PACIFICA CLIFFHANGER: SEAWALLS VS. MANAGED RETREAT

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November 05, 2023

PACIFICA CLIFFHANGER: SEAWALLS VS. MANAGED RETREAT

New Yorker teaser

NewYorker PDF

Coastal Commission

Posted at 04:27 PM in Environment & Nature | Permalink

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Armor the bluffs, lose the beaches. And the new "repairs"? Just like previous repairs in the same places, they will fail in time. Nature bats last. Selfishly, I made a little bit of money some years ago with pictures of houses falling off the cliff just north of the mobile home park; one was even prominently located in a display on coastal erosion at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC.

Posted by: Carl May | November 20, 2023 at 12:35 PM

Scroll down to see explanation and infographic showing why, so far, the West Coast of North America is experiencing less sea level rise than the East Coast.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2023/coral-reefs-sea-level-rise-climate-change/

Posted by: Jay Bird | November 19, 2023 at 07:05 AM

SEA LEVEL RISE WILL BE FASTER AND SOONER
This is an emergency.

David Wallace-Wells column: James Hansen says we have to realize that we’ve underestimated how much the planet is warming.

“... aerosols are cooling the planet by perhaps 1.5 degrees Celsius. And because the world is moving away from air pollution much faster than it is moving away from carbon emissions,... the rate of warming will grow by 50 to 100 percent over the next few decades.

... large sea-level rise this century will be much greater than the I.P.C.C. assumes... " https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/template/oakv2?productCode=DWW&te=1&nl=david-wallace-wells&emc=edit_dww_20231108&uri=nyt://newsletter/417b737e-69ad-5b7f-9084-84717705ae6b

Details:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/marine-clouds-climate-change-1.7016498

Posted by: Jay Bird | November 08, 2023 at 08:06 AM

Nice write-up with several links to deeper respources.

One thing Pacificans who want seawalls won't tell you: the cost will be paid for by everyone. This will be borne primarily by property owners.

As the sea continues to rise, which it will as the Antarctic continues accelerated melting, walls and wall reparations will fail.
https://www.amnh.org/explore/ology/earth/ask-a-scientist-about-our-environment/will-the-world-ever-be-all-under-water#:~:text=But%20our%20coastlines%20would%20be,land%20area%20would%20shrink%20significantly.

Coastal erosion will take its toll, as Shirley Drye so aptly warned Pacifica City Council-- whose deafness created a catastrophe : https://patch.com/california/pacifica/dramatic-video-shows-california-coastal-community-literally-falling-pacific-0

There isn't enough money in the world to prevent this.

Posted by: Jay Bird | November 06, 2023 at 07:18 AM

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