Taking out boats may help lower sea-levels: US Republican

Sea levels rising at an alarming rate with research suggesting 10% of current land mass will be under water by 2100

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A US Republican candidate for the state of Virginia’s legislature has suggested removing all vessels from the sea to counter rising sea levels and by extension, combat climate change.

The pro-Trump candidate, Scott Pio, posed a question on Twitter last week out of ‘curiosity’ and asked what would happen to sea levels if all the boats were taken out of the ocean. According to media outlet Raw Story, Pio deleted his tweet but not before it was noticed by pro-democratic group Blue Virginia.

Pio responded to Blue Virginia and detailed why he made the statement. He asked the group whether the bath water decreased if they took something out of it. Pio jabbed at the group that they did not believe in science experiments. Raw Story said that Blue Virginia also noted Pio’s stances on other controversial issues such as his disdain for abortions under all circumstances and zero gun control.

Pio’s suggestion wasn’t exactly novel as author and engineer Randall Munroe tried to calculate what would happen if the world’s boats were removed from the oceans. Munroe determined that the sea level would drop only six microns, or 0.006mm, which would be close to one-tenth of a strand of human hair.

Although Pio was off the mark in his attempt to solve the climate crisis, rising sea levels are a major environmental concern. According to a non-profit group Climate Central, sea levels would rise drastically by 2100, drowning about 10 percent of land mass where human populations reside currently.

At the current rate of harmful emissions caused by human activities, global temperatures would rise beyond the 1.5-degree Celsius threshold that is tolerable under the Paris Accord 2015. As reported by The Guardian this month, the current emissions would increase global temperatures by three degrees Celsius by 2100.