What allways surprises me about these climate change catastrophe theorists is that they never give any consideration to what would happen if we did switch to a carbon free economy. A few moments of thought shows that it is better to stick with fossil fuels until a cheaper energy source becomes available (Eventually, at some point other energy sources will be cheaper, but that hasn't happened on a broad scale yet).

Here's a few simple sums to highlight this
Let's assume that the article is right that that mass migration will result from rising sea levels. The article doesn't give a number but let's say that 300,000,000 people have to be resettled on higher ground by 2055. ie: the world has to move the *whole* population of Bangladesh, the Low lying island countries (eg: Maldives, Tuvalu, etc) and an extra 100,000,000+ people in the next 40 years (this is an extremely unlikely event but let's play along anyway).
So, let's give each of these people $200,000US dollars each to pack up and move to higher ground. Note that this is more money than most Bangladeshies make in a life time, ie: vastly more than adequate compensation. That would cost the world 300e6*200e3 = $60 trillion dollars.
Now, compare this to the case that we stop using fossil fuels within the next few of years and switch 100% carbon free. At a very, very, very conservative guess it would cost 10% of the global economy (I actually remember reading somewhere that the current renewables push has already cost more than 1% and we are nowhere near 100% fossil free- in fact carbon fuel use has still been increasing over the last few years). The current global economy is about $75trillion US per year. So, 10% over 40 years is $300 trillion US. ie: 5 times the cost resettling 300 milion people above.

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Another way to rework the sums is to calculate how much of the world economy would it cost to move these people over 40 years: ie: $60e12/(40*$75e12) x 100% = 2%.
That is, to give the economies of the low lying countries a *massive* boost by injecting $200,000 for each person so they can move to higher ground would only cost a measly 2% of global production. (Indeed, it would possibly even cost less, because the $200,000 that we give them would allow them to buy better educations, more goods/services for improved standards of living and it also provides capital for them to start up businesses-- thus dramatically increasing their current productivity and consumption).

So in summary, we could alleviate poverty in these countries by simply continuing to use carbon fuel and donate some of our money that has been created due to the cheap cost of the fuel. As opposed to drastically contracting the world's economy and causing massive global poverty, lower standards of living and increased violence by switching to renewables. I know which I would want the world to chose if I were a Bangladeshi or Tuvaluan.

Hi Thinkabit,

And much of that presumes that the world's technology etc. will stay pretty much the same as it is now.

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems that global warming seems to be affecting the northern hemisphere more than the southern hemisphere. The northern hemisphere covers a lot more land than ours does, especially at higher latitudes - there's not a lot of ocean at, say, 45 degrees North, its mostly land, maybe twenty million sq. kilometres of it above 45 degrees. Every degree rise in world temperatures pushes grain-growing possibilities maybe 100 km north - someone surely knows about this. If this is so, that might be an extra million square kilometres for every degree rise. So maybe one degree warming means, ultimately, an extra annual production of perhaps two hundred million tonnes of grain.

So global warming may be one way to rapidly increase the world production of grain ?

As a Scotsman was heard to say about global warming in a recent winter, ' ....... ' Sorry, I couldn't understand a bloody word he said.

Joe

If so many countries are "full" of people and can't cope with losing some land from rising sea levels, how many are taking family planning seriously?

Sounds to me like something else is happening. Europeans reduced the number of children they have, so now some countries where people continue to breed like rabbits despite family planning, are invading Europe, as they are a soft touch.

If anyone wants me to take climate change seriously, wake me up when you have done something about the ever rising human population. Another billion added in the last 12 years, is where we are at and "our" Catholic religion still does whatever it can to stop family planning being implemented in the third world. Shame on them.

"A few moments of thought shows that it is better to stick with fossil fuels ..."

Thinkabit, you have to remember that the global warming catastrophists proceed on the basis that it doesn't matter if what they're saying doesn't make sense. You can show them, by their own standards, what they're saying is illogical, and they don't care. They're not interested in discussing the issues. They're just interested in propagating their viewpoint. They just want to keep banging away with their anti-human belief systems, and their "if only we could vest more open-ended power in government to control anything and everything, wouldn't society be wonderful?". That's honestly what they think. They have learnt nothing from the last 100 years.

In fact they haven't caught up with intellectual developments of 2,300 years ago, because
Mike Pope is still having trouble coming to terms with the idea that if something is not logical, it's not science. He can't bring himself to admit that, because he knows that if he does, he immediately invalidates his entire argument.

These guys are genuinely operating at the mental and moral level of an infant, and all we're hearing from them is the mid-brain expressions of herd-bound hierarchy that we have in common with the herd animals. He's bleating and lowing, that's all. Ask him to defend the logic of what he's saying, ask him how he has taken account of the human evaluations of what he's talking about, and he's got nothing. You might as well argue with a Jesuit about the efficacy of the liturgy.

Watch this. I'll prove it to you.

Hey Mike! Got the answer to these three questions there yet, feller?

Do you, or do you not understand that science:
1. does not supply value judgments?
2. cannot consist of appeal to absent authority?
3. cannot rest on assuming what is in issue?

Still skulking? Still haven't worked out that science rests on rationality, fool?

Hi Loudmouth

Yes, the largest areas of land based ice are located at or near the Poles. There is ice cover in other areas (Andes, Himalayas etc) but these are nowhere as large as ice in Polar Regions.

Water and ice is pouring into the oceans particularly from West Antarctica and Greenland, at a rate which is far greater than the amount gained from snow and sleet. However, the amount entering the oceans is not sufficient to cause more than minor sea level rise, at present about 3.3 millimetres per annum – hardly noticeable except in bad weather when a storm surge is created and not an immediate threat.

The problem is that the rate at which land based ice/water is flowing into the oceans is more than doubling every ten years, so within a decade from now the rate of sea level rise will be at least 6.6 millimetres per annum. Ten years after that it will be 1.3 centimetres per annum and a further ten years on, by 2040, it will be around 2.5 -3.0 centimentres per annum So, in the ten years 2040 to 2049, it is possible that sea level will rise around 30 centimetres on top of all the rises which have occurred prior to 2040.

The net result: By 2050 rising sea level will have become a serious problem for anyone living on or near the coastline – and most of us do.