“Pathways limiting global warming to 1.5°C …. would require rapid and far-reaching transitions in energy, land, urban and infrastructure (including transport and buildings), and industrial systems…. These systems transitions are unprecedented in terms of scale.…”[1]
This 2018 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) outlook predicts an above-average number of high-tide flooding days from May 2018-April 2019. The threat is to communities on the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts. Overall, high tide flood frequencies are predicted to be 60% higher this year than in 2000.[2]
In This Report:
- Sea Levels Are Rising Faster
- Zillow Projects 1.9 Million Housing Loss Valued At $916 Billion
- Some Projected Sea Level Rise Risks
- New York and New Jersey
- North and South Carolina
- Georgia
- Florida
- Alabama
- Mississippi
- Louisiana
- Texas
- California
- Global Crisis: Global Temperatures Are Rising Faster
- President Trump Disagrees
- Global Economic Mobilization
- Rationale for U.S. Economic Mobilization
- Fast-Tracking Renewable Energy Development
- Wind Farms Can Create 160,000 New U.S. Jobs
- Mobilizing for Coastal Sea Level Defense
- Desalination: Creating Fresh Water from Sea Water
- Carbon Dioxide Removal
- Conclusion
By Stas Margaronis
The Fourth National Climate Assessment was produced by the U.S. Global Change Research Program in cooperation with 13 federal agencies. It projects that higher sea levels along the U.S coastline could result in a $1 trillion U.S. real estate loss.
The assessment, released in November 2018, states: “Climate-related risks to infrastructure, property, and the economy vary across regions. Along the U.S. coastline, public infrastructure and $1 trillion in national wealth held in coastal real estate are threatened by rising sea levels, higher storm surges, and the ongoing increase in high tide flooding … Coastal infrastructure provides critical lifelines to the rest of the country, including energy supplies and access to goods and services from overseas trade; increased damage to coastal facilities is expected to result in cascading costs and national impacts … High tide flooding is projected to become more disruptive and costlier as its frequency, depth, and inland extent grow in the coming decades. Without significant adaptation measures, many coastal cities in the Southeast are expected to experience daily high tide flooding by the end of the century.”[3]
Sea Levels Are Rising Faster
There is a correlation between global warming, wildfires, snow melt and rising sea levels and some scientists fear that projections by the United Nations and U.S. government agencies are too conservative and that sea levels are rising faster than expected.
In September, 2018 a group of scientists explained the reasons why:
“Dry and warm conditions increase the risk of wild fires, which damage the soil and set the stage for later landslides and flooding. Snow and ice melt earlier, altering the timing of run-off. This has extended the fire season by 20% around the globe since the 1980’s… With less snow and ice in the northern hemisphere, the cooling effect provided by the reflection of sunlight from Earth’s surface dropped by 10%-20% between 1979 and 2008…..
And these links now spread further; wildfires are occurring at ever-higher elevations and latitudes…where they remove the forest canopy and alter where and how snow accumulates. Soot deposited on the snow absorbs heat and speeds up melting.”[4]
The cumulative effect is that ice packs on Greenland and Antarctica are melting at an accelerated pace and these would be the prime contributors towards a sea level rise around the globe.
Zillow Projects 1.9 Million Housing Loss Valued At $916 Billion
Coastal communities in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Texas and Louisiana are experiencing growing losses from hurricanes and flooding caused by sea level rises, caused by global warming.
In 2017, Zillow, the online real estate company, projected a loss of 1.9 million housing units from higher sea levels by 2100. However, an October 2018 United Nations report (see below) says temperatures are rising faster than expected, suggesting that losses projected in 2100 may now occur much sooner.
The result will be billions of dollars of real estate losses with millions of Americans losing their homes.
The worsening impact of global warming is evident to people around the world in 2018. There were wildfires in Europe, North America, and South America. There were hurricanes and typhoons in Asia and North America. There are growing droughts in Africa, Australia and North America. Sea level rises are threatening coastal communities around the world.
Carbon emissions heat the atmosphere caused by burning fossil fuels including coal, oil and natural gas. These fuels are generated by factories, power plants, cars, trucks, trains and ships all over the world.
The Zillow analysis projected housing losses from states along the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific coasts:
“Nationally, 1.9 million homes… are projected to be literally underwater by the year 2100 if the oceans rise six feet – roughly midway between the high end of what the government (considered a conservative source) says is “very likely” (4.3 feet) and the possibility of an 8-foot or greater rise that “cannot be excluded.” That accounts for 1.8 percent of the country’s total housing stock with a value of $916 billion, up from $882 billion in 2016. (To be clear, sea levels are not expected to rise uniformly, but we chose a midpoint rather than differentiating sea level predictions for different coastal areas.
Although 39 percent of homes projected to be underwater are valued in the top third of homes in their metros – representing the potential loss of $597 billion in high-end real estate over the course of a single lifetime –not all of the underwater homes would be waterfront mansions: a third (32 percent) are in the bottom tier of home values in their metro areas amounting to a potential $123 billion loss.
While wealthier homeowners may have more to lose in dollars, this scenario could be especially catastrophic for owners of the lowest-valued homes, because lower-income Americans spend a disproportionately large share of their earnings on mortgage payments. For these homeowners in particular, to lose their homes would mean to watch much of their lifetime earnings and overall wealth disappear.
Many of the metro areas that stand to lose the most property are clustered in Florida and along the East Coast. In the Miami metro area alone, the losses are projected to total $30 billion for the owners of lower-end homes, $46 billion for homes valued in the middle tier, and a whopping $140 billion for high-end homeowners. In Houston, nearly 24,000 homes could be lost, 31 percent of which are owned by lower-income homeowners.”[5]
Some Projected Sea Level Rise Risks
New York and New Jersey
The NOAA map shows the loss of New York and New Jersey coastal property with a 6-foot sea level rise
A system of protective barriers around lower Manhattan island called the “Big U” is projected to begin construction in 2019. So far $1 billion has been allocated. The barriers, including levees, a floodwall and park, are being built following $19 billion worth storm damage to the city incurred by Hurricane Sandy in 2012.[6]
A Pennsylvania State University report says that “rising sea levels caused by a warming climate threaten greater future storm damage to New York City…Coastal damage increases if the sea level is higher before a storm…”[7]
Map of New York City and New Jersey show maximum projected future storm surge. Natural water is in dark blue, 2100 levels are in medium blue and 2300 levels are in light blue. Source: Catolyn Fish, Penn State Department of Geography
In New Jersey, Hurricane Sandy caused 34 deaths, destroyed over 30,000 homes and businesses, and caused a total of $36.9 billion in damages. But a storm the same strength as Sandy would likely have caused much less damage one hundred years ago. Why? Because sea levels have risen nearly a foot since then.[8]
A report by the Rutgers Institute of Marine and Coastal Science explains:
“Sea level is rising faster at the New Jersey shore than the global average because of land subsidence (sinking)… In the 20th century, sea level rose by 12 inches at bedrock locations (Bayonne, Trenton, and Camden). Along the Jersey shore from Sandy Hook to Cape May, it rose an additional four inches due to compaction of sediments caused by natural effects and groundwater withdrawal. There is a 95% probability that the 20th century rate of sea-level rise along the New Jersey shore was faster than it was in any century in the last 4,000 years.”[9]
North and South Carolina
The NOAA map shows the loss of North and South Carolina coastal property with a 6-foot sea level rise
The Raleigh, North Carolina News & Observer reported in June, 2018 that thousands of North Carolina and South Carolina homes worth billions of dollars could be flooded by sea level rise in years ahead, citing a Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) report.
In North Carolina, there are 15,582 homes valued at nearly $4 billion at risk in the next 27 years, according to the study. There are nearly 23,000 people housed in those at-risk homes.
In South Carolina, there are 16,614 homes at risk in the same time, valued at close to $9 billion. About 24,000 people live in those at-risk homes, the study says.
Because those homes are at risk, that also means the property taxes their owners pay is at risk, the newspaper said (emphasis added).
In North and South Carolina, that amount totals to more than $96 million of lost tax revenue in the next 27 years, according to the study.
That is $96 million that would no longer be available to local governments should those homes become unlivable, meaning less funding for schools, roads and emergency services in those places.
By 2100, those numbers increase to nearly 100,000 homes in North Carolina valued at more than $28.5 billion and more than 150,000 people living in those at-risk homes, according to the study data. In South Carolina, more than 115,000 homes valued at nearly $52.7 billion and more than 186,000 people in chronically flooded homes by 2100.
“For some communities, the potential hit to the local tax base could be staggering,” said Kristy Dahl, senior climate scientist at UCS and report co-author. “Some smaller, more rural communities may see 30, 50, or even 70 percent of their property tax revenue at risk due to the number of chronically inundated homes. Tax base erosion could create particular challenges for communities already struggling with high poverty rates.”[10]
Georgia
The NOAA map shows the loss of Georgia coastal property with a 6-foot sea level rise
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists report:
“The results for Georgia are quite sobering. The analysis finds that without additional measures to adapt to rising seas:
- By 2045, more than 6,000 of today’s residential properties, currently home to about 11,000 people, are at risk of chronic inundation. The total number of at-risk residential properties jumps to more than 40,000—home to about 79,000 people—by 2100.
- By 2045, more than $2.2 billion-worth of residential property (based on today’s values) are at risk of chronic flooding. The homes that would face this flooding at the end of the century are currently worth roughly $13 billion.
- The Georgia homes at risk in 2045 currently contribute about $24 million in annual property tax revenue. The homes at risk by 2100 currently contribute roughly $139 million collectively in annual property tax revenue.”[11]
Florida
The NOAA map shows the loss of Florida coastal property with a 6-foot sea level rise [12]
One additional impact of sea level rise to South Florida is the threat to the region’s fresh water supply, which could be contaminated as salt water seeps into the aquifer that supplies Miami.
A Bloomberg report says: “Barring a stupendous reversal in greenhouse gas emissions, the rising Atlantic will cover much of Miami by the end of this century. The economic effects will be devastating: Zillow, Inc. estimates that six feet of sea-level rise would put a quarter of Miami’s homes underwater, rendering $200 billion of real estate worthless.“
But global warming poses a more immediate danger to Miami’s water supply “because the aquifer that supplies the city is under threat from encroachment by sea water because of sea level rise: The permeability that makes the aquifer so easily accessible also makes it vulnerable. “It’s very easy to contaminate our aquifer,” says Rachel Silverstein, executive director of Miami Waterkeeper, a local environmental protection group. And the consequences could be sweeping.”
County officials agree with her: “The minute the world thinks your water supply is in danger, you’ve got a problem,” says James Murley, chief resilience officer for Miami-Dade, although he adds that the county’s water system remains “one of the best” in the U.S.
The questions hanging over Miami and the rest of Southeast Florida are how long it can keep its water safe, and at what cost. As the region struggles with more visible climate problems, including increasingly frequent flooding and this summer’s toxic algae blooms, the risks to the aquifer grow, and they’re more insidious for being out of sight. If Miami-Dade can’t protect its water supply, whether it can handle the other manifestations of climate change won’t matter.”
The report concludes that desalination may be South Florida’s only hope:
Though far from perfect, desalination may one day be Miami’s only option. Climate advocates fret that the increased need for desalination will accelerate global warming. For the county, there’s a more urgent concern: Reverse osmosis is enormously expensive. Water from the plant, built by engineering company AECOM for $55 million, costs two and a half times as much to process as water from the Biscayne Aquifer.”[13]
Alabama
The NOAA map shows the loss of Alabama coastal property with a 6-foot sea level rise
According to an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report: “ Sea level is rising more rapidly in Alabama than most coastal areas because the land is sinking. If the oceans and atmosphere continue to warm, sea level along the Alabama coast is likely to rise eighteen inches to four feet in the next century. Rising sea level submerges wetlands and dry land, erodes beaches, and exacerbates coastal flooding.”[14]
The EPA also said: “Tropical storms and hurricanes have become more intense during the past 20 years. Although warming oceans provide these storms with more potential energy, scientists are not sure whether the recent intensification reflects a long-term trend.
Nevertheless, hurricane wind speeds and rainfall rates are likely to increase as the climate continues to warm. Whether or not storms become more intense, coastal homes and infrastructure will flood more often as sea level rises, because storm surges will become higher as well. Rising sea level is likely to increase flood insurance rates, while more frequent storms could increase the deductible for wind damage in homeowner insurance policies.
Many cities, roads, railways, ports, airports, and oil and gas facilities along the Gulf Coast are vulnerable to the combined impacts of storms and sea level rise. People may move from vulnerable coastal communities and stress the infrastructure of the communities that receive them.”[15]
Mississippi
The NOAA map shows the loss of Mississippi coastal property with a 6-foot sea level rise
The EPA notes that similar to Alabama: “Sea level is rising more rapidly in Mississippi than most coastal areas because the land is sinking. If the oceans and atmosphere continue to warm, sea level along the Mississippi coast is likely to rise between twenty inches and four feet in the next century.
Rising sea level submerges wetlands and dry land, erodes beaches, and exacerbates coastal flooding. Coastal communities along Mississippi Sound are protected by undeveloped barrier islands, so erosion of those islands could threaten communities on the mainland.
Although warming oceans provide these storms with more potential energy, scientists are not sure whether the recent intensification reflects a long-term trend. Nevertheless, hurricane wind speeds and rainfall rates are likely to increase as the climate continues to warm.”[16]
Louisiana
The NOAA map shows the loss of Louisiana coastal property with a 6-foot sea level rise
The Advocate newspaper, based in Baton Rouge, cited the Zillow report stating that “Louisiana homeowners have billions of dollars on the line — $13.2 billion to be exact — if climate change continues to push sea levels up, according to real estate economists.”
The newspaper reported:
“A year ago, the real estate company Zillow compared its extensive housing data with federal meteorologists’ predictions on sea level rise. Last month, the company pushed to publicize its findings after President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the international Paris Agreement that seeks to mitigate climate change……NOAA maps show much of the coastal parishes falling into the Gulf if sea levels rise by 6 feet.”[17]
Texas
The NOAA map shows the loss of Texas coastal property with a 6-foot sea level rise
City and state officials in Texas are studying a possible partnership with private industry to create a new kind of bond to help pay for a $15 billion system of seawalls and floodgates, as a warming climate piles more storm risk on Houston. They’re examining the market for catastrophe bonds, in which investors assume the risk for calamities like hurricanes in exchange for above-market returns and portfolio diversification.
According to a 2018 Bloomberg report
“At stake the welfare of $500 billion in industry, including the nation’s largest concentration of oil refineries and chemical plants. The dike could prevent countless homes and lives from being swept away in the 20-foot storm surge that would accompany a direct hit from a major hurricane –- a potentially worse cataclysm than (Hurricane) Harvey.
In 2017, Harvey flooded hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses, wreaking $125 billion in damages, a reminder of how vulnerable one of the nation’s most important economic centers remains. After a decade of indecision, officials have rallied around a plan for a seawall almost 60 miles long fitted with massive floodgates at the center to protect Galveston Bay and the industry lining the Houston Ship Channel.
The Dutch proved long ago that its seawalls and floodgates can be effective. Much of the Netherlands would be swamped if not for its network of levees and floodgates holding back the sea. Houston’s plan is modeled after those engineering marvels.
The Coastal Spine, also known as the Ike Dike, is the largest civil works project under consideration in the U.S., according to the Texas General Land Office. It would be a landmark deal for financial markets, too. If Houston can bring together the public and private sector, the new financing model could be replicated to reinforce communities from Florida to California against Mother Nature’s wrath.”[18]
California
NOAA map shows impact to the San Francisco Bay of a 6-foot sea level rise: cities along the Bay will face permanent flooding
A six-foot rise in sea level could have a devastating impact on a number of San Francisco Bay Area cities that would face permanent flooding as the NOAA map indicates.
A 2016 California Coastal Commission report found that “Climate change now affects almost every facet of California’s natural and built environment, and sea level rise will have widespread adverse consequences for California’s coastal resources and shoreline development.
A 2009 Pacific Institute study estimates that with 1.4 m (1.4 meters = 4.6 feet ed note) of potential sea level rise, over 200,000 Californians and development valued at $36.5 billion will be at risk in a 100‐year flood event.”[19]
In September 2018, Port of San Francisco executive director Elaine Forbes urged support for a $425 million bond issue by San Francisco voters to rebuild San Francisco’s outdated seawall and combat higher sea levels caused by global warming. She said the sea level rise is happening much faster than anticipated and that coastal areas around the United States including port properties and urban areas are at serious risk of erosion from the ocean.
Passage of the seawall bond was essential to safeguard 500 acres of downtown San Francisco including Port property, utilities and the San Francisco transit system.[20]
The measure was approved by voters in November but is only a partial fix. The total seawall upgrade cost is projected to be at least $2 billion.[21]
Global Crisis: Global Temperatures Are Rising Faster
In October, 2018 91 scientists and editors convened by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded in a report that the Earth had already warmed by 1 degree Celsius (1°C) since pre-industrial times, was headed toward 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2040 causing increasingly dangerous impacts from flooding, hurricanes, wild fires, droughts and unbearable heat. [22]
Carbon dioxide emissions continue to heat the atmosphere caused by fossil fuels that include coal, oil, and natural gas. These fuels are generated by factories, power plants, cars, trucks, trains and ships. Without major cutbacks in these emissions, the planet will experience very serious climate events by 2040 and far worse events by 2060.
“One of the key messages that comes out very strongly from this report is that we are already seeing the consequences of 1°C of global warming through more extreme weather, rising sea levels and diminishing Arctic sea ice, among other changes,” said Panmao Zhai, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group I.[23]
In 2015, 195 countries from around the world met in Paris and agreed on the urgency of controlling fossil fuel emissions and temperature rise vowing to keep the rise below 2°C (3.6°Fahrenheit). They also agreed to limit the rise to 1.5°C (2.7° Fahrenheit). This was the basis of the 2015 Paris accord on climate change.
President Trump Disagrees
The response of President Donald Trump and his administration has been to repudiate the 2015 Paris climate change agreement, promote more fossil fuel production and relax air emission regulations for carbon and other emissions.
President Trump is backing off his claim that climate change is a “hoax,” but says he doesn’t know if it’s manmade and suggests that the climate will “change back again.”
In an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes”, Trump said he doesn’t want to put the U.S. at a disadvantage in responding to climate change:
“I think something’s happening. Something’s changing and it’ll change back again,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a hoax. I think there’s probably a difference. But I don’t know that it’s manmade. I will say this: I don’t want to give trillions and trillions of dollars. I don’t want to lose millions and millions of jobs…”
Time Magazine reported that Trump called climate change a hoax in November, 2012 when he sent a tweet stating, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” He later said he was joking about the Chinese connection, but in years since has continued to call global warming a “hoax.”[24]
Global Economic Mobilization
The IPCC report says that an unprecedented level of industrial and manufacturing mobilization will be required to limit temperature gains to 1.5 degrees Celsius: “Pathways limiting global warming to 1.5°C with no or limited overshoot would require rapid and far-reaching transitions in energy, land, urban and infrastructure (including transport and buildings), and industrial systems (high confidence). These systems transitions are unprecedented in terms of scale, but not necessarily in terms of speed, and imply deep emissions reductions in all sectors, a wide portfolio of mitigation options and a significant upscaling of investments….”[25]
The investment cost for this new activity will be steep and is likely to crowd out some economic activity that is less life threatening: “Total annual average energy-related mitigation investment for the period 2015 to 2050 in pathways limiting warming to 1.5°C is estimated to be around 900 billion USD2015 (range of 180 billion to 1800 billion USD2015 across six models..). This corresponds to total annual average energy supply investments of 1600 to 3800 billion USD2015 and total annual average energy demand investments of 700 to 1000 billion USD2015 for the period 2015 to 2050…”[26]
A Foreign Policy report warns that time is not on humanity’s side:
“Most people hope that we’ll be able to prevent catastrophe by rolling out clean energy systems, ultimately decarbonizing the economy. But so far this plan has not been working very well. Global emissions continue to rise, year after year, and the peak is nowhere in sight. Even with the Paris climate agreement in place, adding up all of the pledges that the world’s governments have made, the IPCC predicts that we’re headed for as much as 3.4 degrees of warming. The destruction will be unimaginable.”[27]
Rationale for U.S. Economic Mobilization
The effort to stop global warming, address the impact of sea level rise and other impacts is going to require a World War II level of economic mobilization by the United States in collaboration with other countries around the world who embraced the 2015 Paris climate change accords.
The IPCC report has projected the billions of dollars on an annual basis that will need to be expended by the world’s economies (see above). The most immediate goal will be to transform the global economies over to zero emission, sustainable power sources and eliminate carbon and fossil fuel emissions. Only governments will be able to finance such massive expenditures. The good news is that there will be a massive number of new jobs created. Like World War II, full employment and high wages should result.
Fast-Tracking Renewable Energy Development
This will require a major ramp up in the production of solar photovoltaics and installation of more solar energy in homes and businesses. Batteries for storage will be needed to complement solar development. Cars, trucks and ships will need to be transitioned from fossil fuels to batteries or other zero emission power sources.
Additional power generation will require a mass deployment of solar and wind power. The deployment of off-shore wind farms has potential for massive renewable power development.
Wind Farms Can Create 160,000 New U.S. Jobs
The U.S. Department of Energy says that the potential of off-shore wind is enough to provide twice the current energy needs for the entire United States and create thousands of new jobs:
“U.S. offshore wind has a technical resource potential of more than 2,000 GW[28] of capacity, or 7,200 TWh of generation per year.[29] For context, this is nearly double the nation’s current electricity use. For comparison, approximately 90,000 homes can be powered by 1 TWh per year. This means that even if only 1% of the technical potential is recovered, nearly 6.5 million homes could be powered by offshore wind energy. According to the Wind Vision report released by the Energy Department last year, developing just 86 GW, or about 4% of the U.S. offshore wind technical resource potential by 2050 would support 160,000 jobs, reduce power sector water consumption by 5%, and reduce America’s greenhouse gas emissions by 1.8%.”[30]
US WIND POTENTIAL FOR OFFSHORE WIND FARMS
Note: Darker colors show states where high wind speeds will support long-term offshore wind farm development (2016 U.S. Offshore Wind Resource Assessment (OSWRA) The designation (m/s) means meters per second.[31]
Thus, the future may lie with the mass construction and deployment of offshore wind farms. Floating wind turbines can generate power miles off-shore in deep water just like offshore oil drilling platforms. The wind farms utilize underwater transmissions lines to bring power on shore and will need to be supported by various new barges, off-shore supply vessels, cable laying vessels and new shipyards.
Equinor, the Norwegian oil and gas company, has recently built a floating wind farm off the coast of Scotland that generates 30 Megawatts of electricity sufficient for 20,000 households. The cost of the project was $237 million USD. [32]
An illustration of floating wind turbines, which are necessary for deep water deployment. Source: Equinor
A blueprint for the future might be the Atlantic Wind Connection project. In 2011, the Atlantic Wind Connection (AWC) proposed a massive $5 billion offshore undersea cable transmission project that by 2016 could have transmitted 6,000 MW at full capacity (or 6 GW). The 350-mile undersea cable was projected to create 26,000 jobs. The proposed offshore transmission system was designed to link utility customers between New Jersey and Virginia.[33]
The Atlantic Wind Connection proposes to link off-shore wind farms by transmission line from New Jersey to Virginia. Source: Atlantic Wind Connection[34]
Mobilizing for Coastal Sea Level Defense
Another priority is the construction of dikes and storm water sea gates as part of a national sea defense system, just as New York and San Francisco are embarking on. The Netherlands has taken the lead here in building dikes and sea gates to protect the country from the rise in sea level. Beginning after catastrophic floods in 1953, the Netherlands embarked on a series of projects in the southwest part of the country called the Delta Works. The Dutch government’s Rijkswaterstaat built the system “to protect the country against flooding from the North Sea. A large part of the Netherlands is below sea level and many large European rivers flow through the country to the sea. The large volume of water and the low-lying situation of the country exposes the Netherlands to the threat of flooding. Flood protection is therefore vital for the safety of millions of people in the Netherlands. Rijkswaterstaat started building the Delta Works in the year following the Great Flood of 1953. The massive project, with 13 storm surge barriers, was completed in 1997. Primary flood barriers, including storm surge barriers, now protect us from the sea, rivers and large lakes. Regional flood barriers, such as dams and dykes, defend against flooding from inland waterways.”[35]
One example is the Maeslantkering, a storm surge barrier that protects the city of Rotterdam from floods. Completed in 1997, the Maeslantkering consists of two 6,800 ton gates that close under the autonomous command of a set of computers that monitor the sea levels on an hourly basis. These computers are not connected to the internet, making them invulnerable to cyber-attacks. The construction cost was €450 million ($509 million USD today).The Maeslantkering protects Rotterdam’s 994,000 inhabitants.[36]
The Maeslantkering sea gates protect the city of Rotterdam
On Wednesday, January 3, 2018, a severe storm caused water levels to rise all along the coast. For the first time ever, Rijkswaterstaat closed all the country’s storm surge barriers on the same day.[37]
Peter Persoon, technical information officer at the Maeslantkering, said: “the Dutch government is concerned that sea level rise caused by global warming will force the Netherlands to accelerate investments in new bigger sea barriers and taller dikes: We had planned for a 2 millimeter increase in sea level per year but if the rise accelerates to 20 millimeters per year then we have to act now to anticipate sea level increases we had expected in 2100 occurring sooner – possibly by 2060. For example, … the Maeslant barrier was planned to defend against sea level rises projected into 2100. Now, it is possible that we will have to replace these gates sooner. This is going to require a bigger budget for sea defense and water management.” [38]
Persoon noted there is growing cooperation for sea level defense from countries around the world. Storm Surge Barrier (SSB) professionals from the UK, Italy, USA, Belgium, Holland and Russia are part of the I-STORM network, which brings together professionals that build, manage, operate and maintain storm surge barriers.[39]
Desalination: Creating Fresh Water from Sea Water
Desalination is another priority because it will be critical to providing a new supply of fresh water for people around the world as well as providing water for irrigation in drought-stricken regions.
Criticisms of desalination focus on: cost and long delays in permit approvals.
And because of that:
- Desalination needs to be powered by a renewable source to reduce costs and emissions.
- Faster permit approvals will reduce start-up costs and improve profitability.
- Having a supply of water is better than not having a supply of water.
A California-based desalination consultant, Randy Truby, notes that the high costs of creating fresh water from sea water can be reduced by powering new plants with solar or wind technology. The desalination process for sea water is the same process that is used in the treatment of waste water and brackish water. It uses a reverse osmosis system whereby water is filtered through membranes. This filtration process uses pumps that require energy that increases the expense of the desalination process. However, he says ”if you do not have water, or are experiencing chronic droughts, then the expense justifies the investment.” There are ways to link desalination to renewable energy development: “There have been several projects that use renewable energy to support desalination: (1) In Perth, Australia, they built a wind farm that generated power into the grid that provided the additional energy needed to support the desalination plant. (2) In Saudi Arabia, a new photovoltaic (PV) solar plant will be linked to a desalination plant.”
A major stumbling block for new desalination installations is time delays due to permitting: “Another problem for the deployment of all desalination technologies is that from the time contracts are let, construction requires 2 to 3 years. This does not account for permitting time which in the case of the Carlsbad facility in San Diego County, took 9 years due to California Coastal Commission reviews and legal challenges in the courts.”[40]
Carbon Dioxide Removal
The IPCC report says:” All pathways that limit global warming to 1.5°C with limited or no overshoot project the use of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) on the order of 100–1000 GtCO2 over the 21st century (Ed note: One gigaton (Gt) equals one thousand million tons of carbon dioxide – CO2.) CDR would be used to compensate for residual emissions and, in most cases, achieve net negative emissions to return global warming to 1.5°C following a peak.”[41]
The report adds that measures include: “Existing and potential CDR measures include afforestation and reforestation, land restoration and soil carbon sequestration, …. direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS), enhanced weathering and ocean alkalization. These differ widely in terms of maturity, potentials, costs, risks, co-benefits and trade-offs.”[42]
Jan Christoph Minx, head of the applied sustainability science working group at the Mercator Research Institute and Gregory Nemet an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison wrote that CDR is a complicated and expensive process but agrees with the IPCC report that it is essential to removing carbon from the atmosphere:
“Meeting the climate goals of the Paris Agreement is going to be nearly impossible without removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Simply reducing emissions from their current level is unlikely to be enough to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees °C. In fact, we need to remove huge amounts of carbon dioxide — billions of tons per year — to meet these goals because we have repeatedly delayed our decarbonization efforts.
At least a quarter of what we currently emit needs to be stored in trees, soil and under the Earth’s crust. But we are not developing these technologies that we desperately need at the required speed. All the blame is on us: we have simply been too slow to reduce emissions, leaving us in a dire situation where we are going to have to depend on technologies that may not be available in time…….
But we also need a turnaround in climate policy. We need to bend the path of continued increases in greenhouse gas emissions and start an era of rapid and sustained emissions reductions right now. Only this can limit our future dependence on carbon dioxide removal technologies.”[43]
Conclusion
The concept of National Security, whereby countries invest in military resources to defend against each other, needs to be expanded to include the war against global warming and climate change.
Avoiding the loss of coastal cities, agricultural land, and facing the prospect of drought, fires and toxic air requires making changes today.
Some of the steps that need to be taken will require a World War II-type of economic mobilization. These may not seem politically realistic for some, but may mean the difference between life and death for millions.
The steps that need to be considered are:
- International collaboration between the United States, China, the European Union, Russia, India and other 2015 Paris climate change accord partners. This process needs to be revived with landmarks established for worst-case climate scenarios.
- Investing in dikes, dams and sea barriers to defense against rising sea levels or face the prospect of the permanent flooding of coastal communities around the United States and the world.
- Fast-tracking investment in water desalination to relieve long-term drought that impacts agriculture and drinking water.
- Fast-tracking carbon dioxide removal technologies so as to stop temperatures rising.
- Fast-tracking development of batteries, wind turbines, wind farms, solar cells, solar farms and carbon extraction technologies.
The Washington, D.C.-based Foreign Policy magazine notes that the United Nations’ IPCC report is sending a warning that cannot be ignored:
“The catastrophes that we once believed would be triggered by only 2 degrees of warming are likely to occur at this lower (1.5°C) threshold, including widespread collapse of food yields and extreme levels of human displacement.
The IPCC has issued a clear and trenchant call for action—its most urgent yet. It says we need to cut annual global emissions by half in the next 12 years and hit net zero by the middle of the century.
It would be difficult to overstate how dramatic this trajectory is. It requires nothing less than a total and rapid reversal of our present direction as a civilization. The challenge is staggering in its scale, and the stakes are even more so. As the co-chair of an IPCC working group put it, ‘The next few years are probably the most important in our history.’ After decades of delay, this is our last chance to get it right.”[44]
[1] IPCC, Global Warming of 1.5°C, Summary for Policy Makers, SPM 21 (2018)
[2] https://www.climate.gov/news-features/featured-images/el-ni%C3%B1o-likely-boost-high-tide-flood-days-along-us-coasts-2018
[3] https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/, see #10 Infrastructure
[4] Amir AghaKouchak and Colleagues, “How Do Natural Hazards Cascade to Cause Disasters,” Nature, September 27, 2018
[5] https://www.zillow.com/research/climate-change-underwater-homes-2-16928/ and https://www.zillow.com/research/coastal-areas-preparing-rising-seas-17023/
[6] https://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-city-flooding-manhattan-coastal-barriers-2018-4
[7] https://phys.org/news/2017-10-sea-level-stronger-storm-surge-future.html#jCp
[8] http://www.pbs.org/wnet/peril-and-promise/2017/10/sea-level-rise-new-jersey/
[9] http://geology.rutgers.edu/images/stories/faculty/miller_kenneth_g/Sealevelfactsheet7112014update.pdf
[10] https://www.newsobserver.com/news/technology/article213387464.html
[11] https://www.ucsusa.org/press/2018/new-study-finds-40000-georgia-homes-worth-13-billion-will-be-risk-tidal-flooding#.W-N1GZNKg2w
[12] The NOAA maps can be located at this location: https://coast.noaa.gov/slr/#/layer/slr/6/-13468889.681418/4505037.81877636/8/satellite/520/0.8/2050/interHigh/midAccretion
[13] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-08-29/miami-s-other-water-problem
[14] https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-09/documents/climate-change-al.pdf
[15] Ibid.
[16] https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-09/documents/climate-change-ms.pdf
[17] https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/article_e7c0e582-6591-11e7-83ad-9b65a5595b32.html
[18] https://gcaptain.com/houston-eyes-exotic-bonds-to-pay-for-a-15-billion-dike/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Gcaptain+%28gCaptain.com%29&goal=0_f50174ef03-bf7c9a938c-169966254&mc_cid=bf7c9a938c&mc_eid=f4fd64d0a0
[19] https://documents.coastal.ca.gov/assets/climate/slr/vulnerability/FINAL_Statewide_Report.pdf
[20] https://www.ajot.com/insights/full/ai-san-francisco-port-director-elaine-forbes-promotes-425-million-seawall-to-combat-higher-sea-level
[21] https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/SF-s-Embarcadero-seawall-measure-on-track-to-13369575.php
[22] http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/session48/pr_181008_P48_spm_en.pdf
[23] http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/session48/pr_181008_P48_spm_en.pdf
[24] http://time.com/5424427/donald-trump-60-minutes-climate-change/
[25] IPCC, Global Warming of 1.5 Celsius, Summary for Policy Makers, SPM 21 (2018)
[26] Ibid, SPM 22
[27] https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/10/18/the-hope-at-the-heart-of-the-apocalyptic-climate-change-report/
[28] Giggawatt = One billion watts or enough power 725,000 homes ref: https://www.quora.com/How-many-homes-can-one-gigawatt-in-energy-capacity-provide-for
[29] The terawatt (TW) is equal to one trillion (1012) watts. The total power used by humans worldwide is commonly measured in terawatts (see primary energy). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt#Terawatt
[30] https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/computing-america-s-offshore-wind-energy-potential
[31] https://www.weather.gov/epz/wxcalc_windconvert
[32] https://www.equinor.com/en/news/hywindscotland.html
[33] American Journal of Transportation, AWC submits $5 billion proposal for offshore transmission system, (1/24/2011)
[34]https://www.google.com/search?q=atlantic+wind+connection+2016&safe=off&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi7yoaqhr7eAhU4HjQIHX8tDmcQ_AUIFCgC&biw=853&bih=406#imgrc=0rXiYm76GaZGiM
[35] https://www.rijkswaterstaat.nl/english/water-systems/protection-against-water/delta-works/index.aspx
[36] https://dutchreview.com/culture/society/rising-sea-levels-in-the-netherlands/
[37] https://www.i-storm.org/
[38] Interview with Peter Persoon, 11/6/2018
[39] https://www.i-storm.org/
[40] https://rbtus.com/desalination-possibilities-an-interview-with-randy-truby/ and see: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/04/is-desalination-the-answer-to-water-scarcity/
[41] IPCC, Global Warming of 1.5 Celsius, Summary for Policy Makers, SPM 23 (2018)
[42] Ibid
[43] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/theworldpost/wp/2018/05/31/carbon-capture/?utm_term=.5ad09a00d2aa
[44] https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/10/18/the-hope-at-the-heart-of-the-apocalyptic-climate-change-report/