Are Island Nations Disappearing Due to Climate Change?
Tuvalu and Kiribati’s Land Gains Shred the ‘Sinking’ Myth. But a recent Guardian article titled “‘Humanitarian’ visa must be created for Pacific Islanders displaced by climate crisis, experts say” is pushing the familiar alarmist narrative.
It claims rising seas are swallowing low-lying island nations like Tuvalu and Kiribati, forcing mass migration and requiring new humanitarian visas for “climate refugees” to relocate to Western countries.
The piece argues for international funding, billions from developed nations, to support this exodus, framing it as a moral imperative in the face of inevitable submersion due to human-caused climate change.
But let’s call this what it is: another attempt to siphon money from the West under the guise of a crisis that doesn’t exist. These calls for visas and cash flows aren’t based on observable data; they’re rooted in exaggerated projections that ignore the resilience of atoll islands.
If islands were truly disappearing, we’d see evidence in land area loss and accelerating erosion. Instead, the science shows the opposite—many are growing or stable. This isn’t about saving people; it’s about leveraging fear to extract resources, perpetuating a cycle of dependency while activists and policymakers pat themselves on the back.
I’ve hammered this point in numerous pieces here on Irrational Fear, dissecting the sea-level scare from every angle. For starters, in “Adjusting Reality,” I exposed how satellite sea-level data shows suspicious upward “adjustments” that coincide with new mission launches—like TOPEX/Poseidon to Jason-1—ratcheting up reported rise rates without downward corrections.
As I noted, “every noticeable jump in the rate of sea-level rise aligns with the transition from one satellite to the next. Each new satellite ‘corrects’ the record upward… never downward.” Here’s a key figure from that article, illustrating those inflection points…
Tide gauges, our most reliable local metrics, contradict this. In “The Sea Level Story You Are Not Being Told,” I highlighted a peer-reviewed study finding no significant acceleration at 95% of sites: “The authors find that about ninety-five percent of suitable tide gauge records show no statistically significant acceleration in the rate of sea level rise.” Local dynamics like subsidence explain the rest, not global warming. Why the scary headlines? Because acceleration is “firmly established” only in manipulated satellite curves, not reality.
Then there’s the absurdity of “global mean sea level” as a metric. In “The Absurdity of Global Mean Temperature and Mean Sea Level Metrics,” I argued it’s a flawed abstraction: “Mean sea level (MSL) is claimed to be a critical indicator of climate change, reflecting the combined effects of [various factors], but their scientific significance is limited.” Sea level isn’t uniform—it’s influenced by gravity, currents, and land motion—yet we average it to fuel panic.
IPCC forecasts are equally suspect. In “How a Simple Math Error Derailed Doomsday Sea-Level Forecasts,” I covered a glaciologist’s discovery of a modeling flaw overestimating ice melt: “The new value when used in the flow law ‘will tend to predict increases in flow velocity that are much smaller in response to increased stresses caused by ice sheet shrinkage as the climate warms.’” And history debunks the CO2 link.
In “Sea Levels Were Significantly Higher in the Mid to Late-Holocene at Pre-Industrial Levels of CO2,” I showed seas were 1-2 meters higher during warmer periods: “many reports indicate that the sea level was significantly higher than today throughout the mid to late-Holocene, and at pre-industrial levels of CO2.”
These articles collectively dismantle the narrative. Sea-level rise is real but slow, local, and not accelerating dramatically. Islands aren’t doomed—they’re dynamic. So why push visas?
It’s a Trojan horse for funding, ignoring that true aid means local solutions, not mass relocation.
source irrationalfear.substack.com
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