Angry Welsh villagers plan on suing their government for issuing a global warming report that shows the village will soon be washed away thanks to rising sea levels.
Citizens of Fairbourne say the government’s predictions of a dramatic increase in sea levels are alarmist in nature, and help crater housing costs and land values in the village.
During a meeting discussing the government’s report, villagers voted to take up legal action against their government’s plan to “decommission” the village, arguing that the plan — called Shoreline Management Plan 2 (SMP2) — essentially blighted the entire town.
The plan was presented by public officials in Gwynedd and Pembrokeshire and signed off by the Welsh government.
The SMP2 plan states sea levels will rise by about three feet during the next century, yet Fairebourne Facing Change (FFC), an activist group that aims to protect coastal regions, said the report’s findings are misleading.
“It’s ridiculous that had Fairbourne been separated by two different SMPs, one side of the village would be a metre under water 30 to 40 years before the other half – it’s nonsensical,” Pete Cole, the chairman of FFC, said about the report.
He added: “The 2016 sea level rise forecast produced by the esteemed National Tidal and Sea Level Facility concluded that sea levels could be expected to rise 50cm rather than one metre in the next 100 years and with only a modest 20 to 30cm rise in the next 50 years.”
The FFC has always balked at the government’s predictions, Cole said. “Latest scientific evidence proves that we were right,” he concluded.
New NASA research reflects the points made by Cole and FFC in general.
Research conducted by J.T. Reager of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory found the Earth’s rivers and aquifers have absorbed nearly 3.2 trillion gallons of extra water, causing the rate of sea level rise to decrease by 20 percent.
“What we didn’t realize until now is that over the past decade, changes in the global water cycle more than offset the losses that occurred from groundwater pumping, causing the land to act like a sponge — at least temporarily,” Reager said.
“These new data are vital for understanding decadal variations in sea level change. The information will be a critical complement to future long-term projections of sea level rise, which depend on melting ice and warming oceans,” he added.
Fairbourne residents and FFC hope to reclaim the lost value created by the plan.
FFC claims the suit will lead to reclamation of tens of millions, or perhaps $144.4 million, in land value.
It is not yet clear who would foot the bill should the legal campaign be successful.
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