What to Do About Sea Level Rises.

Now I’m not all that sure about the numbers that these people use…are we really expecting a 1 ft rise in sea level in 45 year’s time?….but their idea of adaptation doesn’t sound too awful. Essentially, those nations that have caused the sea level rise by their CO2 emissions should accept the refugees in proportion to their said contribution. Lots of shouting and arguning to be had there in determining contributions but still, not a bad idea on the face of it. One thing that I think will cause the biggest problems:

A more sensible, and just, approach is for the top greenhouse gas
emitters – including China and India – to grant entry to the up to 200
million people who could lose their homes to rising seas by 2080. How
many should go where? Under our formula, the top cumulative emitter,
the United States, would absorb 21 percent of the climate-change exiles
a year; the smallest of the 20 major emitters, Venezuela, would absorb
less than 1 percent.

Who decides who gets to go to the US (or UK, France, Germany) and who has to go to Chavez’s Bolivarian paradise, or China or India?

9 responses

  1. dearieme Avatar
    dearieme

    Why not argue that the US is not really an emitter: true, they burn the oil but the source of the oil is Saudi etc. Isn’t this the sort of logic that Greenpeace and so on apply to pollution: you and I don’t really pollute with our scrapped motor cars, it is really Ford etc who are to blame.

  2. Agammamon Avatar
    Agammamon

    I’ll volunteer early to coordinate the refuge effort – seems like a lot money to be made, uh I mean people to be helped.

  3. Remittance Man Avatar
    Remittance Man

    Personally I plan to buy some empty fields in East Sussex that lie just above the 50′ contour.
    According to our green chums it’ll be very desirable beach front property in a few years. What with the rise in global temperature I look set to cash in on a tourism/property boom just about the time I intend to retire.
    Of course the Greenies could be wrong. What if we get another ice age as Holywood predicts? Simple. I’ll knock down the Calypso Bar and build myself a small Bavarian Gasthoff. I reckon the South Downs could produce a couple of decent pistes.
    RM

  4. Andrew Duffin Avatar
    Andrew Duffin

    Why don’t they just agree?
    It would take the wind out of the Enviro-fascists sails, and since the sea-level isn’t actually going to rise, there’ll be no downside.
    Win-win if you ask me.

  5. But a boat

  6. That should be “Buy a boat”
    (Preview is my friend…)

  7. Rub-a-Dub Avatar
    Rub-a-Dub

    If I recall corectly, the US takes in about 3 million immigrants per year. In the 75 years to 2080, that’s 225 million. Shouldn’t be a problem.

  8. Remittance Man Avatar
    Remittance Man

    Aha,
    All these nautical allusions remind me I’ll need to build a marina.
    Remember, they laughed at Noah!
    RM

  9. But if they send the refugees to America they’ll become American consumers which will only increase the emission of greenhouse gases. It’s a neverending spiral, a feedback loop! Really, the only sensible solution is to send them all to Upper Volta (since Lower Volta will not doubt be flooded).

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