August 9, 2017 — The first truly global disaster resulting from climate change may come from rising sea levels.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Committee on Climate Change has projected sea level rise of 1 to 3 feet by the end of the century, and more recent estimates by NASA and other scientists have projected a rise of up to 8 feet.
In Massachusetts, the rising sea will mean more frequent flooding, more severe storms, and dramatic change.
It’s a problem we will share with every coastal community on every continent. A bit farther down the Atlantic Coast, there’s a place that’s on a faster track to where we too may be headed.
‘These Beaches Are Doomed’
Leonardo Da Vinci wrote that “water is the driving force of all nature.”
Fascinated by great storms and terrible floods, DaVinci would have loved the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Nearly 200 miles of low-lying, shifting sand islands link into a high energy system of waves and storms.
“These beaches are doomed,” says Orrin Pilkey, a professor at Duke University and an octogenarian prophet. “The buildings are doomed too.”
Traveling through a shanty town of triple-decker McMansions on stilts, motels and condos too close to the sea, we stop in the town of Nags Head. Pilkey predicts catastrophe in vacationland.
“The future is one of retreat,” Pilkey says. “It’s the only way to save the beach. It’s the only way to save the buildings.”