Unshockingly, this breathless report comes from a reporter in…….exotic Cancun, Mexico, rather than from the Marshall Islands
CANCUN, Mexico – Encroaching seas in the far Pacific are raising the salt level in the wells of the Marshall Islands. Waves threaten to cut one sliver of an island in two. “It’s getting worse,” says Kaminaga Kaminaga, the tiny nation’s climate change coordinator.
Two things to pre-notice: if all the glaciers and ice are melting, and they are composed primarily of fresh water, wouldn’t that mean the seas are getting less salty? Second, remember that thing about waves.
The rising ocean raises questions, too: What happens if the 61,000 Marshallese must abandon their low-lying atolls? Would they still be a nation? With a U.N. seat? With control of their old fisheries and their undersea minerals? Where would they live, and how would they make a living? Who, precisely, would they and their children become?
For years global negotiations to act on climate change have dragged on, with little to show. Parties to the 193-nation U.N. climate treaty are meeting again in this Caribbean resort, but no one expects decisive action to roll back the industrial, agricultural and transport emissions blamed for global warming — and consequently for swelling seas.
OK, scrolling through the article, scrolling, scrolling…..hmph. I can’t seem to find how much the seas have actually risen at the Marshall Islands. It’s almost like the data is so disparate that they cannot come to an agreement on how much.
Now, remember the waves? Here’s a little bit of information for the climate alarmists, which the rest of us intuitively understand: the Marshall Islands are islands, consisting primarily of coral and sand. They are mostly considered to be at sea level, with an overall size comparable to Washington, D.C. They are out in the Pacific Ocean, and are vulnerable to sea storms, wave action, and typhoons. They have zero arable land. And, being islands, they are going to……erode! Amazing, eh?
“People who built their homes close to shore, all they can do is get more rocks to rebuild the seawall in front day by day,” said Kaminaga, who is in Cancun with the Marshallese delegation to the U.N. talks.
Here in North Carolina, they get the government to do that, in places like the Outer Banks and the islands near the South Carolina border. Because they are constantly eroding due to…..nature!
The U.N. network of climate scientists projects that seas, expanding from heat and from the runoff of melting land ice, may rise by up to 1.94 feet (0.59 meters) by 2100, swamping much of the scarce land of coral atolls.
There’s that “may” word again, and a time when most of us will be dead.
But the islands may become uninhabitable long before waves wash over them, because of the saline contamination of water supplies and ruining of crops, and because warming is expected to produce more threatening tropical storms.
Interestingly, the past few years have been pretty quiet on the tropical storm front. And they do not really have crops to speak of, having zero arable land. Obviously, though, none of this can natural, as it has been for all of Earth’s history. It has to be you driving your car, heating your house, and watching breathless reports about the dangers of climate change on your electricity sucking television.
Meanwhile, South Florida is bracing for record low temperatures, Ft. Lauderdale broke theirs, and cold weather homeless shelters opened early.
Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU. sit back and Relax. we’ll dRive!
Gee Teach more and more temp records are being broken, in fact in FL they went from record HIGHS to near record LOWShttp://www.tampabay.com/news/weather/article1137244.ece
In the USA last year twice as many HIGH temp records were broken last year as LOW records
So call this Marshall guy. They’re his islands, right?
I came for a while just 10 minutes, just read your post;)
Teach, the saltification (?) of the wells would be due to ……. them sucking too much water out of their ground water source.
Has nothing to do with glaciation or de-glaciation or warming or cooling. Called – Humanity.
And, it would be interesting to see a size comparison of the Islands 100 years go to today. I bet you they were much larger.
Interesting info: “The Marshall Islands first emerged 70 million years ago when volcanic cores erupted at presently extinct hotspots south of the equator.
Around 40 million years ago, while the Pacific plate continued to move in a northwesterly direction, the volcanoes began to subside. The islands were initially high, volcanic islands, but over the course of the ensuing 40 million years, they slowly sank back into the ocean from which they came, propelled by their own weight.
Microscopic organisms called polyps, which thrive in warm waters with high salinity, salvaged the remaining rim of what was once a volcano to the extent that, with botanical seeds transported by birds and ocean currents, 3,000 years ago small islets had taken form on the reefs, capable of sustaining life. These islets formed circular rings encircling sheltered lagoons. ”
Wow, polyps (aka Mother Nature) saved the Marshall Islands. Who knew?
Yes Maggie, but you are missing the bigger picture here. It was MAN’S WEIGHT that caused the islands to sink. That weight of course is made up of man’s CARBON FOOTPRINT. Man steps pretty dang hard on whatever ground he walks on.
There is no other explanation. Because if mother nature can push rocks up, she can keep her rocks up. (hahahahahaa, ahem. sorry) It is only man’s presence that causes the rocks to sink back in to the earth.
Do this test and you’ll see for yourself. Drop a rock from about head-height on to the ground in your backyard. (or the flowerpot out front of your apartment buildings). How far does it go in to the Earth? Not very far.
Now STOMP on it with your big carbon footprint of a boot!!!! How far did it go in to the Earth then?? Pretty far, huh?!!?
See, when man places his boot at the throat of mother nature, mother nature always loses!
>if all the glaciers and ice are melting, and they are composed primarily of
>fresh water, wouldn’t that mean the seas are getting less salty?
Yes, the seas themselves are getting slightly fresher, but the article is talking about the saltiness of the ground water, not of the sea water. The ground water is getting saltier, because as seas rise (which they are – see below), the fresh water lens under the islands gets shallower, and more and more wells are at the level where salt water is found. Also, as the islands erode salt water seeps into the fresh water lens more easily, so the water gets saltier.
>scrolling through the article, scrolling, scrolling…..hmph. I can’t seem to
>find how much the seas have actually risen at the Marshall Islands. It’s
>almost like the data is so disparate that they cannot come to an agreement on >how much.
That is because it is a journalistic piece which is not expected to cite its sources. A quick perusal of actual scientific literature would reveal that the ocean at Kwajalein Atoll, in the Marshall Islands, has been measured to be rising by 0.75±0.27 inches per decade.
> they do not really have crops to speak of, having zero arable land.
I would suggest doing some research beyond the CIA Factbook. The country has no arable land in that commercial crops cannot be grown there at a large scale. However, local crops such as coconuts, breadfruit, pandanus, and taro are grown extensively. In fact, these crops cover most of the country.
A couple of Google searches would have easily revealed all of the information above. Do some basic research before you make a post of this sort.
This leads me to believe that you simply don’t WANT to believe in anthropogenic global warming. I understand why. You’re afraid that global warming will be used to impose a left-wing agenda on the nation and the world, which is something you oppose. I can understand that. Luckily, we won’t have to remake the world in the left-wing image in order to solve global warming. All we have to do is transition to renewable energy, which is itself a big business that America could be a leader in, and which will provide jobs and revenue, just as fossil fuel energy provides jobs and revenue now. Anthropogenic global warming is not as scary an idea, policy-wise, as a lot of people are making it out to be. Once we realize this, we’ll stop doubting the science and start working together to solve the problem, with benefits for everyone – not just the people of the Marshall Islands.
Peter, since you are apparently new to this blog, you wouldn’t know that most of us believe in renewable energy and independence from foriegn oil. But, we want to drill here and now; and as you point out- we are more in fear of the left wing agenda than we are of global warming.
It is also clear right now, that renewable energy is a long ways from being viable economically and distribution of the types of wind and solar power is still a logistical nightmare. Remember when ol’ T Boone wanted to turn a huge swath of Texas countryside (and straight up through the country to Canada) into a wind farm? Yes, well that failed in large part due to the latter reason- distribution. The power “lines”, became a hot bed issue with the folks who lived in the area and proved to have a huge cost associated with it.
“As reported by Forbes, the cost for these transmission lines is slated to be astronomical. The Department of Energy said a nationwide grid of high-voltage power lines could do it, but the cost would be $60 billion by 2030. (See: “What The Pickens Fiasco Means To Green.”) Pickens put the cost at $70 billion, and said it could be financed privately.”
http://www.forbes.com/2009/10/16/pickens-revisited-wind-intelligent-investing-forbes.html
Anyway, welcome to Pirates Cove- it’s a great blog with lively conversation!
Also Peter, as I pointed out, one of the primary reasons that you have saltwater intrusion in to wells is from drawdown due to increased human consumption.
Second, there still isn’t any proof that our world as a whole is getting warmer DUE TO human’s breathing and driving. If, as it appears, you believe in AGW, please tell me what made the Earth get very much warmer during the Roman times. And, after that, please tell me how we survived then if the weather now is so catastrophic.
And you speak of the magic of just transition over to “green” and all our worries about jobs and economy will be solved. Sorry. Please note that our government prevents mining. Our government prevents access to much of their confiscated federal lands. We couldn’t lead in anything these days.
China is the leader now. China has the mineral resources and the resolve to get things done. You see that article where China will be paid with Stimulus monies to build and operate a massive 3-county wide wind power project in Texas for the few times that the wind deigns to blow?
You also see where Russia will be gaining mineral rights to one of our Uranium mines?
It was bad enough in the beginning that we forced other countries to pollute their lands for our oil and mineral needs because we were too good\green to do it ourselves.
But now, we are allowing those same countries IN TO our country to do what we can’t now do for ourselves. We are allowing China, Russia, etc to drill for our oil in the Gulf. We are paying Brazil to deep drill for oil when we prevent our companies from doing the same.
Our administrations have been doing everything they can to drive our country out of existence. Obama and his Communist cronies have put the final black rose on our grave.
Wake up Peter.