Why Climate Denialists are in Denial

Dear Sir

You as a polar cities climate activist may not be familiar with James Lovelock's current views. He recently said “The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened”. He also said "The retreat will be toward the poles," and "I have seen Dan Bloom's POLAR CITIES ideas on his website, and it may very well happen someday, but not until 500 or 1000 years. Still, it will happen."




There are two big debates on sea level at the moment. The first debate - is sea level increasing at a rate of 2mm/year or 3mm/year. You can find reputable scientists on both sides of this debate, but anyone can calculate either rate would not create a difficult problem. The second debate is about the future. The range at 2100 is much larger, 20 cm to 2 meters. Obvioulsly an increase of a meter would be more difficult to deal with. Naturally this rate will depend on the future of temperatures. The range for that is also wide, but no one thinks it will rise signicantly in the next decade.



People is Tuvalu have a real issue to deal with, giant, open-air garbage pits (see http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10... ). Couple that with the low availability of jobs and I would say they have more important issues to worry about than a few cm of sea level rise.