Threat of Rising Sea Levels Could Be three Times Worse

Street scene as Hurricane Irma hits the Miami area Sept. 10, 2017.

Living in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia - like many areas on the East and Gulf coasts - where tidal water is everywhere, causes most residents (other than perhaps Trump supporters on slowly drowning Tangier Island) to grasp that climate change and the attendant sea level rise is a real threat to the region's way of live, not to mention property values.  Meanwhile, the Trump/Pence regime continues to roll back regulations aimed at slowing climate change - as well as clean air and clean water protections - to the cheers of much of the Republican Party.  As new studies reveal, while the GOP and its ignorance embracing party base deny that climate change is real, the problems facing mankind are likely far worse than previously estimated.  Here are highlights from a piece in the Washington Post:

Rising seas will be much worse and more expensive to deal with than previously thought, new research finds, not because of faster changes in sea levels but because of an increase in estimates of the number of people living on low ground.

The upshot of the study is that 110 million people worldwide live below the high-tide level — including many partly protected by sea walls or other infrastructure, as in New Orleans. Even under a scenario of very modest climate change, that number will rise to 150 million in 2050 and 190 million by 2100.

If climate change and sea level rise follow a worse path, as many as 340 million people living below the high-tide level could be in peril, to say nothing of how many could be affected by floods and extreme events.

Such figures are three times — or more — higher than earlier estimates.

The reason for the big change is that prior research has relied on data about coastal elevations that comes from radar measurements from the 2000 space shuttle Endeavor mission. But that data set has problems. The instrument detected the height not only of the coastal land surface but anything else that was on it, such as houses and trees. This introduced errors in land-elevation estimates averaging about 6½ feet globally, the new study says.

The new study uses the more accurate U.S. measurements as a guide, training an algorithm to apply similar adjustments to the global data set from the space shuttle. This is where the much higher numbers for exposed populations come from, with the biggest changes in exposure coming for countries in Asia. . . . “We are talking about hundreds of millions of people who will be directly exposed.”

The changes are certainly very large. The study estimates that 110 million people live below the current high-tide level vs. an estimated 28 million for the older data set. About 250 million people would fall below the level of the worst yearly flood, the study says, up from the previous estimate of 65 million.

If key instabilities kick in in Antarctica, 480 million people would be exposed to an annual flood in 2100.

The findings are worst for Asia, notably in China, Bangladesh and India. In the worst-case scenario, 87 million, 50 million and 38 million people in these countries, respectively, would fall below the high-tide level in 2100.

The situation is, if anything, more ominous than these figures suggest, according to the World Bank’s Hallegatte. That’s because in addition to high-tide and annual worst-case flood events, there are major floods from hurricanes and other storms and disasters to consider, even if they do not occur every year. The impact of these severe events will be worsened and affect larger populations as seas continue to rise.

“Most dikes and protection systems have been built for the sea level of 50 years ago or more, and will be increasingly ill-designed to protect people against floods, leading to rapidly increasing coastal flood losses in the absence of large upgrades,” Hallegatte said. “Upgrading those systems will be expensive but is unavoidable if one wants to avoid unacceptable economic losses in large cities.”

“This new study suggests that a lot of the assessments published on climate change risks are underestimated and would need to be revised,” Hallegatte said.

How does one act to make a difference?  The first step is voting a straight Democrat ticket here in Virginia on November 5, 2019.   Virginia can send a shock wave through the GOP - and perhaps be a precursor to 2020 - by putting Virginia Republicans in minority status across the board. 

Fighting For Gay Rights in Nepal - Sunil Pant

As the USA continues to lag behind other parts of the world in its treatment of LGBT citizens, one of the interesting stories of gay rights around the world is that of what is happening in Nepal - the tiny nation nestled in the Himalayas. Leading the charge for change is Sunil Pant (pictured at right), Nepal’s first openly gay parliamentarian and the man leading the gay rights revolution in Nepal and setting an example in Asia. Much to my amazement some months back Pant asked to be MY Facebook friend. Once again demonstrating how blogging can bring about some unique contacts. Sunil is a testimony to the fact that one person can make a difference. As I have written before, Nepal wants to become a gay honeymoon destination. Here are some highlights from CNN:
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The United States made headlines this June when it announced that the passports of transgender individuals will reflect their changed genders. But those in and around Nepal will remember that the Nepali authorities issued similar "third gender" identification cards back in 2007. And leading this charge for gay rights in Asia is Nepal's first openly gay Parliamentarian, Sunil Pant.
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In the center of Kathmandu is the popular Ratna Park and in the evenings in the late 1990s, that was where the city's LGBT community would quietly meet. Within one month, Pant met thousands of Nepal’s sexual minorities. Pant shared what he learned about the Stonewall Movement, about South Africa's legalization of gay marriage, and the open environment in which gays live in other parts of the world. At the same time, people shared with Pant the fear, intimidation, abuse, and violence they experienced at home in Nepal.
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Pant and his friends began to organize. They held the first training of its kind in Nepal addressing condom usage for gay men, sexual health, and human rights. When one transgender member of the training committed suicide after being beaten and discovered by her brother, Pant became determined to document and campaign on behalf of such individuals. In 2001, Pant started the Blue Diamond Society (BDS), a thriving resource, advocacy, and community center for Nepal's LGBT community.
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2006 saw the rise of populist movements in Nepal and it was then that Pant presented the government with an agenda to protect the rights of LGBT individuals. In 2007 he took the government to court demanding equal rights; they ruled in favor of Pant, agreed to issue third gender identification cards, and sanctioned the formation of a committee to research the societal effects of same-sex marriage. As Pant puts it, the committee wanted to ensure that "the sky would not fall" if Nepal were to legalize gay marriage.
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Pant says his policies are moving fast, the media is supportive, and gay individuals are more open about their sexuality now. "Government policies don't change, but individual ministers do," and that is where Pant sees possibilities for progress. "We have the same politicians and people expect miracles to happen," says Pant, who is now leading a broad-based youth activist movement in Nepal.
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And like Nepal, Pant believes the United States should move toward same-sex marriage laws on a federal level and not let individual states decide on matters of marriage.

A Global Look at Gay Rights

As Towleroad reports, Newsweek's international editions (Europe, Asia, and Latin America) this week look at gay rights struggles around the world accompanied by an an online gallery (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20642225/displaymode/1107/s/2/) featuring some of the defining images of the last year, including this shot of British gay rights activist Peter Tatchell being harassed by a woman on the street in Moscow, moments before he and others were more brutally assaulted by nationalists and skinheads. Also included are a couple articles about Jamaica as well as a Q&A with Sir Ian McKellen.

The clear message to those of us in the USA is that this country is increasingly lagging behind the modern world in its treatment of LGBT citizens. Despite what many continue to claim, in my view, the USA is no longer the leading beacon of freedom in the world. That claim has been destroyed by Chimperator Bush, the current GOP and their Christianist allies.