The clean green future doesn’t have much room for wilderness
By Jo Nova
John Constable puts some numbers on The terrifying scale of the green revolution in The Spectator this week.
Ponder just the scale of the Sophia Offshore industrial wind plant being built off the UK. The wind is free, but to collect enough of it to power 2% of the country, the UK will have to build 100 wind turbines, some 200 kilometers out in the North Sea. Each blade is 108m long and weighs 65 tons, or about as much as a semi-trailer. When the wind blows hard enough, about 200 tons of matter will rotate above the ocean. The box holding all the spinning parts together weighs another 500 tons and needs to be suspended 140 meters up in the air over the waves and during storms.
Each of the 100 turbines will reach 250 meters high, which is “only 60m short of Britain’s tallest building”. So much effort and so little to show for it.
To make sure the whole thing doesn’t fall in the drink with the first stiff breeze, the turbines need to be weighed down with more than a thousand tons of concrete embedded in the sea floor.
The blades will be “recyclable” they say, but who will clean all that concrete out of the wilderness 30 years from now I wonder? Let’s ask Greenpeace!
All up, each windmill weighs around 3,000 tons, and the entire farm-that-grows-nothing will consume 300,000 tons of industrial material and cover 600 square kilometers.
All this to make just a random 2% of the UK’s electricity, not necessarily when it’s needed, either, so even if the UK built 50 plants just like it, they’d still need to build an entire functioning generation network as back up.
The Sophia plant will cost about £3 billion, and won’t last very long (compared to a normal power plant). But it will kill some whales and eagles, confuse Air Force and shipping radars and hypnotize some crabs. It may deafen a few porpoises too, not that they will complain. (Where are the Greens?)
Two whole converter stations will also be built — one at sea and one onshore — to collect and convert the green electrons so they can be squeezed through the 200 kilometer long subsea cable. These decks (in yellow below) were made in Indonesia, where they still have affordable electricity.
The Sleipnir semi-submersible crane vessel and installed jacket for the offshore converter platform ahead of the top side being installed. Sofia offshore wind farm, North Sea, August 12th 2024
If President Xi wanted to knock out the entire power station, by the way, he wouldn’t need to fire any missiles or send in a SWAT team. A Chinese cargo ship could just accidentally drag its anchor across the 200 kilometer cable somewhere. It’s been known to happen.
Vessel Aeolus arriving at Port of Tyne (May 2024)
As John Constable says, the 30 year old Sizewell B nuclear plant uses half a square kilometer and still makes 10TWh of reliable electricity. The Sophia wind plant uses 600 square kilometers to make 6 TWh of random power.
The wind plant effectively afflicts 3,000 times as much of the surface of Earth as a nuclear plant does for the amount of energy made, yet the Greens cheer it on. What have they become…
Read it all at The Spectator.
hat tip Tonyb
Photos from the Sophia gallery.
And how much oil will need to be shipped out to it annually to keep the bearings happy
? – oh I forgot, oil will have been Stopped.
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Soylent oil will be harvested from the MAID centers in Canada and around the Commonwealth to replace fossil fuels.
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And will the new Soylent oil work as: –
– lubricant
– hydraulic fluid
– grease
– transformer oil
and perhaps also as glycol [for cooling] and as a diesel [fuel] substitute?
All these are needed to prolong the life of the mighty bat-buster into its second month.
Auto
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Only insane Humans would even consider building these unreliable, loony toxic disasters and the UK emits less than 1% of global co2 emissions, so they’ll waste trillions of $ for nothing over the next few decades.
Of course ditto for Ausrralia if we vote for Labor, the Teals or the Greens for another lousy term.
And then the above lunacy would have to be repeated every 15 to 20 years and all for zero measurable change to temp, weather or climate.
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That’s the truth!
Only insanity could bring this on.
How can we stop it before it stops us?
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That’s the million dollar question. Sorry, now it’s the trillion dollar question. ToM
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Circular thinking.
Think out of the box – laterally:
https://www.totaltools.com.au/power-tools/grinders/angle-grinders/cordless-angle-grinders
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Did not see one for my specific project-
powerful waterproof spot lamps and operating in a saline environment.
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The madness is not designed to help the environment, it is designed to destroy Western economies and it is working to perfection. When a man is digging his own grave why stop him? The biggest problem we have is that most people trust their government to do the right thing and some even try but politicians are usually ignorant when it comes to technical or scientific subjects and are swayed by interest groups and bureaucrats imbued with Marxism at university. The average political staffer is a twenty something air head with a degree in wokeness. Higgins and Lehrmann would be good examples.
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You could add another dozen or more names there, some of high position.
It has worried me for some time that so many lettered people can be so ignorant of fundamental principles.
How much has that concoction of cases cost to date? Who will pay? And who won’t? And who will benefit?
Nobody!
And this is our “Justice System” at work!
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Another thing that worries me about our commentariat is that they clearly do not understand that one rogue state can bust the national economy.
What is Dan Andrews up to now?
What secretive deals did he make on his trip tp China?
What effect can those deals have on other states?
It;s hard to not suspect the unthinkable.
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Happened with the ANZCAN (Australia-NZ-Canada) communications cable soon after it was laid back in the 80s. Just off Sydney a fishing boat trawling caught more than they bargained for and up it came. The potential for this was recognised early on in the negotiations and lengthy discussions were held about trawling (commercial level fishing) and trolling (more recreational level) dangers and consequences/preventions/management.
Anything approaching/crossing the coastline at or below sea level is not just exposed to nefarious actions but plain dumb ones too. And that’s before we get to cultural aspects.
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300,000 tonne of material will require somewhere in the vicinity of 30,000,000 tonne of mined ore. If mined in an open cut, add an additional 2-300,000,000 tonnes of waste mined. Then there are the minerals required for processing, such as thermal coal (for the electricity), coking coal for steel, and all the other reagents necessary.
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A very quick way to end this toxic insanity would to make it compulsory that kids be told the truth about wasting trillions of $ of our money and then draw the obvious conclusion that we should only build reliable 24/7 base-load energy for the rest of the century.
Once we have enough energy we would be able to use the savings on a much stronger military, better health care and research, better education etc and ensure a much higher standard of living for the remainder of the 21st century.
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The kids will work it out for themselves. But that may be too late.
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They should also be informed that they will be paying for it too.
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Even stupid donkeys tell the truth sometimes and Dr Finkel had to admit to the Senate that we couldn’t make a difference even if we stopped all Aussie co2 emissions today.
And even the Royal Society hold fast to their beliefs that we could stop all Human co2 emissions today and we wouldn’t see a reduction in co2 levels for thousands of years.
Then our other clueless parrots like the “Conversation” repeat the R S religious message and expect us to do the same.
This is the clearest sign that we’ve definitely lost the ability to think.
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Who is this “we” white man?
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These ridiculous towers of vanity will require almost storm conditions to break the inertia and generate a modicum of energy. This power pittance will then be cabled 200 klm. to land for use in the power grid. By the time they factor in the Loss of power through leakage via long cables due to the inherent vices, capacitance and inductance, it will be worthless! No doubt taxpayers will have to fund these monsters during both dormant windless and extreme conditions when generation is impractical. Not to mention that they also require supplementary energy to keep the machinery moving 24/7 to avoid seizing up.
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If cables are HVDC, then line loss is low, typically 3%/1000kms, as C and L are not involved. End conversion losses are also surprisingly low, around 0.7% each end. But if the offshore towers are not fixed but are floating, then the mechanical strains on the cables exiting the towers are significant.
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Again Lomborg uses the IEA to show that EVs would only reduce the world’s temperature by 0.0001 C by the end of the century.
That is an unmeasurable one 10 thousandth of a degree C in 76 years.
And that’s using the IPCC’s standard model and that dangerous fantasy would also cost us trillions of $ for SFA change by 2100.
Again when will we wake up and choose the intelligent path?
“The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that if every nation achieves its ambitious targets on increasing electric car ownership, it will reduce CO2 emissions in this decade by 235 million tons”.
“That, according to the UN Climate Panel’s standard model, will reduce global temperatures by about one ten-thousandth of a degree Celsius (0.0001c) by the end of the century”.
“Such modest climate benefits don’t make up for the additional downsides of electric vehicles, which include the harsh environmental and social costs that come with mining rare metals needed for batteries”.
“So what should politicians be doing? For a start, they could stop showering subsidies on electric cars and focus on smarter solutions”.
“The IEA found that hybrid cars save about the same amount of CO2 as electric cars over their lifetime”.
“Moreover, they are already competitive with petrol cars price-wise — even without subsidies — and, crucially, they don’t have most of the electric car downsides outlined above”.
https://climatechangedispatch.com/lomborg-are-electric-cars-the-new-diesel-scandal-waiting-to-happen/
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Wind plantations are a 100% waste of resources.
In fact, they are worse than that. They destroy economies which is their true purpose.
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Think positively!
Think of how many nuke power plants can be fitted in the area currently undergoing clearing for wind and solar brain farts in Qld
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In this recent article Lomborg shows that when you include back up support for toxic W & S the final price explodes.
So the USA current back up battery storage equals about 7 minutes, but would require storage of up to 3 months. Think.
Surely this doesn’t require a very high IQ to understand? Here’s his quote and the link.
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/bjorn-lomborg-why-solar-wind-100053561.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAIN0OYH6wLTWEGl9KcDqVkuDJaF7ykXAdIIo5zqeb6WAFAnT5U8SPZ_WggdeJf_OGnB0vQpbPCYBaADjD7NSI8Dk3D4wXqBFP3OfsxL0HfaSQKaA-pTkb8DKxXIqvLYkHFGws8wqHTycB3OelUYFopH66j-4KbVvLXGKiu8oOenL
“But if you account for reliability, their real costs explode: in 2022, one peer-reviewed study showed an increase of 11-42 times, making solar by far the most expensive electricity source, followed by wind”.
“The enormous additional cost is for storage. We need electricity whether or not the sun is shining or the wind blowing. But our battery capacity is woefully inadequate. Research shows that every winter, when solar is contributing very little, Germany has a “wind drought” of five days on average when wind turbines also deliver almost nothing. That suggests batteries will be needed for a minimum of 120 hours — although the actual need will be much longer, since droughts sometimes last much longer and recur before storage can be filled. A new study shows that to achieve 100 per cent solar or wind electricity with sufficient backup, the U.S. would need to be able to store almost three months’ worth of electricity every year. It currently has seven minutes of battery storage”.
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Sometimes there are several periods of severe wind drought in quick succession. June 2020 was the worst case in recent times, with eight severe droughts when the windmills delivered less than 10% of their capacity. The longest periods were 35 hours, 18 hours, 16 hours and 15 hours.
Through summer and early autumn 2021, Europe experienced a long period of dry conditions and low wind speeds.
December 2022 had at least 5 days with very low wind (and in western Europe).
And there was the period in 2015 when there was only 2-3 days with moderate wind in 7 weeks.
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A comment by “Mike0” in The Australian 21 February 2023 reported a 42-hour period where the grid wind dropped below 8%, that occurred in the last 12 months dating from Feb23. Also “Rowjay” commented here on 9 August 2022 that the wind dropped to less than 1GW for 48 hours, starting midday 7 August.
Tony has reported 265 occasions in 800 days, averaging a bit less than once every three days, when there was a significant loss of wind power.
I noted recently that the WA SWIS grid was regularly losing its wind power to less than 5% for periods of around seven hours, starting in the middle of the evening peak period and extending right through the evenings until dawn. Also, as I often walk or cycle along Perth’s river foreshores, the glassy river waters have been very noticeable a lot of winter mornings.
I should add that I have noted articles in The Australian recently, including one this morning, that appear to claim that the wind droughts this year are somehow unique, I presume implying that they won’t occur in future years. This is quite wrong, as Tony has pointed out that the average wind efficiency has dropped less than 1% this year, compared to last years.
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Yes, everybody is concerned about the wind and solar costs, but if the reliability that we have come to expect from our electricity delivery is to be continued, then a very large amount of backup storage is required. And since Snowy 2, if it ever gets going, could only supply 10% at most backup to the National Grid, the remaining 90% of storage would have to come from expensive, short-life batteries. And the cost of these at current prices would exceed one trillion dollars. And need to be paid for again and again every ten years.
This is clearly unaffordable and will never happen.
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Let’s ask Greenpeace.
Why didn’t you?
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Have you asked Greenpeace ?
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Gee Aye could google to find Greenpeace’s press release on the damage caused by leaving a hundred thousand tons of concrete (do the maths) on the Dogger Bank marine wilderness.
If he did, he’d know Greenpeace are dropping concrete blocks themselves on the Dogger Bank.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55894608
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Let us not ask a maths challenged group of dreamers about grid scale power.
They are ill equipped to answer, understand, or provide, functional solutions to grid scale power.
Navel gazing children without EE Power generation/distribution/stability/control knowledge are insufferably ignorant of actual reality.
Gee Aye, you need to think clearly about the limits of your knowledge,experience, and ability.
Nothing you’ve ever said about grid power scale generation has relevant meaning. A lot of fantasy, but no practical or useful knowledge, import, effect, or utility. Ideology is no substitute for knowledge. Tell us all about your knowledge of AC power systems, grid operations, active/reactive/apparent power, and how wind/solar will power a grid at night or on windless days. Tell us all how a black grid restart will actually happen with wind and solar power. Still waiting.
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A thorough read of the above Spectator article should make it apparent to even non engineers that there’s another agenda embedded in this ridiculous Electricity Generation system.
Even on land those massive vibrating “generators” are the absolute antithesis of good engineering and paradoxically have been clearly designed to fail.
The Western nations who have fallen for this appalling con have failed to understand that we are being manipulated by “someone” and that the hidden enemy has won: World War Three is over.
Xi WEF won.
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Hope they don’t vibrate too much. On the Nullarbor we had a pair of 40 kW Dormans that took turns to hum along very nicely 24/7. Was really quiet when they were very rarely both switched off.
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Don’t count their chickens for them.
That’s what the H-man said to France in 1941.
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What’s going to be the epitaph on these hideous tombstones representing energy madness?
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Epitaph? How’s about:
So long suckers & thanks for all the fish!
The rubble could be used as a movie set for a futuristic dystopian warning to the children’s children’s children… if any are still left alive with a functioning brain. Then again, with sea levels rising, they’ll be 300 ft under: excellent, an offshore underwater dump/tip/pile of rubbish. Food for thought?
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Epitaph? Gone with the wind. ToM
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Top epitaph Tides. Their whole country was wiped out by pursuing a doctrine that was so insane it was their destruction.
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If the Nantucket debacle is any guide, our beaches will have lots of “tombstones” available for epitaphs.
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Write one word on each blade:
MONUMENT
TO
STUPIDITY
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the old adge of follow the money applies. Nuclear plants can’t kick back enough revenue to satisfy all of the grifters of public funds.
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How much more damage can the Green Swamp do to the environment? When is enough? Australia has gone in 40 years from 94% fossil fuel to 90% fossil fuel. At what cost?
And what cost to the environment from Ghastly Green fantasies? The climatebaggers are getting rich on playing the public for fools.
The Easter Island statues now make sense.
Solar is just silly. And wind is worthless.
Who is going to clean up this mess?
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“The easter island statues now make sense”
That is a good one, made me laugh. And it is true. There are remnants of stupidity surviving from history, and we are doing one of them right one.
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Percy Byshe Shelley comes to mind – the last part of his poem –
“And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level seas stretch far away.”
Just one word change to put it in context.
What about all that carbon fibre and resins turning up on beaches once a hurricane destroys them – the likes of the one that destroyed the Spanish Armada? Only then will people discover the folly like those of Nantucket
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Once again the clueless UN Sec Gen is doing his best to yap his delusional BS and nonsense about unprecedented rising SLs.
These loonies are the reason we’re wasting trillions of $ on the toxic W & S lunacy and all for zero change until the end of century.
But we will definitely destroy thousands of klms of our wild environments just to please these raving left wing loonies.
Here he is in Tonga two days ago.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/08/1153606
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BTW here’s the BOM data for Fort Denison Sydney mean SLs from 1914 to June 2024.
http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO70000/IDO70000_60370_SLD.shtml
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BTW just to answer the UN’s Gueterres donkey, here’s Andrew Bolt’s interview with Hydrographic Surveyor for NSW Daniel Fitzhenry and the trend of mean SLs since 1914. This interview was in 2019.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mjOmsqIibk&t=58s
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You’re only looking at the downside.
Just think of the enormous bonuses the bosses of the windmill construction companies will pay themselves! Doesn’t that make it all worthwhile?
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The other statistic that is forgotten is the blade tips can travel at 350 kph. Good luck happy little seagull. Isn’t that about the speed of a high speed train?
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This is a good example of the utter madness of the deceptive push for net zero. Nonsense talk about man-made global warming is nothing compared with this totally ‘in your face’ environmental vandalism.
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Again OWI Data shows that the OECD countries’ co2 emissions per year are lower in 2022 than was the case in 1990.
Of course the NON OECD co2 emissions are about 14 billion tons higher per year in 2022 than 1990.
But the loony UN Sec Gen etc couldn’t care less and they only want to punish the so called developed OECD countries and bring about their downfall ASAP.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-country?country=OECD+%28GCP%29~Non-OECD+%28GCP%29
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At some point the money supply will dry up for this boondoggle as budgets collide with reality. Its obvious that its a pointless waste of money , but nobody in charge wants to admit that they are a failure . Jo , looking at how censorship is now increasing , is taking an increasing risk . Big brother is watching you…
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The only fact anyone with average intelligence needs to know is that the back-up power to these wind turbines will be reliable bog standard generators using gas or, perhaps, even coal as fuel. Why use unreliable wind generation when there is a backup that does the job more efficiently and has to be used anyway and is much cheaper to construct and connect to the grid?
The UK is on its way to the bottom and gathering speed by the moment.
We’ll soon be past saving if not already so but don’t weep for us because we apparently and stupidly voted for the Liar Starmer although he got less than half of one vote in every two … so much for UK electoral eccentricity.
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UK-Weather Lass your country emits the same co2 emissions today as you emitted in the 1880s.
And Germany is still higher than the UK today.
Probably gives the Chinese Communist Party a good belly laugh.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-country?country=GBR~DEU
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And add China to the picture and the UK and Germany look like lazy flatliners.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-country?country=GBR~DEU~CHN
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“what have they become?” What they have always been: watermelons, only now they are peeled.
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Willis Eschenbach has a look at the lastest wind farm BS and lunacy from the Biden camp and how they’ll increase the cost of energy to the consumer by four fold.
And I’m sure the Harris, Walz loonies will be very happy to do the same if elected on Nov 5 ’24.
Again, why is their “cheap wind power” so expensive?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/08/28/why-is-cheap-wind-power-so-expensive/
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They’re still lying and yapping about dangerous SLR in Tonga today and the terrible boiling oceans, but another new study shows that SLR was much faster in the early Holocene.
Of course SLR over the 20th to 21st centuries was very low and obviously little sign of an increase at all.
https://notrickszone.com/2024/08/26/study-sea-levels-rose-4-7-centimeters-per-year-8200-years-ago-30-times-faster-than-modern-rates/
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