Rising Tides

Sept. 9, 2016

Hurricane Hermine did more damage in Florida and along the eastern seaboard than it should have.

There are two reasons, at least.

That sea levels are rising does not seem to be in dispute. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), we’ve experienced an 8- to 10-inch sea-level rise in the last century, but the rate of rise is now increasing rapidly.

Glaciers and ice caps continue melting, adding to the problem. Rising global temperatures — we’ve just gone through the 15 warmest months in history — expand ocean water, increasing sea levels.

Many coastal areas now experience flooding simply from high tides and minimal wind. According to the General Accountability Office (GAO), 31 native villages along Alaska’s coast and on coastal islands are in imminent danger of being inundated. They will somehow have to move inland. Sixty residents of a Louisiana island already have become the first official relocation refugees due to rising water.

Low-lying islands in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean are slowly being overtaken. Areas of the world near or below sea level, like New Orleans or large chunks of the Netherlands, appear doomed over time. The NOAA claims the increasing rise in sea levels will put more than 13 million Americans at risk of being flooded out by 2100.

Internationally, the figures approach 1 billion people.

There is no way to determine if these projections, based on the last century of data and models for the future, will prove accurate. But there is no question that global temperatures are increasing, and sea levels are rising.

The vast majority of climate scientists see this as a human-made catastrophe, a result of our addiction to fossil fuels and the resultant greenhouse gasses. A few believe it is a natural climate cycle. We now have a presidential candidate who has said he believes the entire thing is some sort of plot by the Chinese to take away American jobs.

(Those who claim this is part of a natural cycle should pray they are wrong. We can undo what we’ve done, and slow or halt human-caused climate change. But natural climate cycles, about which we can do absolutely nothing, can last for centuries or millennia.)

To those people most directly impacted, the cause is far less important than the effect. These rising tides lift all boats, and their homes.

Which, finally, brings us to the second reason for the mounting costs of every storm, large or small. It is a decidedly self-inflicted wound.

Nature was kind enough to offer some natural protection against high tides, storm surges and even rising sea levels. Coastal dunes provide a barrier that keeps most ocean water in the ocean and, if overrun, recover quickly. Swamps and marshes help absorb storm waters and provide a shoreline buffer.

So, naturally, we drained the swamps and marshes for agriculture and housing. We bulldozed the dunes for condos and resorts. We jammed all manner of things as close to the shoreline as we could.

We’ve done the same thing on our freshwater shores. Those closest to the water will see it creeping ever closer. Winter’s ice will be unforgiving.

When storms now come calling, there is little between them and people. Once again we will see coastal states rebuilding exactly where destruction visits most frequently. Once again we’ll “restore” beaches and boardwalks and coastal highways. Once again people will build as close to the water as possible. And once again it will be wiped away by the next storm.

We can believe whatever we want as to causation, but the debate won’t stop the water from rising. Perhaps we should start considering how we’re going to move a lot of people inland. And who’s going to pay for it.

The Biloxi-Chitimache-Choctaw band of about 60 people will be relocated from Isle De Jean Charles, about 50 miles south of New Orleans, to the mainland. Their island, which they farmed for at least a century, covered 15,000 acres as recently as the 1950s. Only 2 percent now remains above ground.

The federal government will spend $48 million to move them through a Housing and Urban Development grant.

The native people of Shishmaref, Alaska, haven’t been so lucky. They recently voted to vacate their island just south of the Arctic Circle on which they have lived for at least five centuries. They have no idea who will pay the nearly $200 million required for the move. It won’t be the 200 or so folks in Shishmaref, who live a subsistence life based on traditional hunting and fishing.

These are the canaries in the sea-level coal mine, not a conspiracy or a myth.

We can choose to ignore the rising water and keep rebuilding foolishly. But eventually it’s going to be plenty expensive moving all those people.