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The Forum > Article Comments > Sink or swim > Comments

Sink or swim : Comments

By Kellie Tranter, published 10/5/2010

Every now and then an issue comes along that is beyond the reach of politics. Rising sea levels is just such an issue.

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Protagoras: "...the millions of climate refugees seeking dry land elsewhere..." (assuming that AGW is true-- which is far from settled science) in the bigger scheme of things would hardly make any difference to the human life. You really should attempted to see the big picture on this. Let me try to explain:

Firstly, all most *everybody* throughout the world moves and relocates over their life time regardless of rising sea levels. Personally, I've lived in Queensland (where I've lived at 6 different addresses), Tasmania (2 addresses) and Western Austrlia and I'm only 37 years old. Many of my friends have even moved overseas and lived for a while. What about you-- are you living in the same house that you did as when you were a baby? Millions of people moving is an insignificant problem, infact it is not a people at all but rather a benefit because it increases people's living standards and enjoyment of life. It would be a problem if everyone moved at once without having time to plan for it, but this doesn't normally happen!! Spontaneous mass movement of refugees is caused by violent events such as war, earthquakes, etc. The *alleged* rising sea levels in Kellie's articles will take 100 years so people have plenty of time to move in an orderly fashion without disrupting the economy and distribution of goods.

Secondly, the number of people forced to moved by raising sea levels (even if millions) is insignificant compared to the number of people that face more dire problems such dying a painful early deaths. For example, at the present time at least 5,000,000 people die every year from completely preventable diseases (such a diarrhea) and millions more from other diseases. Millions of people die every year (directly or indirectly) from smoking, alcohol and other drugs. Car crashes kill about million people a year. A million or so die from suicide a year. Dangerous work practices are also a major killer. Extrapolating these current death rates over the next 100 years gives a death count in the BILLIONS-- ..continued below....
Posted by thinkabit, Monday, 10 May 2010 5:56:56 PM
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--continued from above.... If you really are concerned about people's wellbeing: forget about global warming-- instead donate to a charity that provides clean drinking water, vaccinations, safe sex education, etc.

Thirdly, the article's 2m sea rise will take 100 years. This is longer than the average life of a person! What this means is people will naturally die off before sea level rises become a problem. Take Bangladesh for example: the current average life expectancy is about 60 years which means that the almost the whole population of Bangladesh will be renewed twice within 100 years. So when (more like if) the sea slowly rises the population will be able to respond in a timely manner by having less children (they would be encouraged by the economy to have less since there would be less land to live which would derive up land/rent prices). This orderly and timely response to rising sea levels needn't result in the death or other major negative life threatening effect on a single Bangladeshi-- it only means that the current population dies off naturally with a smaller population to follow.
Posted by thinkabit, Monday, 10 May 2010 5:58:09 PM
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Kellie Tranter has finally lost it! This is nonsense. Nils Axel Morner wrote to the President of the Maldives to tell him for the third time they were in no danger of rising sea levels. That would be the same for Australia. The real news is that it may rise by about 200mm in the next 100 years. I am really having to control my impulse to be cruel about this article.
Lets have a TAX but make it only applicable to Lawyers and Scientists and to THEIR superannuation and then lets see how terrible things are going to get.
Or what about a volutary tax all you people who believe this nonsense can take your hands out of my pocket and pay for this yourselves.
Posted by JBowyer, Monday, 10 May 2010 6:33:56 PM
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Kellie Tranter is the prettiest OLO contributor I've ever seen.
She can disempower me anytime she wants.
In fact, she already has.
I agree with everything she says.
Posted by Proxy, Monday, 10 May 2010 7:00:10 PM
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Kelly, if you want work as an advocate for the insurance industry please do not hesitate to apply. Otherwise marketing doom and gloom could be a proxy for capturing other nefarious creeds craving influence.
Posted by Dallas, Monday, 10 May 2010 10:19:52 PM
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There is another way to look at it.

If the so called 'rising sea levels' takes away waterfron t land, then the land on the nect level will then be come 'wwaterfront' and, more valuable.

Also, as the land lost can't really be replaced, then this creates a shortage, hence, increases the value of general land.
Posted by rehctub, Tuesday, 11 May 2010 6:17:27 AM
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