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First there were sunspots. Then cosmic rays [7]. Now comes the latest “proof” being trotted out by the climate denial crowd… pineapples.

Swedish Scientist Nils-Axel Morner [8] is claiming that sea levels in the island nation of Tuvalu are not rising there, or anywhere else. Why?

According to memo [9] submitted by Morner [10] to the Britsh House of Lords, “the truth seems to be that a Japanese pineapple industry had subtracted too much freshwater by that forcing saltwater to invade the subsurface.”

To recap, sea is not rising- the land in Tuvalu is instead sinking due to inept irrigation by Japanese pineapple companies and local farmers who want to cover up their blunder. This is apparently proof that the largest peer-reviewed exercise in scientific history is in the measured words of Morner, the “greatest lie ever told”.

There’s one small problem with this line of thought. There have never been pineapple plantations on Tuvalu. This tasty tropical fruit cannot wipe away decades of peer-reviewed scientific research since it was never grown on the tiny South Pacific islands.

Tuvalu is so low-lying that residents cannot reliably exact even drinking water from the ground, let alone irrigation water. The country is also a coral atoll with very poor soil and supports virtually no agriculture. Bromeliads [11] like the pineapple prefer light volcanic soils.

Tuvalu is also minuscule [12], covering only 26 square kilometers. Out of 80 countries [13] that export Pineapples, the smallest exporting country (just 4,000 tons exported annually) is Wallis and Futuna Islands. They have a combined landmass slightly larger than Washington DC, which is still 1,500% larger than Tuvalu.

And how does Morner explain that the country is in the process of planning for a mass evacuation [14] as the nation disappears under the waves?

He seems to be implying that Tuvalu residents (and their government) are a bunch of insurance fraudsters, seeking to conceal bad irrigation in order to keep the big UN climate bucks flowing in.

All this irrefutably “proved” by the mythical Tuvalu pineapple. Too bad it doesn’t exist.