Another example of climate change incoherence

Time Magazine recently put the current UN Secretary General on its cover promoting climate panic on the island nation of Tuvalu. So it MUST be true that these coral atoll nations are doomed. After  all why would such an august figure as the Lord High Secretary General "dip trou" if it were not?

But I also know that these coral atolls are made of, you know, coral and that coral are living things and they grow. So in theory as the water level rises, the coral grows and the islands remain above sea level. I also know that a recent survey of Tuvalu published in Nature Communications* has found that their islands are in fact growing, not shrinking. So what gives? Is the sea level rising faster than the coral can grow? Could it? Had it done so in the past when we had far more ice to melt and temperatures rose much faster coming out of the last glaciation event?

So I went to our best, official source of historical and prehistorical sea level data at NASA GISS and found the page on past sea level trends. And this is what its first, summary paragraph said:

Climate warming is expected to result in rising sea level. Should this occur, coastal cities, ports, and wetlands would be threatened with more frequent flooding, increased beach erosion, and saltwater encroachment into coastal streams and aquifers. Global sea level has fluctuated widely in the recent geologic past. It stood 4-6 meters above the present during the last interglacial period, 125,000 years ago, but was 120 m lower at the peak of the last ice age, around 20,000 years ago. A study of past sea level fluctuations provides a longer-term geologic context, which can help us better anticipate future trends.

So first: Hang on a tick, what is this "Global sea level has fluctuated widely in the recent geologic past. It stood 4-6 meters above the present during the last interglacial period, 125,000 years ago"?

Yet we are told that global temperatures are at a "record high". Hmm.  So back before man generated excess CO2 the climate was warm enough to melt 1.4 to 2.2 Trillion more Metric Tons of ice than is melted today? Really? And this in the "world class" experts' own published reports.

Another way to put it is: given the suspiciously precise current 'official' estimated 2.8mm of sea level rise per year, it would take between 1400 and 2100 years to equal the sea levels in the last interglacial - a span of time that separates us as far from that 'dystopian' future as Julius Caesar is from us. "Friends Romans, Countrymen, lend me your high tech windmills".

The second thing I learned is that according to best experts, the estimated peak prehistoric mean annual sea level rise rates at the end of the last glaciation were slower than the growth rates of many coral species. Meaning that even at rates over 5 times the current claimed "rapid" mean sea level rise, coral reefs could have "kept up" with rising seas. Which means there is no way that the many coral reef ringed islands are threatened with inundation.  Indeed Coral experts use the metaphor that Coral atolls "float" on the surface of the ocean.

But when there's so much money to be made by pretending they sink.....

Which means the Secretary General is an ignoramus who ruined his pants for no reason (bet you he didn't even take off his Manolo Blahniks - expense account dontchaknow). But you already knew that.

Oh one more detail: Coral reefs are made of Calcium Carbonate which is fabricated by the Coral organisms from calcium and CO2 in the ocean. The more CO2, the more island. Just like the more CO2, the more plant life. But don't worry about that, I'm sure all that extra flora that it supports is just terrible.

And one more thing: if brainless coral polyps can outfox rising sea levels it would seem reasonable that sentient humans wielding 21st century technology could do so too.

*Specifically the studies of the Tuvalu island groups showed that:

“Here we present the first comprehensive national-scale analysis of the transformation in physical land resources of the Pacific atoll nation Tuvalu, situated in the central western Pacific (Supplementary Note 1). Comprising 9 atolls and 101 individual reef islands, the nation is home to 10,600 people, 50% of whom are located on the urban island of Fogafale, in Funafuti atoll28. We specifically examine spatial differences in island behaviour, of all 101 islands in Tuvalu, over the past four decades (1971–2014), a period in which local sea level has risen at twice the global average (Supplementary Note 2).Surprisingly, we show that all islands have changed and that the dominant mode of change has been island expansion, which has increased the land area of the nation. Results are used to project future landform availability and consider opportunities for a vastly more nuanced and creative set of adaptation pathways for atoll nations.”

*

The Great Civil Rights Flip Hoax

It has been taught (by strong implication) to our children as gospel that in 1964 the Dems and Rs flipped places with the Dems becoming pro civil rights and the Rs becoming racist bubba bait.

It is, of course, a lie. 

"Of the 21 Democratic senators who opposed the 1964 act, only one would ever change parties (Strom!). Nor did the segregationist constituencies that elected these Democrats throw them out in favor of Republicans: The remaining 20 continued to be elected as Democrats or were replaced by Democrats. It was, on average, nearly a quarter of a century before those seats went Republican. If southern rednecks ditched the Democrats because of a civil-rights law passed in 1964, it is strange that they waited until the late 1980s and early 1990s to do so. They say things move slower in the South — but not that slow"

A very good piece explaining how LBJ, one of the most power hungry men in the history of American politics, pivoted from crude racism to modern paternalism in the pursuit of the only thing he valued: Power. 

What is interesting in retrospect was how quickly the narrative flipped in the public schools. By 1977 when I took US history the notion that Dems were the party of civil rights was entrenched in all the best textbooks (I had a fetish about American history back then, I read several cover to cover. Well that, and Jakarta had no TV).

So much so that when my favorite high school teacher of all time, a retired Army master sergeant who was my American History teacher, taught a version of what turns out to be the truth at the end of the year, I sadly concluded that he must be a racist.

After all, I read the textbooks and they don't lie.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2012/05/party-civil-rights-kevin-d-williamson/

Here's what really happens when the State 'equalizes' outcomes.

The people with the money to access lawyers and regulatory experts make out like bandits. State complexity favors the rich. Which is why the rich and well educated support a complex, hyper regulatory state: it gives them a distinct competitive advantage and an iron rice bowl worth of career opportunities.  The Great SuperState:  Scam after scam after scam after scam....

Thoughts on the occasion of a child's baptism.

Friends asked me to be Godfather to their first born. This is what I wrote to them:

When I went outside this morning  I saw a rainbow. It was complete, both ends touching the ground, with every color from violet to deepest red. I have never seen one as beautiful.

In biblical times this would have been interpreted as a sign of God's blessing.  But your son bears a much greater sign of God's favor than sunlight bent by rain: he has you.

Never forget that you are his first and most important blessing.

And never forget that it is his life. Help him by giving him the space to play and experiment and grow. Know that he is God's child and that he and his Lord will choose his path. Welcome this because it lifts an unbearable burden from you. You are not responsible for W's future - only his present. Love him, guide him, protect him.... less than you would like, but probably more than he needs. So he will grow up a strong and faithful man.

Thank you for honoring me with the opportunity to participate in his life

Who must the "Proles" cast off?

‘If there was hope, it must lie in the proles, because only there in those swarming disregarded masses, 85 per cent of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated… But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength. would have no need to conspire. They needed only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow morning. Surely sooner or later it must occur to them to do it? And yet—!’ George Orwell

Today it is argued by the chattering classes that Trump, Brexit, Victor Orban and the Alternative fur Deutschland are "Orwellian" which is rather Orwellian as it is the revolt of the proles against the modern rulers of continental scale entities resembling Eurasia and Oceania that fuels their rise.

It is the protean ability of intellectuals to define anything they dislike as evil and thought crime that is so....Orwellian.

Mick Hume on the Orwellian use of Orwellian by our Orwellian intelligentsia. Or as the Talking Heads would say (well sing): "Same as it ever was, same as it ever was...."