Tragedy of an unregulated commons - Slowly Sinking Syndrome

If you haven't read Michael Turton's detailed overview of the problems of industrial development, polution land subsidence in Taiwan, then you're missing one of the big issues of the near future.  I recommend everyone reading that article and then looking at the parallels I found in this Guardian article on rising sea levels.  Here are the money quotes:

The sea is steadily advancing on Shanghai, tainting its freshwater supplies as it turns coastal land and groundwater salty, slowing drainage of the area's heavily polluted flood basin and eating away at the precious delta soils that form the city's foundations.

Planners are slow in addressing the threat, in the apparent belief they have time. Instead, Shanghai has thrown its energies into constructing billions of dollars worth of new infrastructure: new ports, bridges, airports, industrial zones, right on the coast.

In modern times, the city has been sinking for decades, thanks to pumping of groundwater and the construction of thousands of high-rise buildings. Today, Shanghai's engineers are reinforcing flood gates and levees to contain rivers rising due to heavy silting and subsidence.

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In other news ... Hamas is apparently continuing to inflict its' morality crusade on Palestinians.