Maldives: Paradise soon to be lost–BBC 2004

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

What would we do without the internet?

For as well as being blessed with sun-kissed paradise islands and pale, white sands, this tourist haven is cursed with mounting evidence of an environmental catastrophe.

The country is portrayed by travel companies as a tropical paradise

To the naked eye, the signs of climate change are almost imperceptible, but government scientists fear the sea level is rising up to 0.9cm a year.

Since 80% of its 1,200 islands are no more than 1m above sea level, within 100 years the Maldives could become uninhabitable.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3930765.stm

That was 21 years ago.

Since then, twelve new airports have been opened on the Maldives, plus a new passenger terminal at the Velana International Airport.

Velana Int Airport

Tourists numbers have tripled to more than 2 million last year. Tourism now drives 28% of GDP, supported by more than 170 resorts. Last year alone, another seven new resorts were opened.

Far from disappearing beneath the waves, the Maldives are thriving!

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November 4, 2025 10:16 pm

The BBC are always economical with the truth.

I’m still fighting with them and Ofcom on the BBC headline “Electric cars eligible for £3,750 discount announced
Since when is a subsidy a discount?

SxyxS
Reply to  Redge
November 5, 2025 1:28 am

Since the day co2 became a pollutant,
Since a comedian in high heels playing piano with his Cheney became the new Churchill,
Since the day we stopped knowing what a woman is (except for Michelle Obaman and Frigiid Mancron, of course)

Neil Pryke
November 4, 2025 10:17 pm

Well, after the BBC’s stunt with President Trump’s January 6th speech…Would you trust anything the BBC puts out..?

Reply to  Neil Pryke
November 5, 2025 12:32 am

Let me think..

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Right-Handed Shark
November 5, 2025 11:16 am

You are not programmed to respond in that area.
You must recite what you have bee told to believe.

November 4, 2025 10:24 pm

Its not so much that “climate” predictions have been wrong..

.. its that in many cases the exact opposite is happening.

November 4, 2025 11:47 pm

Is that true, or did you see it on the BBC?

Keitho
Editor
November 5, 2025 12:34 am

BBC= Butter Wollocks.

November 5, 2025 12:38 am

CV watch: Nick Bryant, PhD in history.

KevinM
Reply to  quelgeek
November 5, 2025 9:18 am

Thanks for doing these.

Colin Belshaw
November 5, 2025 1:14 am

I thought it was much worse than this. Like, weren’t we were told in 1988 that the Maldives would be underwater by 2018?!
Don’t you just love it when yet another idiotic alarmist prediction turns out to be . . . utterly stupid rubbish!!

SxyxS
Reply to  Colin Belshaw
November 5, 2025 1:34 am

The name says it all.
Mal-diving Islands can not drown.
They may capsize and tip over, but they won’t drown.

November 5, 2025 1:16 am

Story Tip

Impacts of onshore wind energy production on biodiversity
Wind is increasingly used as a renewable source of energy worldwide. However, harvesting wind energy can have negative consequences for biodiversity. In this Review, we summarize the growth of onshore wind power, its impacts on species and ecosystems, and how those impacts are assessed and mitigated. Across the construction, operation and decommissioning stages, wind facilities are associated with wildlife fatality and behavioural change as well as alteration, loss and fragmentation of terrestrial and aerial habitat. These negative consequences can be mitigated by avoiding construction of wind turbines at sensitive sites, detecting and deterring wildlife, curtailing turbines to reduce fatalities, and replacing lost habitats. Uncertainty about wildlife populations and their demographic parameters, the rate and extent of build-out of onshore wind energy, and best practices for mitigation, as well as variability in regulatory requirements by country or region, all contribute to the difficulty of predicting the consequences of this technology for biodiversity. Scenario-based modelling that incorporates population- and community-level consequences to biodiversity from varying degrees of wind energy development — including the cumulative effects of multiple facilities — is key to addressing this uncertainty.

Some words about the paywalled paper:

https://klimanachrichten-de.translate.goog/2025/11/05/das-grosse-schweigen-nature-studie-entlarvt-windkraft-als-biodiversitaetskiller/?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en#more-9779

Rod Evans
November 5, 2025 1:27 am

In other news, not reported by the BBC which stands for Blatantly Broadcasting Crap the Polar Bears are now presenting an ever present and growing nuisance on the Arctic ice that should have disappeared back in 2014. The demand for a cull of the growing bear population is not being reported for some reason?

SxyxS
Reply to  Rod Evans
November 5, 2025 2:12 am

I already sent a bottle of co2 up there.
Should end the Polar Bears by Friday.

Bruce Cobb
November 5, 2025 1:58 am

Marketing genius. Here is this beautiful place, which is disappearing due to “climate change”. Better visit now before it does!

CampsieFellow
Reply to  Bruce Cobb
November 5, 2025 4:12 am

Ironic to have this article immediately after an article about last-chance tourism.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Bruce Cobb
November 5, 2025 11:20 am

But only after you vacation on the Arctic sea ice, that soon will be gone in the impending doom of oceans rising faster than water in the bathtub.

November 5, 2025 5:10 am

I remember that and troed to find it myself. I remember, i’m sure on newsnight . It was definitetly broadcast. The journalist was strolling ankles deep in sea water prophesising that sea water would be above his head in 30 years, or something like that. I remember thinking your white left middle class lunacy will come back to haunt you. Well found. Maybe the bbc should comment

MarkW
November 5, 2025 6:31 am

As one of our trolls recently declared, these predictions aren’t wrong, they just missed on the dates.

November 5, 2025 8:11 am

The BBC report states that 80% of the islands may become uninhabitable “within 100 years”.

Homewood gives it 21 years, about a fifth of the forecast period, and declares a non-emergency.

Meanwhile, sea level rise continues in the Maldives.

Reply to  TheFinalNail
November 5, 2025 8:28 am

The BBC says:
In Kandholhudhoo, a densely-populated island in the north of the Maldives, 60% of residents have volunteered to evacuate over the next 15 years – those remaining behind will eventually be compelled to do the same.
Two points on that
First
In 2004, the population of the Maldives was approximately 311,000 people.
As of 2024, the population is estimated to be around 527,799 people. 
So the population has increased by 216,799 in 21 years. At that rate the Maldives population will be around a million in 2104. I’d be willing to give you a bet that my estimate is nearer the mark than the BBC’s but we’ll both be long gone by that. The Climate Scientist’s wager you might say.
Second
The original population of Kandholhudhoo was approximately 3,700 before the 2004 tsunami. Due to the tsunami, the island was destroyed, and its residents were displaced to other islands, with the original population now living in Dhuvaafaru, which was established as a new settlement for the former residents of Kandholhudhoo. 

So the population left the island, but not for the reasons in the BBC article and still live in the Maldives.

KevinM
Reply to  Ben Vorlich
November 5, 2025 9:28 am

I heard it the same way Ben wins.
“60% of residents have volunteered to evacuate over the next 15 years” said 21 years ago is difficult to dismiss unless the original author is willing to ask questions like “Will owners just abandon their property Detroit-style, or are they expecting to be paid for it. Then what?”

KevinM
Reply to  KevinM
November 5, 2025 10:10 am

“Detroit, Michigan has a humid continental climate characterized by four distinct seasons.
Summers are typically warm to hot, with temperatures often reaching the mid-80s °F (around 29-32 °C) and high humidity levels.
Winters are cold and snowy, with temperatures frequently dipping below freezing and an average annual snowfall of about 40 inches.
The temperature typically varies from 20°F to 83°F throughout the year, with rare extremes below 6°F or above 91°F.”

vs

“The climate in the Maldives is characterized as tropical, with warm temperatures and high humidity throughout the year.
Temperature: Average temperatures typically range from 80°F to 88°F (27°C to 31°C), rarely dropping below 77°F (25°C) or exceeding 90°F (32°C). 
Seasons: The Maldives experiences two main seasons influenced by monsoons: the dry season from January to April, which is ideal for outdoor activities, and the wet season from May to December, which brings more rainfall.
Precipitation: Rainfall varies throughout the year, with the wettest months generally being May and October.”

Not to hack on Detroiters – but temperatures rarely dropping below 77°F (25°C) or exceeding 90°F (32°C) sounds pretty nice. I also doubt beach gangs are robbing the copper plumbing pipes out of abandoned houses.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Ben Vorlich
November 5, 2025 1:26 pm

216,799 times 100 lb per person (low side) is 10,000 tons, give or take. That certainly could cause the Maldives to sink. 🙂

Reply to  Ben Vorlich
November 5, 2025 6:06 pm

It doesn’t matter how big the population is or by how much it has grown. It doesn’t matter how many hotels they build either. They can’t stop the seas from rising. These will be displaced people over the course of the next ~80 years.

JTraynor
Reply to  TheFinalNail
November 5, 2025 8:24 pm

If this happens they will find a home. I’m sure the UK, Germany or Sweden will take them if they promise to vote “the right way”.

Colin Belshaw
Reply to  TheFinalNail
November 7, 2025 6:44 am

Nothing like a complete and utter twerp.
Do some research and you’ll actually find the area of the Maldives is . . . INCREASING!!

Reply to  TheFinalNail
November 5, 2025 11:44 am

Ah.. Nostra-dumb-ass predictions again. Based on climate models.. so funny !!

And the usual meaningless “may…. blah blah”

Is it true? or did you hear it on the BBC !

Reply to  bnice2000
November 5, 2025 6:14 pm

The paper I linked to is based on observations – tide gauge records.

Reply to  TheFinalNail
November 5, 2025 7:15 pm

Are you really SCARED of 4mm/year… that’s hilarious. !!

The island sand and coral will easily kept up with that.

And all those little tourist shacks will be rebuilt before anything can even become a problem.

JTraynor
Reply to  TheFinalNail
November 5, 2025 1:10 pm

It’s a reasonable reply yet it lacks specifics and “what to do about it” isms.

1) How many of the 1200 islands are 1M above sea level and what is the population of those islands? The Pacific is littered with islands and atolls of this type and no one lives there.

2) Is crushing the global economy by directing resources at actions that will yield little if any benefit just to save the Maldives the best economic choice or should those resources be directed at moving those on the Maldives 100 years from now … at an enormously lower cost?

3) Seas started rising well before CO2 concentrations could have had anything to do with it so their fate was inevitable.

4) why would you think you can do anything that would cause sea levels to recede, much less stop rising, without the inevitable recurrence of the next glacial period, which the last one lowered sea levels by around 400 feet?

Reply to  JTraynor
November 5, 2025 6:01 pm

I’m not suggesting there is anything we can do about it. It’s too late.

Reply to  TheFinalNail
November 5, 2025 8:05 pm

There has NEVER been anything humans can do about natural sea level rise.

You aren’t being stupid enough to actually insinuate that human CO2 has anything to do with sea level rise….

“Far-fetched fantasy” would be a gentle euphemism of that brain-*art !!

JTraynor
Reply to  TheFinalNail
November 5, 2025 8:19 pm

It was never “not too late”. Seas started rising in the early 1800s. CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels had nothing to do with this because we weren’t burning much fossil fuels then. There was nothing that anyone could have EVER done about it.

The number of islands above 1M was never mentioned in the article. It’s most likely that most, if not all, of those that live in the Maldives live above that level and are not at risk. But I don’t know this for certain.

i am curious if the Maldives are coral based? Coral has been rising along with the oceans. If this is the case many of these islands will rise as well.

Reply to  JTraynor
November 5, 2025 8:32 pm

97% Of 186 Maldives Island Coasts Have Grown Or Not Changed Since 2005 – Climate Change Dispatch

Title of article says everything we need to know about the SCARY sea level rise in the Maldives. !

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  TheFinalNail
November 5, 2025 1:24 pm

You are referencing BBC and Nature, both of which have been totally revealed as reckless with the truth.

It is curious that different island in the same local are experiencing different rates of sea level rise.

It is also interesting that the projected sea level rises (based on IPCC data) is within the normal tidal range.

Reply to  Sparta Nova 4
November 5, 2025 6:04 pm

It is also interesting that the projected sea level rises (based on IPCC data) is within the normal tidal range.

How can a measured, long term increase in sea level be “within the tidal range?” If it is ‘within the tidal range’ then by, definition, it is not a long term rise in sea level (which it is).

Reply to  TheFinalNail
November 5, 2025 7:17 pm

4mm/ year is not something to cry to mummy about !!!

… unless you are a species of “climatis hytericarsis ignoramus”

KevinM
November 5, 2025 9:17 am

At dentist this morning I watched/listened to Barack Obama narrate an Earth nature TV program where he was pretty explicit about the Antarctic disappearing from under the baby seals.

Reply to  KevinM
November 5, 2025 1:36 pm

Wow, As if the dentist isn’t bad enough already…

…. they then inflict that sort of stuff on you !! 😉

ResourceGuy
November 5, 2025 10:51 am

What about the emissions increase for getting to all the expanded resorts at the Maldives? And what about the emissions increase for all the copycat islands using UN and ICC shaming strategy for funds transfer? In other words, how many new runways, terminals, and port projects does it take to wake up low information greens?

JTraynor
Reply to  ResourceGuy
November 5, 2025 4:38 pm

Good point. Reducing CO2 emissions requires greatly limiting air travel (which the green crew hopes to do) which leads to reduced economic activity in the Maldives. So if you’re concerned about the Maldives you need to move them at some point regardless of what happens.

Sparta Nova 4
November 5, 2025 11:15 am

Those cottages are on pylons. Would not be much of a challenge to elevate them.

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