Maldives rakes in the Moolah for Ground Zero of Climate Impact Branding

Message to Maldives president Mohammed Nasheed: your claims are BS
Courtesy: WUWT

From NatGeo Newswatch: Maldives, Ground Zero for Climate Change Impacts If there is a ground zero for observing the impacts of a changing global climate the Maldives are definitely a front-runner.

Soon after arriving by float plane President Nasheed delivered a harsh message.“Carbon dioxide emissions are going to kill us,” he said.  

That’s almost too stupid to believe, but then again this is the same country that pulled this sort of stupid publicity stunt.

 Let’s tally up the FAIL on these boneheads.    

1. Tuvalu and many other South Pacific Islands are not sinking, claims they are due to global warming driven sea level rise are opportunistic from TV New Zealand

An Auckland University researcher has offered new hope to the myriad small island nations in the Pacific which have loudly complained their low-lying atolls will drown as global warming boosts sea levels.

Geographer Associate Professor Paul Kench has measured 27 islands where local sea levels have risen 120mm – an average of 2mm a year – over the past 60 years, and found that just four had diminished in size.

Working with Arthur Webb at the Fiji-based South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission, Kench used historical aerial photographs and high-resolution satellite images to study changes in the land area of the islands.

They found that the remaining 23 had either stayed the same or grown bigger, according to the research published in a scientific journal, Global and Planetary Change.

 “It has been thought that as the sea level goes up, islands will sit there and drown,” Prof Kench told the New Scientist. “But they won’t.The sea level will go up and the island will start responding."

2. The Maldives can’t take a joke (Delingpole’s satire) omitting Maldives from new map with higher sea levels causes the government to respond

3. Willis explains how Floating Islands work, and he should know, he spent a lot of time working on one. He also explains why CO2 isn’t an issue. He writes:

Does increased CO2 cause increased sea level rise?

Short answer, data to date says no. There has been no acceleration the rate of sea level rise. Sea level has been rising for centuries. But the rate of the rise has not changed a whole lot. Both tidal stations and satellites show no increase in the historic rate of sea level rise, in either the short or long term. Fig. 1 shows the most recent satellite data.

Figure 1. Change of sea level over time. Radar data from the TOPEX satellite. The light blue line is sea level with monthly anomalies removed. The interval between data points is usually ten days. The gray line is the 1993-2004 linear trend projected to the end of the timeline. Gaussian average using a 71-point filter. Photo taken at Taunovo Bay Resort, Fiji.

Up until about the end of 2004, there was little change in the rate of sea level rise. Since then the rise has slowed down. The average (dark blue line) does not stray far from the trend (black line) up until 1994. Since then, it is well below the projected trend (gray line). We were supposed to be seeing some kind of big acceleration in the sea level rise caused by increased CO2. Instead, we are seeing a decrease in the rate of sea level rise. So the first claim, that increasing CO2 will cause increased rates of sea level rise, is not supported by the evidence.

Note that I am not saying anything about the future. The rate of sea level rise might go up again. What we can say, however, is that there is no hint of acceleration in the record, only deceleration. The claim of CO2 induced sea level rise is false to date.

4. The sea level is actually dropping now:

Of course that is the highly adjusted Colorado SL data. Let’s look at others.

Here’s a composite of measures, note the Envisat in yellow, nearly flat then falling: 

5. Lorne Gunter: Global warming is the least of Tuvalu’s worries

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/10/14/lorne-gunter-global-warming-is-the-least-of-tuvalus-worries/

Swedish geologist and physicist Nils-Axel Mörner,  formerly chairman of INQUA, the International Commission on Sea Level Change, has studied real-world sea levels for nearly 40 years. Rather than relying mostly on computer models, as most climate scientists do, Dr. Morner has concentrated on using satellites, photographs and detailed measurement records to determine whether the oceans are rising, falling or remaining pretty much the same.

“The sea is not rising,” he has told anyone who will listen. ”It hasn’t risen in 50 years.” What’s more, if it rises in the 21st Century, it will be by ”not more than 10cm (four inches), with an uncertainty of plus or minus 10cm.” That’s pretty much the same prediction as that derived by the other real-world measurers, Houston and Dean...

Two American experts on coastal construction and sea-level — James Houston, director emeritus of engineering research and development for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Robert Dean, professor emeritus of civil and coastal engineering at the University of Florida — examined decades worth of data from all the tidal monitors around the U.S. and determined earlier this year that “worldwide-temperature increase has not produced acceleration of global sea level over the past 100 years.” indeed, the rate at which oceans have been rising has “possibly decelerated for at least the last 80 years.”

6.  If sea level is such a big problem, why is the Maldives government allowing new development?

“Only 6 luxurious beachfront private residences will be built at both the sunrise and sunset sides of this magical island, Soneva Fushi Resort.”
…
The Republic of Maldives in the Indian Ocean, home to some of the world’s finest white sand beaches and exceptional marine life, has to date never allowed ownership of private real estate to foreigners. Soneva Fushi by Six Senses will be among the very first to offer this privilege.

And this just isn’t an isolated event, it’s part of the official policy for tourism:

The Ministry of Tourism embarked on an ambitious expansion of the tourism industry with 37 new islands opened for bidding in the period 2004-2006. The first round of developments was announced in 2004, with 11 islands being opened for bidding.

Read more: http://www.maldivestourismupdate.com/2009/01/maldives-new-resort-developments-lost.html#ixzz1arwwBeaK

All this while they were simultaneously squalling about “inundation” by the sea.

7. And again, if sea level rise were really a problem, why would the Maldives government allow this?    new airports to be constructed in Maldives

The Government is working to construct 11 new regional airports in 11 regions and work is under way to complete them as soon as possible, said Minister of Communication and Civil Aviation Mahmoud Razi. Razi who is among the newest three cabinet ministers appointed by President Mohamed Nasheed in June said so answering questions in the People’s Majlis Razi said regional airports will be constructed in Shaviyani, Noonu, Raa, Baa, Lhaviyani, Alifu Dhaalu, Dhaalu, Gaafu Alifu, Gaafu Dhaalu and Gnaviyani atolls.

Read more: http://www.maldivestourismupdate.com/2009/07/11-new-airports-to-be-constructed-in.html#ixzz1as70Wr8H

Oh, wait, I know… to serve the government approved “ambitious expansion of the tourism industry” in #6

8. So why all the government sanctioned pronouncements about sea level/CO2 ??

Follow the money at the Copenhagen and Cancun climate talks

The accord promised $30bn (£19bn) in aid for the poorest nations hit by global warming they had not caused. Within two weeks of Copenhagen, the Maldives foreign minister, Ahmed Shaheed, wrote to the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, expressing eagerness to back it.

30 billion? Heck, that’s 10 times more than the gross domestic product of the whole country! They’ll say anything to get their hands on that.

So since the Maldives is fond of making grand pronouncements about how climate change is going to hurt them/kill them make them climate refugees or other such silliness, let me make a pronouncement of my own based on the available data shown above.

Anything coming out of the mouths of Maldives officials related to climate, CO2, or sea level is pure bullshit.

The only purpose of it is to continue to paint Maldives as a victim, so they’ll get some of that climate cash promised by the fools that attend these climate conferences. Meanwhile, they continue to expand their travel industry, build new resorts, build new airports, and promote tourism while laughing all the way to the bank.

Thinking people should cross the Maldives off their vacation possibilities list. I have, I refuse to go there, even if offered a free trip, because these grifters are playing victims at the expense of taxpayers everywhere.