As drastic as these projections sound, it's important to recognize that
they are already being realized. Last year, India claimed the dubious
distinction of being the first nation to lose an island to climate change:
"The obliteration of Lohachara island, in India's part of the Sundarbans
where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of
Bengal, marks the moment when one of the most apocalyptic predictions of
environmentalists and climate scientists has started coming true. As the
seas continue to swell, they will swallow whole island nations, from the
Maldives to the Marshall Islands, inundate vast areas of countries from
Bangladesh to Egypt, and submerge parts of scores of coastal cities."
Indonesia, as an archipelago of islands, may be particularly hard-hit.
It's expected to lose two thousand islands by 2030 if present trends
continue.
Given these dire warnings and the substantive science behind them, it is
all the more inexplicable that cities are not only still building in
vulnerable coastal areas, but in some cases are taunting the future by
actually building out into the ocean.
cont'd....
http://blog.uwinnipeg.ca/ius/archives/002549.html