney.
And it is sooner not later. And all the warnings have been correct so far. Many serious scientists, like this one here:
"UN blames humans for climate change
A United Nations climate report warns the world is heating faster than earlier predictions. It says ice caps are melting faster, seas will rise faster and the certainty has grown that human activity is the culprit. The report also spells out a series of grim scenarios in Australia. Leading Australian climate change consultant Dr Graeme Pearman discusses the dire assessment."
.....can see the stubborn determination of western civilisation to live like modern royalty in their lifestyles will mean the oppressive process of climate change will only get faster and worse.
Get the picture? Coastal cities are going to be hit with big sea rises and 1/2 a metre sea rise is a dangerous under reporting to avoid economic panic, and postpone financial and social upheaval around major restructure (that is inundation) of our coastal suburbs.
