Coastal dwellers not being warned of rising sea level risk and property prices skewed, says nutty professor
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
More drivel from Sky, who should be utterly ashamed of themselves for printing silly scare stories:
People living on Britain’s coast are not being warned of the serious risks they face from rising sea levels, a world expert has told Sky News.
Professor Jim Hall, who is on the prime minister’s Council for Science and Technology and internationally recognised for his work on climate risks, said some coastal communities would disappear in the coming decades.
But little help is being given to existing homeowners to move inland and people buying properties are unaware of their financial gamble.
He said holding back the sea along the entire coastline would be too expensive and the government should instead have an "honest conversation" with coastal communities.
"I don’t think people really recognise the way in which things are going to change in the future," he said.
"The price of coastal property is not reflecting the risk to which people are exposed.
"Now maybe if people are moving to the coast for their retirement, they are there for a limited amount of time and it’s a perfectly rational thing to do.
According to the Met Office, sea levels around the British coast are likely to rise by around 115cm by the end of the century.
But some scientists say the predictions are too conservative and that accelerating rates of melting of mountain glaciers and the polar ice caps will result in much bigger rises.
The east and south coast of England are particularly vulnerable because the rocks are made of sand, gravel and clay. But low-lying estuaries countrywide are also at risk.
According to analysis by the University of East Anglia’s Tyndall Centre, 200,000 properties in England could be vulnerable to rising sea levels by 2050.
Yet fewer than 35,000 have been recognised as at risk by official planning documents.
Hall claims that seas will rise by 115cm by the end of the century, which equates to 15mm a year. This is utterly absurd, as the current rate is only 2.56mm a year, and sea level rise has more or less stopped in the last couple of decades.
It is certainly not true that 200,000 houses have been lost due to rising seas and coastal erosion (two separate things) in the last 30 years, so there is no reason to believe that the next 30 years will be any different. Indeed even the figure of 35,000 is wildly overstated.
Coastal erosion in East Anglia has been a constant feature for millennia, but the simple reality is that only a tiny number of houses are built in vulnerable coastal areas. The article quotes the example of Happisburgh, which is always wheeled in these propaganda exercises as it is one of the most vulnerable villages. But Happisburgh boasts only about 600 houses, and many of these are well away from the cliffs that are eroding. And Happisburgh has been getting closer to the sea for centuries:
Happisburgh is a settlement located on the Norfolk coast, eastern England. It has a population of around 1400 people in 600 houses. Although now a coastal village, this was not always the case. When founded over 1000 years ago, there was another village separating Happisburgh from the sea. Historical records indicate that over 250m of land was lost between 1600 and 1850.
https://www.internetgeography.net/topics/happisburgh-case-study/
Along the Norfolk coastline, it is a similar picture, a handful of tiny villages and the number of homes at risk in coming decades probably numbered in the hundreds. Some may disappear under the waves in a hundred years time, but so what? That will have no effect on property values now, and most houses in the UK will probably have been knocked down by then anyway.
Jim Hall’s answer, of course, is to demand taxpayers’ money to relocate people, even though there is no evidence of any need to do so. But behind his absurd demands is his real motivation – to crank up the climate scare, and persuade the public of the need for “climate action”.
You may be familiar with his name – Jim Hall was a member of the Committee on Climate Change from 2009 to 2019, so has been peddling the scare for a long time.
But worse still, he is currently a member of the Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology, Expert Advisor to the National Infrastructure Commission, and Chair of the Science Advisory Committee of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
How do these con merchants get into such positions of authority and influence?
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
[“I don’t think people really recognise the way in which things are going to change in the future,” he said.] Erratum…
[“I don’t think climate scientists really recognise the way in which things are going to change in the future,”]
There, fixed it for you… 🙂
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11421415/Viewers-tell-BBC-climate-editor-Justin-Rowlatt-chuck-jeans-shave-too.html
“Dressed in scruffy jeans and sporting stubble, Justin Rowlatt has been accused by TV viewers of looking more like an eco campaigner than one of the BBC’s most senior journalists.”
“Looking more like”??? He IS an eco campaigner – who just happens to also have a job at the BBC
There is a descriptive word for Justin Rowlatt that the Guardian just loves to print whenever they can. it really can’t be a bad word because it was used to describe Steve Baker MP, however, it is common TV presenter speak for an unpleasant person but I will not repeat it here rather I shall just describe Justin Rowlatt as “what he said”
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/oct/20/krishnan-guru-murthy-taken-off-air-for-swearing-about-steve-baker
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/nov/10/david-walliams-recorded-derogatory-remarks-britains-got-talent-bgt-contestants
Oh and sorry for being so offensive as to post two to the scumbags at the Graun.
Coastal erosion is a geological process that has taken place for millions of years without the help of the CO2 we have added for the energy needed to make our lives better and build better infrastructures to deal with it. Lowering emissions to zero will leave us without the tools to deal with it. Seems pretty stupid.
Indeed, Broadlands, but “build better infrastructures to deal with it”? No, no we can’t do that. And don’t you dare try and do it yourself either or the council will take you to the courts. This is what happened after Peter Boggis was prevented from continuing with his own sea defence plan.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-51586370
On this basis, councils would definitely not be spending effort warning people, because they might ask for some financial help!
Yep, Barack Obama obviously had no idea when he bought his mansion at Martha’s Vineyard.
I believe Al Gore owns a beachside property too…
When I remarked on this at a blog another commenter pointed out that Obama is also building himself a beach-side mansion on Hawaii. So clearly neither the Atlantic nor the Pacific is a threat.
This is a typical example of the abysmal state of Science these days, where clever ‘Activists’ masquerading as ‘Scientists of Integrity’ get published by a Clickbait motivated and lazily compliant Media and never challenged.
It is a propagandist’s Wet dream.
Jim Hall’s credentials are incredibly creditable (intended pun). It seems as if he had a remarkably good agent in tow where each success moved on to the next, exponentially. I demur to his brilliance nonetheless; but just wish he would be honest with both himself and the rest of us. I leave it to others to point out the obvious errors/misinformation in this article.
As is; Jim Ball comes over to me as trashing the reputation of science and the trust that we the public is entitled to. Could someone tell me – Is he an Activist or a Scientist? For he can’t be both.
cognog2 A scientist is simply a person who practises the scientific method.
Science is an incredibly open democracy. No qualifications to distinguish who may call themselves a scientist and who may not. No common standards to adhere to, no trade body, where wrongdoers could be disgraced by being struck-off.
Academic-types do not tolerate suggestions of some form of regulatory framework to uphold standards. They see it as interference in academic freedom. They are happy with peer review to uphold standards.
I often point out how waste collection is regulated by license, and the qualifications to call yourself a bin collector are greater than those to call yourself a scientist.
On that understanding, if Jim Hall wants to call himself a scientist, then he’s a scientist. It is fundamentally a label for people to use at their leisure for their own feelgoodery.
Many MMGW bedwetters have told me I’m not a climate scientist. They are wrong, I can be a climate scientist if I want to call myself a climate scientist. It just depends on whether I see any value in labelling myself that way (hint: I don’t!)
Jim Hall has been around the climate scene for a long time, had 10 years on the CCC and is a past master at scary computer scenarios. This is an example from 2016 in association with the Grantham Institute.
“Assessing surface water flood risk and management strategies under future climate change: an agent-based model approach” Working paper by Katie Jenkins, Swenja Surminski, Jim Hall and Florence Crick
on 8 February, 2016 https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/profile/jim-hall/
Currently Professor of Climate and Environmental Risk at Oxford Environmental Change Institute and formerly with the Tyndall Centre network of institutions.
Thanks. Yes indeed.
The fact that he was on the CCC basically says it all.
That Institution is about as corrupt as any I have known ; and there they are; all those virtuous politicians listening to its desecrations of the truth without a squeak and all far too busy squabbling among themselves.
I just cannot understand how Oxford University can let him get away with it all. Is it not mindful of its reputation?
Google Prof Jim Hall WEF. Up he comes. . Is he taking instructions from Klaus Schwab?
Just a load more lies from the Green Loonies .
Some of them have been caught out adjusting figures to try to fool people that the sea levels are rising , but actual Sat data shows land mass is increasing .https://notrickszone.com/2021/11/18/sea-level-alarmism-unravels-as-earths-coastlines-are-observed-expanding-since-1984/
There is actual physical evidence in the UK of Roman Forts / Harbours , which were obviously beside the sea in Roman times , but are now a long way away from it .
But the whole idea is just propaganda , as in Holland a lot of the land is below sea level .About 60 % of it is below annual high tide level , and as much as 6.7 Meters lower , but it has not been a problem for hundreds of years .
Harlech Castle and the Cinque Ports for example.
My parents moved from Yorkshire to the outskirts of Hythe in Kent. From their living room you looked upwards over 50m to the old Roman harbour walls of Portus Lemanis (Port Lympne now a wildlife park)
My grandfather had a bungalow on the east Norfolk coast not far from the sea and stayed there through the summer after retiring in the 1950s. At that time the coast south of Winterton showed no sign of erosion. It was a small wooden shed-like structure with an outside chemical toilet. He owned the bungalow but not the land it was built on. There were some 30 or so similar structures. When he died my parents discovered that he had had the right to buy the land but had not done so because he went senile. The bungalow reverted to the landowner when my grandmother died (the right to purchase was not transferred). The point is they were temporary structures of no great value but since many of the owners did purchase the land most of the original wooden structures have since been replaced with more permanent homes and they are still there though the sea is now somewhat closer. Some similar buildings, only a little further south at Hemsby, have been less fortunate.
So in the next 78 years or so sea levels will rise by 1 metre 15cm? So that is around 1.5cm a year . its currently around 3.5 mm. this is an exponential rise. Will it come a little at a time or happen over a couple of years with a huge increase, much as happened to overwhelm dogger land and also around the Roman Warm period? Sea levels during the Holocene have been higher than today and lower than today.
We live on the coast, just above sea level. Is someone looking to buy houses like ours at a knock-down price, instead of the premium price that has applied for years?
IT is surely the case that government listens to these people like Jim Hall to be supplied with suitable “we are following the science” guff. Look how they followed Ferguson of Imperial College on Covid surely knowing his track record was poor.
The Govn can channel King Canute to find out where he went wrong or they can add the cost onto paying for previous CO2 offences especially those of kings and queens oops kingsandqueenypersons who had big log fires 400 years ago.
What about Greta’s ancestors chopping up the forests to build viking ships and all the fires the axe wielding ‘ offended ‘ thugs lit .
How does this climate poseur correlate normal coastal erosion with CO2 rises when there has been no warming or CO2 rises of significance.
Have we not had enough fake science with Ferguson et al.
I mentioned the professor is linked to the WEF. My comment didn’t pass moderation so far. Is there a reason for that?
Tafia69 managed same comment a few minutes back
There’s nothing in the spam box.
Have you got a link to the WEF?
Tafia69. That is me. I see I passed moderation at last. Google professors name and add WEF. Up comes his picture on the W E F site.
Got it thanks.
Here’s the link to the prof and the WEF for others to see:
https://www.weforum.org/people/jim-hall
Al
Property at Sandbanks , on Poole Bay , just a fraction of a metre above high tide must be going for a song then since they will be submerged before the mortgage runs out , assuming such vulnerable property can attract a mortgage . But what’s this? Rightmove are quoting £5m for a beachside property and £5m just for empty land by the beach . Some mistake surely – not following THE SCIENCE ,Rightmove – how dare you.
“some coastal communities would disappear in the coming decades”
A scientist, IMO, would not allow himself to use the term, ‘some’ because it is meaningless in scientific terms. The same applies to the term, ‘the coming decades’: So, how many decades? Two, three, ten? This is rubbish! But the killer for me was that he thinks the sea level – in some unspecified place around the coast, will rise by FOUR FEET in those ‘coming decades’!! FFS! He’s havin’ a laff. The thing is, he won’t be around to KNOW if and when the sea does rise so it won’t matter to him. He will have enjoyed his well-remunerated retirement knowing that he has absolutely no responsibility for the accuracy or knock-on effects of his stupid prophecies. I wish it were otherwise and that ‘scientists’ like this had to put their money where their mouths are.
According to the Met Office, sea levels around the British coast are likely to rise by around 115cm by the end of the century. But some scientists say the predictions are too conservative
Well beyond their lifespans, so no risk to reputation. What a joke 🙄
Using Google Earth, I looked for Happisburgh but soon found the coast just south – between Eccles-on-Sea, Sea Palling, and Waxham– is much more interesting.
I see 9 large groynes (also ‘groins’) 214 m. each and a earthen wall as high as the utility poles. Sea-side from this berm there are, in places, rocks the size of truck engines and a concrete wall.
Sand has collected behind the groynes, robbing other areas farther along the coast of the sediment once received.
From 2015:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/major-sea-defence-upgrade-between-sea-palling-and-winterton
“Timber and steel groynes which have reached the end of their working life are being replaced by rock groynes . . .”
What is the working life of a groyne, or when were those being replaced installed?
This is a site I use a lot for various purposes .https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=5&lat=56.00000&lon=-4.00000&layers=1&b=1
If you do a search for , Gt Britain ,O S 25 inch 1892- 1914 .
It shows a quite accurate map of about 100 years ago .You can zoom in to look at the coasts to see where it actually was then .
Then slide the blue button to see an overhead image of now .
It shows that places like Happisburgh have lost some of their coastline , and some other places down the coast from there have gained quite a bit .
But that is the North Sea . It does constantly change the coastline .
Good link, thanks!
I read the same about groynes at one location had caused erosion further along the coast as the transfer of material was stopped. No hydrological survey carried out to understand what they were messing with it would seem.
The only homes lost will be those that are the victims of a policy to stop maintaining coastal defences. The defences were obviously put there for a reason. So easy for the liars to create self fulfilling prophecies.
Managed retreat, which alternatively could describe a remote asylum where all the climate scientists are housed to stop harm to wider society.
The almost trillion pounds wasted on the covid farce could have sorted the coast line of the UK and left billions for oil and gas drilling and coal fired generation – if we lived in a world where the guv was not lunatic .
So on the Prof.’s rate of increase we would have had over a foot of sea level just in the 21st Century.
This “according to the Met Office” is of course untrue and the “are likely to rise” bit is downright lying. They don’t really say it, they explain it secondhand from the IPCC AR6:
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/climate-change/organisations-and-reports/past-and-future-sea-level-rise#:~:text=For%20projections%20to%202100%2C%20the,Greenland%20and%20Antarctic%20ice%20sheets.
What they actually say is:
“For projections to 2100, the low-likelihood, high impact storyline could lead to an additional metre of global mean sea level rise and is associated with loss from both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.”
Note the words “low-likelihood”. Note the absence of the words “are likely to rise”. The claim is false.
The Prof. and the articel presents fantasy virtual world nonsense third hand from the IPCC. The scenario is described as “Storylines such as these should be interpreted as possible futures whose probability of occurrence is low or not well known, but if they did happen they could have a significant impact on society or ecosystems.”
I have a “Storyline” whose “probability of occurrence is low” but it would defintely have a “significant impact” on my life. Its called winning the lottery.
Note sure what happened there – my moniker is ThinkingScientist!
In the MoS yesterday was a piece lamenting how our childish legacy media fail to question the claims made by the Just Stop Oil toddlers and pointed out that they could use the IPCC `to counter their claims. There is an irony that the writer would not have understood in using reports from a global warming advocacy group to counter global warming activists.
Thomas Moore of Sky News has a BSc in Genetics. Not sure how that makes him qualified to comment on climate and weather or coastal hydrology.
He could inject himself with genetically modified mrna which is filled with rna code that manufactures fake climate knowledge in his brain .
One of the pictures in the article has the caption “Sea levels around the UK have already risen by 16cm in the past 20 years”
This is simply untrue!
Birmingham C of C have just issued their Climate Change Emergency Report, we’ve been an emergency for 3 years now. It is a massive tome with lots of cross-referenced documents but in simple terms it is exactly the report that one would expect if one got Reading, Exeter and East Anglia Universities to write reports with the aid of the Met office (as they did at massive cost to rate-payers): it is all based on the CMIP models, but very glossy and apparently scientific. A bit like asking a vegan to plan the companies Christmas Dinner!
Yes it is huge problem, right across the board, which I put down to our educational system which over years was taken over by Leftwing WOKE policies. (back in the 60s we removed our kids from the state system for this reason). As a result kids got taught WHAT to think, NOT HOW to think; hence this sort of Creative Writing that we see today, driven by the convenience of copy and paste which cuts out the inconvenience of having to think.
Agree generalisations are always wrong; but usually there are truths there to be considered.
Lastly: we are fortunate that all the hype, doom, gloom, hysteria etc. are consigned to the insides of the computers and have not yet managed to get out.
All we have to do now is fix our mental problems and return to sanity.
President Obama has a coastal property in Martha’s Vineyard and a beach-edge property in Florida. Do you think he doesn’t know the danger he is in?