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Rising Seas Not Resulting in Disappearing Islands

Published

2 months ago

5 minute read

From Heartland Daily News

A spate of recent articles acknowledges a fact that Climate Realism has long discussed. Most island nations, rather than sinking beneath the waves as seas rise amid modest warming, as predicted by climate alarmists and island profiteers, are, in fact growing.

Writing for The Pipeline, Buck Throckmorton thoroughly debunks claims that recent collapses of houses built on the shores of barrier islands in North Carolina were caused by climate change:

[B]arrier islands … are impermanent deposits of sand, which reshape, move, merge, appear, and disappear due to tides, winds, and storms.

The movement of barrier islands is not due to rising sea levels, it is due to a naturally occurring force called “longshore drift.” Where there are man-made efforts to stabilize barrier islands with jetties and sea walls, this produces other impacts on currents that cause erosion in some waterfront areas and new sand deposits in others. Beach houses in the Outer Banks are not being lost due to rising sea levels, they are being lost due to shifting sands.

Throckmorton also pointed to the disappearance of Tucker’s Island, off the coast of New Jersey, which completely disappeared due to “long-shore drift,” not rising seas.

NOAA describes the impact of long-shore drift, thusly:

Longshore drift may also create or destroy entire barrier islands along a shoreline. A barrier island is a long offshore deposit of sand situated parallel to the coast. As longshore drifts deposit, remove, and redeposit sand, barrier islands constantly change.

Semi-permanent, shifting barrier islands are not the only types of islands not being destroyed by climate change-induced rising seas. Even  The New York Times  (NYT) was recently forced by reality to admit that coral atolls, long the poster child of rising seas claiming nations, have been expanding and adding land amidst the Earth’s slight recent warming.

As recently as April 2024, with a story titled “Why Time Is Running Out Across the Maldives’ Lovely Little Islands,“ the NYT was still pushing the lie that rising seas threaten dozens of island nations, consisting of hundreds of small coral atolls, with extinction. Reality forced the NYT to reverse itself in the space of just three months. The author of a late June article, “A Surprising Climate Find,” wrote:

Of late, though, scientists have begun telling a surprising new story about these islands. By comparing mid-20th century aerial photos with recent satellite images, they’ve been able to see how the islands have evolved over time. What they found is startling: Even though sea levels have risen, many islands haven’t shrunk. Most, in fact, have been stable. Some have even grown.

The problem with this narrative is that the fact of growing islands during the recent period of climate change is not new news. In fact, as my colleague Linnea Lueken noted in a recent piece, the study the NYT references was published in 2018, six years ago. It found 89 percent of islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans increased in area or were stable, and only 11 percent showed any sign of contracting.

Indeed, geological understanding of coral atoll growth and demise is not newly discovered.

“Scientists have known for decades, if not more than a hundred years, that atoll islands uniquely change with changing sea levels,” Lueken points out. “Charles Darwin was the first to propose that reefs were many thousands of feet thick, and grow upwards towards the light. He was partially correct, though reality is more complicated than his theory.”

Repeated studies show that what is true of the Maldives, growth amid rising seas, is equally true of the islands that make up Tuvalu and Kiribati, and across the island chains of Micronesia. One well-cited study from 2015 reported that 40 percent of islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans were stable, and another 40 percent had grown, in recent decades.

Oceans, oceans everywhere, and nowhere can be found the much-bemoaned decline in island nations hyped be climate hucksters with regularity. When even the NYT is forced to admit this truth, you know the climate alarm narrative is in trouble.

Sources: The Pipeline;  The New York Times;  Climate Realism

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Agriculture

Farm for food not fear

Published on September 15, 2024

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Lee Harding

Fall harvest is in the storehouse. Now, let’s put away all proposals to cap fertilizer inputs to save the earth. Canadian farmers are ensuring food security, not fueling the droughts, fires, or storms that critics unfairly attribute to them.

The Saskatoon-based Global Institute for Food Security (GIFS) did as fulsome an analysis as possible on carbon emissions in Saskatchewan, Western Canada, Canada, and international peers. Transportation, seed, fertilizer and manure, crop inputs, field activities, energy emissions, and post-harvest work were all in view.

The studies, published last year, had very reassuring results. Canadian crop production was less carbon intensive than other places, and Western Canada was a little better yet. This proved true crop by crop.

Carbon emissions per tonne of canola production were more than twice as high in France and Germany as in Canada. Australia was slightly less carbon intensive than Canada, but still trailed Western Canada.

For non-durum wheat, Canada blew Australia, France, Germany, and the U.S. away with roughly half the carbon intensity of those countries. For durum wheat, the U.S. had twice the carbon intensity of Canada, and Italy almost five times as much.

Canada was remarkably better with lentil production. Producers in Australia had 5.5 times the carbon emissions per tonne produced as Canada, while the U.S. had 8 times as much. In some parts of Canada, lentil production was a net carbon sink.

Canadian field peas have one-tenth the carbon emissions per tonne of production as is found in Germany, and one-sixth that of France or the United States.

According to GIFS, Canada succeeds by “regenerative agriculture, including minimal soil disturbance, robust crop rotation, covering the land, integrating livestock and the effective management of crop inputs.”

The implementation of zero-till farming is especially key. If the land isn’t worked up, most nutrients and gases stay in the soil–greenhouse gases included.

Western Canada has been especially keen to adopt the zero-till approach, in contrast to the United States, where only 30 percent of cropland is zero-till.

The adoption of optimal methods has already lowered Canadian carbon emissions substantially. Despite all of this, some net zero schemers aim to cut carbon emissions by fertilizer by 30 percent, just as it does in other sectors.

This target is undeserved for Canadian agriculture because the industry has already made drastic, near-maximum progress. Nitrates help crops grow, so the farmer is already vitally motivated to keep nitrates in the soil and out of the skies–alleged global warming or not. Fewer nutrients mean fewer yields and lower proteins.

The farmer’s personal and economic interests already motivate the best fertilizer use that is practically possible. Universal adoption of optimal techniques could lower emissions a bit more, but Canada is so far ahead in this game that a hard cap on fertilizer emissions could only be detrimental.

In 2021, Fertilizer Canada commissioned a study by MNP to estimate the costs of a 20 percent drop in fertilizer use to achieve a 30 percent reduction in emissions. The study suggested that by 2030, bushels of production per acre would drop significantly for canola (23.6), corn (67.9), and spring wheat (36.1). By 2030, the annual value of lost production for those crops alone would reach $10.4 billion.

If every animal and human in Canada died, leaving the country an unused wasteland, the drop in world greenhouse gas emissions would be only 1.4 percent. Any talk of reducing capping fertilizer inputs for the greater good is nonsense.

Lee Harding is a Research Fellow for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

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Alberta

Alberta announces second waste-to-energy facility near Edmonton to join Central Alberta plant at Innisfail

Published on September 10, 2024

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This waste-to-energy facility also built by Norway’s Varme Energy will be located in an industrial area outside of Birmingham, UK

With $2.8 million from the industry-funded TIER program, Alberta’s government is advancing Canada’s first industrial-scale waste-to-energy facility using technology.

Less than three per cent of municipal waste in Canada is currently being converted into energy, and none of these existing projects are capturing and storing their carbon dioxide emissions. With landfills accounting for 23 per cent of methane emissions in Canada, municipalities and corporations across the country are looking for innovative ways to reach their landfill diversion and sustainability targets.

Alberta’s government is providing $2.8 million through Emissions Reduction Alberta for a $6.1-million front-end engineering and design study led by Varme Energy. This funding helps get Canada’s first facility that uses carbon capture to turn municipal waste into clean electricity closer to construction.

“Alberta is a global leader in carbon capture, utilization and storage technology, and the best place for innovative projects like this one to thrive. Varme Energy is tapping into our province’s exceptional geology, workforce and expertise to advance a landfill elimination solution that will reduce emissions and continue Alberta’s reputation for delivering clean, secure energy to the world.”

Rebecca Schulz, Minister of Environment and Protected Areas

“Alberta is a leader in responsible energy development. I am proud to see our government continue to invest in new, innovative technologies that will help ensure our power grid is affordable, reliable and sustainable for generations to come.”

Nathan Neudorf, Minister of Affordability and Utilities

The future facility will be built on Gibson Energy land within the Designated Industrial Zone in Alberta’s Industrial Heartland, with operations estimated to begin in 2027. Here, solid waste from municipal landfills will be converted into electricity for the grid, with the captured carbon injected into one of Alberta’s carbon sequestration hubs. The facility is expected to capture and store about 185,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.

“Emissions Reduction Alberta is proud to provide provincial funding to this first-in-Canada project. The study is an important first step to realizing a large-scale municipal waste-to-energy facility with carbon capture and storage. This project not only reduces emissions, but also sets a new standard for how we provide clean, reliable energy from waste destined for landfills.”

Justin Riemer, CEO, Emissions Reduction Alberta

By incorporating carbon capture into the waste-to-energy process, all of the greenhouse gas emissions that are typically released from a waste-to-energy facility will instead be captured and sequestered underground. This helps reduce methane emissions from waste that would normally decompose at the landfill, and ensures all carbon is captured and stored deep in the earth, creating a carbon-negative system where the process stores more carbon dioxide than it emits.

“We are thrilled at how Varme has been embraced by Alberta. The magnitude of support, encouragement and collaboration we’ve received from the Government of Alberta, and Albertans at large, has been beyond our expectations. This direct provincial financial support is a significant de-risk that will help bring our project to a positive final investment decision. Emissions Reduction Alberta’s support demonstrates how Alberta’s TIER carbon pricing system is a powerful tool for converting our historical emissions levies into future emissions reductions, modern jobs and economic activity.”

Sean Collins, CEO, Varme Energy

Quick facts

  • Varme Energy’s front-end engineering and design study is expected to be completed in December 2024 with construction set to begin in 2025.
  • In addition to provincial funding support through the Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction (TIER) program, Varme Energy is working with Gibson Energy, the City of Edmonton and the Canada Growth Fund to advance this project, with the ultimate goal of diverting more than 200,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste away from landfills each year.
  • Canada currently processes about 26 million tonnes of municipal solid waste annually.
  • Through the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line and Quest carbon capture, utilization and storage projects, Alberta has safely sequestered more than 13.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide to date, which is equivalent to the emissions from 2.9 million cars per year.
  • McKinsey projects that annual global investment in carbon capture, utilization and storage could reach $175 billion by 2035, with the majority of these investments in hard-to-abate sectors and the power sector.
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