Did the climate leave a note? And what did Rick Santorum do?
The Baltimore Sun hyperventilates:
Hurricane season may still be months away, but the threat of flooding is already on the rise in Maryland, as documented by the latest reports on climate change released this week. Rising sea levels have raised the risk of coastal flooding, particularly from severe storms.
Analyzing both the latest forecasts of rising high tides caused by warming oceans and the latest population data from the 2010 census, one of several studies released this week, “Surging Seas” by scientists associated with the nonprofit Climate Central environmental research organization, found 3.7 million Americans living near the water will be at risk in the coming decades.
Maryland is relatively high on that list, with Ocean City and nearby Ocean Pines rated as particularly vulnerable, followed by waterfront communities from Crisfield on the Eastern Shore to Shady Side in Anne Arundel County and waterfront Baltimore. In all, some 40,000 homes located five feet or less above high tide are considered to be under the greatest threat…
This isn’t a problem that can be solved overnight but will take decades to address. That’s not cause for delay but reason to do more now, as the window for affecting climate change is gradually closing, whether deniers like Mr. Santorum will acknowledge it or not.
When the floods do come, the victims may look back and wonder why an earlier generation did so little to prevent such catastrophe. What will we tell them? Surely not that we didn’t see it coming, but perhaps we’ll just have to admit that we did — and chose to do nothing anyway.[Emphasis added]
Let’s see…. about a tenth of an inch a year… Hmmmm, yep I think I could out run that. I suspect I could even tell when my house was in actual danger soon enough to invest in a seawall or something. [/sarc]
With sea levels dropping for the past 4 years, the Baltimore Sun can go back to worrying over the Mayan doomsday calendar and the asteroid strike coming in 2040.
Throwing chum to the sharks, eh?
Even people in the third world that live near water know enough to build their huts on stilts or build houses that float.
Once in awhile, folks along the Mississippi will ask WTF is wrong with me for putting my house or town five feet above flood stage. Guess they don’t know enough to blame Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson for global warming.
The oceans have been rising at an unincreasing rate of 2-3millimieters (talk about gradual) for quite a while. If the five feet mark gets over taken, we’ve got a with slow learners living near oceans. Well, we know that now already.
“When the floods do come, the victims may look back and wonder why an earlier generation did so little to prevent such catastrophe.”
IF the floods come people will look at the idiots that live in an area where their home is 5 feet above high tide and ask WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU?
If you beleive this report and you are “living near the water” – MOVE!
What does Santorum have to do with Baltimore? He’s from Pennsylvania.. 😛
OHo! I like this part:
‘In all, some 40,000 homes located five feet or less above high tide are considered to be under the greatest threat…
This isn’t a problem that can be solved overnight but will take decades to address. ‘
Well, Hell. If there was even the Slightest bit of truth to all of this, then they ought to start Moving now. Those houses will be Swamp in ‘decades.’