Rising sea levels put coastal communities at risk
By Arlene Martinez
19 April 2012 Oil spills, water pollution, harmful pesticides: those are the types of contaminants that spurred environmental crusaders to initiate the first Earth Day in 1970. Damage from industries, businesses and agriculture was noticeable, from thick sludge in landfills that bordered homes to unnatural plumes of green smoke that were emitted from spraying farms. As Earth Day approaches its 42nd anniversary, what’s potentially the biggest threat to the environment is as difficult to rally behind as it is to predict. In short, the planet is warming, the oceans are rising. By how much and why leaves much room for debate, but it is an issue becoming increasingly impossible for coastal communities to ignore. “We have begun the conversation about how do we approach this whole topic,” Ventura County Supervisor Steve Bennett said. “It’s a very complicated moving target to try to map.” Bennett said at least there’s been a shift in the mindset of many people who ultimately will make the decisions about how to address climate change. “The difference is people are not in the denial phase,” Bennett said. In the 20th century, the sea level rose on average 8 inches along California’s coastline, research by Climate Central and others shows. Middle-of-the-road expectations are that it will rise 6 to 8 more inches by 2030, 12 inches by 2050 and 24 inches by 2070. By 2100, it could be 3 to 5 feet higher, said Gary Griggs, director of the Institute of Marine Sciences at UC Santa Cruz. California has 3.5 million residents living within 3 feet of sea level, Griggs said. He knows planners might find it difficult to spend a lot of time and energy on planning for a rise in the sea level, “but it would be a mistake to allow uncertainty to get in the way of action or preventive measures that are intended to reduce the potential for future damage or losses,” he wrote in Adapting to Sea Level Rise: A Guide for California’s Coastal Communities [pdf]. […]
