Thinking Citizen Blog — “See Them While You Can” — Iconic US Destinations Are Disappearing (USA Today)
Thinking Citizen Blog: Wednesday is Climate Change, the Environment, and Sustainability Day
Today’s Topic: “See Them While You Can” — Iconic US Destinations are Disappearing (USA Today)
When you think of “climate change” what images come to mind first? The collapsing ice caps? retreating glaciers? An emaciated polar bear? eroding beach front property? Today, excerpts from an article in the USA Today on a few iconic US destinations under threat. Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
THE HOLE IN THE BIG SUR HIGHWAY ON CALIFORNIA’S PACIFIC COAST — collapsed April 2, 2024 after heavy rains
1. “We have much more intense, prolonged winter storms that bring heavy rain and wind. As a consequence, the rate of failure due to landslides has increased significantly.”
2. “The road has been in an ongoing fight against gravity since it was first constructed in the 1930s. But now, a new level of damage is coming from increasingly furious winter storms and climate change-exacerbated wildfires that lead to soil erosion.”
3. “The end result: hundreds of millions in damage that require closure so frequent the California Department of Transportation maintains a website listing them.”
NB: “A massive storm on March 30 caused a section of the roadway a dozen miles south of Carmel to fall into the ocean. Locals only had limited access in and out and it took six weeks to reopen.”On June 23, a section of the highway at Paul’s Slide only opened after being closed for a year and a half because of a major slide that poured as much as 500,000 cubic yards across the roadway. Such closures used to happen once every few years. Now it’s almost every year.”
THE OUTER BANKS OFF NORTH CAROLINA — a home washed out to see, ghost forests, increased high tide flooding
1. “More than 5 million visitors a year flock to the sandy beaches of the barrier islands off North Carolina, visiting lighthouses and soaking up the sun. But it’s hard to miss the clear evidence that the warming climate is changing this fringe of islands.”
2. “The impacts of higher sea levels and high tide flooding aren’t just visible along the beach. They’re evident on the inland side of the islands, along the Albermarle Sound in the Alligator River National Refuge, where scrubby freshwater bogs are being overtaken by salt marsh.”
3. “Ghost forests are scattered across the landscape as salt water intrusion kills trees. Some local landmarkts that once stood on sold ground are now sitting in the water.”
NB: “High tide flooding — frequently referred to as sunny day flooding — already occurs twice as often along the Outer Banks as it did in 2000, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and that’s only expected to increase. The agency expects high tide flooding to triple by 2030 and to be 10 times higher in 2050.”
THE TIDAL BASIN IN WASHINGTON DC — 140 cherry trees to be cut down to construct a sea wall
1. “Over the past century, sea levels in the area have risen over 13 inches, with signs of acceleration. Today, the Tidal Basin’s walkways flood at certain times of day.”
2. “There are certain areas of the Tidal Basin when you’re walking, say, from the Jefferson Memorial to wards the MLK Memorial, where you cannot walk along the edge of the Tidal Basin at all because it’s so muddy and slippery, it’s closed off.”
3. “The rising water levels from climate change are also killing off cherry trees that line the basin. When walkways are flooded, people end up trampling the trees’ roots. Plus, rising temperatures year after year are causing the peak bloom season to occur earlier and earlier.”
NB: “In 70 years, the entirety of the Tidal Basin walkways could be under water if nothing is done…” “The National Park Service has begun construction on a $113 million project to restore the seawall and widen walkways, according to Superintendent of National Mall and Memorial Parks Jeff Reinbold.”
See them while you can: Climate change is reshaping iconic US destinations
Another North Carolina home falls into Atlantic Ocean and more are at risk
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
A LINK TO THE LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED BY THEME:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
ATTACHMENT BELOW -
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest thing you learned in the last week related to climate change or the environment.
Or the coolest, most important thing you learned in your life related to climate change that the rest of us may have missed. Your favorite chart or table perhaps…
This is your chance to make some one’s day. Or to cement in your own mind something that you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than otherwise about something dear to your heart.
