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A blog by Leon Oudejans

Project Climate Fear (3): solutions

8 November 2019

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I believe in climate change. The reason is very simple: climate change is the default in nature rather than its exception. Adaptation to Change, including climate change, is the only way to survival for any species. This notion was already used in Charles Darwin‘s 1859 book On the Origin of Species. After reading that book, Herbert Spencer coined the term “survival of the fittest” in his 1864 book The principles of Biology.

This week, Project Climate Fear released two new articles:

– The ConversationScientists looked at sea levels 125,000 years in the past. The results are terrifying;

– BioScience: More than 11,000 World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency.

The 1st article is interesting if only because it also claims that climate change is nothing new:

“Our paper, published today in Nature Communications, shows that melting ice from Antarctica was the main driver of sea level rise in the last interglacial period, which lasted about 10,000 years.” The “terrifying” aspect is that “sea levels rose 10 metres above present levels”. Note LO: bold marking in quote by me.

Most of the global sea level rise, following the last glacial period, has already happened from about 20,000 years ago until about 6,000 years ago.

That ancient 120-140 meters sea level rise must represent The Great Flood in so many cultures around the globe.

Hence, a lot of ancient human history is located at the bottom of seas and the edges of oceans (eg, EuroNews-2019).

The big difference is that we now know what will happen. We have the opportunity to adapt on a timely basis. Hence, the climate debate should be about solutions rather than fear.

The main consequence of a 10 metres sea level rise is the relocation of coastal megacities of 10+ million people, like Cairo, Jakarta, Lagos, Los Angeles, Mumbai, New York City, Tokyo, etc.

The decision to relocate Jakarta has already been taken.

The diagram is from a 2013 study: Megacities and the Coast: Risk, Resilience and Transformation.

In case of The Netherlands, about half of its 17 million population must relocate from the densely populated Randstad towards sparsely populated rural areas near Belgium and Germany, following this below sea level diagram. This has nothing to do with fear; just (city) planning.

Nothing to Fear (1992) by Chris Rea

artist, lyrics, video, Wiki-1, Wiki-2

Note: all markings (bolditalicunderlining) by LO unless stated otherwise

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