Article
Climate change could submerge costal cities
14 U.S. cities may be destroyed within the next century due to rising sea levels.
The list of potentially doomed cities includes Miami; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Boston, Mass.; New York; Atlantic City, N.J.; Honolulu; New Orleans; Sacramento, Calif.; San Diego; Los Angeles; Charleston, S.C.; Virginia Beach, Va.; Seattle; and Savannah, Ga., according to a list compiled by the Huffington Post. Man-made climate change, the report says, is the reason behind the scare.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), established by the United Nations Environment Program in 1988 and including members from 195 countries, released the report. The report states that human activity is the cause for most of the temperature increases in the past decades, according to The New York Times. The panel found that if climate change continues at its current rate, the sea could rise up to three feet within the next 100 years, thus wreaking havoc on America’s coastal cities.
“It is extremely likely that human influence on climate caused more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010,” the panel found, according to The New York Times. “There is a high confidence that this has warmed the ocean, melted snow and ice, raised global mean sea level and changed some climate extremes in the second half of the 20th century.”
However, not everyone agrees. On Monday, U.S. Rep. Todd Rokita, (R-Ind.) told visitors at a Lebanon, Ind., town hall meeting that the jury is still out on man-made climate change. “I think it’s arrogant that we think as people that we can somehow change the climate of the whole earth when science is telling us that there’s a cycle to all this,” he said, according to local paper The Exponent. “And that cycle was occurring before the industrial revolution, and I suspect will occur way into the future.”
The report found that carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, is up 41 percent since the industrial revolution. According to The New York Times, if that amount doubles, which many experts agree is likely to happen within decades, temperatures could increase anywhere from 2.7 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit, globally.
While averages such as temperature can be predicted with relative accuracy on a global scale, the panel reiterated a difficulty climate change scientists have experienced for years – changes still cannot be reliably forecast on a local scale, leaving governments and businesses at a loss as to how to plan for the future, according to The New York Times.
Scientists from the panel warn that such an increase could lead to melting of land ice, extreme heat waves, difficulty growing food and extreme changes in plant and animal life – including a new wave of extinctions.
A different study, released by the Nature Publishing Group, projected that if floodwaters were to rise 15.75 inches by 2050, losses from flooding in 136 of the world's largest global cities could approach $1 trillion, annually.
The IPCC’s full assessment will be released in four parts between September 2013 and November 2014 and can be viewed at the IPCC website.
Sacramento? Why Sacramento?
Sacramento? Why Sacramento? All of the other cities are on this list are exposed to an ocean or gulf, but Sacramento is 80 miles inland from Oakland.
To paraphrase Ronald Reagan,
To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, well, there they go again. The scare mongers are still at it, forecasting doom and gloom, while us skeptics are vilified (not me personally, but generally).
Much akin to Shakespeare’s Macbeth, manmade global warming is a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Let the flame wars begin.
Rick, good post.
Tossing
Rick, good post.
Tossing some additional gasoline for “flame wars” — hot dogs and sticks to follow 🙂
There is a rise in global
There is a rise in global temps. This should continue.
1) What are we doing to lower the global temp? Please do not say “its impossible” without saying why it is impossible.
2) Holland and other countries are bracing for rising seas, why not us ?
3) How do we take advantage of warmer temps? Shipping across the north pole ??
4) Norfolk Virginia, the main city right next to Virginia Beach holds *the* worlds largest naval base. Seems they would be kinda important too. Yet we manage just fine.
Yes Virginia there *is* a problem.
How do: We the people fix it ??
I don’t doubt it’s warming.
I don’t doubt it’s warming. But it’s been warming and cooling as best we know since way before humans got here. What makes us think we’re causing it to warm, or that we can make it cool? There are some mightly big and complex forces at work, and we still hardly understand them at all. How egocentric can we get?
How about 97 percent of
How about 97 percent of actively publishing scientists concur that burning of carbon and other more potent green house gases, (which is attributed to man) is responsible for average increase on the earth ‘s temperature, increase in extreme weather, melting ice, etc. ..the question is how can humanity get over its biases and break out of its preconceived mental model that we aren’t responsible…
How about 97 percent of
How about 97 percent of actively publishing scientists concur that burning of carbon and other more potent green house gases, (which is attributed to man) is responsible for average increase on the earth ‘s temperature, increase in extreme weather, melting ice, etc. ..the question is how can humanity get over its biases and break out of its preconceived mental model that we aren’t responsible…
Well, then, let’s all just
Well, then, let’s all just kill ourselves and do the planet a favor.
It’s perfectly plausible that
It’s perfectly plausible that we are partially responsible. Proof or certainty are an entirely different matter. We can’t exactly do a controlled experiment here. However, I’m not sure about the 97% figure. Would that be 97% of those not effectively blacklisted? Those *allowed* to publish? Because the dissenters are heretics? Flat-earthers? Deniers? Not worthy of acknowledgment? Orthodoxy is enforced with religious zeal in this arena. There have been way too many shenanigans discovered with the “data”, calculations and models to simply take anyone’s word for it anymore. Give the data to a neutral group for analysis and criticism. If it turns out chicken little is right, let’s swing into action. If not, I would rather not give sweeping powers to anyone. Even if we are causing it, giving sweeping powers to anyone is still a very bad idea. You don’t take a used car salesman’s word about how great the car is. Same applies here.
This has nothing to do with
This has nothing to do with Global Warming, it’s called tectonics! Why do so very few speak of what they taught us in school in the 60’s? The West Coast is Emerging (land is being pushed up), and the East Coast is Submerging. Folks, the continent is tilting!
We all know its beacuse of
We all know its beacuse of global warming but we dont want to see about it