Editor:
Re: Political leaders are told not to ignore rising sea levels, May 11
It is interesting to read that Delta council is listening to professional opinions on the potential threat to flooding through climate change (read global warming).
This would not be just Delta's problem but rather the whole Fraser River system, Richmond and all lands facing the sea and along the riverbanks, and indeed B.C.'s entire coast.
In February 2007, after attending one of the early seminars on global warming at the University of Southern California, I mailed a CD copy of the lecture to the mayors of Delta, Richmond and Vancouver.
The lecture showed graphs of the earth's climate history taken from ice cores, and it was clearly evident the earth's climate has entered a unique era of warming due to a spiraling increase in the carbon dioxide (CO2) content of the atmosphere.
The CO2 prevents the earth's natural heat radiation process, thus locking it into the environmental system. The ice caps of Greenland and the North Pole and South Pole are miles deep in solid ice, which will gradually melt and, according to the seminar data, could raise sea levels up to four metres over the long term.
This large change in sea level is not generally accepted within the scientific communities, and certainly not by any governments.
However, the climate is warming and the sea will rise as the ice caps melt. If political leaders continue to ignore this potential threat to all lowlands, the results will be more catastrophic than just floods.
Remember New Orleans and Japan? Only this time the water will not recede.
Al Warner
