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Mar 16, 2009 05:00 PM | 11
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Worried their country will end up under water as the globe warms and sea ices melt, the government of the Maldives this week announced that the Indian Ocean nation will go carbon neutral by 2020. No part of the chain of 1,200 low-lying islets rises more than six feet (1.8 meters) or so above sea level, leaving the 400,000 inhabitants there at grave risk of rising sea levels and storm surges, environmental journalist Andy Revkin writes today in a New York Times blog.
The Maldives government last year considered setting aside funds from its main biz – tourism – to purchase land from another country, such as India or Sri Lanka, to eventually relocate its populace. Recent reports give urgency to the plan, indicating that sea levels are expected to rise some 3.3 feet (1 meter) by 2100, even faster than predicted in the already dire-sounding Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released in 2007.
In an effort to prevent his archipelago nation from literally drowning, newly elected Maldives Prez Mohamed Nasheed said he will attempt to make the islands carbon-neutral by 2020 – the first country to do so, reports The Observer. How? By investing $1.1 billion over 10 years in alternative energies from rooftop solar arrays to wind turbines, to a biomass-burning power plant (in the tropical islands’ case, that means coconut husks), according to another New York Times blog today. “Going green might cost a lot," Nasheed said in an op-ed published this weekend in The Observer, "but refusing to act now will cost us the Earth."
Such an effort by the tiny nation is not likely to make much of a dent in total worldwide carbon dioxide emissions, given that the Maldives account for less than 0.1 percent of the total output (the U.S. and China combine for almost half). But the symbolic gesture may set an example for climate-polluting nations when they convene this December in Copenhagen, Denmark. There, the U.N. hopes to hammer out a new international climate change treaty to replace the 1992 Kyoto Protocol.
The North and South Malosmadulu atolls in the Maldives. Credit: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team
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drowning,
maldives,
global warming,
carbon-neutral
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11 Comments
Add Comment"Worried their country will end up under water as the globe warms and sea ices melt, etc."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIsn't that misleading? I thought ice displaces the same volume as water. Aren't they more in danger of the Greenland Ice melting than of "Sea Ice"
doesn't "Sea Ice" displace the same volume as the water it becomes when it melts?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIce displaces the same amount of water if it is floating on water. Ice on land will add water to the world oceans when it melts. Huge glaciers are melting on land from Canada to India & China.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother point to consider: Antarctica is a huge ice continent sitting on land. The weight of the entire mass of ice squeezes the crust down into the mantle, when this ice melts the pressure on the mantle will reduce causing the crust to pop displacing more water.
There are several scientific comments that I would like to make about "Global
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWarming" and "Global Climate Change". There is a basic principal(involved that has been overlooked by most of the non-scientific media.
Every statement in this paper is covered in detail in the references presented at the
conclusion of this discussion.
FIRST -- is that Global Warming is NOT a new effect. It has occurred five times
during the past 500,000 years! The basic cause is Methane (CH4) and
NOT man-made Carbon Dioxide (CO2). The present global warming
cycle began about the time man was crossing the frozen land bridge
from Siberia to North America.
We need to understand the sources and mechanics of Methane that
are actually the basic cause of our global warming. Anything that has
grown, ranging from yard clippings to a decaying body, produces
methane as it decomposes. Methane gas from permafrost is a decay
product. Methane gas from the deep ocean (methane hydrate) is totally different.
Methane gas from oil wells is yet a very different composition. These
must all be recognized as such and understood as to their manner of
existence, production, and/or release.
Deep Sea Methane appears to be the waste product of a bacteriological
process and is therefore a renewable resource! ( See Reference 2).
It is a relative clean product of our environment. It has recently been
produced (as clean natural gas) in continuous commercial quantities
by Japanese & American scientists in Canada in 2008. It is this Methane
gas that has been bubbling up, for eons,from the continental shelfs
around the world that is the real culprit
and basic cause of our present situation.
Oil well Methane gas is a very dirty gas mixture it is methane with
huge amounts of sulfur and other noxious gases mixed with it. The
Methane often mentioned in the media as "Bubbling up from Undersea
Permafrost" is a decay product. It is NOT from a Hydrate!
NEXT -- Drastic Global Climate Change has taken place at least FIVE
different times during the last 500,000 years. Our present cycle is
the only one during which man has been a factor! (Ref. 1 & 2). Methane
gas which bubbles up continuously from the deep ocean sources (and
which in turn disassociates into CO2) is the true source of the "Greenhouse
Gas" that has operated in the previous five interglacial cycles all
of which have been extinction cycles! As will this one!
Proof of this CH4 history was discovered in the Vostok ice cores
made in Antarctia.
These five previous cycles are NOT man made effects, nor is the
present cycle, and it IS TOO LATE to change our present cycle, we
may actually now be past the peak. We can only learn to adapt!
We cannot STOP the process although we might slow
it down for a few years, which in geological time is nothing.
We MUST ADAPT to survive! ADAPT! ADAPT ! ADAPT !
REFERENCES
There are several prime references associated with the material that I
have covered, if ever so briefly.
(1) EARTH's CHANGING CLIMATE. Lecture Series by Dr. Richard
Wolfson, the Benjamin F. Wissler Professor of Physics at Middlebury
College. This is a six hour lecture series (12 segments of 30 minutes
each) on two DVDs produced by The Teaching Company of Chantilly VA
20151-1232.(http://www.TEACH12.com
This series covers in-depth detail of the science and methodology of
climate change. It is not an advocacy program. Interestingly, Dr.
Wolfson does not even mention Methane-Clatherate in this lecture
series knowledge on that subject is almost too new to have been
included. It was first discovered on a moon of Venus by NASA about
1985. At the time we did not even know that it existed on Earth!
(2) FIRE IN THE ICE. Quarterly Journal , U.S.Department of Energy,
Office of Fossil Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory. Also
known as Methane Hydrate Newsletter. Recommended reading is all
issues to current issue from about 2000 forward. This is the best of
several technical journals devoted to the science of Methane
Clatherates.(http://www.netl.doe.gov/about/index.html
(3) HIGH TIDE by Mark Lynas. Picador, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY.
10010. ISBN 0-312-30365-3. This well written book clarifies the problems
of Global Warming "& The American People have been subjected to one
of the most pervasive misinformation campaigns ever undertaken & "(http://www.picadorusa.com
(4) WITH SPEED AND VIOLENCE [Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in
Climate Change] by Fred Pearce. Beacon Press; 25 Beacon Street;
Boston, MA 02108. � 2007. "We are on the precipice of climate system
tipping points beyond which there is no redemption"
http://www.beacon.org
(5) Natural Gas Hydrate Studies in Canada; Hyndman & Dallimore from
The Recorder, 26,11-20, 2001, Canadian Society of Exploration
Geophysicists.
JCSpilman, P.E. (Ret.) Huntsville, AL
====================================================
From all available sources I can find, the global average sea level has risen only about 7 or 8 inches in the last 100 years. To my knowledge, in the last four months there have been two online articles published in SciAm which allude to the fact that the Maldives are currently losing land because of rising sea levels. I think that is false, and the reason is probably more the result of tidal erosion and normal weather affects. In the first article (not this one), there was a photo of a Maldives farmer standing knee deep in sea water supposedly looking over his small "vegetable crop" which was obviously two or three feet under water. However, upon closer examination of the photo it became obvious that the "crop" was some sort of salt water seaweed being cultivated in neat little rows. This was a direct distortion designed to mislead SciAm readers. Since that time I have become very skeptical of many SciAm articles concerning anything having to do with global warming or rising sea levels.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConcerning this article, it is a complete waste of money for the Maldives President to spend 1.1 billion dollars in an attempt to make the islands carbon neutral by 2020, given the fact that the impact will be less than negligible by all accounts. In fact it's ridiculous. The money could be better spent finding new homes for it's citizens, somewhere else.
Horizon:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf sea levels are not rising, why spend money looking for homes for citizens somewhere else?
Use the money to build a nice coal powered power plant. The more mercury we add to the food chain the less we are able to think. A good outcome surely.
Scientific Earthling,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have no doubt that there are forces are in play which will cause an increase in global warming, as there is plenty of evidence to support that. I do take exception to SciAm deliberately publishing misinformation. There was no contradiction in my comment about relocation of the Maldives citizens. I can find no proof that sea level rise is threatening the Maldives. For that to happen, there must be evidence of rapid sea level rise in general, globally, and I can find no proof of that. If you know of any scientific proof showing valid measurements of this rise, please advise. If not, then the loss of Maldives shoreline could only be the result of "tidal erosion and normal weather affects" which is a normal occurance in many low lying beach environments.
I'm with Horizon on this one. The Maldives being threatened by AGW driven "sea level rise" is pure myth. Great story, good passion play, but pure myth. Scratch another slide from Al Gore's Nobel prize winning powerpoint presentation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScientific earthling:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have read your posts. However, they all presuppose that the planet is warming, which it isn't.
Spilman, where can i find out more about CH4 influence?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIts good to know that random commentators on this page can use their comment to save the 400,000 people on the Maldives from ocean levels.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou may want to call the President, and all the scientists in the Maldives to let them know they will be okay, and the future of their country isn't in jeopardy.
Better yet, You could move there, and campaign to be the new president. You are obviously much smarter! You could save these people from spending a billion dollars on renewable power.
That money should be spent on training for masseurs so you can have a cheaper spa visit when you go for your corporate retreat!