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| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| Don't Cry for Me, Austral... Umm Tuvalu? |
| 2009-12-20 |
| Yet another huckster has his day and is caught. From the Kopenhagen Komedy Kabaret The lead negotiator for the small island nation of Tuvalu, the bow-tie wearing Ian Fry, broke down as he begged delegates to take tough action. What's the deal with environmental men, tears and environmentalism? Do men's tears enable cheap hippie sex, or something? "I woke up this morning crying, and that's not easy for a grown man to admit," Mr Fry said on Saturday, as his eyes welled with tears. But a breeze for Ian, eh? "The fate of my country rests in your hands," he concluded, as the audience exploded with wild applause. But the part-time PhD scholar at the Australian National University actually resides in Queanbeyan, NSW, where he's not likely to be troubled by rising sea levels because the closest beach at Batemans Bay is a two-hour, 144km drive away. Asked whether he had ever lived in Tuvalu, his wife told The Australian last night she would "rather not comment". The Missus is still trying to deal with Ian's crying spell this morning... |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #9 look at a seabed topo map NW> of hawaii, those used to be islands. |
| Posted by: notascrename 2009-12-20 21:33 |
| #8 Tuvalu is coral reef fringing a subsea volcano. Such volcanos settle over time and the reef sinks. Imagine a pile of sand whose sloping sides are the steepest possible angle for the cohesion of the material, then periodically shake the pile as in earthquakes. The pile will over time settle, and its highest point become progressively lower (and its sides less steep). That's what happens to volcanos, especially subsea volcanos. At the same time (and over geological timescales) the coral reef grows upward compensating for the settling of the volcano. However, the coral growth requires the atoll be submerged. Periodic submerssion is a a necessary part of the natural growth of fringing coral reefs, which of course is lost on these bozos. Incidentally Charles Darwin was the first to figure out the origin of these fringing coral reefs. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2009-12-20 20:25 |
| #7 Mizzou - it's not really that difficult. The Earth's crust is not rigid, but elastic. If you push down on one part hard enough, it forces another part to rise. The glaciers of the last Ice Age pushed down on most of the land areas of the world, especially in the northern hemisphere. It took tens of thousands of years for that weight to cause the interior of most Northern Hemisphere continents to be pushed down (by as much as 60 feet. Greenland is still being pushed down.) As the land in the northern hemisphere was pushed down, other areas - especially the Pacific Ocean basin - rose. The weight's off the northern hemisphere, the land is rising (isostatic rebound), and the Pacific Ocean is settling. Islands are sinking. Complicating the entire process is the fact that so much ice froze on land that sea levels dropped. In some instances, they dropped 600 feet. When the glaciers started to melt, the water drained back into the oceans and the levels rose. The weight of the water pressed down on the deepest basins and the amount of water increased, and pushed them down. That dragged the islands down with them. Unless we ARE entering another Ice Age, Tuvalu is screwed, no matter what we do. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2009-12-20 20:06 |
| #6 Old Patriot, I kinda, sorta, got what you said. But I would need to take your credit hours to fully comprehend ... :( |
| Posted by: Mizzou Mafia 2009-12-20 16:48 |
| #5 The lead negotiator for the small island nation of Tuvalu Motie negotiator? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2009-12-20 15:53 |
| #4 The biggest threat to Tuvalu isn't "glowbull warmening", but the flexing of the seabed. A process called "isostatic rebound", based on the movement of both ocean and land plates, alters the sea bottom. The majority of the rebound is from the last ice age, when the huge weight of trillions of tons of ice on land areas forced them down, and forced ocean areas up. Now that the ice isn't there any longer, the slow process of rebound - rising land areas and sinking sea floor - continues. The only thing that will prevent Tuvalu from eventually drowning is another ice age, which would be extremely inconvenient to the majority of the rest of us. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2009-12-20 14:29 |
| #3 Slightly drowned islands are fabulous fish nurseries and bases for coral reef. The technology for starting reefs is well understood: cut pieces of coral off living reefs and glue them to rocks at the appropriate depth in the new location or to ships sunk at the right depth off-shore. Add a luxury hotel or two on pylons and a really good scuba/snorkling dive company, move the native population to picturesque fishing boats, and voila! a tourist trap to match some of the best in the Caribbean, with a sentimental veneer none of the current places can match. If I might recommend, put in glass floors in the hotel lobbies, so the guests can look down at the gorgeous fish swimming by, and guided swimming tours of the drowned, picturesque ruins -- although that last might have to wait a millennium or two until the water is too deep for wading... Of course they'd have to fight off the European and Japanese fishing fleets, but others have to pay that price, too. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-12-20 14:13 |
| #2 And it already look like Ian has gotten out of Dodge himself. If he was ever there. |
| Posted by: Mizzou Mafia 2009-12-20 13:35 |
| #1 Personally, I'd rather not destroy the world economy for 20,000 people on some islands. If it WERE to come true, easier to relocate 'em. But that's just me. |
| Posted by: Mizzou Mafia 2009-12-20 13:34 |