Thanks for the early morning chuckle, Zap!

It would be funny if we weren’t actually facing just that scenario, if not worse, I can’t get my head around the idea that development companies have buried their heads in the sand (water?) over this issue and wonder if they have thought about the future costs of insurance? Have the insurance companies started to think about it too? Bet they have!

Shouldn’t there be a big wooden boat in this picture stuffed with animals?

Very funny, but it let itself down by being so glaringly inaccurate. It would have been much better with a plausible date for that projection of sea level rise. Even with bad luck, bad management, and the worst case scenario for sea level rise, it will be close to the end of the current century before it will be anywhere near there.
We have not seen much sea level rise so far, but it could rise at an exponential rate when it really gets going, and no one is able to say when that might be. In recent years the actual rate of rise has been measured at 0.8 of a millimeter per year. If this rate remains constant until 2015, the total rise in that time from now will be 5.6 millimeters, or about half the thickness of your little finger.
Don’t read this as an argument for doing nothing - we clearly need to act, and the actions we should take are going to have to be effective.
This does illustrate that future scenarios need to be taken into account when making long-term planning and investment decisions, but i’d be happier if you got the details right….

Maybe when the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica breaks off, due to global warming, the Tassie Gov could use their preferred ‘sure bet’ companies to float in salvaged icebergs to the cove, then try and convince the public they need this iceberg sale yard for economic salvation.

They could advertise the worlds cleanest, greenest, most sustainable, sure bet to water salvation, icebergs! (A trade agreement to take pieces of Greenland would assure greedy investors their stake wouldn’t suffer a melt down for at least a few decades.)

Just imagine the sales - what a couple of globally warmed icebergs could do for the Murray Darling system or for Melbourne or for the midlands. (Though a warrantee, the guarantee of full delivery and the warning – ‘this product may cause flooding’ clauses, would of course be blanked out, due to commercial in confidence).

For added employment benefits (and to keep Federal and Gunns on side) the government could ram through legislation so the greed machine could build an integrated pulp mill with its own hotel/casino attached on one of the larger icebergs. It could then revolve around the world consuming natural resources and their employees pay packets, and belching out for free, climate changing smog, wily nily. (The public would be told this is required for economic prosperity - without which, surely the world will crash!) The ultimate in sales pitch would be – but its biodegradable! Little happy feet penguins would also be thrown in, for free, of course.

What grand visions the world’s worst, woops, sorry, they use the word ‘best’ resource managers (who should best remember there is only one earth to practice on), and backward blinkered governments (whose ‘economic’ rational has not created the promised secure future, but a race, of who can secure the most people controlling resources, the earth has left), have put in motion for the children of the future. Oh well at least they can be assured the flood gate on pokey deals will remain open and continue to roll in … and … on and on ...

No wonder some are in a hurry to push the concept of virtual reality.