GASP!: Kiribati doomed by climate change?

Please see our previous GASP! series posts, which feature news stories designed to scare the crap out of you.

This story is so easy to poke holes in that it's like taking candy from a baby. Kiribati is an atoll, which if you are unaware is a volcanically-engineered islet that has basically been been built up by coral reef formation; it is not a classic island or land mass, like Japan for example.

Kiribati is not the only atoll in existence, and it is definitely not the only island or ocean-surrounded land mass in existence. If global warming-induced water rise is flooding it, what about the other surrounding atolls in the Pacific (and elsewhere)? Are they flooding and disappearing? Are other worldwide coastal areas flooding at the same rate?

Since this atoll is in the Pacific (where La Nina is currently driving global cooling for 10 years - ahem), and since this past record cold winter cooled the global mean temperature 0.7 degrees, why is Kiribati still flooding? If we're going to cool for 10 years (because of La Nina's "masking effect" on global warming), won't all rising water reverse for at least a decade?

I'm not denying that certain coastal areas erode or flood (look at New Orleans--a problem since its beginning). What about Venice? We know that we have flooded coastal areas, because we've seen the archaeological evidence. So is that a normal consequence of NORMAL climate change, or is human intervention speeding these processes? I assert that humans ARE NOT WARMING THE EARTH AND MELTING MORE POLAR ICE. CO2, even in increasing concentrations because of emissions, remains a MINOR GREENHOUSE GAS compared to H2O and methane.

AFP: Kiribati likely doomed by climate change: president:

WELLINGTON (AFP) — The president of the low-lying Pacific atoll nation of Kiribati said Thursday his country may already be doomed because of climate change.

"Where they have been living over the past few decades is no longer there, it is being eroded."

"At two degrees of global warming we are already destroying the places that people have called their homes for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years," he added.

The focus of attempts to reach a global deal to replace the Kyoto plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions moved to Bonn, Germany, this week where 2,400 negotiators are trying to hammer out an agreement to be signed by the end of next year.

Steiner said governments and individuals should not ignore climate change because of current crises over soaring food and oil prices.

Global temps to DECREASE??!!

La Nina is believed by some to have caused this year’s drastic cooling, but this also means one must accept that 1998’s considerable warming (baseline assumed correct) was artificially spiked by El Nino (not AGW). I’m personally not convinced by either “La Nina” or “El Nino.” These unruly siblings of Pacific water temperature antagonism have almost become revisionist excuses to backtrack on failed climate and weather predictions, like the recent “awful hurricane seasons” that failed to materialize (i.e., global warming is being offset by La Nina, and thus, weaker hurricanes). And let’s not forget the failed prediction about the temperature this winter (it was going to be REALLY WARM), remember? And if 1998 has been the warmest, why didn’t we have the “worst” hurricanes that year (instead of the horrible 2005)?

Okay, so they’re reluctantly admitting that global warming ended 10 YEARS AGO! Are you zombie-sheep out there getting that message, which certain groups (media, political elements, scientists with agendas, etc.) are trying desperately to frame in antithetical verbiage (such as espoused throughout most of the article below) that holds on to the global warming farce?

Now, here in this article is another prediction from a so-called “expert.” His prediction is that after La Nina is over, our global temperature will rise back up and surpass 1998’s high; again, that’s if you believe the baseline that marks 1998 as the year containing the highest global mean temperature. So, let’s keep this prediction in mind as we watch time go by. What will you believers do when this prediction fails as so many others have?

Will it be like Al Gore’s prediction that we’re doomed within 10 years due to AGW (prediction issued in January 2006)? Will it be like any of the countless other doomsday predictions, or even the recent one from the British Chicken Little? Will it be like the prediction that (after Katrina) we were going to have stronger and stronger cyclones due to global warming (which didn’t happen and has sense been discounted)?

Or could it be that all this global warming nonsense has been taking us all for a giant BS ride? Time and truth will cast their verdict. I believe they have already cast their verdict. The temperature HAS NOT surpassed the so-called “high” of 1998 in 10 years; this past year we had a record-shattering winter season, and global temperatures plummeted well below the mean (again, if you believe their baseline—which they just want us to blindly accept as completely unflawed).

And these two articles below are very strange, because just recently we saw this.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Global temperatures 'to decrease':

This would mean that temperatures have not risen globally since 1998 when El Nino warmed the world.

A minority of scientists question whether this means global warming has peaked and argue the Earth has proved more resilient to greenhouse gases than predicted.

But Mr Jarraud insisted this was not the case and noted that 2008 temperatures would still be well above average for the century.

"When you look at climate change you should not look at any particular year," he said. "You should look at trends over a pretty long period and the trend of temperature globally is still very much indicative of warming.

Mr Scaife told the BBC: "What's happened now is that La Nina has come along and depressed temperatures slightly but these changes are very small compared to the long-term climate change signal, and in a few years time we are confident that the current record temperature of 1998 will be beaten when the La Nina has ended."

FOXNews.com - U.N. Forecasters: Global Temperatures to Decrease - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News:

The World Meteorological Organisation's secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, said it was likely that La Nina, an abnormal cooling of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, would continue into the summer.

If the forecast holds true, global temperatures will not have risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory.