America’s coasts — especially the teeming, wealthy Eastern seaboard and Gulf shore — are doomed to drown in ever-worse flooding from sea rise caused by global warming.
That’s the grim conclusion of a major study by the Union of Concerned Scientists. The somber finding contradicts President Donald Trump, West Virginia politicians, fossil-fuel executives and others who contend that global warming is a hoax.
Already, 90 coastal cities suffer chronic flooding — defined as at least 10 percent of a community inundated about every two weeks, the researchers found. That number will double in 20 years, and soar by the end of the century. New York, Norfolk, Miami and other highly populated places will become partly unlivable. Property values will crash. Sections will be abandoned. Losses to individuals, businesses, government and the economy will be in trillions.
Severity of the coming crisis depends on how much carbon pollution continues to pour greenhouse gases into the sky. If nations meet limits set in the Paris accord, damage will be less. But President Trump stupidly withdrew America from the Paris agreement.
Chief researcher Erika Spanger-Siegfried gave this purpose for the study: “We wanted people to see this coming, to give them a sense of the time they have before this becomes untenable.”
National Geographic said the report asks: “How many times a year would residents tolerate chronic flooding that overwhelmed their neighborhood? If saltwater flooding regularly soaked homeowners’ first floors or damaged their cars, how long would it be before they could no longer afford to insure or sell their homes?”
The science-fiction movie “Soylent Green” depicts a dismal future with ruined cities half underwater. Will fossil fuel loyalists keep denying global warming until such misery and loss arrive?
