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Is it true that dozens of cities around the world are sinking?

Earlier this week, Indonesia officially announced that it would "move its capital" in 2024. One of the important reasons for the implementation of this grand project is that its current capital, Jakarta, is already a "dangerous city", with an average annual settlement of 25 cm, ranking first in the world. However, Jakarta is not the only city in the world that is sinking. With the change of climate and environment, academic circles have warned that in the next few decades, dozens of major cities in the world may sink or 'disappear as a whole', and thousands of coastal communities will not be able to live. It is urgent to protect the environment.

At the end of the 21st century, many cities in the United States may be flooded

According to the current melting rate of polar glaciers, the global sea level will rise by about 2.43 meters by 2100, according to business insider magazine. By then, many cities in the United States will have to pay a heavy price for this - most of them have suffered from floods in the past, and the future development trend is even less optimistic.

New Orleans, a low-lying city along the Gulf of Mexico and built in the mouth delta of the Mississippi River, is particularly passive in the face of floods. In fact, the city has yet to recover from the 2005 hurricane disaster.

According to a study by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the United States (NASA), New Orleans has seen an obvious subsidence trend in recent years, with a subsidence rate of about 5 cm per year. It is understood that some areas of the city are already below 4.5 meters of sea level. According to this development, a large area of the city will be submerged in 2100.

Similar to New Orleans, Atlantic City, New Jersey, was also devastated by Hurricane floods: when Hurricane sandy crossed in 2012, 70% to 80% of the city's area was engulfed by floods, and the water in some areas was nearly 2.5 meters. Experts speculate that the city will face more severe natural disasters in the coming decades. More worrisome than the fate of Atlantic City is Charleston, a seaport city along the southeast coast of the United States: local media had already affirmed more than 10 years ago that the city would become a 'semi submerged ghost city' in 2050.

Compared with these coastal "brothers and sisters", the subsidence of the space city of Houston is more due to human factors. According to the Houston Chronicle, the annual average subsidence of some areas in Houston is about 5cm, which is mainly caused by the excessive extraction of groundwater, resulting in the depletion of groundwater aquifers. In addition, the U.S. capital is not absolutely safe: according to the U.S. Geological Survey, Washington will sink 15 cm in the next 100 years.

According to the report, the American Union of concerned scientists once came to a more pessimistic conclusion on the major issue of "sinking of the United States": the organization believes that there is no need to wait until the end of this century, 30 cities in the country will be underwater around 2060, 300000 families will be directly affected, and the direct economic loss will exceed $117 billion.

Global warming 3 & deg; C, the most injured metropolis in Asia

At the recent UN climate conference, 'warming 3 & deg; C' is one of the key words of related topics. Academic circles predict that the global temperature will rise by about 3 degrees centigrade by the end of this century, and the increase rate and speed will far exceed the previous expectations, which makes the important international agreements to curb climate change particularly weak in the face of this target. Climate Center, a non-profit meteorological science information organization in the United States, predicted that global warming 3 & deg; C would directly affect 275 million people, especially in densely populated Asian metropolis.

According to the mathematical deduction of scientists, in the future '3 & deg; C era', Osaka, an important economic town in Kansai, Japan, will be submerged by sea water, 5.2 million residents will be directly affected, and the economic loss can reach 1 trillion US dollars. There is also a huge flood hazard in China's Oriental Pearl, Shanghai: foreign media said that the city center of Shanghai will suffer a large area of subsidence in the'3°, C era, and the affected population will reach 17 million 500 thousand, even some landmark high-rise buildings can not escape. In fact, since 2012, the Shanghai government has begun to deal with the hidden dangers of floods. It has not only built the largest deep drainage system in China, but also invested more than 40 billion yuan in the Wusong River flood discharge project in Taihu Lake, the guardian said. Dhaka, Bangladesh's capital, is no less in danger than Jakarta: the water level in the bay of Bengal has risen 10 times the global average.

As a matter of fact, from Latin America to Africa to developed Europe, there are hidden dangers of land subsidence all over the world. Some media said that in the face of 'the anger of nature', no region on the earth can be alone.

Is global warming a conspiracy theory?

Although the harmfulness of climate change has received global attention, some people think that it is a bit exaggerated. As early as the beginning of the 21st century, some Republicans in the U.S. Congress believed that global warming was a "pseudoscience". At that time, Senator inhoff claimed that the politicians who supported the Kyoto Protocol had ulterior motives and the ultimate goal was to achieve "global governance". There was also a widely spread view that scientists deliberately created this argument in order to obtain "research funding".

In addition, there is also public opinion that the academic community's depiction of the future "doomsday scene" is exaggerated. After all, many countries are also actively responding, and the ruling class can not let the "land sink.".