Islands Could Disappear, Energy Secretary Warns Island Nations

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad — U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu is warning that if countries don't do something about climate change, "some island states will simply disappear."

The energy secretary is traveling with President Barack Obama to the two-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago for a summit of the Western Hemisphere's democracies. Chu told reporters at the Summit of the Americas on Saturday that Obama pushed leaders to work to stem rising temperatures.

Chu said that rising temperatures lead to more damaging hurricanes and rising oceans. He said those results are scary.

Chu also said Obama encouraged fellow leaders to consider energy efficiency to help fight climate change. Obama pointed to refrigerators, which are now larger and four-times more efficient than they were in 1975.

Comments

[elmerfude]

I don't see what the problem is. Sooner or later the earth will tilt a bit and the excess water if any will drain off the edge into space.

[dolphy]

FYI.....some islands already disappeared because of global warming.

[codehead]

>FYI.....some islands already disappeared because of global warming.

Can you name *any*?

Sea levels have been rising for the past 20k years, about 120 meters, since the peak of the last ice age. Sea level has risen a few centimeters since our supposed rapid warming the past few decades (I say "supposed", because it's been slipping this decade, according to NASA/GISS, Handley, UAH, and RSS--the major surface and satellite temperature tracking sources). If a few centimeters are causing islands to disappear, then I would suspect that they have an erosion or subsidence problem, not a sea level problem.

If you're not making that up, then you're quoting someone else who made it up.

[StanlyManly]

FYI, some islands have already disappeared due to continental drift, volcanic explosions, and erosion. FYI, some new islands have already appeared due to continental drift, volcanic explosions, and erosion.

Its almost as if things happen with or without human activity.

[bonum]

my brother and his family live in Australia, and he was saying that rivers that have flowed for countless centuries, and many were a source of water for many of the towns, are now dry! Someone said earlier that "Australia is burning up", and yes, it is also drying up, too, at an unprecedented rate!

[StanlyManly]

Countless centuries? Odd, seeing as how Australia wasn't even colonized until the 1800's. I guess thats close enough huh?

[derrickhoyle]

Have you ever heard of aborigines? Or in your mind they don't count because they have dark skin?

[lasvegaslily]

Good information regarding Global Climate Change can by found at this link....

http://globalclimatechange.jpl.nasa.gov/

[larry278]

Be worried if Australia disappears.

[melmoid]

It looks like Australia is drying out and burning up. I wonder if that has anything to do with climate change?

[codehead]

>It looks like Australia is drying out and burning up. I wonder if that has anything to do with climate change?

Hi Mel...

Or, it could be like the Lake Tahoe fires, and Southern California fires, which were fed by laws that limit the cutting of brush. As we've built closer and closer to the woods, we have more and more laws about not clearing flammable materials. And of course, most of these fires are lit by man, accidently, during recreation, and on purpose.

As far as Australia, search for "Fined for illegal clearing, family now feel vindicated", (or, you can find it via "We've lost two people in my family because you dickheads won't cut trees down").

Be skeptical about islands "disappearing" due to "global warming", when the seas have only risen a few inches in the last century, and the islands are in area of known tectonic activity or have other natural problems. Be skeptical when people say fires are raging due to global warming, when it's only 0.6 C warmer than a century ago, after coming out of the little ice age, and history records many drought worse than we've seen lately.

[codehead]

>It looks like Australia is drying out and burning up.

"New Australian continent wide low temperature record set for April": -13 C

[1differentdrummer]

How about Miami, Honolulu, Seattle and NYC?

[MyTake]

Ah, Mr. Chu, your Council on Foreign Relations membership is showing through.

You, along with 300 other CFR members comprise the bulk of the Obama administration appointments. And since David Rockefeller not only sits as chairman emeritus of CFR, sets the CFR agenda and funds the 3000 CFR membership base by taking the lead role with his and associated tax exempt foundations, everyone should take at how Rockefeller talks to a UN sub-committee here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClqUcScwnn8 .

Imagine this 92 year old man indulging in advocating dramatic global depopulation and using the climate change scam to march the world towards a singular global government where immediate depopulation will begin big time. His "Laboratory of Populations" at Rockefeller University is working shift work in an attempt to devise innovative methods to be used in depopulation.

And here is the worst thought of Vice President in history talking to his boss and gloating over withholding his CFR directorship from government eyes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbnpN07J_zg&feature=related

So, Mr. Chu, change course and adovate the HYDROGEN and FUEL cell economies which solves CO2 emissions and the world climate will be just fine!

[realpolitic]

Is your post an example of the usual right-wing practice of attacking the messenger? You did not address a point in the article at all. Too bad!!

[melmoid]

Sounds like Solyent Green is just around the corner.

[shockmagog]

"His "Laboratory of Populations" at Rockefeller University is working shift work in an attempt to devise innovative methods to be used in depopulation."

You speak as though you think decreasing our unsustainable population is a bad thing.

While a One World Government is inevitable, it will take MUCH longer than you fear.

[StanlyManly]

You speak as if you think our population is unsustainable.

[CarrieAntigua]

uh oh.....not good news! we are already over fished by the Japanese and the coral reefs are in danger of extinction....

[StopGlobalWarmingBeVegan]

Rising sea level is a giant problem right now. Check this out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7-RpNAddrg

[Chopin]

Great web-link, very informative, thanks! I'm not sure where vegan comes into the picture, although I agree more fruits & vegetables is a good idea any day.

[codehead]

>I'm not sure where vegan comes into the picture

More greenhouse gases are emitted from livestock than *all* of transportation (land, sea, air...), worldwide.

(Disclaimer: I'll stop eating meat when you pry the last t-bone from my cold dead hands ;-) Also, dangerous anthropomorphic global warming is a gigantic crock of fragrant organic matter. I'm just answering your question, not agreeing with StopGlobalWarmingBeVegan.)

[codehead]

These islands have various problems, but basically they are sinking. "Sinking due to climate change", as the video puts it, is a big lie. I don't have time to check every island they mention, but they to include islands where scientists already know they are subsiding, or are in areas of known tectonic activity. It's an amazingly misleading video, including the aspects of evacuation.

If your island sinks, due to tectonic activity, pumping too much fresh water out of the ground, erosion over time, etc., you are out of luck. So Sad. But if it's due to "global warming", you can get lots of money from the rest of the world. It's that simple.

[Kula]

Rise of sea levels is 'the greatest lie ever told'

link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5067351/Rise-of-sea-levels-is-the-greatest-lie-ever-told.html

Please stop with the nonsense doom and gloom. It's not working anymore.

[AbbieHoffman2]

Tell your baloney to the south Pacific nations

[codehead]

>Tell your baloney to the south Pacific nations

They won't listen. They've been told they can get lots of money and aid if it's from "global warming".

[Chopin]

You use a reference with no reputable corroborated sources to validate their claims. On a subject so serious, that approach won't wash. Who are these names that are quoted? What authority do they have in their expertise to counter widely known and accepted scientific findings worldwide. Have you watched the plain photographic evidence of the undisputed global melting of all high mountain glaciers on ALL continents?

Who are these people that claim global warming is a hoax? What they fail to consider are the multiple mutually reinforcing and interacting forces that unleash accelerated warming. Checking ocean levels over the PAST 100 years can in no way predict what will happen in the NEXT 100 years. Just the collapse of some major ice fields in Greenland or Antarctica would be enough to raise ocean levels surpassing any changes in all of recorded human history !!! Have you seen the size of Greenland and Antartica on a world map? Those kinds and gigantic magnitudes of changes in the future can only be projected by computer modelling. Provide a reputable team of scientists ready to examine, evaluate and debate the merits of those computer models, and you would have a better chance of convincing ordinary people of your hog wash.

[realpolitic]

Your article Swedish scientist named Nil-Axel Morner....

"So who is Nils-Axel Mörner, and how is he able to see these things that every other scientist in the world can’t?

Well, in addition to his activities “debunking” climate change, Mörner is also an enthusiast of dowsing and water witching.

And he has some very weird ideas about archaeology. See here, here, here, and here.

And he is associated with fringe wacko/antisemite/conspiracy theorist Lyndon LaRouche. Here’s an interview (PDF) he did with the LaRouche publication Executive Intelligence Review.

And he is an “allied expert” with a group called the Natural Resources Stewardship Project, a group that is controlled by energy industry lobbyists.

Verdict: there may be credible scientists raising valid objections to anthropogenic climate change theory, but Nils-Axel Mörner is not one of them. He’s a raving kook."

http://www.silobreaker.com/DocumentReader.aspx?Item=5_2262211211812667392

[melmoid]

This is why some Eskimo villages are trying to find the money to move not to mention some islands in the Pacific. But rising sea levels is not the main problem in the global warming scenario.

[SouthJerseySteve]

Where's Kevin Costner and Waterworld when you need him. Fiction or Nostradamus?

Global warming is fiction because Fox News tells me so.

[JnrNorman]

We have a planetary warming phase caused by the sun.
A 4 ft expected rise isnt that much.

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[JessWonderin]

"4 foot isn't much"????

I guess if you don't live in Florida, Japan, Hawaii, the Solomons, Australia, Louisiana, New York City, the Texas Coast or even San Francisco - where the "Bay" would go from Sacramento to Stockton losing a lot of what we call "farmland" . . . . not much . . . .

[Catfish1968]

Yeah, I'm not sure how 4 feet isn't that much, especially living here in Hawaii.

[derrickhoyle]

I am sure scientists are eagerly awaiting your breakthrough discovery that global warming is actually a "planetary warming phase caused by the sun." When is your presentation? No one else has come to this conclusion, so I'm sure your evidence is very convincing.

[stop the politics]

A lot of scientist believe that global warming is related to sun activity. That is one of the primary theories of global warming/climate change (along with man made global warming).

[derrickhoyle]

The Maldives maximum elevation is 7.5 feet. That's most of the country.

[BabblingBrooks]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/19/energy-secretary-offers-dire-global-warming-prediction/

I think we can file this with Ehrlich's "Population Bomb" dire prediction, Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" dire prediction, etc etc etc.

It is amazing how many dire predictions never come to pass...

[lakat]

How many songbirds do you hear in the morning when you wake up. I don't hear a one.

[AbbieHoffman2]

dont diss Rachel Carlson...she was dead on.

[valkyrie607]

Yeah--they didn't come to pass in Carson's case because people WOKE UP and changed the way they did things. I haven't read Erlich, so I can't speak to that, but if he's suggesting that technological improvements in food production will allow us to expand our population forever, without ever experiencing a so-called Malthusian crash (otherwise known as the tail of a classic population J-curve), well, that's wrong. The earth has finite resources and technological innovations can only do so much. Humans depend much more on the stable functioning of ecological processes than we are aware.

[valkyrie607]

I'm sorry, that should read, "If YOU'RE suggesting" not "if he's suggesting"

--Since a "dire prediction" about "population bombs" would be precisely the opposite of what I presented there.

[SimJack]

... yet! Carson was ahead of her time and spot on. Many of the chemicals mentioned in her book were banned through government intervention not long after it was published. Not sure why you believe the earth can absorb all the toxic chemicals we produce or continue to support an increasing global population indefinitely without some serious side-effects to our health or the quality of the environment.

[Themosdenes]

I like to see that the human population problem is cropping up now and then on the forums. Plainly stated, if our species took responsibility for our own rampant exponential growth and introduced measures to stabilize the population, we´d solve a lot more problems than just climate change. But of course not many people are ready to talk about this yet. No one wants to tell anyone else not to have babies.

[tailgateshirts]

well you would ruin the christian crusade if you stymied their reproductive rules

[melmoid]

It seemed like back in the 60s it was talked about and even acted on a lot more than it is now. There was a zero growth movement in the country that has apparently died out. Religion is the major impediment to any sane population control measures at the present time.

[lasvegaslily]

I remember ZPG very well and it was the major reason my husband and I chose not to have children.

[codehead]

>There was a zero growth movement in the country that has apparently died out.

Actually, if you check the figures, you'll find that modern population growth in the US is largely from immigration. Further, a Pew Research study projects that 82% of population growth in the US through 2050 will be from immigration (including their offspring).

[RobertHenryEller]

You are absolutely correct, Themosdenes, that population is the real issue, and that no one wants to talk about it.

"Intelligent" newspapers like The Economist have actually put out issues within the past year that the planet can "easily" support a population of 9 billion. And I guess their evidence is how well we're already doing with over 6 billion.

If everyone wants to live like people in the West, and I don't see any politicians saying otherwise, then we will have to have a population significantly smaller than it is even now.

Thirty years ago we "solved" the food crisis. Since then, the population of the earth has doubled. Suddenly we have a food crisis again. What a surprise.

[poomplet]

"Secretary Chu's assertions on sea level rise and hurricanes are quite simply being proven wrong by the latest climate data. As the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute reported in December 12, 2008: There is 'no evidence for accelerated sea-level rise.'"

Morano said hurricane activity levels in both hemispheres of the globe are at 30 years lows and hurricane experts like MIT's Kerry Emanuel and Tom Knutson of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration "are now backing off their previous dire predictions."

[alvdh1]

With all due respect Mr. Chu, how does nuclear power address any of your concerns? Investing in nuclear energy robs energy efficiency dollars by a 12 to 1 margin. That is, for every dollar invested in nukes, you take 12 dollars away from energy efficiency. If you want more bang for the buck, then give up on nukes and go for negawatts via energy efficiency and we will never need nuclear energy. Your recent endorsement of nukes is contrary to your goal of energy efficiency and your desire to ease the impact of climate change.

[ibsteve2u]

Without a halt in the growth rate of the human population, energy efficiency alone is only a stopgap measure, rather like Detroit's offering of the AMC Pacer as an answer to the choke hold OPEC and Big Oil had and have on America's economy and foreign policy.

[alvdh1]

Not when we waste over 50 percent of the electricity we use. No new energy sources, in the interim, make sense until energy efficiency complemented with energy conservation is fully addressed. Then we can start widespread adotion of green energy while getting the most bang for the green energy buck.

[melmoid]

This may be true for the current generation of reactors. But it may not be true for the newer designs. The problem is we have not built a new reactor so long that none of the new designs are in operation. There are also some interesting small scale plants in development that could be used at a community level. See Hyperion power web site. The problems of nuclear waste are more manageable than the general public believes. Dr. Chu does have a major education job to do on nuclear energy, but I wouldn't give up on it just yet.

[alvdh1]

It is also true of the new genration reactors designed by the French and being built in Finland. The first reator is 50% behind schedule and 50% over budget. AmerenUE is trying to get a license to construct and operate the new French reactor in Missouri. They are trying to sell a $6 billion reactor to the ratepayers that most current estimates say it will cost $9-12 billion. This hefty price tag does not include your tax dollars that subsidize the entire nuclear fuel cycle nor does it include decommissioning costs.

Forty eight states encourage utilities to sell more electricity rather than conserve it through their rate structures and guarantees to the utility industry. It is always, without eception, cheaper to save a kilowatt of energy or a barel of oil to produce it. In the case of nucllear electricity, it is 12 times cheaper. It costs $12 per barrel of oil, through energy efficiency, to save a barrel of oil and nothing through conservation to do the same. The average production cost for onshore oil is $26 per barrel.

When you get up tomorrow, think negawatts and negabarrels - your day will be less expensive as a result. By the way, I have cut my residential electric consumption by 400 kilowatt hours per month by installing LED lighting and just turning the lights off. My payback period for the lighting is just under 3 years and the lights will have 10-12 years of use left afterward.

[Sumocat]

Reducing our consumption via increased efficiency is relatively cheap now, but continued reduction is increasingly more difficult. It's like losing weight by trimming the fat out of your diet, then trimming carbs, then sugars, then non-fiberous foods, and so on and so on. First part is simple, but it gets increasingly tougher the more you cut. And diet is only half the solution. The other half is exercise, which requires more time, commitment, and resources. Efficiency is diet. Production is exercise. And don't forget, good exercise consists of more than jogging.