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Earth911 talks with oceanographer John Englander, writer of the brand new guide Moving to Higher Ground: Rising Sea Level and the Path Forward. His 2014 TED Talk offers stark examples of the shut relationship between CO2, local weather temperature, and coastlines — Florida was half the dimensions it’s now over the last heat interval in Earth’s historical past and twice the dimensions it’s in the present day over the last Ice Age. In his new guide, Englander describes the challenges of sea stage rise (SLR) and urges people to arrange to adapt to rising oceans, as a result of it’s too late to cease important SLR alongside U.S. and international coastlines. Those adjustments have dramatic implications for presidency, enterprise, the worldwide provide chain, and our personal neighborhoods.
Englander explains how the elevated floor of a warming ocean will amplify excessive climate occasions we’re already seeing within the type of wildfires, flooding, and drought. He means that governments must discourage continued constructing alongside coasts by lowering flood insurance coverage subsidies in order that persons are not displaced in a disorderly method however can plan for dwelling on increased floor. He urges folks to assume when it comes to quick (30 years), mid-term (50 years) and long-term (100 years) timeframes to grasp their SLR danger. But he argues that governments and enterprise must act in the present day to be prepared for disruptions from the already increased sea ranges across the planet. He warns that accelerated ice loss in Greenland and Antarctica might result in 5 toes or as a lot as 10 toes of SLR by 2050. We end the dialog by discussing methods for cooling the planet to forestall additional injury, together with the potential for geoengineering the environment to replicate extra daylight again into house and carbon seize and sequestration know-how.
John Englander’s earlier guide, High Tide On Main Street: Rising Sea Level and the Coming Coastal Crisis, jump-started the general public dialog about SLR in 2012 and Moving to Higher Ground: Rising Sea Level and the Path Forward, which was launched this week, lays out concepts about how we will reply and adapt to rising seas.
