21 "mega-cities" in danger from rising seas
The nonprofit Worldwatch Institute has released a list of 21 "mega-cities" of 8 million people or more that are in direct danger as a result of global warming and rising seas:
They include Dhaka, Bangladesh; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Shanghai and Tianjin in China; Alexandria and Cairo in Egypt; Mumbai and Kolkata in India; Jakarta, Indonesia; Tokyo and Osaka-Kobe in Japan; Lagos, Nigeria; Karachi, Pakistan; Bangkok, Thailand, and New York and Los Angeles in the United States, according to studies by the United Nations and others.Link (via Digg)More than one-tenth of the world's population, or 643 million people, live in low-lying areas at risk from climate change, say U.S. and European experts. Most imperiled, in descending order, are China, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, Japan, Egypt, the U.S., Thailand and the Philippines.
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I suspect we might lose entire states without all that much of an increase in sea level. Last time I was in Florida it struck me that it doesn't have all that much freeboard...
Tom
It was far hotter in mid medieval, or bronze age and ... these were phases of rapid civilisation advance.
Well... I don't think reopening wineries in England, or Poland will make big impact on current globe. But - global warming is hardly harmful and quite possibly unstopable... maybe even our petty carbon emission (check out charts from history... one big volcano eruption makes more greenhouse gases than ten big cities) has no effect on it.
However using & producing energy more effectively, or protecting Earth's very valuable wildlife should be priorities no matter what kind of apocalypse is currently used by green lobby.
Global warming maight make life harsher for some parts of the globe, possibly with our contribution... while many of China's rivers are literally black.
They forgot Boston. With the Big Dig finished and the city being built on a swamp, I'm sure it will turn into a giant swimming pool eventually. It's just a matter of time.
Los Angeles may be in danger, but it doesn't seem to be in that much danger.
Maldives is the most vulnerable country where the sea level in male' city is below 0
Jessica @ Prank Videos
NYC's not in *that* much danger, compared to the areas around it.
This is what a 45 FOOT increase looks like:
http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=40.7532,-73.9572&z=5&m=14
I'm no climate scientist, but I seriously doubt there's enough ice to raise sea levels by anywhere near that much.
schmod Well, NYC doesn't fare too well in that scenario, but Manhattan seems to be ok.
I live in New York, but I live on the 9th floor. I guess I should get all that crap out of the basement, though.
@schmod - to echo devophill, most of Manhattan 9the densest area of NYC) remains dry in that scenario, but the coverage of roughly half of Brooklyn (including my house) and Queens still means that millions of people would be dealing with majority incursion by the water. Doesn't look like fun...
Also, the about page is really well written and informative. Interesting project...
Well, why did they build where they would be in danger of a flood? Certainly, as in New Orleans, no one in New York should be able to get flood insurance.
Can get a senator to suggest that they move New York?
from my post on the light black out below... some things you can do to reduce carbon emissions and help the environment...
on an individual level, vegetarianism is a great help to the environment. i'm not ethically against eating animals as an idea, but the current industrial methods are horribly ill-designed. some concerns with meat production are the large amounts of fossil fuel and water resources consumed by intensive animal farming and the consequent emissions of harmful gases and chemicals. animal agriculture has been pointed out as one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases — responsible for 18% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalents. by comparison, all transportation emits 13.5% of the CO2. animal farming produces 65% of human-related nitrous oxide (which has 296 times the global warming potential of CO2) and 37% of all human-induced methane (which is 23 times as warming as CO2). it is also accused of generating 64% of the ammonia, which contributes to acid rain and acidification of ecosystems. when tracking food animal production from the feed trough to consumption, the inefficiencies of meat, milk and egg production range from 4:1 energy input to protein output ratio up to 54:1. it takes half of the u.s's water supply to raise animals for food, to the tune of 2,500 gallons for 1 pound of beef. a lot of the rain-forest gets clear-cut to feed livestock and as we all (should) know, the less plants, the less we can pump CO2 out there. the habitat for wildlife provided by large industrial monoculture farms is very poor, and modern industrial agriculture has been considered a threat to biodiversity compared with farming practices such as organic farming, permaculture, arable, pastoral, and rainfed agriculture. on a human rights note, the U.S. could feed 800 million people with grain that livestock eat.
other personal things you can do involve not moving somewhere you have to drive all the time, not buying a lot of packaged, complex products, or technology or even things you have to recycle. utilize the bulk section of your local health food store. you can also plant trees or grow your own food. really the more self-sufficient you are, the less you have to harm. (ie: if you want to eat meat, it's better to hunt some over-populated deer or raise your own chickens...)
on a a societal level, not having a bunch of laws that coddle polluters would be a great step... we could sign the kyoto protocol like every other western nation. i'm into taxing people the cost of reparing the harm of the production of the products you buy. so if you buy a computer, you should have to pay the enviromental costs of the coltan mining, emissions and waste chemicals from the factory and the health costs for the workers (computer manufacturing is one of the most highly carcinogenic fields.) on the flipside, if there must be laws, you could have laws that encourage rational resource use. one of the first things reagan did when he took office was to remove the tax benefits of installing solar panels, which many more homes would have by now. i know solar isn't a flawless plan, but it helps. i'm not as cozy with nuclear power as some are, considering our government's irrational handling of other dangerous responsibilities. luckily, there are certainly a wealth of alternative energy production methods out there that have largely been stopped from being implemented for monopolistic reasons. i've been pretty annoyed that the fact you can get FOUR times as much ethanol from an acre of hemp as you can from an acre of corn hasn't come up in the brouhaha about ethanol... it's got a few thousand other uses too (like making plastic, paper, beams, cloth and rope. henry ford built a hemp plastic car fueled on hemp ethanol over 50 years ago...) i also like in concept the generators that harness the ocean's waves, too, but i'm not sure how practical they are.... but really, we just need to ask nikola tesla how we can get energy from space... oh, he's dead.
just HONESTLY trying to help is the biggest thing.
To paraphrase Bill Maher, you should believe Al Gore on the global warming issue, because if there's one thing he knows about, it is losing Florida.
The latest IPCC report estimated that sea levels would likely rise 18 to 59 cm in the entire 21st century. This amount of sea level rise is unlikely to imperil the major cities.
There are a lot of dangers with climate change, but the damage due to sea level increases is exaggerated. Major melting in Greenland and Antarctica (the vast majority of land-bound ice in the world) is not expected until at least the 22nd century.
Check out this US Cities and States Carbon Footprint Map, an interactive United States Carbon Footprint Map, illustrating Greenest States to Cities. This site has all sorts of stats on individual State & City energy consumptions, demographics and much more down to your local US City level...
http://www.eredux.com/states/
@Steve Stair -
Ziiing.
A recent program on PBS showed the parts of NYC that would be flooded. Wall Street was especially vulnerable. Even a relatively small rise in water levels could threaten if a storm surge occurred. Also mentioned that parts of Miami and southern Florida would be flooded.
@ wwe
really in both cases, most of the most opinionated are those with the least first hand research. i suspect you are in that category. oh, and luckily, due to the freedom of information act, we can find out about most conspiracies after the fact. why people who know the government lied to them in the past still think it's impossible to happen now is beyond me...
@ bzishi
i didn't read that report, but the artic ice melted MORE this year than predicted by most studies. regardless of these specifics, it is still relevant to stop these polluting behaviors, because they have impact beyond "flooding cities" like "annihilating biodiversity" and "lung cancer"