Comment by mike_hearn

Kench et al is a historical study of satellite imagery. Unless they made a counting error there's no way for a new study to invalidate it.

But let's take a look. That document starts by admitting that it's motivated reasoning:

"this report is written in support of the objectives of the Rising Nations Initiative (RNI), enabled by the UN Global Center for Climate Mobility"

and it goes downhill from there. They're providing ammo for their clients, not attempting to neutrally answer questions. As a consequence they never mention the fact that Tuvalu is growing. They very carefully avoid the topic of whether the country is getting bigger or smaller despite that this is the entire problem the report is predicated upon, indeed they don't even seem to cite Kench et al, let alone try a refutation. Instead they rely heavily on presenting a few isolated data points followed by model predictions (of the type that were already proven wrong) and give you a good hard inferential shove in the direction they want you to go in.

This isn't scientific but it is what the UN Center for Climate Mobility needs in order to advance their own mission of maximizing immigration. It's clever in a way: when someone calls them on it, they just say "oh! well we never said Tuvalu was sinking, that's all in your head, don't blame us we're just scientists it must be journalist's fault".

Which is the problem I'm highlighting. There's lots of misleading material out there. You could read this report and very easily conclude Tuvalu sinking beneath the waves is a great problem to devote your life to. Investing in solutions to non-existing problems can sometimes work temporarily, but it won't give you a new Google or Apple.