The more the public and politicians have something drummed into them the more likely they are to take note. My MP has told me that the volume of emails on a subject is what he gauges his action on that subject by. I have had, as I have said, several private comments on that letter which I hope will turn into several more letters. If it makes our MP think about the subject he might realise that building nuclear power stations that are going to be dangerous for about 150 years or more at sea level is not a good idea.johnhemming2 wrote:The problem with predictions on sea levels is that the public sphere in the wider sense (including people who would vote for Trump and Brexit) will not really respond until sea levels are seen to be going up on an annual basis by something that leads to a conclusion of something over 5cm per year (which gives 5m rather than 7m in a century).
Wikipedia gives
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level ... 0-2013.png
Which is more like 20cm in a century than 7m.
I accept entirely that such things can be non-linear, however.
That graph is already showing an exponential trend rather than a linear one and, with feedback mechanisms kicking in, will steepen rapidly, as exponential functions do.
I find it annoying that TV program makers look at the future in terms of the past when the changes that are in the offing, such as sea level rise and population migration, make it obvious to all with even a little bit of imagination that the future faces severe disruptions to what has gone on before. Nicholas Stern, in his book, Why are We Waiting, makes precisely this point about the economic modelling which usually governs our politicians thinking and action. Our economists work on the basis that we will have a linear progression from the past into the future and Stern rails against this stupidity.
Em, please use anything that I post in whatever way you want to get our common message over.
