This is the kind of climate change impact statement we haven’t seen enough of.[And the article in the NY Times on page A21 shows how unimportant it is to editors.] Personal actions like changing light bulbs and walking more are necessary but not nearly sufficient a response to what is confronting us. Towns, cities, counties and states have to get busy at every level of their general plans, infrastructure reviews and expenditure forecasts.
A rise in sea levels and other changes fueled by global warming threaten roads, rail lines, ports, airports and other important infrastructure, and policy makers and planners should be acting now to avoid or mitigate their effects, according to new government reports.
While increased heat and “intense precipitation events” threaten these structures, the greatest and most immediate potential impact is coastal flooding, according to one of the reports, by an expert panel convened by the National Research Council, the research arm of the National Academy of Sciences.
The 218-page academy report was issued Tuesday, and is available at nationalacademies.org.
…60,000 miles of coastal highways are already subject to periodic flooding, the academy panel called for policy makers to survey vulnerable areas — “roads, bridges, marine, air, pipelines, everything,” Dr. Schwartz said — and begin work now on plans to protect, reinforce, move or replace on safer ground. Those tasks will take years or decades and tens of billions of dollars, at least, he said.
“We need to think about it now,” said Dr. Schwartz, a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
The multiagency report, a draft assessment, is intended to help policy makers do just that. The 800-page draft was posted online last month for public review at climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap4-1/public-review-draft. It focuses on the area from Montauk Point on Long Island to Cape Lookout, N.C.