John Schwartz: Another stunningly good @nytimes.com climate story from @zhonggg.bsky.social and colleagues. The mystery of the Maldives: The islands should be disappearing. Some aren't. A science mystery, beautifully explored. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Another stunningly good @nytimes.com climate story from @zhonggg.bsky.social and colleagues. The mystery of the Maldives: The islands should be disappearing. Some aren't. A science mystery, beautifully explored. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

The Vanishing Islands That Failed to Vanishwww.nytimes.com Low-lying tropical island nations were expected to be early victims of rising seas. But research tells a surprising story: Many islands are stable. Some have even grown.

This will not be well received by the many communities that have already been relocated or are in the process of planning for relocation. Natural cycles of biomass formation on land and sea add land, but the pace of such formation is nothing compared to increasing storm surges and coastal erosion.

Information Sharing Session on Climate Relocation of Communities (CROC) Trust Fund - Fiji Climate Change Portal (FCCP)fijiclimatechangeportal.gov.fj Fiji is dealing with rising sea levels, coastal inundation, salt water intrusion and shoreline erosion, resulting in communities to request the Government to support them for […]

While beautifully designed and written, and while the science is certainly precise and well researched, the piece seemed tone deaf to me. We are staring down the loss of the Thwaites glacier in Antarctica which would make this research seem like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Zhong didn’t try to refute the horrors of climate change in any way, and points out that people are leaving— the last scene is a heartbreak. I’d suggest rereading the story for the clearer sense of what he’s saying.

As I said, it is a well-written article with a lot of interesting facts and stories. My problem is that is it seems to take the position that sea level rise in the future will be like sea level rise in the past. “Some islands will shrink, others will grow.” That part is likely not true at all.

This story clearly states, though perhaps too subtly for your liking, that the long-term prospects are bleak. "If atoll nations aren’t facing certain and imminent erasure, then what are they facing? For having a future is not the same thing as having a secure future."

Yes. Far too subtly for my liking and while I understand editors make headline decisions the top line was very misleading. I happen to be working with a community that is looking at relocation options and I read the article through that lens.

Sadly we live in a world where 95% of the audience is only seeing a screen grab of a headline in their social media feed with no link, paywalled out even if there is one. I suspect this headline has been echoed around denier circles to reinforce their denial. Again, not Zhong’s fault.

You and I have a different take on that NYT story.

How do you see it? Zhong is one of the sharpest climate writers out there, and this is fascinating research —boots on the ground.

There's more than one way to look at that link you shared. I see an establishment media which likes to think of itself in high terms, having a long article with pictures that look like it really is a travel piece, to sell tourism. The headline is also misleading. One has to dig down into the body/

... of the text, way down, to find that 42% of the islands are decreasing, while 39% are going the other way. That's alarming, and the headline should be alarming. Instead, the headline is milquetoast. It's trying to be a feel-good story about an existential crisis for many.

That should be 39% stable, the balance growing.

I suggest your preconceptions about the Times are keeping you from reading the story clearly. The NYT has a climate team of a dozen journalists who work tirelessly to warn the world about the threat of climate change and the need for action.

My conception of the NYT is formed by years of watching their editorial board fucking around with American democracy, either being pedantically "both sides" or just straight up rooting for the vile. As for climate change: NYT has had many special interests over the decades and on science reporting/

... has often done more than many smaller papers. But the article you linked still looks like a travelogue entry, something I could find in Conde Nast. And the article title is still misleading. Perhaps it is you whose biases are making you miss some things going on in that NYT link.

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