However, many have rejected this investigation, citing conclusions within the paper which state that ‘these low-lying atolls remain immediately and extremely vulnerable to inundation or sea water flooding.’ Confusion around sea level rise helps to encourage people to take ‘sides’ in the debate. The Sea Level Rise Foundation is a non-profit organisation dedicated to raising the 'global awareness' of the destructive impacts of sea level rise on low lying coral island nations. Its blog, found at: http://sealevelrise.blogspot.com/ is a regularly updated feed on the current impacts of sea level rise upon coral islands. Often it simply cites poor scientifically ungrounded newspaper articles as fact, resulting in negative comments about the usefulness of the foundation.
The scientific community seems to have changed its general opinion on the short-medium term future of atolls over the past two decades. As the next post will show an early pessimism which has been replaced by more optimisim through investigation.