# San Francisco & Global Warming



## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

*Melting polar ice would drown parts of San Francisco Bay Area *
18 February 2007

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Highways, houses, industrial developments and entire neighborhoods along the San Francisco Bay will be under water if global warming causes tides to rise as much as 3 feet in the coming decades, according to new maps developed by the Bay Conservation and Development Commission. 

The maps, prepared for The San Francisco Chronicle, depict entirely submerged parts of residential cities such as Corte Madera, Mill Valley, Sausalito, San Rafael, Hayward and Newark. In San Francisco, the Caltrain mass transit system and an ambitious Candlestick Point redevelopment project would be vulnerable to flooding. 

Much of the Silicon Valley shoreline would be under water, including a portion of a NASA research site and the spot where Google Inc. wants to build a 1 million-square-foot campus. Flooding could damage sewage treatment plants in Palo Alto, Sunnyvale and Alviso. 

Silicon Valley is particularly at risk because some parts of Santa Clara County -- epicenter of the global technology industry -- have dropped 14 feet as the ground sank when groundwater was pumped from the 1940s to 1960s. 

Problems for the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta area, northeast of San Francisco, could be catastrophic. The region pumps send fresh water to two-thirds of Californians. Homes, businesses, highways, groundwater and wetland habitat would be flooded. 

The Bay Area has zoning requirements to deal with earthquakes, but it hasn't treated rising sea levels with the same urgency, said Will Travis, executive director of Bay Conservation and Development Commission. Some development plans should be scrapped or drastically re-engineered, he said. 

"The amount of planning and preparing that we do is really what will affect how severe the impacts are here," Travis told the Chronicle. 

Climate scientists still debate how much sea levels could rise in upcoming decades. Some models predict a rise as high as 15 feet by 2100. Most models don't take into account the recent increasing rate of melt in Greenland and sloughing of ice in western Antarctica. 

Officials from the bay conservation agency and the Pacific Institute are seeking funds to conduct a study to identify real estate, infrastructure and natural resources at risk, and calculate the costs.


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## libero (Jun 22, 2006)

I think the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta area has a really problem. Here a sea level rise simulation of + 1 m from flood


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## eusebius (Jan 5, 2004)

Just close off the bay with a huge Golden Gate dam. Problem solved.


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## Taylorhoge (Feb 5, 2006)

thats a little scary for San Fran


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## Chicagoago (Dec 2, 2005)

Maybe the right wing conservatives could set up a meeting with God and work out a deal to stop global warming in the name of free capitalism and a growing economy.


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## Mr Bricks (May 6, 2005)

If there even is something like global warming that is.


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## Yardmaster (Jun 1, 2004)

Every-one knows that Global Warming is simply a Communist Plot to deter economic expansion, driven mainly by terrorists funded by North Korea, Iran and Cuba. My friend who went to Alaska on a cruise recently reported that her guide told them all that the glaciers were advancing rapidly, so don't you worry about that!

Anyway, even if the ice caps are melting, it has nothing to do with human activity: : "the jury is still out", that's what our Prime Minister has told us many times, and he's a very close friend of George Bush, so he knows.

So there's no evidence whatsoever that sea levels or global temperatures are rising, and even if they are, it's got nothing to do with us, so carry on as normal. It's just a natural cycle, and it will all be allright again ... soon.

By the way, thanks to you North Americans for helping fight our bushfires.


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## mariokarter (Oct 22, 2006)

pff, everyone knows that cigarettes don't cause cancer and global warming doesn't exist.


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## Mr Bricks (May 6, 2005)

You can joke about it all you want but if this turns out to be incorrect you will look just as silly as those who during the Middle Ages made fun of people who thought the world is round.


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## DonQui (Jan 10, 2005)

SuomiPoika said:


> You can joke about it all you want but if this turns out to be incorrect you will look just as silly as those who during the Middle Ages made fun of people who thought the world is round.


less oprah and more science please!

:crazy:

there is no dispute whatsoever that we are in the middle of a heating change. i.e., there is no dispute as to whether the earth has been warming. it has been.

the question that some people like to debate is whether it is man-made or part of a natural cycle. I am inclined to think that it is at least in part man-made, and even if it is not, attempts to curb CO2 pollution will also have the benefit of reducing other types of pollution (for example, less cars = less smog). so CO2 should STILL be reduced.

:bash:


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## Roberto-i (Jan 13, 2007)

eusebius said:


> Just close off the bay with a huge Golden Gate dam. Problem solved.


And the part of the city west of the gate?:bash:


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## Golden Age (Dec 26, 2006)

Yardmaster said:


> Every-one knows that Global Warming is simply a Communist Plot to deter economic expansion, driven mainly by terrorists funded by North Korea, Iran and Cuba.


The Kyoto Protocol as Communist Manifest? Hearty har-har.

Frisco will figure something out. It overcame earthquakes and wildfires, it will also find a way to protect itself against rising water levels.


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## edsg25 (Jul 30, 2004)

Golden Age said:


> The Kyoto Protocol as Communist Manifest? Hearty har-har.
> 
> Frisco will figure something out. It overcame earthquakes and wildfires, it will also find a way to protect itself against rising water levels.


 Yes, but can it overcome a Communist Plot to deter economic expansion, driven mainly by terrorists funded by North Korea, Iran and Cuba????? :bash:  :bash:


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## Mr Bricks (May 6, 2005)

DonQui said:


> less oprah and more science please!
> the question that some people like to debate is whether it is man-made or part of a natural cycle. I am inclined to think that it is at least in part man-made, and even if it is not, attempts to curb CO2 pollution will also have the benefit of reducing other types of pollution (for example, less cars = less smog). so CO2 should STILL be reduced.
> 
> :bash:


What I meant was that there is no proof that humans are behind the climate change.


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## skyscraper_1 (May 30, 2004)

^ and the massive rise in greenhouse gases is just imaginary?


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## Pallomeri (Dec 7, 2006)

SuomiPoika said:


> What I meant was that there is no proof that humans are behind the climate change.


^^
Let that be an example that finnish education system isn't flawless.


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## gladisimo (Dec 11, 2006)

Lesson learned, fill the golden gate up, turn the bay into a lake. (jk jk)


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## Mr Bricks (May 6, 2005)

Pallomeri said:


> ^^
> Let that be an example that finnish education system isn't flawless.


:hahano: 

The climate changes constantly. For example during the high Middle Ages the temperature was 1-2 degrees warmer than now.


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## zwischbl (Mar 12, 2005)

yes, but there haven´t ever been as much greenhouse gases in our atmosphere than there are now! you are right with the periods of warmth during the high middle ages but there are also proofs that always if it gets warmer the concentration of greenhouse gases is higher. now the concentration is 10X times above what it was in the period of time you considered as an example.


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## zwischbl (Mar 12, 2005)

Btw: you dont believe how much the farts of the cows we are going to eat add to the climate change  ...it´s true! if you dont believe me search the net. it´s what i´ve learnt in physik lessons.


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## skyscraper_1 (May 30, 2004)

SuomiPoika said:


> :hahano:
> 
> The climate changes constantly. For example during the high Middle Ages the temperature was 1-2 degrees warmer than now.


Everyone knows that climates change. The difference is human civilization is the cause of this change. I still have yet to see evidence that the global climate was any warmer during the high middle ages. We do see that parts of the northern hemisphere were roughly as warm as today(mainly Eurasia) but globally it is not as prononced.


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## Mr Bricks (May 6, 2005)

skyscraper_1 said:


> The difference is human civilization is the cause of this change.


This has not been proven.


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## polako (Apr 7, 2005)

I like Dennis Miller's views on global warming. Watch "The Raw Feed", it's hilarious how he makes fun of liberals.


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## Xusein (Sep 27, 2005)

Yes, it's all about them liberals.


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## skyscraper_1 (May 30, 2004)

Those crazy liberals are at it again.


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## Golden Age (Dec 26, 2006)

polako said:


> I like Dennis Miller's views on global warming. Watch "The Raw Feed", it's hilarious how he makes fun of liberals.


Yes, Miller's rants have their lure but in the meantime GM, Chrysler and Ford are going down the drain building gas guzzlers whilst the Japanese are raking in the big bucks building environmentally-sound cars. It may be "chique" to laugh about global warming, but it's the "green" Japanese car companies who are laughing all the way to the bank. 

Apart from global warming, if you believe in it or not, the city of New Orleans was without a doubt inadequately protected against flooding. Can such flooding happen in San Fran? One shouldn't wait to find out.


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## Xusein (Sep 27, 2005)

Off Topic: Dennis Miller should stick to comedy, politics is NOT funny or amusing.

Back on topic: Flooding would really mess up the pass between SF and the Central Valley, which too is flat and vunerable.


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## mhays (Sep 12, 2002)

Not proven? 

Scientists don't consider ANYTHING proven. Not even gravity. 

It's getting pretty close to unanimous that man is certainly or probably contributing to global warming. I'm guessing that most of the scientists that don't agree are either paid by oil companies, or just people who never commit until the truth bonks them on the head. 

If terrorists plotted to raise sea levels, bush would probably invade...someone. But we're doing this to ourselves, so he does nothing.


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## mhays (Sep 12, 2002)

rotten777 said:


> Off Topic: Dennis Miller should stick to comedy, politics is NOT funny or amusing.
> 
> Back on topic: Flooding would really mess up the pass between SF and the Central Valley, which too is flat and vunerable.


Dennis Miller is an idiot. He was marginally funny once, but I can't watch him talk for more than 30 seconds now without getting annoyed and changing channels.


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

*A look at what future rising seas could mean for some of America's favorite places *
22 September 2007
AP

How would some of the United States' best known cities look if seas rise by slightly more than three feet? It's a disturbing picture. 

The projections are based on coastal maps created by scientists at the University of Arizona, who relied on data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Many scientists say sea rise of one meter is likely to happen within 100 years. Here is a look at what that might do: 

BOSTON 

Fourth of July celebrations won't be the same. The Esplanade, where fireworks watchers gather, would be submerged by a rising Charles River, along with the Hatch Shell where the Boston Pops stages its annual concert. Some runways at Logan International Airport will be partially covered, and the neighborhoods tourists know best would be smaller. 

Planned waterfront development in South Boston would be old by 2100, but a lot of the land there would be underwater, along with parts of existing landmarks, such as the Boston Fish Pier. The restaurants and pastry shops in the Italian North End would be spared, but parks and condos on the waterfront would be in trouble. 

"The areas that would be affected are not only industrial sites and attractions, but places people live," said Patrick Moscaritolo of the Greater Boston's Convention & Visitors Bureau. "It has ramifications that are pretty drastic and pretty frightful." 

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NEW YORK 

At the southern tip of Manhattan, sea water would inundate Battery Park City, now home to 9,000 people. Waves would lap near the base of the new Freedom Tower. Beachfront homes from the blue collar Rockaways to the mansions of the Hamptons, could be swamped by advancing surf. Much of Hoboken, N.J. -- Frank Sinatra's hometown -- would become an island. 

New Yorkers seeking a change of scene would find it tougher to get out of town, since both runways at LaGuardia Airport would be partly underwater. But all that would pale compared to what would happen during a bad storm. If giant storm walls were built across key waterways, that might protect parts of the city, "but that doesn't help anyone outside the gates," said Malcolm Bowman, who leads a storm surge research group at Stony Brook University. 

"This is no joke," he added. With a three-foot headstart, even a medium-sized storm surge could wipe out tens of thousands of homes in low-lying parts of Brooklyn and Long Island. 

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MIAMI 

You can kiss goodbye the things that make South Florida read like an Elmore Leonard novel: the glitz of South Beach, the gator-infested Everglades, and some of the bustling terminals of Miami International Airport. 

Many of the beachside places where tourists flock and the rich and famous luxuriate would be under water. Spits of land would be left in fashionable South Beach and celebrity-studded Fisher Island. 

While the booming downtown would be mostly spared, inland areas near the airport and out to the low-lying Everglades would be submerged. Miami would resemble a cookie nibbled on from the south and east. 

Stephen Sawitz, whose family has run Joe's Stone Crab in Miami Beach for four generations -- surviving hurricanes and floods -- looks at the maps and sees little hope for his restaurant or his home several decades from now: "I'm going to be thinking about it now for the rest of my life. And the generations after me, I'm going to be telling them about it." 

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NEW ORLEANS 

If the levees break again and the nation gives up the fight to save the lowest parts of New Orleans, the Big Easy would be reduced to a sliver of land along the Mississippi River, leaving the French Quarter and the oldest neighborhoods as the only places on dry ground. 

Gone would be the Dixie brewery, museums, countless neighborhood restaurants and bars, Louis Armstrong landmarks and Congo Square, the spot where jazz got its birth. Water would even cover the first few blocks of Bourbon Street. A trip to the tomb of voodoo priestess Marie Laveau would require a boat, or at least rubber hip boots. Maybe the Fair Grounds Race Course, the nation's third-oldest track, could obtain a second lease on life as an open-air aquarium. 

"It would be to a large extent the city of the mid-19th Century," said Robert Tannen, an urban planner. "The original marsh and cypress groves of the city would perhaps prevail again." 

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GALVESTON, Texas 

Galveston Island has been the home base for pirate Jean Lafitte and mobsters in its colorful past. Now it offers nothing more terrifying than beachgoers looking to escape Houston's brutal summers. It survived the 1900 hurricane, which killed 6,000 people and stands as the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. But a sea level rise of three feet could bring a new form of fear to this sturdy little beach city of 57,000. 

Water would cut Galveston off from the Texas mainland by submerging Interstate 45, the only direct route, and it would cover large portions of the bay side. In addition to flooding tourist shops and restaurants, water also would make a mess of the University of Texas Medical Branch, future home of a U.S. lab for some of the world's most dangerous germs. At the historic Hotel Galvez, built in 1911 as proof of the city's resilience, staffer Renee Adami said the city has an inherent strength that would help it survive. 

"We feel like there is no obstacle that can't be overcome," she said. 

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SAN FRANCISCO BAY 

Rising waters would submerge some of the best of San Francisco Bay: Fisherman's Wharf, baseball, software companies, even parts of the wine country. 

The southern bay, Silicon Valley and the fertile San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta would be hardest-hit. Also under water would be San Francisco's famed Embarcadero waterfront, runways at both the San Francisco and Oakland airports, and even the Oakland A's planned new stadium in Fremont. 

The Redwood Shores campus of business software maker Oracle Inc., which now has an ornamental pond, would be sitting in one 

Standing in Baylands, one of the last remaining wetlands in the area, Stanford University climatologist Stephen Schneider said, "this is a critical ecosystem and it'll be gone." His wife, biologist Terry Root, noted that the endangered bird, the California clapper rail, hiding in the wetlands is "going to be extinct ... because of sea level rise." 

------ 

This report was written by Associated Press writers Jay Lindsay in Boston, David Caruso in New York, Seth Borenstein in Miami, Cain Burdeau in New Orleans, Monica Rhor in Houston and Terry Chea in San Francisco.


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## stjern (Jul 30, 2004)

Thats just some author taking wild guesses! :nuts: 
He assumes that sea levels will rise several meters, why not take a good look at the facts first??


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## goschio (Dec 2, 2002)

edit


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## goschio (Dec 2, 2002)

Well, sea level will rise as it gets warmer. Thats for sure. Its already rising.


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## stjern (Jul 30, 2004)

Yes, have risen about 9 cm the last 107 years


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## johanvl (Jun 16, 2007)

I love this thread  it's quite funny reading all this... But just to make sure, I'll tell you guys my view on this. Then you might reconsider all of what you've written before.  or not.

The climate DOES change naturally. So was the temperature in certain areas during the middle ages higher than it is now (as already said before). BUT human civilisation does play a role in this story. Because of our factories, because of our vehicles etc. we speed up the natural process, which changes our climate. Right now, we're warming up, but when our planet will be hot ^^ the climate will advance into an iceage (in certain areas) because of a change of the hot-waterstreams in the atlantic,... ocean. So in fact we're not warming up the planet at this moment, that's natural. We're only taking care of making it happen more rapidly.

And to make you feel more confortable, TIDE RISES AND TIDE FALLS so don't worry about the rising sea level. One day it 'll have to go down, at least as it keeps rising. But 9 cm over a 107 years... ridiculous! That means like max. a meter over another 100 years if we keep acting the same like we're doing now. My town will still be above sealevel... even Holland will not drown, because of it levees. So don't worry. :d


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

*Global warming's rising seas projected to overtake unique U.S. coastal spots in 100 years *
22 September 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) - Ultimately, rising seas will likely swamp the first American settlement in Jamestown, Virginia, as well as the Florida launch pad that sent the first American into orbit, many climate scientists are predicting. 

In about a century, some of the places that make America what it is may be slowly erased. 

Global warming -- through a combination of melting glaciers, disappearing ice sheets and warmer waters expanding -- is expected to cause oceans to rise by one meter, or about 39 inches. It will happen regardless of any future actions to curb greenhouse gases, several leading scientists say. And it will reshape the nation. 

Rising waters will lap at the foundations of old money Wall Street and the new money towers of Silicon Valley. They will swamp the locations of big city airports and major interstate highways. 

Storm surges worsened by sea level rise will flood the waterfront getaways of rich politicians -- the Bushes' Kennebunkport and John Edwards' place on the Outer Banks. And gone will be many of the beaches in Texas and Florida favored by budget-conscious students on Spring Break. 

That's the troubling outlook projected by coastal maps reviewed by The Associated Press. The maps, created by scientists at the University of Arizona, are based on data from the U.S. Geological Survey. 

Few of the more than two dozen climate experts interviewed disagree with the one-meter projection. Some believe it could happen in 50 years, others say 100, and still others say 150. 

Sea level rise is "the thing that I'm most concerned about as a scientist," says Benjamin Santer, a climate physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. 

"We're going to get a meter and there's nothing we can do about it," said University of Victoria climatologist Andrew Weaver, a lead author of the February report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in Paris. "It's going to happen no matter what -- the question is when." 

Sea level rise "has consequences about where people live and what they care about," said Donald Boesch, a University of Maryland scientist who has studied the issue. "We're going to be into this big national debate about what we protect and at what cost." 

This week, beginning with a meeting at the United Nations on Monday, world leaders will convene to talk about fighting global warming. At week's end, leaders will gather in Washington with President George W. Bush. 

Experts say that protecting America's coastlines would run well into the billions and not all spots could be saved. 

And it's not just a rising ocean that is the problem. With it comes an even greater danger of storm surge, from hurricanes, winter storms and regular coastal storms, Boesch said. Sea level rise means higher and more frequent flooding from these extreme events, he said. 

All told, one meter of sea level rise in just the 48 contiguous U.S. states would put about 25,000 square miles (65,000 square kilometers) under water, according to Jonathan Overpeck, director of the Institute for the Study of Planet Earth at the University of Arizona. That's an area the size of West Virginia. 

The amount of lost land is even greater when the noncontiguous states of Hawaii and Alaska are included, Overpeck said. 

The Environmental Protection Agency's calculation projects a land loss of about 22,000 square miles (57,000 square kilometers). The EPA, which studied only the Eastern and Gulf coasts, found that Louisiana, Florida, North Carolina, Texas and South Carolina would lose the most land. But even inland areas like Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., also have slivers of at-risk land, according to the EPA. 

This past summer's flooding of subways in New York could become far more regular, even an everyday occurrence, with the projected sea rise, other scientists said. And New Orleans' Hurricane Katrina experience and the daily loss of Louisiana wetlands -- which serve as a barrier that weakens hurricanes -- are previews of what's to come there. 

Florida faces a serious public health risk from rising salt water tainting drinking water wells, said Joel Scheraga, the EPA's director of global change research. And the farm-rich San Joaquin Delta in California faces serious salt water flooding problems, other experts said. 

"Sea level rise is going to have more general impact to the population and the infrastructure than almost anything else that I can think of," said S. Jeffress Williams, a U.S. Geological Survey coastal geologist in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. 

Even John Christy at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, a scientist often quoted by global warming skeptics, said he figures the seas will rise at least 16 inches (40 centimeters) by the end of the century. But he tells people to prepare for a rise of about 3 feet (a meter) just in case. 

Williams says it's "not unreasonable at all" to expect that much in 100 years. "We've had a third of a meter in the last century." 

The change will be a gradual process, one that is so slow it will be easy to ignore for a while. 

"It's like sticking your finger in a pot of water on a burner and you turn the heat on, Williams said. "You kind of get used to it." 

------ 

On the Net: 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on sea level: 

http://tinyurl.com/2df72n 

The U.S. Geological Survey on sea level rise and global warming: 

http://woodshole.er.usgs.gov/project-pages/cvi/ 

University of Arizona's interactive maps on sea level rise: 

http://tinyurl.com/ca73h 

Architecture 2030 study on one-meter sea level rise and cities: 

http://www.architecture2030.org/


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## jboy560 (Nov 6, 2005)

In my opinion, human activity has barely anything to do with global warming. the Mount Pinatubo eruption released more greenhouse gasses than all human activity in history combined. I still think that humans should go more ecofriendly because it's just a better idea, but i don't think it will really make a difference.


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

A one-off explosion is far different than consistent release of emissions due to human activity.


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## krudmonk (Jun 14, 2007)

It sounds like San Francisco will suffer the least of this wrath. Alviso and the Delta are in big trouble.


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## jchernin (Jul 21, 2005)

u guys are all forgetting something huge that invalidates ur logic that humans have nothing to do with global warming.

u forgot that change is not constant: ever heard of tipping points?

when the earth goes to shit (and it will, there IS such a thing as consequences), things will happen rapidly and each effect will play against a new one, thus creating a "domino" effect. scientist have begun to realize that change is happening, and faster and faster - they already admit theres nothing they can do to reverse it.

ie. the warming of the oceans will effect the jet stream which will effect temperature's of europe and more hurricanes in the south atlantic.... blah blah

denial is often the first reaction when humans are faced with change... so sad


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