{"id":9665,"date":"2017-02-14T00:36:31","date_gmt":"2017-02-14T00:36:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/climate-change-has-already-guaranteed-that-the\/"},"modified":"2017-02-14T00:36:31","modified_gmt":"2017-02-14T00:36:31","slug":"climate-change-has-already-guaranteed-that-the","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/climate-change-has-already-guaranteed-that-the\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"
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Climate change has already guaranteed that the world will experience a rise in sea level of several feet; there won\u2019t be a \u201cnew,\u201d static coastline for centuries to come. This means that cities and towns on the shoreline are guaranteed an increase in flooding vulnerability. Some of the damage this will cause is inevitable. Many flood-prone portions of Manhattan, for example, are so dense that there\u2019s no moving them. But other forms of damage are completely avoidable. (Perhaps you\u2019ve heard about the New Jersey waterfront property owners who don\u2019t want sand dunes obstructing their view.)<\/p>\n

If it were up to him, says Bill Hooke, a senior policy fellow at the American Meteorological Society, the government would buy up the most vulnerable seaside properties and simply return them to nature. Of course, that isn\u2019t what\u2019s happening. \u201cPeople are rebuilding like before,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd that\u2019s a big issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

“People are rebuilding like before\u2026And that\u2019s a big issue.”
\nThe state of New York has dedicated $400 million to buying out homeowners in flood-prone areas, but very few have taken advantage of the program. That\u2019s partly because officials can\u2019t just put money on the table and expect people to line up, says Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness. \u201cThe [program] in New York state is quite good. It recognizes something important, that there are some places we shouldn\u2019t rebuild,\u201d he says. \u201cBut you can\u2019t just announce a buyout program\u2026You have to have a very active program to give people assistance relocating. The relocation process itself is very, very complicated and traumatic for people.\u201d<\/p>\n

In New Jersey, Christie declined to improve upon a state regulation that forced rebuilding to take place at least one foot higher than FEMA\u2019s new flood maps recommended\u2014even though FEMA\u2019s maps do not account for more frequent floods or an inevitable rise in sea level. By contrast, New York state, in accordance with the recommendations of climatologists and flooding experts, is requiring a two-foot margin of safety. Kenneth Miller, a Rutgers University geologist who tracks sea level rise, recently told NJ.com, \u201cIf I want my grandkids to be in my house, I would make sure that I was protected for 2 additional feet above FEMA recommendations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rebuilding in these fragile areas requires enormous amounts of government resources. For example, restoring the entire coastline will require the Army Corps of Engineers to replace 27 million cubic yards of sand at a cost of around $3.5 billion\u2014restoration efforts outside Ocean City, New Jersey, alone cost $14 million. In a perfect world, says Hooke, there wouldn\u2019t be any more aid for shoreline property owners whose homes are destroyed by predictable disasters in the future. \u201cThe reality is, if you\u2019ve got it, you\u2019ve probably got to really afford to be able to rebuild it yourself,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Molly Redden,\u00a0How We\u2019re Failing to Prepare for the Next Sandy<\/a><\/p>\n

I suggested the same approach to reclaiming all the land near the oceans last year, called The Half Mile Program<\/a>.<\/p>\n

(via underpaidgenius<\/a>)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Climate change has already guaranteed that the world will experience a rise in sea level of several feet; there won\u2019t be a \u201cnew,\u201d static coastline for centuries to come. This means that cities and towns on the shoreline are guaranteed an increase in flooding vulnerability. Some of the damage this will cause is inevitable. Many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-quote","hentry","category-words","post_format-post-format-quote"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6PWot-2vT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9665\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}