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New York Times Finally Concedes Climate Change Not Threatening Island Nations

by Linnea Lueken

6 hours ago

The New York Times (NYT) recently posted an article entitled "A Surprising 
Climate Find," which explains how island nations like the Maldives and Tuvalu 
are not, in fact, in danger of sinking under the seas due to climate change.

This is true; a fact Climate Realism has repeatedly discussed.

Atolls in particular are known to grow with rising water levels; this has been 
known for years if not decades.

The NYT climate reporter, Raymond Zhong, explains that as "the planet warms and 
the oceans rise, atoll nations like the Maldives, the Marshall Islands, and 
Tuvalu have seemed doomed to vanish, like the mythical Atlantis, into watery 
oblivion."

This is an exceptionally common claim from the climate alarmist media, and some 
of the nations themselves that are benefitting from massive aid packages and 
"reparations" from wealthier countries; money not used to help their people 
relocate from the "sinking" islands but rather to build infrastructure and 
boost tourism.

In fact, the NYT promoted this falsehood as late as April 2024, with a story, 
titled, "Why Time Is Running Out Across the Maldives' Lovely Little Islands."

In his most recent piece, Zhong writes:

"Of late, though, scientists have begun telling a surprising new story about 
these islands. By comparing mid-20th-century aerial photos with recent 
satellite images, they've been able to see how the islands have evolved over 
time. What they found is startling: Even though sea levels have risen, many 
islands haven't shrunk. Most, in fact, have been stable. Some have even grown."

Indeed, the islands are not sinking, but Zhong is wrong when he says this fact 
has only been discovered "of late."

His article references a study published in 2018, which found that 89 percent 
of islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans increased in area or were stable, 
and only 11 percent showed any sign of contracting.

So just three months after the NYT published an article claiming the Maldives 
were disappearing beneath the waves, the paper is now reversing itself based on 
research that existed six years before the April article was published.

Since Climate Realism has covered the claim many times, including those about 
Tuvaluan "refugees," looking at tropical storms, and examining other island 
refugee claims, one wonders whether the NYT's fact-checkers were asleep on the 
job when the paper published its false story in April.

The facts about atolls' growth and demise are not newly discovered. Scientists 
have known for decades, if not more than a hundred years, that atoll islands 
uniquely change with changing sea levels.

Charles Darwin was the first to propose that reefs were many thousands of feet 
thick, and grow upwards towards the light. He was partially correct, though 
reality is more complicated than his theory.

In 2010, as discussed in the Climate Realism post "No, Rising Seas Are Not 
Swallowing Island Nations," studies found that Tuvalu and Kiribati were 
growing, as well as Micronesia, and some had grown dramatically.

Likewise in 2015, the same group of researchers reported that 40 percent of 
islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans were stable, and another 40 percent 
had grown.

Zhong correctly says that ocean currents and waves can cause erosion, but also 
"bring fresh sand ashore from the surrounding coral reefs, where the remains of 
corals, algae, crustaceans, and other organisms are constantly being crushed 
into new sediment." 

Climate at a Glance: Islands and Sea Level Rise also confirms the fact that in 
Tuvalu in particular-often a poster child for islands supposedly threatened by 
sea level rise-"eight of Tuvalu's nine large coral atolls have grown in size 
during recent decades, and 75 percent of Tuvalu's 101 smaller reef islands have 
increased as well."

The only "surprising" discovery in this story is that the climate desk for the 
New York Times was allegedly not aware of these facts before now. This 
information is not new.

It could be, of course, that the NYTimes neglected to report the truth about 
island nations' status previously simply because it did not conform to the 
alarming climate narrative they have been trying to push, but as the data has 
gotten too strong to ignore, they were forced to admit the truth about growing 
islands in the face of rising seas.

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