And Still More Answers for Sandy

"Given the projected physical impact of sea level rise, exacerbated by storm-generated surge and flooding, how do we calculate, compare and declare what is fair and equitable in the short-term to what is fair and equitable in the long? Given this predictable situation, do we have any choice other than to change our ways? Yes, these are hard questions, not necessarily new, but demanding answers now in the harsh real light of the post-Sandy day. What will make us see clearly?"

The weeks tick by. The photographs and video disappear into the ether of our memory. The debris is loaded and disposed; the power regained; the transportation systems alive again; the gas lines gone; a few more sad victims found; and some semblance of life and order restored for survivors of Super Storm Sandy. But as with Katrina in New Orleans, or with the Fukishima region in Japan, the true depth of detritus is measured beyond weeks to months to years of interrupted lives, beyond repair to reparation to restoration of former prosperity, and beyond immediate humane response to innovative action to radically different solutions for the future.

Very hard questions are being asked. For example:

•    How should federal and state emergency funds be allocated? To the replication of exactly what was destroyed, or to new, inventive responses to the inevitable return of sea level rise and extreme weather to those very same places?
•    If we are to respond differently, how so? How will we create, adjudicate, and implement a system for planning and deciding that may result in a very different iteration of function and value along the vulnerable coast?
•    If past behavior and use does change, how do we compensate those who may be financially impacted or displaced by changed economics, redefined utilities, and lost real property?
•    To what degree should long term funds, generated from taxpayers not otherwise affected, be allocated to individual rescue and rebuilding in specific places or to investment in new, larger and more expensive adaptive engineering requirements to protect a greater, more regional population, employment base, and essential infrastructure?
•    Should we create economic and regulatory requirements to guarantee change in the coastal zone by removing public insurance underwriting, by redefining planning criteria, permitting regulations, and zoning ordinances, by incentivizing relocation of non-essential, water-related uses (to include manufacturing, storage, and residence) to better protected inland areas, or by restricting municipal, state, and federal financial instruments such as bonds, grants, and subsidies from supporting construction or implementation of uses not conforming to these new standards?
•    Given the projected physical impact of sea level rise, exacerbated by storm generated surge and flooding, how do we calculate, compare and declare what is fair and equitable in the short-term to what is fair and equitable in the long? Given this predictable situation, do we have any choice other than to change our ways?

Yes, these are hard questions, not necessarily new, but demanding answers now in the harsh real light of the post-Sandy day. What will make us see clearly?

Recently, the NY Times compiled a set of maps depicting the distribution of water in metropolitan areas along the Atlantic seaboard as result of sea level rise of 5, 12, and 25 feet over existing conditions. Compiled from data provided by Climate Central, the US Geological Survey, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the maps, presented under the headline “What Could Disappear,” showed potential devastating inundation of the urban landscape as we know it today. While these conditions are projected over decades of time, we have no reason to be complacent given the shocking evidence of Super Storm Sandy that that future may well be upon us.

For example, at a 5-foot increase, an additional 7% of the New York City region would be permanently submerged. Sandy showed us what that would look like in northern New Jersey, the Rockaways, Staten Island, and lower Manhattan. At a 25-foot increase, the percentage of inundated, uninhabitable land would increase to 39%, including large portions of all five boroughs and most of Manhattan below 34th Street. That represents millions of displaced, environmental refugees, not to mention trillions in lost economic value.

Let’s look elsewhere. Just taking the 5-foot rise, Boston would see a 9% loss, Cambridge 26%. In Virginia, Newport News, 8%, Norfolk 9%, and Virginia Beach 21%. In Florida, Miami would lose 20% and Miami Beach 94%. If you were to project the rise to 25 feet, well, Norfolk, Virginia Beach, and the Miami region as we know them today would be gone the way of Atlantis.

We return to the hard questions. If we do nothing now to change, we can foresee the inevitable. If we do something now, we have the knowledge, skill, and time to start. If we do more than nothing, more than something now, we will demonstrate the will and capacity for invention to look beyond the wreckage and dismay and denial to a realizable, habitable, re-creational future living by and with the sea.
_____________________________________________________________________

Peter Neill, Director of the W2O and host of World Ocean Radio, provides coverage of a broad spectrum of ocean issues from science and education to advocacy and exemplary projects.