Don't you know underwater resorts are all the rage!
Posted on 12/07/2006 4:18:56 PM PST by decimon
CHARLESTON, S.C. - Global warming and a rise in sea levels could dramatically affect South Carolina's coast, according to scientists and environmental officials meeting at a conference in Charleston this week.
The rising ocean is "going to shave off a ton of landscape along the coast," which could drown marshes that act as buffers for storm surge, raising the likelihood of major flooding when the next hurricane hits, said Jim Morris, marine studies professor at the University of South Carolina and director of its Belle W. Baruch Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences.
Morris was at the Southeast Regional Workshop on The Nation's Coasts, hosted by the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment. The organization wants to help communities deal with rising sea levels associated with global warming.
The state's beach management law calls for a gradual retreat of new development from the seashore, but building pressures continue from Cherry Grove to Hilton Head Island, said Braxton Davis, a scientist with the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control's coastal office.
That could be dangerous with scientists warning the ocean could extend 100 feet or more inland in the next century.
Water temperatures also are rising and that could bring additional problems to South Carolina's coastal waters.
Three summers ago, a married couple became ill from eating a toxin-polluted barracuda that had been caught off the South Carolina coast.
The poisoning is normally associated with species in more tropical Caribbean waters, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But as warm waters expand northward, tropical fish, and potentially new hazards, are following into the South Atlantic's waters, experts said.
The trick is that you don't eat any fish over about three pounds. After that, you risk ciguatera toxin poisoning from which you are a dead duck.
Tuvalu is one of the places on earth that is most vulnerable to the affects of global warming. The threat of sea level rise may bring complete disaster to the 10,000 Tuvaluans residing on nine extremely low-lying coral atolls.
Below are various articles and news items related to the threat Tuvalu faces.
http://www.tuvaluislands.com/warming.htm
I think all rich Democrats should be stripped of their wealth, and deported to live in the brush in Africa, where their carbon footprints will be much smaller.
Living off of Ocean coasts is a historically stupid thing period. The earth does change even without our assistance. Floods, freezes, meltings occur often. This is what erodes rocks into sand in the first place. If man made or a natural cycle, I do believe we are in a heating period. Coastal residents should consider leaving in the next 25 years or so. Insurers are just going to refuse to issue policies. Before we got civilized, we used to move when the climate dictated a change in the surroundings, now that we are civilized, we believe we can park on one spot forever without any changes occuring.
Charleston victimization. Why should all of the excess seawater conspire to wash away the barrier islands and their mega-party condos.
Charleston's barrier islands, Sullivans, Isle of Palms, Folly Island et cetera are being over run by four story high mega-shacks. These are hurricane-investments that cost little to build right on the beach yet are insured against the inevitable hurricane. YOU are gonna pay.
I grew up in Fla.
Very few people took the chance of eating Barracuda. They are known to be poisonous. They eat other poisonous species and it taints their flesh.
Small ones caught in shore are supposed to be ok, but never a larger one from offshore.
I never took the chance although they are supposed to be excellent eating.
If it weren't for the rising sea levels, I could care less about global warming. It's freezing where I am right now!
Theoretical nonsense!
There is NO man-made "global warming".
What's the latest clap trap about the Ross Ice Shelf?
It's melted before!!!!!
Due to Mammoth farts no doubt!
I do see something right now. The grass in my front yard is still bright green. In December. In Michigan.
Twenty years ago, the grass had all turned brown and had gone dormant by the first or second week of November. Now it doesn't happen until the middle of December.
Not just this year, but every year. Every year the grass stays greener just a bit longer.
Say what you want, think what you want, but my grass is still green in December.
Not what I'd call a "dire effect."
Your grass may be staying green longer and that may be due to some global climate change or to some regional climate change.
I recall when hurricanes took down most of the large, old willow trees in my then area of NYC. That was in the 1950s and 1960s. Hasn't recurred. And that obviously hadn't occurred for some time prior to that period for the fact of the trees being old. Change happens.
A hurricane is a one-time "change". The gradual global warming isn't. People can pretend that it isn't happening - but that won't change the reality.
The only difference I have with the Global Warming Alarmists is the CAUSE of global warming - not the reality of it. I don't think mankind is causing it, I think it is a natural cycle of the sun.
To ignore the reality of it is nothing more than burying ones head in the sand and pretending that it really isn't happening.
But it is.
I wasn't referring to a single hurricane but a period of hurricanes.
I don't deny global warming. I wouldn't deny global cooling either. Planet Earth is always either warming or cooling so you always have a 50 percent chance of being right with a warming/cooling prediction.
I agree that anthropogenic causality is foolish.
That's only 2000 pounds of sand! Sheesh!
Also in SC, the sky is falling!
Global Erections
I thought that was what Kim Jong Ill was calling for to prove that he is the rightful leader of the planet.
I certainly deny global cooling - at least in this century. I have watched the climate in the Northern US get progressively warmer over the past 25 years. Plants and animal habitats have steadily crept farther north, and the ice cap at the North Pole has melted more each summer over the past 25 years. That adds up to warming - not cooling.
I don't see it as a negative thing. Our winters are shorter and our summers and growing seasons are longer. What's so bad about that?
People living in the South may have some problems with warmer and warmer weather every year, but here in the North - we welcome it.
Although there are some negatives - the Great Lakes are losing water due to increased evaporation because of the warmer weather. While those on the ocean beaches may lose land - those with beachfront property on the Great Lakes are gaining land.
I have a friend with a summer home on the beach on Lake Huron. Their cottage used to be 50 feet from the waves - now its 200 feet away. Bigger beaches might not sound so bad, but when the thirsty Southwest start turning their covetous eyes on the Great Lakes - the largest reservoir of fresh water, it will make a BIG difference. I used to tell my friends in Texas that Michigan will be happy to sell them all the water they want - at $40 a barrel, the same price that Texas sold us their oil!
One section of Charleston floods everytime there is a high tide with a full moon.
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