Connecting The Dots In Coastal Planning And Design

"We are used to thinking of the environment as something that changes very slowly, if at all, and are confident that modern engineering can solve just about any problem. The problem is, no matter what happens now in the world of politics, sea levels are going to rise faster in our lifetimes than they have since before the first cities were built. How fast and how much? Our conclusion is that this will be an extremely significant challenge that our coastal regions will have to confront over the next fifty years."

"Sea levels have been rising for thousands of years, since the last ice age, but so slowly that in the past natural systems have adjusted incrementally. We now know that sea levels will rise faster because of warmer water temperatures and accelerated melting of ice sheets, but we don't know enough about the physical processes that affect major ice sheets to know exactly how global temperature increases will affect them. The temperature increases that have already occurred have committed us to a faster rate of sea-level rise no matter what we do at this point. But how much more should we expect in fifty years, or 100, or 150? Could sea level change drastically within our lifetimes?"

"The blunt answer is 'Yes.'"

"As far as we can tell, most designers and planners aren't thinking seriously about climate change in the U.S. unless they work closely with the insurance industry, which is dropping tens of thousands of East Coast customers and raising rates on the rest, in part as a result of climate predictions.2 Ecologists all over the world also know that it's a very big deal. The World Bank knows. But building and landscape architects, engineers, and planners don't seem to have connected the dots."