Essay by Eric Worrall
Imagine flying thousands of miles to a tropical island so you can spend all day digging holes.
Fijian tourists help islanders adapt to climate change
By Emily Woods
Updated January 8 2024 – 5:05am, first published 5:00am…
But under the surface of this tropical paradise is a vulnerable archipelago living through the daily impacts of climate change.
Rising sea levels have caused saltwater intrusion, depriving some Fijian communities of their freshwater sources.
…
“We have some vulnerable communities, so we’re trying our best to adapt whatever we do to this current climate change,” Ilisapeci Botevou told AAP, while planting mangroves with dozens of tourists on the island of Senautari.
Mangroves protect Fiji’s Mamanuca Islands from rising sea levels, trap 10 times more carbon than other trees and are a source of food as a breeding ground for fish, mud crabs and oysters, Ms Botevou tells the group.
She hands out roots, from adult mangrove plants, which are then plunged into the shallow sea water and covered with stones to stop the seedlings from moving when waves and currents come in.
…
Read more: https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8478860/fijian-tourists-help-islanders-adapt-to-climate-change/
I visited Fiji just before the Covid epidemic.
My overall recommendation, if you visit stick with the tourist resorts. I went walkabout in Suva, or rather asked the taxi driver to take us to a local cafe so we could see how ordinary people live. In my opinion Suva is one of the most dangerous place I’ve ever visited, far worse than more famous dangerous places like Manilla in the Phillipines. The taxi driver and the people in the cafe were decent, they warned us not to walk on the street. The driver stayed in his taxi with the key in the ignition, so he could move if things got tense. When we walked onto the street briefly to get back to our taxi after spending half an hour in the cafe, a gangster who’d been watching us from across the street started approaching, then changed his mind – I was too big, and he knew I knew what he was thinking, so he didn’t have the element of surprise. Thankfully he hadn’t had time to round up a crew, and didn’t have a gun. We got lucky, maybe by only a few minutes.
I had interesting conversations with the people I met, my impression is most Fijians are decent people who are trying to live normal lives in difficult circumstances. One conversation was particularly interesting, we bumped into someone who was highly educated, who was happy to talk about the local situation. He told me about why Fiji is so messed up.
The problem is twofold, their corrupt government and the drug Kava. Kava is legal in Fiji because it is a cultural drug, like coffee or beer, or coca leaf tea in some South American countries. 2-3 cups of Kava prepared the traditional way gives the drinker a moderate buzz, much the same as 2-3 glasses of strong wine. But drug dealers have taken advantage of this cultural acceptance, and now sell Kava concentrate, which from what I saw is as dangerous and addictive as concentrated cocaine. Many of Fiji’s teenagers are hooked on Kava, because in the train wreck Fijian economy, weighed down by government corruption, there is very little opportunity for the kids. So instead of trying to find a job, many teenagers spend all their time getting wasted, selling themselves or committing burglaries or mugging people to pay for their drugs.
The Kava concentrate shops in Fiji are obvious – they look like jail cells, they are the shops with heavy steel doors and steel window frames with bars on the windows. That glass looked really thick when I had a look at one up close, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was shatter resistant glass. The shop wasn’t open when we looked, but I’m guessing they had armed guards during opening hours. Given the meagre local income, they must sell a lot of Kava concentrate to make it worth paying for all those expensive protective measures. A lot of the locals would like these shops shut down – but the drug dealers have lots of well connected friends.
You know what? Deluded greens flying thousands of miles to plant a few mangrove roots probably aren’t hurting anyone, though I wouldn’t be surprised if the locals dig the roots up afterwards and hand them to the next bunch of tourists – much easier than walking a couple of miles through a nasty swamp and chopping fresh roots. But I doubt they are contributing significantly towards genuinely solving Fiji’s real problems.
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There are kava bars in the Denver area now and a legal psychedelic industry is emerging in the shadow of legal marijuana. I wonder why the hopeless problem is so bad. Must be carbon.
Speaking of carbon- I wonder if anyone can answer this question- what % of the mass of our bodies is carbon? I seem to recall that roughly 2/3 of our body is water- I presume that’s mass, not % of molecules. So now I’m wondering about carbon, you know, that evil substance. No wonder humans are no nasty with all that carbon in us. 🙂
18.5% – not a difficult question to answer online.
The WEF would like to get rid of most of human carbon. You’re probably included.
FJB
Poor Emily has her basic Fiji water facts wrong. Fiji population 1960 ~400k. Population 2020>900k. Plus now tourists.
The salt water intrusion into the fresh water lens is not because of sea level rise—there hasn’t been much since 1960. It is because Fijians are consuming at least twice as much fresh water as in 1960, so of course sea water intrudes the shrinking fresh water lens. Planting mangroves is nice for tourists but irrelevant to Fiji fresh water.
The same population growth/water problem exists for all the small island nations. I wrote about it specifically in essay ‘Caribbean Water’ in ebook Blowing Smoke. Has been deliberately used by the UN to ‘teach’ the Federation of Small Island Nations how to collectively whine about climate change. Population rise, not sea level rise, is the root problem.
Mum lives on Cape Cod in Truro, in the narrow near the end. She is always worried about salt water incursion.
We tested her well last spring and she has very little sodium in her water. No need to worry.
BUT her house in on a marsh that over 100 years ago was tidal. The town put a dike across the tidal inlet over a mile from her home long ago to keep salt water mosquitoes down. She only gets various fresh water types now.
This, I am sure, also helps with her aquifer since no salt water is within 3/4 of a mile to her house.
NOW the invirowacos are planning to remove the dike and turn the marsh back to tidal. Sure, someone would probably be able to kayak to Wellfleet harbor and Cape Cod Bay from her yard once they raise the roads that currently have 18 inch culverts, but at what cost of smell, mosquitoes and salt water intrusion.
They have been talking about it for 15 years and have yet to start, but with Brandon in office, they will probably get the money.
Dunno how much the Cape Cod population is growing. But if a lot, the small island fresh water problem is inevitable.
Back when I was a bird watching fanatic- I came to understand that the salt water marshes are a fabulous wildlife habitat- so I’m surprised that that anyone would want to alter that one in Truro – even if it’s to turn it back to what it was. After all, all environments have changed over time. I doubt that most enviro groups are going to agree with this. I think marshes are strongly protected here in Wokeachusetts. Let us know how that situation develops. By the way, all of Cape Cod is just a temporary feature of the landscape. It’s nothing but sand- a terminal moraine and won’t last long, geologically speaking- not even historically speaking. I bet in a few more centuries- much of it will be gone and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
“I think marshes are strongly protected here in Wokeachusetts.”
Possibly caused by guilt from Filling so much of Boston harbor to make more Boston city and airport.
Wokeachusetts worships wetlands- all kinds of wetlands. A tiny muddy spot in a forest is considered a wetland so during a timber harvest we have to stay far from it. If we messed with it- we’d be in big trouble- but on state owned land, they’ve messed up many wetlands. I once found a spot where a log skidder drove right through a vernal pool. If I had done that I’d be in prison. Those who did it on state land got away with it.
Looking at the data for Suva-A it’s interesting to note in the station documentation that:
“From November 1997 the responsibility for the station in Suva was taken over by the Australian National Tidal Facility from the US NOAA. Comparison of daily means for Suva with those for Lautoka and satellite altimetry suggest there could be land subsidence at the Suva station equating to a slow positive sea level trend.”
More or less the same problem in Catalunya .
https://www.catalannews.com/society-science/item/catalonia-reaches-8-million-inhabitants-with-1-in-5-born-abroad
‘Migration drives population increase of 2 million in less than 40 years despite low fertility rate.
https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/11/30/drinking-water-restrictions-introduced-as-northeast-spain-weeks-away-from-drought-emergenc
‘Catalonia is suffering its worst drought on record with reservoirs that provide water for about 6 million people – including Spain’s second-biggest city Barcelona – filled to just 18 per cent of their capacity. By comparison, Spain’s reservoirs as a whole are at 43 per cent of their capacity.’
It has always been hot and dry that’s why tourists like it a lot. Working all year for a 6 day summer vacation on the beach you go to a place you are sure it doesn’t rain and it’s warm. (But when it rains, it rains heavily as if heaven has opened the floodgates during thunderstorms) )
(A lot of water has also been used for electricity production)
Well the Fijian government allowed developers to clear many of the mangroves to build hotels and tourist areas so getting the tourists to pay to put the mangroves back is an ironic payback.
In the 1960’s Fiji was making great strides towards becoming a wealthy and tolerant state largely due to the hard work of the Fijian Indians. They had been brought by the British to Fiji from India to work in the sugar cane plantations since the locals were loathe to do this work. The last Indian worker came in 1914, so the Indians considered themselves to be Fijians, and in the British law that governed the islands, they were.
But then the racial wheels came off following independence. The Fijian indigenes started oppressing the hard working Fiji Indians. The Indians who could leave emigrated to Australia, Canada or New Zealand, where they became valued additions in their new country, much to Fiji’s loss.
I don’t know about other countries, but New Zealand, in its particularly wokish Sunday-School-Teacher manner, pours money and well-meant advice into Fiji in the hope it will make things better. Our small country (NZ), which is getting broker by the minute and is failing in almost every social, educational and economic measure you can think of, plans to pour $NZD 175.89 million into Fiji this year. This represents a tax-free gift of $175 per man, woman and child in the islands. NZ also has a Four Year Plan for Fiji. Didn’t some other country have a Four Year Plan? Yes, and it didn’t do anyone any good!
If you like woke literature see: https://www.mfat.govt.nz/assets/Aid/4YPs-2021-24/Fiji-4YP.pdf
Makes you cynical doesn’t it.
Thanks for that insight. NZ needs a Trump equivalent ‘NZ first’ leader.
Actually NZ has a NZ first party that is in government and the leader of which is the current deputy prime minster. Whether or not he thinks that magnets stop working if you put them in water is however an open question.
I’ve read that The_Donald made that claim. It is not too surprising; likely he had never thought about it until the second he said it. Could have been a thing he heard from some other person.
However, if you know anyone that understands how magnets actually work, out of water is fine, please have them explain the process. Maybe WUWT can have a post about this.
“I’ve read that The_Donald made that claim. It is not too surprising; likely he had never thought about it until the second he said it. “
And that is one of his (many) major failings. He shoots from the lip….. which is an extremely dangerous thing for a countries foremost statesman.
And whether or not Al Gore thinks that he invented the internet is also an open question?
He said he did.
What do you think Izaak?
No doubt you’ve given the question a good deal of thought?
“And whether or not Al Gore thinks that he invented the internet is also an open question?
He said he did.”
No he didn’t…. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/internet-of-lies/
No country needs a Trump equivalent……
A hundred million dead peasants sacrificed at the altar of Communism would disagree with you.
Please be specific. Which hundred million are you talking about?
The hundred+ million in ‘The Mitrokhin Archive.’
Vasili Mitrokhin was a KGB archivist who kept copies of stuff. He went to bed one day in 1991 as a Commie, and woke up as a capitalist. So he packed up his docs, moved west, and eventually sold them to the CIA. I think it was closer to 115 million, but that, as Stalin said, is just a statistic.
Anyway, ISBN 0-14-028487-7 if you’d care to enlighten yourself.
Oh, I’m well aware that communist dictators have slaughtered many millions. It is just laughable that I am somehow aligned with communism (or that NZ is) just because I think Trump is a clown (and a wannabe dictator). that makes most of the western world communists. I mean Trump was responsible for the unnecessary death of many millions through his pathetic covid response… but that’s another story.
You thinking someone is a clown !!!
That is ripe for ridicule. !!
Trump has more brain and integrity than you will ever have.
It is just he represents a more sane and rational idealism , that is at total anathema to you.
“Trump has more brain and integrity than you will ever have.”
Yup I dare say the man who thinks magnets don’t work underwater deserves your respect. He may be as thick as two short planks, but he is still one peg up from the man who thinks el Nino is causing the warming.
“Trump was responsible for the unnecessary death of many millions through his pathetic covid response”
BULL S**T.
He listened to Fauci, a rabid degenerate communist and fascist.
All those unnecessary deaths were because of that Fauci retard.
That was his only mistake.
Nobody should ever listen it anything a rank communist , like you, says, because it is invariable either deliberate lies or total ignorance.
You have proven that is all you are capable of.
Remind me again who the president was at the time? Oh that’s right, Trump. So as the sign on the desk said, the buck stops with him. But typical of a Trump supporter, they pass the blame, which is interesting, because that is exactly what Trump does.
“I’m well aware that communist dictators have slaughtered many millions.”
So you admit you already knew…
So why ask which millions?
Some sick attempt to pretend there weren’t any ??
As if it matter which of the many millions.
The fact is that it was your communist cohort that did it..
You think Trump is a clown and would be dictator because you read the Socialist propaganda and have no critical thinking skills. It’s quite obvious from your posts.
o I think Trum; is all those things because I watch him. Shall I post some links of him live that support what I say?
Your lack of ability to process information is quite apparent from your comments. I don’t need to see your links.
The question is where?
Based upon your well displayed ignorance, you rely upon the most ridiculous of untrustworthy news sources.
All of which are not reality.
Multiple attempts to impeach President Trump proved one thing, that he is innocent of all alleged charges.
In many episodes of TDS, they proved their own falsehoods, criminal complicity and outright fraudulent actions.
Why… would it destroy the rampant, disgusting, degenerate, immoral leftism that you espouse and are part of ! !
The US does, according to one overheard Democrat election strategist, purported as saying –
“from where Joe is polling now, if Trump wasn’t an actual challenger, we’d have to invent him”
See mine above.
Being a middle of the road guy- my interpretation of Trump is that it’s not his policy ideas that are so bad- it’s just the way he attempts to explain them. It’s like we need a translator for him. I suspect many people just do it automatically. Other people take his foolish way of talking to be all there is to him- which I’m convinced is false. He certainly has made mistakes but so hasn’t every other politician. I’d prefer someone with similar ideas but who says them with more clarity- like DeSantis. He really isn’t that different, policy wise. His personal life style is certainly more reputable- but I don’t think that factor is all that important. I’m more concerned about result- not what anyone does in their personal life, if it’s all legal.
Spot on!
“Being a middle of the road guy- my interpretation of Trump is that it’s not his policy ideas that are so bad- it’s just the way he attempts to explain them. It’s like we need a translator for him.”
That’s the problem: We do have a translator for Trump. It’s called the Leftwing News Media.
The Leftwing News Media distorts *everything* Trump says, so that’s why you are confused about what he says. You need to listen to Trump’s actual words. You cannot depend on the Left’s interpretation of what he said. They are going to present him in the worst light possible, and have been doing so for years, ever since he became a political threat to their socialist paradise.
Trump’s policies are much better than “not so bad”, he is right on the money with all his policies.
It seems that his personality includes a lot of sarcasm and a bit of mumbling- he often doesn’t complete sentences correctly. That is, he doesn’t fit the mold of how a politician is supposed to behave and one reason is that he doesn’t care because he’s not a professional politician like Biden and so many others – and of course he loves sarcasm, and I do too- because here in Wokeachusetts- where everyone tries to be politically correct- it drives me crazy. In my field of forestry- we have enviro idiots- yet the forestry professionals fail to deal with them because they try to be so polite- when they should be fighting back. Partly its due to a lack of sophistication- their education and training is focused too much on the work they do- not on politics and how politics is a dirty business. So, over the years I’ve become the sarcastic voice against forestry haters. I try to do it with some humor and of course they don’t get it- the way lefties don’t get the humor that Trump has mixed in with his sarcasm. I do like that Trump, during the big fires out west, said he strongly supports active forestry. Unfortunately, he said “they need to rake the forests” – which sounds silly. But he didn’t really mean rake the forests- he meant clean them up with good forestry practices. So of course those who hate him played up that careless use of language- which if said by any ordinary person- would have been fine, but they prefer politicians who use “fancy” language to play nice with all the opposing forces, since they’re f*****g cowards, in my opinion. Whatever he is, he ain’t no coward.
“Whatever he is, he ain’t no coward.”
Hmmm didn’t he dodge the draft a few times? And say McCain was no war hero because he got captured.
15 million US men got a deferment, including Trump and Clinton. As to the rest I don’t really know or care – certainly Trump wasn’t the only US politician to question McCains ‘War Hero’ status, there were plenty of others.
“certainly Trump wasn’t the only US politician to question McCains ‘War Hero’ status, there were plenty of others.”
Really? I call bullshit on that. Bullshit with bells on…. Prove me wrong.
McCain’s daughter recently called her father a hero on X and got royally roasted in the replies. She definitely proves the apple does not fall far from the tree.
Vile comment….
Doing anything to not get sent to Viet Nam, I don’t consider dodging the draft. Half the men in college were there to dodge the draft. What he said about McCain was stupid.
But those men didn’t have a daddy who paid to have a doctor lie for them
What exactly did alleged hero McCain do for his hero status?
Surviving capture isn’t always because the man was a hero.
The remainder of McCain’s life in politics certainly wasn’t that of a hero. Instead, he was one of those “professional” politicians.
“So of course those who hate him played up that careless use of language”
Yes, that is what has happened.
Trump does use careless language. It’s his biggest weakness. But careless language doesn’t prevent him from doing a very good job running the country and foreign policy.
And most of the careless language is in response to personal attacks made against him by political opponents on the Left and Right, and the leftwing press.
Trump lashes out at any, and all, who attack him, and the leftwing media plays it up as if Trump is out of control, when it is the leftwing media that is out of control as they are the real instigators of the “turmoil” Trump supposedly causes, because the leftwing media are the ones that constantly attack Trump from every direction, and, sorry, but Trump isn’t going to let their attacks go unanswered. So you get “turmoil”.
Some people say if we get rid of Trump, we get rid of turmoil.
I say if we get rid of the leftwing media badgering Trump, then we get rid of turmoil.
I’ll take Trump turmoil mixed with excellent domestic and foreign policy any day. Give me Trump and turmoil because what that turmoil really means is Trump is knocking the hell out of the radical Left, and puts the radical Left in turmoil.
Which includes virtually every alleged news source.
Most of which are currently owned and run by billionaires.
Their operations are well known for colluding with government to push approved news and to ignore unapproved news, e.g., Hunter’s laptop, his sex and drug activities, his business actions.
So just to be clear when Trump calls migrants “vermin” and says that they are “poisoning the blood of our country” you agree with him but just wish that he would express those racist ideas with “more clarity”.
I think he was referring to the Biden regime and left-wing political machinery when he said the first bit, no idea about the rest though.
Legal immigrants, or illegal aliens?
Does that matter? Do you really think that under any circumstance it is acceptable to claim that migrants (legal or illegal) are “poisoning the blood”?
Er, yes Izaak.
When uninvited, proscribed, even criminalised individuals invade and infect an ordered society and then proceed to procreate through arranged marriages, convenience marriages, even rape, then yes they are “poisoning the blood” of ordered societies.
What the type of rock you’ve been living under Izaak?
If you can’t tell the difference between legal immigrants / visitors and illegal aliens…
The illegal aliens recently released from Australian immigration detention who committed violent crimes within a week are hardly upstanding citizens.
And now even the woke Scandinavian nations are realizing they’ve gone too far with allowing anyone to enter their nations. Such resistance is building across Europe.
“Ruining the fabric” would have been far more appropriate, if applied to illegal aliens.
Legal visitors and immigrants are obviously desired or they wouldn’t be granted entry.
Now, did the over the top terminology apply to all “migrants”, or just the illegal aliens?
My objection is to the use of the term “migrant” to refer to illegal aliens.
“My objection is to the use of the term “migrant” to refer to illegal aliens.”
Exactly! Ticks me off too. Then the claim is they’re all just getting away from repression and environmental disasters. Nonsense, they all just want a better life- makes sense- but they must do it legally like our ancestors.
Yes, that’s stupid. Some politicians don’t say such stupid things but they do stupid things- like the green energy thing, starting wars, promoting the export of our industries, etc.
Exactly. That is a fascist talking……
Fascism is a political system The terms you were searching for may have been “racist” or “jingoistic”.
Nope, the last guy to talk about poisoning the blood of a nation slaughtered 6 million Jews. He was a fascist.
Nah – just your standard Animal Farm-type socialist dictator.
Or maybe more a 1984-type dictator.
Either way, Orwell had them all pegged.
And as a lefty himself, he was familiar with the base pattern.
The chap you are presumably referring to was a National Socialist, who happened to ally himself with his neighbour, who was a Fascist.
He also had a set on Poles, Slavs, gypsies and homosexuals, and probably many other roups.
Both the above dictators had jingoistic, racist regimes. Jingoism and racism are quite possible without Fascism.
There have been a number before and after him who used similar rhetoric.
Hitler was a fascist and Trump is well on the way. Do they meet criteria.. you decide.
You can try to redefine terms all you like, but Fascism is a specific form of government.
Your list describes North Korea perfectly, and completely misses the defining feature of Fascism.
So it is not my definition. https://world101.cfr.org/contemporary-history/world-war/what-fascism
*sigh*
“Fascism supported private property rights – except for the groups which it persecuted – and the profit motive of capitalism, but it sought to eliminate the autonomy of large-scale capitalism from the state.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism_and_ideology
That was poorly worded, sorry. I should have said “the distinguishing feature of Fascism.”
No- what he should have said is that we must prevent all illegal immigration- and that by coming here they’re breaking our laws, endangering our people, raising costs and causing other problems. Is that racist? I don’t think so. If they tried to sneak into Russian or China, they’d be shot on the spot.
The whole bloody world needs a Trump equivalent leader.
That’s exactly right.
A Trump election might actually spawn similar elections elsewhere.
“The whole bloody world needs a Trump equivalent leader.”
Yep….Like they need a root canal…..
What’s the connection to New Zealand that gives Kiwi do-gooders the idea that they ought to stick their noses into another country’s business like that? I suspect that if the US had a four-year plan for NZ we would never hear the end of how we’re trying to be an imperial power.
What exactly are you complaining about? The fact that NZ gives foreign aid to other countries or that it has a plan for what it expects to achieve with that aid? Would you prefer that rich countries give nothing to poorer countries or that they do so with caring how the money is spent? Having some goals for how the aid money is spent means that it is targeted and that you can assess whether or not the money is being well spent.
More cynically I suspect that Australia, NZ and the US give aid to pacific nations simply to stop China from coming in and doing the same like they did in the Solomon Islands. See:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/11/solomon-islands-signs-controversial-policing-pact-with-china
So the better question might be whether your prefer the US or China to be the dominant player in pacific? Personally I would vote for the US.
Thanks for the referral Izaak. I thoroughly enjoyed, in her position as ‘Editor, Guardian US,’ Betsy Reed’s summation of the Guardian’s editorial policies that occurred at the end of the article:
“…Our journalism is produced to serve the public interest – not profit motives.
And we avoid the trap that befalls much US media – the tendency, born of a desire to please all sides, to engage in false equivalence in the name of neutrality. While fairness guides everything we do, we know there is a right and a wrong position in the fight against racism and for reproductive justice.” :<)
Historically I think New Zealand got a lot of seasonal agricultural workers coming over from Fiji so it may have felt like an exchange more than aid although I think that has slowed in recent years whilst the aid has continued.
Interestingly NZ has also given aid to the Solomon islands whilst China is giving more to the Solomons and Fiji than anyone else – NZ should now either bow to the inevitable or try to use whatever influence they can muster to keep China out.
Exactly which social, educational and economic measures is NZ failing at? Globally its GDP per capita puts it at 21st spot in the list of countries. If you measure it in terms of price parity it drops slightly to 32 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita). This is well above the global average and hardly counts as failure. In terms of educational standards the results from the 2023 PISA assessment did show a drop but NZ was still above the OECD average for educational standards. Again not a failure but could definitely be improved. If you look at life expectancy NZ ranks 18th in the world with the average life expectancy being 83.16 years (the US is ranked 47th with a life expectancy of 79.74 years despite spending considerably more on health care per person than any other country).
NZ might not be storming ahead with relatively slow predicted growth but it doesn’t appear to be failing on any obvious measure.
I wouldn’t be surprised if China offered Fiji much more and allowed to build a naval port!
The CAGW movement is a disgrace.
We have seen nothing positive come from it. We are poorer, we are less free, we have less reliable energy, we pay more for our energy, sometimes we have no energy, CO2 concentrations continue to climb, we are losing reliable energy sources, we are losing affordable energy sources, our governments are growing stronger and taking more from us, the administrative and bureaucratic classes are growing and prospering and we are getting the shaft.
This must stop now.
Eric, fun thing about mangroves, as we have a lot still here in the Fort Lauderdale vicinity in the several state parks between the intercoastal and the sea.
They reproduce by a long skinny ‘seed’ about a wide handspan long. About 2/3 is green, the floating part, and 1/3 is brown, the sinking part. They bob about and you can pick them up along our beach (we are near a fairly large state park with lots of mangrove). If they bob into a suitable flat at high tide, the wave action sinks the brown end into the flat as the tide goes out—self planting—and the thing quickly sprouts a new mangrove. Nature is truly amazing.
Headline: “
Fijian tourists help islanders adapt to climate change”Fossil Fuels help rescue mangroves from climate change.Difficult to determine in this day and age if there were any women in the group…
The Federal Government in Australia has just turned down Victorian State plans to extend the port of Hastings to support the proposed offshore wind farm.
The mangrove swamps of Western Port are home to the eastern curlew, which apparently are diminishing due to reduction in habitat.
This is a significant set back for the offshore wind farm project.
Apparently mangrove swamps around the world sequester more carbon than all the rain forests. Mangroves are quite impressive in turning sea water into dry land. Fraser Island, off the coast of Queensland, gained its foothold through mangroves.
Holy cow, lottery winner here….
Not very long ago on here, I recounted the goings-on in the field at the bottom of my garden.
Where for the past 18 months, a ‘wholesale nurseryman‘ had been cultivating some plants for the Wholesale Nursery Trade
Not least there were 200,000 baby rose bushes, ‘flamingo willows’, Robinia, Salix, ‘standard’ roses and about an acre of Prunus laurocerasus ‘Rotundifolia’
I always had that marked down as ‘slow growing’ until in this last year I watched 12″ twigs with half-a-dozen leaves (planted half a metre apart in rows that were one metre apart) a field go to an impenetrable mass of bushes about 4 feet tall. Inside 6 months.
When the harvesting tractor/team arrived, I borrowed a typical bush and put it on my kitchen scales – it weighed about 5kg
I took that to be ⅓ ‘carbon’ and ⅔ water. ish
From that and with an allowance for the sugar they left in the ground, I got a carbon dioxide capture rate of 33 Tonnes per hectare. (Remember that number)
That was within the 6 month growing season. They would still be working during winter but the sun wouldn’t be strong enough to do a great deal.
Your words here prompted a quick search and I found what we see attached..
It claims 840 Tonnes per hectare over 25 years and I get that to be 33.6 Tonnes per year.
Just ‘wow’
>>Recall just very recently a story here of a German Professor writing about the rainfall in Germany and how ‘Germany was now a Sponge‘ because the recent (quite) heavy rain there’s been there.
To elucidate we saw a picture of a young woman photographing a large flood of dirty brown water.
I accused the professor of blinkered muppetry. Sponges are porous just for starters.
Reason being that what made the water in the photo = ‘brown’ was the stuff that makes ‘land’ = ‘farmland’ and what would make us healthy wealthy & wise if it got into our food.
Its deficiency makes us, as we see constantly all around us nowadays, fat, lazy, mendacious and stupid. And demented.
It is also what grew the Prunus trees at end my garden and also what grows mangrove forests.
Namely Silt = stuff that was previously (in part or whole) = Farmland Soil
And of especial interest to Australians, it is what causes, maintains & sustains the Great Barrier Reef
Funny old stuff is dirt isn’t it?
Completely not funny when it becomes Soil Erosion
Just gobsmacking doncha think.
My kitchen scales technology and BoE calculation matches what Google tell us to within 2%
Soil Erosion gets really scary when you realise my trees were only actively growing for 6 months, not 12 as a mangrove would
Soil Erosion destroys ‘sponges’, people, societies, civilisations and Climate in that strict order.
Will someone please inform ‘The Professor’
a well manicured, fed and fertilised field of wheat will capture about 10 Tonnes of CO₂ per Ha per year in the UK and about 3 tonnes everywhere else
In Australia that’s for 2 years out of 5 – diddly squat the other 3
Such are the joys of wheat, all of that is returned to the atmosphere within 12 months and, unsurprising to everyone except ‘professors’, is why atmospheric levels of CO₂ are rising as they are
(and the silt is making the sea level go up also)
Most of the wacko alarmists I encounter, just dig one hole and then stick their head in it and stay there.
Perhaps they should try it on Fiji instead of mangroves.
Deluded greens flying thousands of miles to plant a few mangrove roots probably aren’t hurting anyone
Au contraire, Eric.
These “greens” are deliberately flying to far-flung islands contributing vast amounts of the killer molecule CO2 to the air causing the seas to boil and the sky to fall.
Shame on you for giving them a free pass 😉
Yeh my bad… 🙂
The mangrove seed is shaped like a big pencil. It floats root end down and moves up and down with the wave and tide action until the root end gets buried in the sand and the plant starts growing.
Nature plants these by the billions. The mangroves themselves are incredibly tenacious. It can be blowing 200 mph in a hurricane outside and pretty much all you notice tucked away in the mangroves is that there are less mosquitoes.
Mangroves grow where it is warm at the sea edge. They grow pretty much everywhere in the tropics if there is a beach to take root in. They take over pretty much completely.
Depends, who’s paying for the trip?
The tourists are.
From the Canberra Times article:
“A recent survey found corals were being ripped apart by tourists trampling on it while snorkelling.”
… win a few mangroves, lose a few coral.
Oh and some wholesome tribal misogyny… but it’s cultural so it’s all good.
“Our biggest challenge was that we are women – women in Fijian culture, we don’t speak in big meetings, it’s only the man that attends meetings,” Ms Vakacola said.
DEEP OCEAN VOLCANOS CAUSE CONTINUOUS, PERIODIC GLOBAL WARMING BY EL NINOs
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/natural-forces-cause-periodic-global-warming
EXCERPT
Self-Destruction of the West?
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This study shows, the existence of the UAH satellite measurements started in 1979, world temperature increases have been increasing, step-by-step, and are dominantly due to El Niños, and their after effects.
The sun and moon and tectonic plate movement are driving forces of El Niños.
We must adhere to the golden rule of causality of real science: observe, measure and repeat.
In reality, CO2 does not play the slightest role here.
The IPCC climate models are based on political pseudo-science and are therefore worthless.
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A Simplified Calculation to Put Matters in Perspective
From Image 7, it can be concluded, a very strong El Niño produces a lower atmosphere temperature jump across the entire Earth of approximately 0.3 C.
E = K x T^4, where K = 5.670367 x 10^-8 is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant
Taking the derivative delivers:
dE= 4 x K x T^3 x dT = 4 x 5.670367^-8 x 288^3 x 0.3 = 1.625 W/m2
If the Earth were to absorb this energy flux as radiation, the Stefan-Boltzmann equation indicates, this corresponds to a radiation effect of 1.625 W/m².
Watt = Joule/second
That is 829 TW for the total earth surface of 510,100,000 km², or an annual energy production of 26,143 EJ (Exajoules).
Annual human primary energy production for all uses was estimated at about 557 EJ
A single, very strong El Niño produces a warming effect on the lower atmosphere 26143/557 = 47 times stronger than the annual CO2 emissions of the human annual primary energy.
For perspective,
1) The annual human CO2 emissions, plus some other IPCC factors, increased the temperature of the lower atmosphere by 0.5 C , in 45 years. See Image 7
2) An El Niño (weak to very strong) can occur, on average, every 3.6 years, each contributing to lower atmospheric warming to a far greater extent than the annual human CO2 emissions. See Images 1 and 9
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Conclusion
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The impact of human CO2 emissions from annual primary energy on Earth’s temperature is extremely small.
It compares to just one of the many active volcanic, submarine hot spots (weak to very strong), estimated at 5,000 in the world, of which the El Niño heat source often is a strong one. See Image 1
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It is completely self-destructive for the Western world to impose restrictions on CO2 emissions that have only a small, not even marginal impact, on world atmospheric temperatures, as accurately measured by satellites
The human primary energy CO2 emissions are completely insignificant compared to the external thermal influences to which the earth is subjected.
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All politicians and activists have been warned: the earth, moon, sun and celestial bodies will never listen to capricious rules and legislation imposed by them on the earth’s inhabitants.
The climate-change killjoys have gone to great lengths in recent years linking practically anything and everything as a contributor to climate change. Gas stoves? Check. Dishwashers? Check. Eating meat? Check. Sporting events? Check. Breathing? Check, too.
Given this history, I must say I was not all that surprised when I read a recent article in the Washington Post claiming, “Indoor houseplants come with a cost to the planet.”
It’s like ignoring an infant dying of cold on the side of the street and then watering the dandelions nearby.
Flying in a jet to dig holes for a problem caused (allegedly) by carbon emissions seems the height of stupidity.