I hope this monument to opulence fails miserably and the developers lose their shirts.
There’s no way they won’t damage or destroy that reef.
The first big storm is going to destroy much of the sand island.
But, 10% are special protection zones! Won’t matter, they can’t survive if huge amounts of the non protected reef are destroyed.

Not to mention sea level rise will put it underwater quickly, it’s barely above current sea level in the plans.

Look at Mexico, dozens of comparatively tiny resorts not even on the reefs, but on land, and that reef is not 10% what it was in the mid 80’s. Building ON the reef is guaranteed to destroy it, as is tourism.

I hate when companies are allowed to build on natural wonders to exploit the beauty, they invariably destroy that beauty within decades. That entire reef/coastline should be off limits to construction so the two desert properties have an attraction. When the reefs die from sun tan lotion poisoning, bleaching, sand displacement, accidents with supply ships, the first major fuel spill, etc, that place will be a $5 billion waste, abandoned to the desert.

Remember the “islands of the world” project in Dubai? This sounds even less thought out than they were, more ecologically disastrous, needing more infrastructure to be built, requiring ships to bring fuel as there’s no nearby port to run pipelines from (guaranteeing oil spills). All for what? So billionaires can get off their yachts for a while in luxury?

Wiki-Significant changes in the maritime environment [of Dubai]. As a result of the dredging and redepositing of sand for the construction of the islands, the typically crystalline waters of the Persian Gulf at Dubai have become severely clouded with silt. Construction activity is damaging the marine habitat, burying coral reefs, oyster beds and subterranean fields of sea grass, threatening local marine species as well as other species dependent on them for food. Oyster beds have been covered in as much as two inches of sediment, while above the water, beaches are eroding with the disruption of natural currents.

That was a $12 billion project to exploit the pristine coast and beautiful waters that no longer exist, the islands themselves are sinking and eroding, most were evacuated or never used at all, the water is now mud colored, the reefs are gone. An unmitigated disaster. This sounds extremely similar.

Oppose this and similar projects.

I am certain. Science doesn't lie, and I don't have to take someone's word, I can examine data, understand chemistry, and see short and long term trends. The data is undeniable, the only thing wrong with what the media tells you is they paint FAR too rosy a picture. You would think, based on media reports, that if we did stay at only 1.5C above pre industrial levels all is fine, that's nonsense. Truth is 1.5C is where they theorized we lose all control and skyrocket up from there to....nobody knows where, but hot. I think we are on track to 1.5C before 2030, and the feedback loops are already kicking in now. Does that mean we die in 2030? No, but it means our collective fate is sealed and completely out of our control.

I do plant trees, I already have solar, I drive well under 4000 miles a year, in fact I haven't driven anywhere but the grocery store in the wife's car in over 6 month when my car broke, and I don't miss it, I don't have AC, and yes, I need to get on my bike more, for my weight and blood pressure. My money IS where my mouth is, and I still was willing to put it on the line....you aren't.

A big difference is, if somehow I am wrong, what I do is still proper, cleaner, safer, and actually cheaper. Your ideas and ideals lead to detrimental, polluting, dangerous, and more expensive actions and processes even if miraculously they don't lead to our extinction this century.

Are you snatching up cheap uninsurable coastline in Florida and Louisiana? Are you selling off your water rights because they're a dime a dozen? Are you short selling produce and grains on margin? Are you doing anything to risk your money based on what you say?

Your turn.

Edit: I don't do mobs. I prefer people who think for themselves.

Yeah, no shit the planet will be fine. We'll be gone. So you're saying we should welcome the planet shaking us off like fleas? Some of us would like to keep living on it, on current coastlines.

Your video, Geoffroy - Coastline, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 1 Badge!

It was quite similar along the northern coastline. People even started playing ice hockey on side streets.

I don't understand. If you are selling at 5kw/h during daylight, why are you seeing only slight decline in your bill? It should be near zero, if not a check written to you if you are careful to not use much at night. I went from $4-500 per month electric bills (we have an electric hot tub that sucks major juice) to $30 bills in summer, and under $100 in winter. My system cost around $40K, and I got back around $5K (and lost out on tons more because when I bought it the tax rebates didn't roll over and I didn't use them all). I live in N California, where it's incredibly foggy, and it still took under 9 years to pay for itself in savings. Had I been able to use all the rebate (like you can now, it rolls over until you use it up) it would have been a year earlier paying itself off. Since the system should last 20 years, that's a great deal, even for you at 11-15 years to pay itself off, that's still 5-9 years of free juice, and 20 years of never losing power (if you have batteries).
Another benefit is from decentralizing power production. That makes you immune from most failures or any possible attacks on the system.
I do agree, it's not a perfect solution, and not 100% pollution free, but it's a great solution for most, if done right. The carbon costs are relatively small, and a one time event.

I'm all for nuke if done responsibly, which means not on coastlines, built with failsafe design features that don't require power to halt the reaction and store the fuel, and not experimented with to get a bit more power out (which caused Chernobyl and 3 mile island as I understand it).

Hydro, on the other hand, is always incredibly damaging to rivers, which along with providing the water we need, feed what little wildlife we have left. I am against any new hydro projects and advocate removing the failing one's we have now. They are short lived under the best of circumstances, but the damage they do is often permanent.

Time for large scale desalination factories all along the worlds coastline.

Oh , and this video is the raw footage from NRK, ("Norways BBC") who filmed and streamed the entire thing on national TV as a slow-tv-experiment. Later they also did Hurtigruta, with the entire trip on live tv. (a cruiseship that travels norways entire coastline from south to north.

Then slow down with theories of our impending demise, the IPCC doesn't support it. You want to talk about not denying the science, then you don't get to preach gloom and doom. Don't claim a large percentage of farmland is going to be lost to sea level rise by 2100. Don't claim coastlines are going to be pushed back 10 miles by a worst case 1 foot rise of sea level by 2100.

We are talking about advancements solving problems like a maximum sea level rise of a foot in the next 100 years, with best guesses being lower than that. I think it's modest to suggest our children's children will have figured out how to raise the dikes around places like New Orleans by a foot in the next 100 years.
The concord and moon trips are no longer happening because they are expensive. We can do them if we needed to, and more easily than the first time around. Finding out people aren't willing to pay the premium to shave an hour off their flight doesn't mean the technology no longer exists. Just because America no longer needs to prove they can lift massive quantities of nuclear warheads into orbit doesn't mean we couldn't still go to the moon again if it was needed. There's just no reason to do it, the tech exists still none the less.
Yes, there are social problems that confound the use of new technology. You fail to notice that is also the problem with feeding everybody. Food production isn't the problem, but rather the men with guns that control distribution. Stalin's mass starvation of millions was a social problem, not climate change or technology. Mao's was the same. North Koreas the same. All over Africa is the same. We have more than enough food, and plenty of charities work hard to send food over to places like Africa. Once the food gets there though the men with guns take most of it and people still starve. The reason Africa has so many crop failures is the violent displacement of the farmers. Exactly the same problem that saw millions starve in Russia, China and North Korea.
You are right that a changing climate could compound Africa's ag industry a bit, but it's a small hit compared to the violent displacement problem. Also, don't neglect to consider to impact of meaningful CO2 emission restrictions around the globe. A large scale global economic downturn probably means a lot more war, bloodshed, and starvation. If you do not reduce emissions enough to trigger that downturn and instead just 'marginally', you get stuck with both because Africa is still going to see virtually the same climate changes through the next hundred years.

And if you are worried about losing the glaciers in the Himalayas by 2100 there is very good reason to believe that's gonna be alright:
http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S41/39/84Q12/index.xml?section=topstories

http://hasthewhaleexplodedyet.com/

And I love how it says "washed up in Canada" like there is only about 50 meters of coastline where it could have happened.

UPDATE: As of February 2014 ALL coastline of California now reads CPM's as high as the exposure at 40,000 ft while flying in a commercial jet from cosmic radiation....Check incidences of cancer in commercial airline pilots vs. folks on the ground, and move inland if you are taken to windy walks on the beachfront in Cali, peeps...Cali coast and the fishes therein from that side of the Pacific are already fucked for centuries.

So where to PP...Monaco?? Best place to meet someone who owns a yacht.

Diet seems to be one of the driving factors behind the indigenous' longevity, notice that they are all near coastlines. The current list according to Wackipedia:
1 Japan
2 Hong Kong
3 Israel
4 Italy
5 Iceland
6 Australia
7 Singapore
8 Spain
9 Sweden
10 Macau

>> ^criticalthud:

2. mostly unrealistic. america is #1 energy hog and neither technology advancements nor more drilling here will solve that or feed that gluttonous thirst. we are dependent on foreign energy, which is partly why we have 450 military bases around the world. We need to reduce need, and to do that, we need to re-examine our role in the world as pure consumers.

Well said. There are number of things that would reduce the power consumption right away. Refine the stupid pollution control that favors higher consumption in vehicles (lower consumption = more pollution per gallon when it should be mileage vs pollution.. now you can make a car that goes 10MPG but "pollutes" less), invest in public transport, invest in renewal sources.. You got huge amounts of land empty that could be used for solar farming, long coastlines to harvest wave energy, enough thermal activity to take energy from there (allthou thinking that USA is drilling to the core frightens me, you people have never been could at moderation...).

It seems to be that the thinking goes: This (particular) renewable source is not enough so we don't do it at all. But step by step, it would start to play a major part in the big picture. And there's endless supplies of solar energy, 250 W/m2 in average taking cloud cover and sun angle in to account.

A common final year exam question (one of the short questions on one paper) in our physics dept is "would it be possible to power Ireland solely on Wind energy given that total consumption is x KWh". There's one professor who hates and derides wind energy and keeps throwing it in. The basic outline solution is that even if there were turbines on every step of the coastline you still wouldn't create enough energy.

I bet the bastard never thought of helium. Hah!