In 1988 there was this prediction via an article in the Canberra Times:
‘Sea level is threatening to completely cover’ Maldives’ 1,196 islands within 30 years —
Well, it’s 30 years later, and the Maldives is still there, all 1196 islands. Here’s the article:
Not only that, other Pacific islands similar to the Maldives, and also said to be threatened by sea level rise have been found to be GROWING in size.
Meanwhile, Maldives is expanding for more tourism. This article from last week says:
Malé International Airport carried out an overall airport expansion at the end of August this year, the expansion of Malé International Airport fully completed a waterproof project, which will soon meet the peak of tourism gold.
The Malé International Airport which is the gateway airport of Maldives is severely constrained by hardware facilities, with an annual throughput of only 4 million passengers.
The airport runway can only take off and land medium-sized passenger aircraft. Maldives Tourism Minister Moussa Zamil said: To achieve the upgrade of the Maldives tourism industry, the prerequisite is to upgrade the airport in Malé, and the airport upgrade construction is the most significant.
So much for them taking the threat of sea level rise seriously.
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h/t to Tony Heller
There are often news reports about how the president of the Maldives is demanding payment for the rising seas levels that are “threatening” the island. They are written as if the islands are already covered by water. Of course the president is just looking for free money and the statements about the islands being covered with water are just discredited model predictions, not actual observations.
Unfortunately liberals are unfazed by mere reality.
Indeed. Their perception, based on an emotional response, trumps reality.
All of those islands and atolls that Darwin visited and wrote about from his voyage on the Beagle are still there!
His account of the origin of atolls is as valid now as it was in 1842. The symbiotic relationship between blue-green algae and the coral animal is still as true as ever. Coral reefs still remain in the photic zone.
just as the daily racing form says about horses past performance is not indicative of future results…..the “climate” is the past record of the weather and never has made any prediction about future weather.
Tue, but history can sure validate if a current weather activity is “unprecedented” or not…… not that it matters but it seems to make a difference for the AGW alarmists and take center court for their scare mongering.
How about a gofundme account for Anthony? If the AGW believers can raise 5 million dollars, Anthony agrees to shut down WUWT. They’ll pay you to stop beating them up, I think.
The Canberra Times articles states:
“The Environmantal Affairs Director, Mr Hussein Shihab. sain an estimated rise of 20 to 30 centimetres in the next 20 to 40 years could be “catastrophic” for most of the islands, which were no more than a metre above sea level.”
It would appear that most of the islands are were no more than 20-30 cm above sea level in 1988. I guess that the catastrophe has somehow, magically been averted.
Several recent studies have shown that globally land area is increasing (including the threatened ‘low-lying’ island groups), and that the majority of beaches are growing or stable.
Is it not possible that marginally rising sea levels favour accretion, whereas falling sea levels leave land unsupported, undercut, and favour erosion? I don’t know, but it sounds half logical to me!
What do facts have to do with anything?
“According to authorities.”
Not good PR for authorities!
Accurate predictions are possible only in the applied exact sciences based on solid physical/chemical/mathematical equations describing relationships between variables, e.g. in various branches of engineering.
Climate is not exact science since there are no accurate formulae describing relationships between variables. If for some reason a prediction comes true it’s more by chance than application of
a superior knowledge.
I did one prediction ten years ahead of the event, which came correct to one decimal point, the subject where even the NASA’s two top experts in the field failed.
Let’s make it clear that my ‘success’ was not result of any kind of superior knowledge but simply applying analogy from electro-mechanics to astrophysics, so I refer to it as the Incredible coincidence
Climate doom predictions make money and so we can expect a constant stream . No one is really ever held accountable for their lies so climate doom salesman like scientifically unqualified Al Gore can continue to spew complete BS for as long as they want till people stop buying the merchandise .
Here is a prediction, Al Gore will be long gone before the Arctic is ice free and the world will be better for it .
Priceless! Thank you.
Here is the 1989 paper from the Proceedings of the Small States Conference on Sea Level Rise edited by Shihab Hussein, which states:
and goes on to recommend a number of responses including building sea walls and elevating portions of some islands.
It would be interesting to know whether any such responses were taken and how far above sea level the new airport expansion is.
And this is from Shihab Hussein’s Linked In profile:
He is now a media consultant.
not a scientist.
a tv clown
Yes, except this is the kind of drivel that gets the media juiced up and establishes popular belief and support. The problem then is, you never hear the ”scientists” that you give credibility to, come out loud and clear and call B.S. to the nonsense. It’s as good as supporting it. Lying by omission.
what’s the difference?
Keep those duff predictions coming. This is a particularly good one.
On predictions…..
There must be many predictions that are now hitting their “use by” date.
Is there a website/blog etc. that lists all these?
Yes there is. Has been around for years. ClimateChangePredictions.org. Been around for several years, and is nicely organized by topic.
tony got you again. sublimating c02 strikes again.
a. the guy was on a 2 year political appointment, 1986 to 88.
b. not a scientist
c. former director of TV for the maldives
d. there was no consensus science to back this up.
there is no controlling people who want to misrepresent the science, and no stopping hellers strawmaning.
get your science from svience papers
get your summary of the consensus from the ipcc.
stop trusting what you read in the press
stop trusting tweets
and dont be fooled by heller again
here. someone else on the thread found it
prior to 1988
“was also the head of the National Television Channel; TV Maldives( 1978 -1986) ”
no science background
So, sort of the Bill Nye of the Maldives then?
You make a fair point, Steven. We shouldn’t take seriously predictions by those who have no expertise in the fields they are talking about. However, with climate-related science being such a vast, interdisciplinary, tangled web – whose predictions should we take seriously?
And what is your science background, don’t you have a B.A. English from Northwestern University (1981);
http://www.populartechnology.net/2014/06/who-is-steven-mosher.html
Hard to believe when you view his writing, eh?
So the Maldives airport is to be extended, but where is the material to come from ?
I know, lets just mine the Coral.
MJE
The best tide gauge in the Maldives has recorded a grand total of about five inches of sea-level rise in the last thirty years:
https://sealevel.info/MSL_graph.php?id=Hulule&g_date=1980/1-2019/12&c_date=1980/1-2019/12&s_date=1980/1-2019/12&thick&lin_pi=1&lin_ci=0
Oops, sorry. Wrong site. This is the best (longest) tide gauge record in the Maldives:
https://sealevel.info/MSL_graph.php?id=1707&g_date=1980/1-2019/12&c_date=1980/1-2019/12&s_date=1980/1-2019/12&thick&lin_pi=1&lin_ci=0
I think people are being a tad harsh.
This article was published in the Canberra Times and as all sane Australians know, Canberra exists in its own little world filled with cardigans, yoga classes and 3pm finishing times. Also Skywhale.
Canberra is currently one of the best examples that can be found supporting the existence of Multiverse Theory, and just because the these islands still exist in the universe we live in, doesn’t automatically mean they haven’t been completely swamped within Canberra Reality.
I think it is time if not to dedicate a website then at least a section to naming and shaming those politicians and in particular scientists who went public with their baseless alarmism. Funny isn’t it that the mainstream meadia is completely silent on this…..
It would have been nice if the article explained exactly who the guy making the claim is, and that this isn’t a prediction from a climate scientist. Or any kind of scientist for that matter.
Canberra is basically a public service city , full of politicians and hangers on employed in the public service , essentially a Green nest festered with socialism.
No surprise they would print that .
Hypocrites. Nice to see that I am not alone in observing that the economy of the Maldives is completely dominated by tourism. Tourism is the only reason that the vast majority of people who live there get to live there and have anything above a stone-age standard of living.
The tourists who bring their money to support the economy of the Maldives have to travel thousands of miles, usually by jet aircraft burning vast amounts of CO2-emitting fossil fuels. And then, most take fossil-fueled-powered boats the final miles to their dive locations for their precious few hours of under-water time. For those who are fortunate enough to already live there, their CO2 impact isn’t any better. Nearly everything they need to survive, including food and fuel is brought via aircraft or by diesel or oil-powered shipping.
If the residents of the Maldives honestly believe that CO2 is solely responsible for ultimately sinking their islands, then I think they have the moral obligation to act accordingly. This means giving up the tourist trade, reverting back to a sustainable stone-age existence, or just leaving altogether. Demanding that the rest of the world pay them money on top of what they earn from tourism just so that they can continue with their unsustainable carbon-subsidized lifestyle unabated is simply self-serving, hypocritical and absurd. And shame on the rest of the world for falling for this.
This is a prime example of the scam that is “carbon shaming”.
Maldives needs airports to host tourists counts like the stars in the night sky.
What a disastrous 30-yr anniversary.
But in between things happened:
– in 2000, we started an International Sea Level Project in the Maldives
– which rapidly documented a general absence a rapid sea level rise
– and we wrote a paper (in GPC, 2004) saying “no fear”
– followed by my booklet called “The Greatest Lie Ever Told” (2007)
In 2003 “a group of Australian scientists” vandalized a tree documenting stable sea level conditions.
This was taken up in Rickard Bean’s theatre play “The Heretic”, played in London 2011.
What an anniversary for IPCC and all the AGW proponents.
Whilst they must feel ashamed
We, the realists, have all the reasons to celebrate the absence of a rapid sea level rise.
skål from Nils-Axel Mörner in Sweden (and the rest of the world)