Two Islands in India disappear due to rising oceans.

[Selatius]

Two islands off the Indian subcontinent seem to have disappeared.

Scientists believe it is more evidence of the impact of rising sea levels caused by global warming.

For six years scientists based in Kolkata have been examining the impact of climate change on the islands of the Sunderbans, a vast area where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal.

Official records list 102 islands in Indian Territory, but scientists examining satellite imagery now say two have disappeared and a dozen more could go under.

The Sunderbans are a natural buffer shielding millions from storms and tidal waves whipped up in the Bay of Bengal.

Scientists say cyclones are now more intense, causing more severe flooding, erosion and salt water contamination in coastal areas.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200612/s1816787.htm

[Double T]

1. ONLY when the streets of New York City have turned into canals........

and taxi cabs have been traded in for gondolas, will SOMEBODY in this country start REALLY doing SOMETHING about global warming.

[rodeodance]

3. yes, yes, yes.

[redqueen]

2. We're witnessing the beginning of the end of an era.

Isn't it something?

[Paranoid Pessimist]

7. We're witnessing the beginning of the end n/t

[redqueen]

12. Nah, just the end for some species.

The earth will survive.

[Paranoid Pessimist]

13. The most prominent of them being . . . homo sapien sapiens n/t

[primavera]

26. The rest of the earth should be so lucky

But no, I'm sure homo sapiens will survive to continue destroying what's left of the planet.

[BrokenBeyondRepair]

34. neo sapiens will take care of the homo sapien problem when the time is right

[CJCRANE]

4. Strange to think

that all those sci-fi disaster novels and movies from the 70's will come true soon.

(Well, the global warming ones at least, not the vampire etc ones)

[soothsayer]

5. First global warming, THEN vampires, zombies, etc.

[KansDem]

6. I not so sure it isn't the other way around.

We now have zombies...a lot of zombies. Zombies in powerful positions who can ignore the warning signs that are leading to global warming.

"GOP"="Gang of Pzombies" (the "p" is silent)

[GoddessOfGuinness]

15. We've got a vampire living in the VPs house.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

19. LOL

I love the term Pzombies, with the silent "p". MKJ

[Uncle Joe]

29. I don't know about vampires and zombies, but I can see cannibalism on the upswing

when the food supplies run out.

[Ex Lion Tamer]

40. Read Cormac McCarthy's new book "The Road."

Intense, post-apocalyptic, very scary.

[ashling]

8. What about

the mushroom people ... and giant grasshoppers eating Chicago ... and the killer tomatoes?

[pitohui]

20. we've had the killer spinach, can killer tomatoes be far behind EOM

.

[reprobate]

25. I prefer Woody Alan's version: "The Breast that Ate Cleveland"

[hatrack]

10. But at least Chuck Conners and Richard Crenna won't be part of it THIS time!

:evilgrin:

[Squatch]

9. Global warming may not be the only mechanism at work here.

Do not forget other, more redional mechanisms such as tectonic subduction or (post-glacial) isostatic rebound.

Link

[kestrel91316]

11. This poses an interesting metaphysical question:

How does something which DOES NOT EXIST cause an actual something to visibly occur?

'Cause we all know the ses are not rising and ice is not melting excessively and the earth is NOT warming up with resulting destabilization of weather and ecosystems.

I think Satan did it.

[primavera]

28. Nah, just time for a little historical revisionism

In much the same way that invading Iraq was never about WMDs, but was always about liberating the people of Iraq, we can just go airbrush away those islands. Islands? What islands? There were never any islands there, and anyone who says otherwise is a goddamned historical revisionist who hates freedom. End of problem, see how easy that was?

[Rex]

14. People won't care about global warming until they have to take a boat

to work. And even then I wonder.

[pitohui]

21. people can get used to anything

i suppose that is the lesson of katrina

human life for most of human history was ugly, brutish, and short, and i guess we as a species are satisfied to revert to the mean :shrug:

[hatrack]

16. Then there's this - the Carteret Islands (New Guinea) pretty much gone

EDIT

The people of the Carteret Islands — among the smallest, most beautiful and most remote inhabited islands in the world — are hungry and afraid. Since the sea poisoned their fruit trees, their children have lived on an unbalanced diet of fish and coconuts and their pot bellies and the yellowing tips of their black hair hint at malnutrition. Most of them are desperate to leave and plans are being drawn up to move them to higher, safer ground on the larger island of Bougainville, 120km (75 miles), across the water. But however blighted the lives of the 2,600 Carteret islanders are, this is a problem far greater than just for them. The Carterets are a portent of catastrophe to come — not only for the other low lying atolls of the South Pacific, but for low-lying coastal communities across the world, from Bangladesh to New Orleans. If environmental scientists and campaigners are correct, the rising seas are the result of global warming caused by the release of greenhouse gasses. Some time next year the islanders will become the world’s first climate-change refugees; within a few years, barring a dramatic reversal, their home will literally go down in history as the first inhabited territory in the world to be swallowed up by global warming.

“We have no cars and no factories and no aeroplanes,” says Bernard Tubin, a leader on the island of Piul. “We are the victims of this greenhouse-gas emission and we are totally innocent. America sends someone to the Moon, wars are being fought and millions are being spent on warheads and ammunition. So why is it that Russia and the US and Japan and Australia cannot do anything to help us?” Even by the standards of Papua New Guinea, the anarchic nation of mountains, jungles and islands north of Australia, the Carteret Islands are about as remote as can be. From the capital, Port Moresby, you fly to the island of Buka in the autonomous province of Bouganville. After an 11-hour journey by fishing boat, you see six crinkly indentations emerge on the horizon. They are perched on the lip of a circular reef, none at their highest point more than 170cm above sea level. These are the Carterets, the islands at the beginning of the end of the world. They are named after a British naval captain, a contemporary of Captain Cook, who came across them in 1767. Two and a half centuries later, the most modern charts still mark them in the wrong place. Philip Carteret described them as “scarce better than large rocks”, and during the Second World War a Japanese bomb obliterated one of the smaller islets.

The silhouettes of a few wrecks jut above the circular coral atoll, most of them fishing boats from Taiwan, which plundered the giant clams that used to litter the sea bed. But nothing in the history of the Carterets has been as momentous as their continuing destruction. There have been high tides and coastal erosion for decades, but it was not until the 1980s that they were identified as a cause for long-term anxiety. The population was expanding and at first this seemed to be the cause of overcrowding. But then islanders who had been away for a few years began noticing that areas that had previously been land were under water. “When I was a small boy this shore began out there,” Mr Tubin says, pointing to a spot 150 metres out to sea. “One year ago it was five metres out from here. There were houses here, and fruit trees.”

The authorities erected a series of sea walls of heaped up giant clam shells and wire cages stuffed with coral; their rusting remnants litter the islands. A team of Australian botanists tried to plant stands of mangrove, which bind coastlines with their tough roots; but few of the trees survived. The Government of Papua New Guinea (PNG) had bigger things to worry about in the shape of a civil war that raged on the island of Bougainville throughout the 1990s. “We have to rely on the national Government of PNG,” Mr Tubin says. “But PNG is a dysfunctional, failed state.” In the 1980s the island of Huene was cut in two by the sea and its twin, Iolasa, is quickly going the same way.

EDIT

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x75993

[DixieBlue]

24. This is all so scary and sad ...

And there are still those who will say there is no global warming or that this is just part of the usual ebb and flow of the planet. And while those a**hats get to force a "debate" on the issue more people suffer.

[autorank]

17. KRi How foolish and bilnd we are...

"The Sunderbans are a natural buffer shielding millions from storms and tidal waves whipped up in the Bay of Bengal."

Sounds like NOLA.

As a world culture, we are behaving so badly.

[progressoid]

18. Big deal. There is a lot more important news out there.

Like the new Rocky movie for instance.

[Hubert Flottz]

22. Yes...but think of you job...

What good is dry land, without a job at Booger King?

[opihimoimoi]

35. The Prezidunce sez "We go shopping"

[QueenOfCalifornia]

23. Here's a thought

...Is there a third island, ready to disappear? I'd be all for dropping off the administration and their "base" the evangelical, neo-con, Jesus-Freaks on its summit and then televising the island slowly going under while they all scream... "THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS GLOBAL WARMING! SCIENCE IS ALL JUST MADE UP!"

[SHRED]

46. oh little buddy

you are da bomb!

too funny

xoxoxoxo

[brentspeak]

27. This is getting ridiculous

Yesterday, there was a report that bears in Spain are not hibernating in winter like they're supposed to.

[rodeodance]

30. "somethings happening. what it is i'm not sure" I do not know the real

words but the song goes something like that.

[hatrack]

31. "There's something happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear"

For What It's Worth - Buffalo Springfield . . .

I think that's what you're referring to . . . but then what do I know?

:hi:

[Seabiscuit]

41. "There's something happening here, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?"

- Bob Dylan

[KamaAina]

32. Several of Louisiana's Chandeleur Islands disappeared after Katrina

lest you think this is Somebody Else's Problem. The Chandeleurs serve as a buffer against storm surge, too, setting up a potential vicious cycle. :scared:

[DoYouEverWonder]

36. Same thing is happening here in No FL

especially after some of the big hurricanes that we've had. I had some great fishing spots that are just not there any more. Everytime I go out now, more stuff is gone.

[lovuian]

33. This is just the beginning

more to follow

[Boomer]

37. Kick for importance

:kick:

[Countdown_3_2_1]

38. I believe in Global Warming, BUT I find this hard to swallow.

How can sea levels rise in India but not in California?
Not an inch of beach is missing in US shorelines.

I'm in Iowa and its only snowed one day in November. The grass is still green in places here! Evidence for warming is all about us...
But I'm not buying this story out of India.

[lovuian]

39. Everything is connected You see grass still green in Iowa

just cause you can't see the island under the water doesn't mean it doesn't exist

I suggest you see Inconvenient Truth
there is a map which shows what happens when water levels rise...

Parts of New Orleans was reclaimed by the ocean from Katrina

The Oceans will rise

[Countdown_3_2_1]

42. New Orleans is BELOW sea-level...doesn't count.

The simple fact is the ocean doesn't just rise in one place an not another.
If California lost a foot of beach don't you think they would be screaming bloody murder by now?
If the islands disappeared it wasn't a rising ocean that took them.

Point: If the polar ice caps melt...most of that ice is already floating in the oceans...Sea levels will not rise.

and YES, I agree that Global Warming is especially evident this year.

[Nihil]

43. Naive or ignorant?

> If California lost a foot of beach don't you think they would be screaming
> bloody murder by now?

> If the islands disappeared it wasn't a rising ocean that took them.

> Point: If the polar ice caps melt...most of that ice is already floating in
> the oceans...Sea levels will not rise.

Hmmm? No ... it is the season of goodwill so I shall refrain until next year
(if you're still around). Unfortunately, with the typical behaviour of people
with your mindset, the planet might not be able to tolerate much more "goodwill"
and "forgiveness" before responding with a slapdown that can't just be ignored.

[progressive_realist]

45. You must not sail or have an oceanfront home.

The oceans do indeed rise in one place and not another. And California does lose more than a foot of beach. Daily. Luckily, it gets it back. We call this phenomenon the tide, and it's been happening roughly twice a day for all of human history.

Tides have variable height, depending on conditions such as the Moon's position and the topography of nearby land masses. Every beach can be marked with points of elevation corresponding to very low low tide (VLLT), very high high tide (VHHT), and various tidal levels between these. As the average sea levels rise from global warming, what happens is that each of these tidal points moves upward. To a casual observer, the change is so gradual as to be invisible. Even the residents of these low-lying islands had a hard time seeing what was happening at first. But eventually, as formerly productive land began to get inundated and roads were submerged during high tides, it became clear that the oceans were indeed rising. Sure, the land might only be completely underwater during high tide, but you can't grow crops or live on land like that. Eventually, with continued rises, the land is underwater even at low tide.

In the U.S., we don't allow people to live on the lowest elevation coastal islands, because they are considered too vulnerable to storm surges. Insurance companies won't insure properties built on marginal lands. So our indication of rising sea levels here would be insurance companies putting formerly "safe" coastal properties into "high-risk" categories and either jacking up the rates or flat-out refusing to insure them. A little googling should convince you this is already happening on the East Coast. The West Coast is not as vulnerable, due to steeper coastal topography and a lack of barrier islands.

Here's some links for you. I'm sure you can find more.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thecheckout/2006/12/allstate_cuts_off_coastal_resi.html?nav=rss_blog
http://southernstudies.org/facingsouth/2006/12/insurance-companies-hedge-their-bets.asp
http://news.galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=bdb4c9b523de0d97

[Barrett808]

44. Welcome to DU, Countdown!

:hi:

[DoYouEverWonder]

47. Then you haven't been to Florida?

Has I noted in my above post, we are losing coastline here and it is very visable if you are familiar with a particular area. I've got some old favorite fishing spots, that simply don't exist anymore.