A mere few centuries after they founded Nieuw Amsterdam , a distant settlement that came to be known as New York City; the worlds leading experts in sea-level adaptations may see their former colony drowned. But will Dutch dykes be enough to save Nieuw Amsterdam?
Beginning with just over three feet of sea level rise, the impact on the US would be calamitous, having the potential to destabilize many highly populated areas of this country, according to a Coastal Impact Study published at Architecture 2030.
The study challenges the notion that has been advanced by the media that only poor nations far from us will be impacted by climate change, leading to complacency about the need to confront global warming.
But even three feet of sea level rise - which is on the low side of most IPPC reports - will displace not just 60% of those other 6 billion far away foreigners, but that number actually includes most of our own coastal residents. As illustrated in these interactive maps of the effects on our own coasts.
"Starting in East Boston and moving down along the East Coast, around Florida and over to the Gulf of Mexico, then up along the West Coast and ending with the city of Honolulu, Hawaii, a picture of inundation, population displacement and catastrophic property loss develops.
With a business-as-usual approach, where fossil-fuel consumption and GHG emissions continue to increase, we will likely see a warming of 2 °C to 3 °C this century with a planetary energy imbalance sufficient to melt enough ice to raise sea level by several meters.
Once the process of ice sheet disintegration begins, the impact on the US is unremitting, and at each additional increment, additional cities and towns will be adversely affected."If you think that bailing out Wall Street is expensive, you can imagine what its going to cost us to really bail out Wall Street.
Maybe we should just give Nieuw Amsterdam back?
Published at NRDC OnEarth and Red Green and Blue
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