Oh, those clever Chinese climate hoaxsters are really shooting the moon now. From the BBC:

Indonesia is moving its capital city away from Jakarta, according to the country's planning minister. m Bambang Brodjonegoro said President Joko Widodo had chosen to relocate the capital in "an important decision". The new location is not yet known. However state media reports one of the front runners is Palangkaraya, on the island of Borneo. Jakarta, home to over 10 million people, is sinking at one of the fastest rates in the world.

The capital of Indonesia, a city of 10 million people, is becoming unlivable at such a rate that they're already decided to move the capital to another location. Part of it is the fact that Jakarta has a traffic problem that belongs in a dystopian sci-fi novel. Come to think of it, all those cars probably are contributing to the other reason, too.

Jakarta is also one of the fastest-sinking cities in the world. Researchers say that large parts of the megacity could be entirely submerged by 2050. North Jakarta sunk 2.5m (eight feet) in 10 years and is continuing to sink an average of 1-15cm a year.The city sits on the coast on swampy land, criss-crossed by 13 rivers. Half of Jakarta is below sea level. One of the main causes of this is the extraction of groundwater which is used as drinking water and for bathing.

All of which makes Jakarta uniquely vulnerable to pranks by those clever Chinese hoaksters, From The New York Times:

With climate change, the Java Sea is rising and weather here is becoming more extreme. Earlier this month another freakish storm briefly turned Jakarta’s streets into rivers and brought this vast area of nearly 30 million residents to a virtual halt.One local climate researcher, Irvan Pulungan, an adviser to the city’s governor, fears that temperatures may rise several degrees Fahrenheit, and the sea level as much as three feet in the region, over the coming century. That, alone, spells potential disaster for this teeming metropolis.

Hydrologists say the city has only a decade to halt its sinking. If it can’t, northern Jakarta, with its millions of residents, will end up underwater, along with much of the nation’s economy. Eventually, barring wholesale change and an infrastructural revolution, Jakarta won’t be able to build walls high enough to hold back the rivers, canals and the rising Java Sea. And even then, of course, if it does manage to heal its self-inflicted wounds, it still has to cope with all the mounting threats from climate change.

The climate crisis exacerbates everything else. For example, if your capital city already was sinking, it will sink faster when the Java Sea comes calling for good. This is not a difficult problem unless your job depends on not solving it.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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