Island outlook: Warm and swampy

Abstract

In his In Depth News story “Warming may not swamp islands” (1 August, p. 496 ), C. Pala argues that “coral reefs supporting sandy atoll islands will grow and rise in tandem with the sea,” based largely on studies that showed stable Pacific-island area over recent decades ( 1 – 4 ). He suggests that recent land losses are driven mostly by bad choices and that islanders are being affected “for the same reason as millions of people on the continents: because they live too close to shore.” We disagree with these conclusions.