Common Sense Is An Oxymoron

Once in a while, an article comes along that makes me slap my head at how stupid "they" really think we are.

I'm referring to this article, which discusses a newly published study describing five (read that again - five/5) small islands in the Solomon archipelago that are sinking due to rising sea levels and global warming.  Let me just cite a little of this gem:

"Researchers found rates of shoreline recession were significantly higher in areas exposed to high wave energy than more sheltered regions."

"Ten houses from one of the badly eroded islands were swept into the sea between 2011 and 2014. The five islands that disappeared were all vegetated reef islands with areas up to five hectares (12 acres), which were not populated, but occasionally used by fishermen.

"Rates of sea-level rise in the Solomon Islands over the past two decades have been amongst the highest globally, according to the study.

While overall population density is low on the islands, low-lying coastal areas are popular with the inhabitants, and those parts of the reef islands are becoming increasingly densely populated." [emphasis added]

The salient points in order are:

• erosion is highest where wave action is highest;
• ten fishing huts were swept into the sea;
• a total of 5 hectare/12 acres has been lost;
•  of the entire globe, this shows one of the highest rates of loss; and
• sinking areas are among the fastest growing areas in population density.

So, in other words, this handful of islands along one of the most tectonically active regions of the world with one of the highest typhoon rates in the world has sunk because of rising sea levels in a highly localized part of just one of Earth's vast oceans, not because of the significant wave action, high-density populations pumping ground water, tectonic and/or severe storm damage, and/or normal everyday erosion.  No, it is global warming/climate change causing "water bumps," a phenomenon hitherto unseen elsewhere in the Universe.

Please note that "water bumps" is my own term for a highly localized rise in sea levels that isn't being seen anywhere else.

As for the "houses" swept into the sea, the article just told us these were fishing huts occasionally used by local fishermen.  Now I don't know about you, but I've seen these fishing huts, and a stiff breeze or army of ants could destroy them.  This is like saying, "Ice fishing hut sinks in thawing lake," to which the proper response is, "Yeah, and..."

One must ask one's self, is it the quality of 'scientist' that our schools are producing?  Or is it cynical and disingenuous assumptions that we, the general public, are just plain stupid?

First of all, what mechanism would cause sea levels to rise in one tiny part of the Pacific Ocean, and not somewhere else?  Is it gravitational variations?  Ocean humps?  Come on!  From what I know about hydrodynamics, water always seeks the lowest level across its entire surface.  It doesn't form "water bumps" in highly localized areas.

Second, they admit right there in print that the areas most affected have the highest wave energies.  Well, slap me silly.  This must be due to global warming.  Of course!  God knows windward and leeward areas don't have different erosion profiles!

Third, increasing populations mean more groundwater pumping.  Unless these folks have figured out a way to drink sea water, they are sucking it out of wells and collapsing subsurface aquifers.  This is a common problem even in land-locked regions, such as central Texas, where the Edwards Aquifer is being sucked dry by millions of people, causing all sorts of havoc with subsidence.  

To top all this off, this loss of five small reef islands should be weighed in opposition to the addition of a dozen or more new islands in the same time period.  Now I know this will be hard to accept, but if sea levels RISE, ALL islands will slip under the waves, not five in a remote island chain in the South Pacific.  I live in a nation composed of 17,000 islands not far from the Solomons and not one single island has disappeared in the last 50 years.  The last one to do that, Kerakatau, blew up, sank and caused global cooling for two years.

At no point do studies like this address the idiocy of folks building major cities on coastal plains and river basins, and then crying because their feet get wet.  At no point is it addressed how these 'scientists' can draw sweeping conclusions from isolated facts while ignoring scads of other more likely causes because they don't fit the status-quo narrative.  And at no point is it addressed why these folks assume that we are all as stupid as they are.

It is high time to stop all governmental grants to study anything.  These piles of free tax dollars are skewing research, diminishing educational values and promoting agendas that are not in the best interests of anyone but a select few.

The only thing these types of 'research' are doing is promoting a global tax and redistribution scheme that enriches speculative high-stakes gamblers while impoverishing the rest of us.  It also creates a climate in which vast numbers of people are taking action based on complete bullshit.  And when one acts on bullshit, the results are frequently more bullshit.

Can we get a little critical thinking around here?