Somebody's going to make a boatload of money off this. Someday.
In the past, municipalities turned to a manual published by the Army Corps of Engineers since 1954 on how to protect shores by holding back the sea. But earlier this month, the EPA published the first manual on how not to hold it back, arguing that costly seawalls and dikes eventually within 50 to 50,000 years, maybe longer fail because sea-level rise is unstoppable.
Oceans have been several hundred feet higher in the past. There's no stopping that.
The EPA report said governments have three options to deal with sea-level rise: They can stay on the well-worn path of building expensive protection and raising streets and buildings. They can beat an organized retreat from the shore, perhaps by offering financial incentives to people and organizations to move inland. Or they can allow people to do whatever they want for their waterfront properties but tell them in no uncertain terms that they are on their own when the waters rise.
While that seems commonsense to me, I can't believe anyone would sit still for not being protected by the Federal Government. That's what it there for, you know!
Most people aren't taking the threat of sea-level rise decades from now too seriously, but planners say it is worrisome when you consider what's at stake -- public roads, schools, bridges, tunnels, museums, police stations and housing developments that are built to last well beyond the average 30-year home mortgage.
I'm for letting my grandchildren pay for it then, if it's needed. Not spend their money now, only to find out the computer models were not properly calibrated. |