Quoting Mike Mitchell (m.mitch@exemail.com.au):
The most ridiculous thing Rick did was to equate Kiribati sea level problems to climate change. Kiribati is a group of atolls, see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiribati Atolls by their nature sink(1).
Hi, Mike. One big problem: The subsidence rate of coral atolls is about _8 metres per 100,000 years_. (See for example French drilling studies at Mururoa through the carbonate cap and into the underlying volcanic rocks, which found the subsidence rate to be that as the mean, over the preceding 7.2 million years before present.) That is of course the overall subsidence rate over geologic timescales, ignoring the temporary (by geological standards) effect of rising and falling sea levels as ice ages have come and gone. Anyway, what's lately threatening parts of Kiribati and the Seychelles is (1) many, many orders of magnitude faster than what subsidence supports, and (2) not subsidence in the first place: _Surprise_, scientists have instruments capable of measuring altitude and are able to distinguish between land falling and ocean rising. (Some coral formations are thought to be able to grow quickly enough that they are likely to keep pace with rising ocean levels -- a matter noticed as early as Charles Darwin's study of the matter. Perhaps that effect will help some affected islands. Time will tell.)