The city of Jakarta is sinking quite rapidly because of land subsidence (they are removing tons of groundwater). It is reported that the Northern part of the city has sunk … eight feet … in just the past decade.
Why?
Largely because city residents freely pump groundwater, causing the land that sits above it to subside.
Why?
No one owns the groundwater, and the city officials seemed to have done a poor job providing water to residents from other sources, despite hte abundance of water in the area.
So, the city is considering all kinds of emergency options to deal with this – including the possibility of relocating the capital to another city.
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But this is the year 2019, so when I opened my news up this morning, I didn’t just get to read the article describing the problem in Indonesia (link here), I got this:
Folks, this has almost zero to do with climate change, and here we have reporters tweeting out to thousands of likes, “Good morning, welcome to climate change.” Now I think one can put a charitable interpretation on the tweet – which would be something like, “The problem in Jakarta has nothing to do with climate change, but the fact that the city is rapidly going underwater illustrates the problems faced by cities who are threatened by rising sea levels,” or something to that effect. I think that is still possible to deliver that message in 280 characters.
Much more to say. But suppose this IS what we see when climate change gets bad (remember the city is sinking in parts by up to 8 feet, climate change scenarios are expected to raise sea levels here by 9 inches to 12 inches over a century), note that the city is already beginning to adapt, and relocate … what is the implication of this response for the long term impacts of climate change?
