There has been a long-running territorial dispute between India and Bangladesh over a tiny, uninhabited island in the Bay of Bengal. No longer. Barely an island before, New Moore Island is no more, finally disappearing under a rising ocean.  Though the speed and magnitude of the increase has likely been overstated, sea levels do appear to be rising. And not all the effects of a rising ocean are bad.

Projections of the dramatic rise in ocean levels due to global warming have always seemed exaggerated to me given that the warming over the past century has not caused a significant rise in the oceans–Venice is, after all, still there. This week brought a formal retraction of an article published by eminent UK climate scientists: their model predicting rising ocean levels was found to contain errors that undermined the conclusions, and the scientific paper was formally retracted. Are you keeping up with the literature Osama bin Laden?

The theory of human-caused global warming got some support from a surprising source last week. The latest tape from “Osama bin Laden” cited, among all his grievances against the US, its responsibility for ruining the environment by not signing the Kyoto Protocol. Who knew he was an environmentalist? Well, on reflection, he does seem to live pretty much off-the-grid ….