A GROUP of islands off Papua New Guinea that are supposedly being drowned
because of global warming are in fact safe, New Scientist has learned.
Contrary to recent reports, climate change and earthquakes are not to blame for
recent floods. The flooding is a temporary climate phenomenon, and a large
earthquake in mid-November actually raised the land by a few centimetres.
Early last year, seawater invaded low-lying agricultural land on the main
island of the Duke of York group. Scientific officers of the United Nations
Development Programme in Port Moresby concluded that the island was sinking by
between 10 and…
