Fairfax fantasy - it's all happening faster than we thought

Journalism in a bubble, unrelated to what's happening in the real world, you know, temperatures falling, sea levels falling, cyclone energy at lowest for 30 years etc etc...

THE top government scientist advising on how to adapt the nation to climate change warns that Australia will be forced to abandon some coastal communities in a "planned retreat" because of rising sea levels caused by global warming.

Andrew Ash, who leads the CSIRO's Climate Adaptation Flagship program, told the Herald that while some vulnerable coastal places could be protected by sea walls and levees, "there are going to be areas where that is not physically possible or it's not cost-effective to introduce any engineering solution and planned retreat becomes the only option".

Warning that climate change was accelerating much more quickly than predicted, Dr Ash said state and local governments needed urgently to identify coastal land unsuitable for new residential development because rising sea levels and more frequent big storms would flood them with seawater.

Now back to the real world...

Read it here.