It was really good to see that pledge of resistance going around, and with a few thousand names on that (pledge) it will be harder for the powers that be to ignore what's going on. We watched 1200 people arrested in Washing last year. It was enough at least to temporarily slow down this big Tar Sands pipeline - the Keystone pipeline.... All these fights are coming together in great ways. And I am so grateful to you all for the work you are doing.Michael Belmont -emcee and Longmont Activist with 'Our Health, Our Future, Our Longmont' (10 minute mark)
I entered this fracking fray because of a deep concern that the American Democratic process is being sold to the highest bidder. But the Giant doesn't always win. In spite of a bullying Governor, a trillion dollar industry who threw half a million dollars at us, and 7 former mayors of Longmont who opposed our efforts, the ordinary people of Longmont prevailed. On November 6, 2012, in Longmont, Colorado,against all odds and in the face of oppressive state laws, 60% of the voters from virtually all political persuasions reclaimed their constitutional right to health, safety and wellness by prohibiting the dangerous industrial operations of Fracking and the disposal of its toxic waste in our city limits.Wes Wilson of the EPA: (22 minute mark)
Lisa McKenzie of the Colorado School of Public Health showed in her studies that if your live within 1/2 mile of a gas well, you were more likely to have cancer and other illness.... So the science is now in. We know that fracking wells poisons people nearby.We can't allow this to continue.Josh Fox of Gasland: (35 minute mark)
I don't think Obama wins this state without Boulder. I don't think (Governor) Hickenlooper doesn't win this state without the people like you going to bat for him. And if he is coming out there and saying to you 'Well were going to sue you for defending your health.' (boos) I mean this is an outrageous position for a Governor to be taking. For citizens to be democratically organized and standing up for your rights and saying 'We don't want the Fossil Fuel Industry, the chemical contamination and the lies of the 19th century... and 20th century in our future. We are going to defend our sanctity of our health, defend the character of our homes, defend the character of our towns... and then the Governor takes sides against the citizenship and sues them!?! (BOOS) I mean this to me seems to be an untenable political position if you are loud enough.... Our fate in New York is also tied to what you guys decide to do... We need you badly... California, which has an enormous shale, the Monterrey Shale which stretches from East of San Francisco to East of Los Angeles and over the entire Central Valley - the Agricultural Breadbasket and almond bakset and artichoke basket of the United States, is in direct conflict for water, land and territory with the Oil and Gas industry and that's coming... If we can find a way to make Colorado a base of support, I think we are going to be able to help all of those fights.Other Notable Quotes: Sonia Skakich Skrima - founder of What the Frack?!
I tell people that this is not just the Oil and Gas industry Fracturing for Natural Gas. They are Fracturing our water, they are Fracturing our representative democracy, they are Fracturing our health, all for profits.Angela Monti of Mothers for Sustainability (47 minute mark)
Colorado is moving in the direction of the so called 'New Energy Economy'. Many elected officials, state agencies and state environmental leaders... public universities are collaborating with the Oil and Gas industry to develop Colorado's Natural gas reserves, thereby committing Colorado to decades of Hydraulic Fracturing. In 2010 under the leadership of Governor Ritter, and with the support of several state level environmental organizations, the state legislature passed the Orwellian and erroneously named Clean Air, Clean Jobs act making Colorado the first state in the nation to pass a fuel switching bill. It requires Public Utilities to transition some of their units to Natural Gas and requires it must be produced here in Colorado, effectively mandating Hydraulic Fracturing in Colorado.The musicians were concerned and outspoken as well. The Earth Guardian's singer Mr. Martinez - who gives me a lot of hope from the younger generation:
I went to Washington, D.C. and filed a lawsuit against the state of Colorado and against our country for not protecting our atmosphere, and our air, and our water. (it's filed) on behalf of the Our Children's Trust campaign that says all the water, the air and the Earth is to be protected for future generations to come... We are filing in all 50 states to reduce our carbon emissions....and we actually won in Texas in New Mexico, so they are lowering their carbon emissions every year and are now planting trees...The group Pressure Point added
It is not our right but our duty to peacefully protest any and all actions that contradict the interest of We The People. We see a huge injustice today in the political arena where politicians are ruled by banking and special interests groups that is becoming a concern for the future generations of this Country and our World.Kunundrum Guitarist Joseph Diehs :
Like many, I did not know what Fracking was or just how bad it is. But I do know I like a good beer. For those of you outside Colorado, the areas they are talking about Fracking - Longmont, Boulder, Fort Collins, they supply the water to some of the best breweries in the state, if not the country. There's New Belgium (Fat Tire), Left Hand, Oskar Blues (Dale's Pale Ale), Avery... Think how that would hurt those businesses if the water they used was ruined by fracking.Other shout outs went out at the event to Sam Schabacher of Food and Water Watch for organizing various actions across the state, Shane Davis of Poudre Canyon Sierra Club, the Unity Center of Boulder for hosting and all of their excellent crew in charge of lighting, sound and stage management. Thanks to Tommy Golec for editing and sound for this video. Most of all, thanks to the people of Boulder county and Longmont for standing up to the Oil and Gas Industry and our Governor. By the way, if you are so inclined, please contact Governor Hickenlooper's office on this subject at (303) 866-2471. More video of the EPA hearing and Fracking protest last fall: Governor Hickenlooper says there have been no instances of contamination from Fracking....let him drink this water... ]]>
Kiribati President Anote Tong told The Associated Press on Friday that his Cabinet this week endorsed a plan to buy nearly 6,000 acres on Fiji's main island, Viti Levu. He said the fertile land, being sold by a church group for about $9.6 million, could be insurance for Kiribati's entire population of 103,000, though he hopes it will never be necessary for everyone to leave. "We would hope not to put everyone on one piece of land, but if it became absolutely necessary, yes, we could do it," Tong said. "It wouldn't be for me, personally, but would apply more to a younger generation. For them, moving won't be a matter of choice. It's basically going to be a matter of survival." Kiribati, which straddles the equator near the international date line, has found itself at the leading edge of the debate on climate change because many of its atolls rise just a few feet above sea level.....President Tong has been one of the more forward thinking and acting leaders on this subject along with Mohammed Nasheed. This issue calls into question what will happen to the national identity of the people of Kiribati - their culture, myths and belief systems about how they came to live on this atoll are all under threat from actions that they themselves had little to do. Even this option is not a perfect solution, as Fiji itself will be vulnerable to sea level rise in the coming decades as well. An issue the industrialized countries will soon have to face. ]]>
Tong has been considering other unusual options to combat climate change, including shoring up some Kiribati islands with sea walls and even building a floating island. He said this week that the latter option would likely prove too expensive, but that he hopes reinforcing some islands will ensure that Kiribati continues to exist in some form even in a worst-case scenario. "We're trying to secure the future of our people," he said. "The international community needs to be addressing this problem more."
In March, at least 7,775 weather stations across the nation broke daily high temperature records and another 7,517 broke records for night-time heat. Combined, that's more high temperature records broken in one month than ever before.More from the Washington Post:
The winter that just ended, which in some places was called the year without winter, was the fourth warmest on record. Since last April, it's been the hottest 12-month stretch on record, Crouch said. But the month where the warmth turned especially weird was March. Normally, March averages 42.5 degrees across the country. This year, the average was 51.1, which is closer to the average for April. Only one other time -- in January 2006 -- was the country as a whole that much hotter than normal for an entire month. The "icebox of America," International Falls, Minn., saw temperatures in the 70s for five days in March, and there were only three days of below zero temperatures all month. "When you look at what's happened in March this year, it's beyond unbelievable," said University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver. NOAA climate scientist Gabriel Vecchi compared the increase in weather extremes to baseball players on steroids: You can't say an individual homer is because of steroids, but they are hit more often and the long-held records for home runs fall. They seem to be falling far more often because of global warming, said NASA top climate scientist James Hansen. In a paper he submitted to the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and posted on a physics research archive, Hansen shows that heat extremes aren't just increasing but happening far more often than scientists thought. What used to be a 1-in-400 hot temperature record is now a 1 in 10 occurrence, essentially 40 times more likely, said Hansen.And the reports of extreme winter warmth has gotten noticed by lots of people. In Maine:
Ice leaves Beech Hill Pond earliest that 80-year-old can recall OTIS, Maine -- Since 1947, Edwin "Sonny" Colburn has been keeping track of when the water in Hancock County's Beech Hill Pond goes to ice, and back again. Never, he says, has he seen a winter like this. "There were years when we were driving vehicles on the ice on Thanksgiving, and we were ice skating and ice boating the first part of April," he said Tuesday. "This year, the lake wasn't frozen over until the morning of January 21st, and the ice went out the 21st of March, the earliest I've ever seen it go."In Colorado, March is our heaviest snow month. We have had one day of snow in March, and little rain - which probably exacerbated a forest fire - 3 months before the beginning of 'fire' season. Another person who noticed the alarming temperature? President Obama at a March fundraiser with Oprah in Chicago:
"We've had a good day," Obama said. "It's warm every place. It gets you a little nervous about what's happening to global temperatures. But when it's 75 degrees in Chicago in the beginning of March it gets you thinking..." "Something's wrong," Oprah interjected. "Yeah," Obama said. "On other hand we really have enjoyed the nice weather."The article also notes:
Instead of temperatures in the mid-40s, the historical average, Chicago is in a record-breaking streak of 80-degree weather. This "extreme and unprecedented" heat wave began last Wednesday and may continue through this Wednesday. "Before the heat wave, there had only been 10 March days on record that reached 80 degrees, and on average Chicago would see one 80 degree day in March every 14 years," the Daily Herald reports.While it is true that I'd rather go for a hike than shovel snow, there is a downside to the early spring and summer temperatures - from CNN:
The warm temperatures also contributed to conditions that were favorable for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. There were 223 preliminary tornado reports during March, a month that averages 80 tornadoes, according to NOAA's Storm Prediction Center. The majority of these tornadoes occurred during a severe weather outbreak across the Ohio River Valley and Southeast in early March. The outbreak caused 40 deaths and total losses of $1.5 billion, making it the first billion-dollar disaster of 2012.It is my belief that our fellow Americans are much more likely to be persuaded by what they can see with their own eyes - trees blooming in the winter - much more than statistical data, which as we have seen before can be made to look less than reliable - even when it's revealed to be a smear campaign against legitimate science. So what I want to know is what you have seen where you live. What odd weather have you seen? And more importantly, what are your friends and family saying about this weather? ]]>
In a stunning break with First Amendment policy on Capitol Hill, House Republicans directed Capitol Hill police to detain a highly regarded documentary crew that was attempting to film a Wednesday hearing on a controversial natural gas procurement practice. Republicans also denied the entrance of a credentialed ABC News news team that was attempting to film the event.... Approximately 16 officers entered the hearing room and handcuffed Fox amid audible discussions of "disorderly conduct" charges, according to Democratic sources present at the arrest.For those of you who may not be familiar with Gasland: Here is some more on the 2005 'Haliburton' loophole that allowed Fracking to start and the impact on residents in Colorado. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/08/1023581/-Occupy-the-EPA?via=blog_748070 lastly, it appears that Josh Fox and his crew will not be able to return to the hearing.
The meeting of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment had been taking place in room 2318 of the Rayburn building. Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.), the ranking Democrat on the committee, is currently seeking to secure a procedural maneuver that would allow the detained film crew to re-enter the hearing, which is open to the public. Miller's motion is not expected to succeed.This is particularly upsetting, because this hearing is about revealing the secret ingredients in fracking fluids. President Obama made the statement that he wanted Oil and Gas companies to reveal these ingredients in the State of the Union, but it appears House Republicans are not ready to give up that golden goose. I am starting to agree with Thom Hartmann on the reason for the delay to reveal these ingredients, by the Republicans and the Oil and Gas industry - not only are they dangerous to us, but these industries are used to having to pay huge sums of money to properly dispose of by-products from refineries - and this is a convenient way to get rid of these by products - just inject them 3000 feet underground which also happens to be where our aquifers are. A sad day for the first amendment and for those of us who don't want to see any more of this: ]]>
Dozens of communities from around the United States, from Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Pennsylvania are complaining that they are near these (fracking) activities and they are getting ill. We have no rigorous investigation of how these air pollutants are harming people...In many states landowners have sold leases to Oil and Gas companies to frack, only to find out later that their water has been contaminated. What's worse than that? Well, Colorado is a 'mineral rights' state, which means landowners do not own the mineral rights under their land. So to add insult to injury, they don't even get offered compensation from the Oil companies when they set up and extract oil and gas under their property. And many times, the Oil companies are drilling without the community even getting a public hearing. And families have begun to notice increasing and unusual sicknesses among occurring near the gas well sites. Exposure just to the air near the open pits causes eye problems, headaches, and bloody noses, and that's not even considering the effects of drinking contaminated water. One resident summed what was happening to families in Colorado.
Basically it boils down to our government has given the right of Imminent Domain to corporations for their private gain. I don't own mineral rights where I am... they can just come in and take what they want... This is the reason we had a revolution during Colonial times, its the same thing!'And this is not just about remote rural communities - (Mary Ladou of SouthPark Coalition)
The oil and gas companies want to drill up to 300 wells and we are at 10,000 feet, and the water that flows through there is the water that supplies the Front Range.This could be coming soon to the Front Range - including cities of Colorado Springs, Boulder, Fort Collins, and Denver... Keep going strong Occupy - you are our best hope... ]]>
One reason for the increase in the figure could be climate change, and the international community should be doing more to contain it, the experts said.
The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre said the increase from 17 million displaced people in 2009 was mainly due to the impact of "mega-disasters" such as the massive floods in China and Pakistan and the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti.
It said more than 90 percent of the disaster displacements were caused by weather-related hazards such as floods and storms that were probably impacted by global warming, but it couldn't say to what extent...
Speaking at the Oslo conference, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres called the issue of climate-related displacement "the defining challenge of our times" and criticized the international community for lacking the political will to reduce to pace of climate change.
"There is increasing evidence to suggest that natural disasters are growing in frequency and intensity and that this is linked to the longer-term process of climate change," Guterres said.
Courtesy of Huffington Post
"Nowhere in their complaints do plaintiffs ask the court to fashion a comprehensive and far-reaching solution to global climate change, a task that arguably falls within the purview of the political branches. Instead, they seek to limit emissions from six domestic coal-fired electricity plants on the ground that such emissions constitute a public nuisance that they allege has caused, is causing and will continue to cause them injury."Unfortunately, as of April 20th, 2011, it seems that even the 'liberal' judges on the Supreme court are going to side with the Utilities :
Justice Elena Kagan also questioned the scope of the case, refuting Underwood's argument that public nuisance pollution suit was like any other pollution suit. "All those other pollution suits that you've been talking about are much more localized affairs. One factory emitting discharge into one stream--they don't involve these kinds of national/international policy issues ... I mean, there's a huge gap, a chasm between the precedents you have and this case, isn't there?" Justice Ruth Ginsburg, meanwhile, questioned the court's jurisdiction in setting standards for emissions. "Asking a court to set standards for emissions sounds like the kind of thing that EPA does," she said. "The relief you're seeking seems to me to set up a district judge, who does not have the resources, the expertise, as a kind of super-EPA."This case has been watched particularly closely by lawyers representing groups of people who are likely to become Environmental Refugees. Even though there are hundreds to thousands of people currently being displaced by Climate Change, they do not have a defined status as a group, hence they are not really 'refugees.' According to the definition by UN High Commissioner on Refugees, (UNHCR) a Refugee is someone either inside or outside their national borders fleeing persecution due to their affiliation with their social group - for instance ethic, religious, political etc. But a person whose island is swallowed up by rising sea level has no rights under Refugee law, in fact, they are considered 'Migrants' meaning they are 'voluntarily' leaving their country. Professors Andy Pittman, Pr. Jane McAdam and Anna Samson of the University of New South Wales explain this issue in this video. (an hour video) Right now there are already staggering numbers of Refugees that need help. 10 million traditional refugees, 13 million refugees displaced within their own borders, 6 million refugees who were considered 'stateless' 1 million 'people of concern' Add to that the costs associated with Climate Change. The U.N. Development Program estimated that industrialized nations must provide $86 billion a year by 2015 for people most vulnerable to catastrophic floods, droughts and other disasters that scientists fear will accompany warming. At some point, the Governments of the world are going to have to get involved. What is the hold up for giving people displaced by Climate Change 'refugee' status? It is simple. If you establish that people displaced by climate change are refugees, then the governments of the world are compelled to aid them and/or to stop them from becoming refugees. Right now, it is a big leap to say that a wave washing over your island is a form of persecution, but the practices of the Industrialized countries through pollution, are in fact, the source of this persecution. If this was established as international law, then Governments would have to cease and desist from engaging in this persecution, namely by no longer using contributing to the problem of Greenhouse gases. This is a place where fossil fuel companies like Coal and Big Oil do not want to go. If Environmental Refugees were given status, then that type of tax subsidy could make the US a participant in state sponsored persecution The other main issue is cost. Governments around the world are dealing with a recession, so who is willing to step up and pay for humanitarian aid such as water purification, food, and the most costly, relocation? And where will the people be relocated to? Immigration is already a touchy subject in this country as well as many other Industrialized nations. My argument is one that is based on the Civil Rights movement. Industrialized nations are causing the problem, therefore they should pay the costs and lead the way to reform. But that is just one idea. There is a pending case centered on Environmental Refugees off of the coast of Alaska. This is the Kivalina Islanders lawsuit - which was reported in this article in the Atlantic. This legal argument in this case on behalf of the U.S. Citizens living on Kivalina, is that much like the Tobacco companies conspired to hide documents proving they knew Tobacco was bad for a person's health, the Fossil Fuel industries and energy companies also have conspired to deny climate change even though the have evidence otherwise. In September 2009, I had the opportunity to be part of a panel on Environmental Refugees at an Environmental Justice conference at the University of Oregon Law School. While I was there, I had the privilege of meeting Brent Newell of the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment, who is a legal counsel for the Kivalina people - he had been hoping the Nuisance case brought by Connecticut vs American Electric would be the turning of the tide vs. Coal Companies. In addition to meeting the legal counsel for the Kivalina, I also got to meet Professor Maxine Burkett, of the University of Hawaii Law school. I would say that she and I had the most similar view on this issue. Her view on a remedy for the Environmental Refugees was to address this issue based on the model of reparations. This model has 3 basic requirements. 1) An apology from the offending party for the action or harm. 2) Monetary compensation for losses caused by the action or harm. 3) A guarantee that this action or harm will not happen again. This last requirement is the essential point. If, for instance, you were to win lawsuits against polluters, then you would probably only get monetary compensation, but the pollution would probably still continue in other parts of the world. With the reparations model, the pollution, which is the harmful action, would need to cease. And since pollution is worldwide, this would be the end of the fossil fuel industry as we know it. To date, this solution remains the best hope to reverse the discrimination and persecution against Environmental refugees by the fossil fuel industry, since our Supreme Court doesn't seem to have the guts to do the right thing.]]>
Robert Corell, chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, said in Ilulissat [Greenland] yesterday: "We have seen a massive acceleration of the speed with which these glaciers are moving into the sea. The ice is moving at 2 meters an hour on a front 5km [3 miles] long and 1,500 meters deep. That means that this one glacier puts enough fresh water into the sea in one year to provide drinking water for a city the size of London for a year." The glacier is now moving at 15km a year into the sea although in surges it moves even faster. He measured one surge at 5km in 90 minutes - an extraordinary event.The result, each 'slide' of these multi-ton glaciers sets off an 'ice quake' that register an average of 3 to 5 on the Richter scale. This might sound minor, but these are occurring multiple times a year. This means that the Earth is being jolted repeatedly by these ice quakes, destabilizing faults lines which has many, many consequences. http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=5966&method=full
The latest scientific discipline to enter the fray over global warming is geology. And the forecasts from some quarters are dramatic - not only will the earth shake, it will spit fire. A number of geologists say glacial melting due to climate change will unleash pent-up pressures in the Earth's crust, causing extreme geological events such as earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions. A cubic metre of ice weighs nearly a tonne and some glaciers are more than a kilometre thick. When the weight is removed through melting, the suppressed strains and stresses of the underlying rock come to life. University of Alberta geologist Patrick Wu compares the effect to that of a thumb pressed on a soccer ball - when the pressure of the thumb is removed, the ball springs back to its original shape. Because the earth is so viscous the rebound happens slowly, and the quakes that occasionally shake Eastern Canada are attributed to ongoing rebound from the last ice age more than 10,000 years ago. Melting of the ice that covers Antarctica or Greenland would have a similar impact, but the process would be accelerated due to the human-induced greenhouse effect. "What happens is the weight of this thick ice puts a lot of stress on the earth," says Wu. "The weight sort of suppresses the earthquakes but when you melt the ice the earthquakes get triggered." The Earth's crust is more sensitive than some might think. There are well-documented cases of dams causing earthquakes when the weight of the water behind a dam fills a reservoir. Alan Glazner, a volcano specialist at the University of North Carolina, said he was initially incredulous when he found a link between climate and volcanic activity off the coast of California. "But then I went to the library and did some research and found that in many places around the world especially around the Mediterranean they see similar sorts of correlations." "When you melt glacial ice, several hundred metres to a kilometre thick . . . you've decreased the load on the crust and so you've decreased the pressure holding the volcanic conduits closed. "They're cracks, that's how magmas gets to the surface . . . and where they hit the surface, that's where you get a volcano."(written over 2 years before the historical eruption in Iceland) And it is not likely to slow down, but may instead speed up:
...quakes ranged from six to 15 per year from 1993 to 2002, then jumped to 20 in 2003, 23 in 2004, and 32 in the first 10 months of 2005 - matching an increase in Greenland temperatures.That is tripling of earthquakes in a 15 year period and more importantly an exponential change in the activity. This trend is causing changes exponentially. For instance, since the Arctic has opened an ice free passage, the Arctic is no longer a stationary sea -- currents from the Pacific and the Atlantic are encroaching into the Arctic circle and creating an additional heating feedback loop -- which is as equally dangerous as a heating feedback loop as the loss of reflective ice. This video reports the feedback loop that Greenpeace scientists are seeing in Greenland - as reported by Al Jazeera - and curiously missed by the US media.
"Greenland's ice sheet has more than doubled its contribution to sea level increases in the past 7 years due to rapid and unpredicted loss of ice....There are large volumes of warm subtropical waters flowing through these fjords very quickly (causing melting)...One glacier is traveling 38 meters every day."This report indicates that glaciers have tripled in their speed of movement towards the ocean since 2004. There are many consequences to this activity. First, Glaciers entering the ocean immediately cause sea level rise - threatening life for millions of people and animals of low lying islands.. Second, each time a glacier moves, another quake occurs - sending a jolt throughout the Earth - destabilizing numerous fault lines. While the debate about the danger of Climate Change has been discussed in gradual changes throughout the next century, it seems that Climate Change is much more direct and destructive resulting in exponentially stronger Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and Tsunamis. It's time for our politicians to stop make concessions to Fossil Fuel industries in the name of 'Energy concerns' and start making decisions based on limiting just how dangerous Climate Change is going to be.]]>
Scientists long believed that the collapse of the gigantic ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica would take thousands of years, with sea level possibly rising as little as seven inches in this century, about the same amount as in the 20th century.
But researchers have recently been startled to see big changes unfold in both Greenland and Antarctica.
As a result of recent calculations that take the changes into account, many scientists now say that sea level is likely to rise perhaps three feet by 2100 -- an increase that, should it come to pass, would pose a threat to coastal regions the world over.
And the calculations suggest that the rise could conceivably exceed six feet, which would put thousands of square miles of the American coastline under water and would probably displace tens of millions of people in Asia.
The scientists say that a rise of even three feet would inundate low-lying lands in many countries, rendering some areas uninhabitable. It would cause coastal flooding of the sort that now happens once or twice a century to occur every few years. It would cause much faster erosion of beaches, barrier islands and marshes. It would contaminate fresh water supplies with salt.
In the United States, parts of the East Coast and Gulf Coast would be hit hard. In New York, coastal flooding could become routine, with large parts of Queens and Brooklyn especially vulnerable. About 15 percent of the urbanized land in the Miami region could be inundated. The ocean could encroach more than a mile inland in parts of North Carolina.
Abroad, some of the world's great cities -- London, Cairo, Bangkok, Venice and Shanghai among them -- would be critically endangered by a three-foot rise in the sea.
Climate scientists readily admit that the three-foot estimate could be
wrong. Their understanding of the changes going on in the world's land
ice is still primitive. But, they say, it could just as easily be an
underestimate as an overestimate. One of the deans of American coastal
studies, Orrin H. Pilkey of Duke University, is advising coastal communities to plan for a rise of at least five feet by 2100.
Read the full article in the New York Times