Originally published at: Manhattan "sinking" under the weight of all those skyscrapers | Boing Boing
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The problem: “accelerating inundation risk from sea level rise.”
The Answer: “Build higher; faster!!!” 
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By some predictions, large parts of Dhaka and Lagos will be regularly flooded in the next couple of decades. Closer to home, London is also sinking by about 2mm p.a. due to isostatic factors as Scotland and the North of England rebound from the last glacial maximum - news that should please the Scots immensely.
The huge Thames Barrier (well worth a visit) that protects London from surges sweeping up the estuary from the North Sea is now being closed against abnormally high tides more than twice as often as when it was completed in 1982.
Obligatory Tom Scott on this incredible piece of engineering:
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a sinking effect that is naturally occurring anyway along much of the US east coast as the land reacts to the retreat of huge glaciers following the end of the last ice age.
Oh, how cool. I knew part of this story - glaciers caused land beneath to sink and they’ve been rebounding since the glaciers retreated - but not the rest of the story. To wit, the land just outside the glaciers had uplifted in response to the glaciers pushing down on the land to their north. So those areas are still sinking.
Science is cool!
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And with more cement!
This is an important part of a two-pronged strategy: sink the land while simultaneously raising the water level.
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8% actually sounds low to me. I’ve heard numbers more like 15% for how much of our CO2 problem is due to concrete. Either way, it’s a major problem. Steel production as well. The good news is those problems are solvable. Low-carbon methods for both have been developed and are being tested. Unfortunately, the government regulation required to make corporations use these new products won’t come fast enough in the US bEcaUSe FrEedOM or some such.
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Brimstone looks VERY promising:
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Back in college, I was lead singer in a cover band called “They Might Be, They Might Be Giants” True story I just made up. 
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If you want to blow people’s minds - all of the Earth’s interior that is flowing back into the areas pressed down by the ice is entirely solid; there’s no magma moving.
In Glacier Bay, Alaska the rebound is a frankly astonishing 3.2 centimetres per year.
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New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down.
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Are they sure it is the skyscrapers that are to blame?
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This has been predicted since 1909…
The Tilting Island · Thomas J. Vivian & G. J. Bennett
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so was he on ellis island the whole time? or did the post-primate overlords drag it there? i never saw any evidence of ships or heavy lifting equipment, so the whole thing seems a bit strange.
( unless maybe they’re in las vagas, and the glacier melt create a new great lake or something? anyway, very confusing. )
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I assumed it was farflung enough into the future that geology had shifted things around some, and his era NYC had been sacked/destroyed/bombed to the extent that nothing else was that recognizable, same thing that’s happened to prior human civilizations.
A) It’s on Liberty Island, not Ellis Island.
B) In my head canon, climate change at some point sunk Liberty Island, but before that happened, the statue was relocated to the Jersey Shore.
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I assumed it was far enough in the future that a period of global warming had happened, raising the sea level and causing rivers to change course thus filling New York harbour with sediment, linking the former island to the mainland. It would also explain the climate being like southern California. The statue’s copper construction allowed it to last longer than many others.
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Perhaps it migrated
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i like your explanation, and yes, oops. you’re totally right about the name.
( good thing too, or i guess it would have been the statue of ellis, and that really wouldn’t have made any sense at all. )
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