Alarmist bullshit

The Herald reports:

Sea levels will rise up to 22 metres even if the worst scenarios for global warming are avoided, researchers say.

An international team of scientists, which included a New Zealander, found that a 2C increase in global temperature would still cause the world’s oceans to rise between 12m and 22m.

Two degrees is the recommended limit set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. A bigger increase could lead to the melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet, some of the East Antarctic ice sheet and part of Greenland.

A 22m increase in sea level would dramatically transform New Zealand’s coastal boundaries, with low-lying areas like Auckland and Wellington’s harbours swamped by ocean currents.

But lead researcher Ken Miller said: “You don’t need to sell your beach real estate yet, because melting of these large ice sheets will take from centuries to a few thousand years.”

That last paragraph is key, and why this is just alarmist bullshit. Some people doubt temperatures are rising at all, But I do think there is a warming trend, of which greenhouse gas emissions are at least partially responsible. However even the IPCC say that the maximum rise in sea levels by 2100 is 59 cm. This is a 2007 projection. Since then some media have quoted extreme claims beyond that, but I prefer to put credence on the IPCC projections. The IPCC process is far from perfect, but they tend to produce reasonably sane figures.

The actual increase in sea levels is around 3 mm a year currently. This will pose challenges in the future, but the future will also bring more solutions. The hysterical nonsense about increases of 22 metres is forecasting perhaps in 5,000 years time. Anyone who thinks public policy today should be based on a forecast of what the climate might be in 5,000 years is nuts. Look at how the world has changed in just 100 years let alone hundreds or thousands. Hell in 1,000 years we may be living on Mars.

The Herald should be ashamed for saying that the projected increase could “dramatically transform” our coastal boundaries. A change over 1,000 years+ is not dramatic. It’s like saying the separation of Gondwana was dramatic