Politicians seem reluctant to take necessary action over sea level rise
There seems to be an inability among politicians to take in what scientists are telling us about the consequences of the climate crisis. Perhaps the most glaring example relates to the Guardian's latest report on sea level rise, which said that whatever we do now, the rise will have devastating consequences for coastal communities, causing millions of people to migrate to higher ground. Greenland and the west Antarctic ice caps are doomed to melt.
Even in countries that do take cutting carbon emissions seriously, such as the UK, governments do not seem to have accepted that the prediction about sea level rise means policies must adapt to damage that has already been done. The coastline of the North Sea is a classic example. Stretches of England's east coast both in and south of Yorkshire are eroding, and large areas are close to or at sea level already. A storm surge coinciding with a high tide, like the one that killed hundreds in 1953, may be a rarity, but each year a similar event becomes more likely to overwhelm the existing sea defences. And yet the government is still talking about building nuclear power stations with a 150-year lifespan on this coast, notably Sizewell C, and small modular reactors on other sites. Future generations may wonder why scientists' warnings were so easily ignored.
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