RAMANATHAPURAM/CHENNAI: Two islands in the Gulf of Mannar have submerged within the last few months arguably due to global warming.
According to Sundara Kumar, GOMMNP warden, the two islands went underwater as the water level increased due to global warming. Bunkum, says Deepak Samuel, representative of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve Trust. “Illegal coral mining is the major cause for islands to submerge and not climate change,” he argues. “The corals act as a barrier and take the tidal pressure thereby preventing erosion of the islands. Generations of exploitation of corals has resulted in the islands facing the entire brunt of the sea causing it to submerge,” he claims.
“Sea level rise due to climate change has occurred at a mean rate of 1.8 mm per year for the past century, according to intergovernmental studies. While this might be a serious threat to the biosphere in the future, in present conditions, climate change cannot possibly be the reason for the islands’ submergence,” says Aarthi Sridhar, project coordinator, Central Indian Ocean, IUCN-World Commission on Protected Areas.
Disrupting the Borg is expensive and time consuming!
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Real Science 
Some increasing evidence that not everyone is drinking the Kool Aid?
Looks like that honest UN guy will be censured by UN high priests, from Ban Ki Mon to the heads of IPCC, FCCC, UNEP, WMO, UNDP.
He will soon have Seal Team 6 land in his back garden. 🙂
Press release: Aarthi Sridhar, project coordinator, Central Indian Ocean, IUCN-World Commission on Protected Areas, promoted to head research and development for banana plantations in Siberia…………
He’s been sent to the Persian Gulf, washed and wrapped in a white cloth
Sounds like a real environmentalist who hasn’t taken enough AGW KrazyAide yet…. he seems more worried about coral mining that AGW. Good for him.
An “honest” UN official….Now that is really newsworthy…
Coral Atolls have also been damaged by the indigenous fishing industry. Homemade Ammonium Nitrate bomblets, used to stun fish for easy “harvesting” (by lazy fishermen) had the unintended effect of breaking up the surrounding Coral beds, which are the foundation of the “islands.” Once blasted, the Coral is destroyed and can’t recover. The underpinning of the remaining land is then impaired and “duh,” the islands begin to sink. Some depletion of the fresh water aquifer may also contribute to the sinking. The region is also tectonically active and subsiding land is a real possibility.
Of course, the Sea-Level is being blamed, but a quick look at NASA’s Jason satellite data shows (and I’m cherry-picking here from a 2004 highpoint to today) that Sea-Level has outright FLATLINED since January 2004 to the present (Flatlined = ZERO rise) within a 20mm ± zone!!!