A part of Fiji has lost more than a couple of metres of shoreline but most of their shoreline and coconut grove. Now storm surges go right through houses once hundreds of metres onshore. To say nothing is happening here is to be willfully blind!

Moreover, the fix for us is too easy, will quite massively grow the economy and drive down debt via economic growth on steroids! If that were a bad outcome one could understand the buried head denials!

What's the matter with you people? Have a problem with money and wealth opportunities!?If we wait until the bottom drops out of the coal and gas market, we will have missed the boat!
Alan B.

Alan B.
Will the conservation movement allow artificial barriers on the reef ?

Alan all low atoll islands move on the reef flat. Always have & always will.
I built jetties on quite a few atolls in the PNG & Solomon islands, & a few further north. A while back, before Google down graded the quality of their satellite images of smaller pacific islands I took a look at many of them. These were grafted into the edge of the coral forming the base of the islands.

A couple on the windward side of an island are now isolated as the island has moved a few meters down wind, a natural process, that has occurred for millennia. I would say these are islands where a previous white planter has gone, as they would have easily maintained access to the jetty. The locals don't bother as they don't want to export 30 ton a month of copra.

On the other hand a couple are now inland on the down wind end of their island, as the island movement has enveloped them as it moved down wind on its base This is entirely natural, & familiar to anyone who knows coral reefs & their islands.

The same thing occurs to any coastline. Even the Famous White Cliffs of Dover are receding at feet a year in some places, & inches in others, but all are being worn by sea attack.

I was quite surprised to find the beach on the northern side of Island Head Creek had moved inland between 50 & 200 meters in just one summer. This was quite annoying as yachties had been planting coconuts a hundred or so meters in from the beach, & all had gone.

Of course it would have been more annoying if it had been a Gold Coast beach, with hundreds of homes gone with it. That will happen some time of course.

Hasbeen,
I have seen barge ramps changing the shape of coral islands by the changed currents around them. Also, every monsoon season many thousand tonnes of beach sand gets moved & as soon as the south easterlies start again all the sand gets put back.