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.

Ice melting fast--sound familiar?

So this story appears again and again, almost month after month, like some demented mantra the media must chant to convince you of impending doom.

Please note something important they give away in the beginning of the article, figuring you’re too dumb to see the importance of it. Satellite Arctic ice measurements started in 1978! That’s 30 freakin’ years ago, folks! Now, get out your calculator and divide 4.5 Billion (Earth’s estimated age) by 30—the number of years they’ve apparently measured Arctic ice accurately (assuming they look at it on some semi-regular, recurring basis). You’re left with the number of years that they HAVE NOT MEASURED THE ICE: 150,000,000 separate periods of 30 years. Do you realize what a statistically flawed sample that is?
They haven’t accounted for 4,499,999,970 years at the North Pole!! And how often are they taking measurements? Each decade? Weekly? Monthly? Yearly? And didn’t they first start measuring the ice because it was presumed Arctic ice was GROWING in the 1970s, when Newsweek and other rags proclaimed we were threatened with a new “ice age”? If it GREW then (during a coming “ice age”) any retreat over the past 3 decades could just be a leveling-off or a return closer to a true baseline. Please don’t be a dolt, and don’t fall for these continual, unrelenting scare tactics.

Japan scientists warn Arctic ice melting fast

TOKYO (Reuters) - Arctic ice is melting fast and the area covered by ice sheets in ocean could shrink this summer to the smallest since 1978 when satellite observation first started, Japanese scientists warned in a report.