London 'under water by 2100' as Antarctica crumbles into the sea

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The point is that there is reason to believe this will happen.

Don't be silly. There is perhaps reason to believe that there is a chance that this will happen, just as there is a reason to believe that several other things might happen.

And claims along these general lines are hardly new or even newsworthy; I have some stuff from the early '90's claiming similer stuff, actually some of it was much more severe. I remember seeing a news item in about '91 (or was it a few years later?) that basically said that Hull would be largely underwater by 2005 (can't remember the exact date, but it was something like that). It isn't.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

So?

There's a difference between saying that "there is a reason to believe that this will happen" and "there's a chance this might happen".

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I wasn't very old at the time, although I do remember it quite clearly. I sometimes have trouble placing dates on my memories, even though (other than that) I have a very good memory. 

Anyways, I have in front of me now, a map based on a report by the old Department of the Enviroment called "The Potential effects of climate change in the United Kingdom". It basically shows areas that the Department thought likely to be flooded and turned into (back into in some cases) wetland and so on as a result of climate change. It shows areas at risk in black; those parts of London along the Thames are (suprise, suprise) in black.
It was published in 1991.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Uh, and both statements apply here.

Do they? Only if you want them both to apply. Personally I tend to treat just about any report issued on climate change as not worth reading, as it's usually possible to guess what it'll say anyway.
I should note that I don't doubt that climate change is happening, or that human activity has made an impact on the climate (but I don't have much time for claims that *all* climate change is caused by human activity, or that *no* climate change is caused by human activity. Both strike me, and have always struck me, as being very arrogant). But I'm not really worried either; I wouldn't mind seeing the Fens come back for one thing. Coastlines are forever changing as are sea levels.

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Yes; it was a Government report. Government reports on this sort of issue should not predict things and should make much use of the word "if".

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I didn't say that they did. I've no idea what the report said; I just have the map. I don't agree with the map in many places (I think that it shows too much change on the whole, but it is, IIRC, based on a rise in the sea level of 5 metres) but that doesn't stop it being interesting. And maybe a rise in sea level will result in the need for the use of the upstream London docks again (well, I'd like that to happen anyway...).

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Not really. It was quite obvious what was going on, even then. The whole "OMG Global Warming we're all going to Diiiieeeeeee..." nonsense is something different o/c. A product of late '90's hysteria and trendy environmentalism.

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Suggestions? (that's a genuine question, btw. I am interested).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I don't think anyone is trying to say that *all* climate change is caused by human activity.

It's certainly something that rather a lot of people have a habit of inferring though. It happens to irritate me a lot.

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Glad you agree.

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Define "significant"
I don't think that it's at all significant as a proportion of all climate change, but from the point of view of humans it probably does seem to be very significant.

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Then the newspapers are either wrong or don't know London (http://www.defra.gov.uk/erdp/images/londongifs/lnrelief.GIF)

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Yeah, but other things cause bigger problems. Besides some areas will benefit. That's the way things work, after all.
That wasn't supposed to sound flippant.

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No, but an awful lot of people are happy to imply it. And a certain newspaper over here gets so very close to actually saying that at times...

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Both were trendy. The '90's were a hypocritical decade.

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Agree

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Very true (and that's a fact that the media over here was very careful to avoid reporting).

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And I agree with that as well.

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Very true. But there's a big problem there...