Planning to live with Climate Change
by Michael Smith
Climate change is something that we have to think about int terms of working with it and learning to live with it...
Over the past few years river delta flooding has been a major issue in the United States. Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on the Gulf Coast, Hurricane Ike has caused serious trauma throughout coastal Texas, and many other delta lowlands have undergone damaging flood periods in recent history, such as the Sacramento-San Joaquin river delta.
Climate change will effect sea levels and global weather patterns meaning more frequent and severe flooding of these areas.
While there are many who believe that Climate Change is entirely man-made the problem is what if it is not and we have none or very little impact on changing anything regardless of how much we reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere and all those other so-called greenhouse gases. Then, unless we make provision for this, we will all be up the proverbial creek without the necessary paddles and such devices.
While I am in agreement that we must reduce the impact of al those gases, but not so much as regards to stopping and reversing Climate Change, as I do not believe that (1) mankind and our emissions are the cause of the “global warming” and climate change but that that is a recurring phenomenon of the Earth herself and (2) that whatever we do we cannot stop or reverse anything, but simply because all those gases in combination seem to harm human health particular and pollution of all those gases and particles seem to be the main cause of many respiratory ailments and even heart problems of our modern age.
Humankind must learn to live with the changing climate as humankind has always had to when the Earth has thrown her wobblies before and went from cold to hot and then back to cold only to go back to hot. One only needs to look at the last two or three millennia see this pattern. About ever thousand years the Earth seems to be hitting one of the high notes, throws a wobbly of warm and cool for a while before dropping back into a mini ice age.
We are, presently, in one of the high notes, it would appear and, according to some findings, the temperatures have leveled out and have been steady for the last six or so years without any further sign of rising. The Old Farmer's Almanac has stuck its neck out and predicted that the world is going to enter a period of cooling, a mini ice age of sorts. This could be feasible. But, due to the warming that has occurred the ice in the arctic and antarctic is melting and this could and will cause a rise in sea levels. Combined with the increased weather activities of rains and hurricanes and such like, more flooding would be likely. Rising sea levels will also, obviously, impact on river delta systems and tidal rivers themselves.
Hence we must abandon the stupidity of building in floodplains or we must follow the examples of our very old ancestors and build on stilts.
The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) is creating a land modeling plan to efficiently and economically handle the populations and infrastructure suffering from the impact of climate change. The long and short of it is…the next time these areas are destroyed, don’t rebuild them.
The study conducted by the PPIC focused on policy issues pertaining to certain tracts of land in freshwater parts of the Sacramento-San Joaquin river delta. Since rescue and rehabilitation of these areas is quite costly, the driving force behind the policy decisions is saving taxpayer money. “In 2004, when a delta levee unexpectedly collapsed, the state and federal governments rushed in to repair it, spending more than $75 million. However, the effort protected land worth only $22 million.” Experts from an array of fields, including civil engineering, climate science, economics, hydrology, and biology were consulted to formulate the plan of action for at risk lands.
Although it may seem like peoples lives and homes are being abandoned to save a dollar, overall everyone is losing by dumping money and resources into saving certain delta areas. The idea of “adjusting to new ecology” will save state taxpayers money, in the future will save people who would have inhabited these areas from great loss, and allows mother nature to reclaim wetlands that humans are struggling to keep as freshwater areas when the natural state is a mixture of fresh and salt waters.
The belief has been that we’re defending the environment by maintaining the freshwater system, but that is actually incompatible with giving the Delta’s native species and ecosystem a fighting chance to survive and prosper.
In the Britain in early 2008 certain areas of the Marshes of Essex had their sea defenses broken on purpose in order to allow the sea reclaim land to reestablish the former saltwater marshes in that area.
Whether abandoning areas that have been wrest from the sea at often great costs is the right course to go is a good question, especially in a relatively small country such as the United Kingdom which is getting slowly but surely rather overcrowded for sure. The Dutch more then likely would not go that way, considering what it has cost them to create the Polder lands and what it cost to defend them from the sea.
On the other hand, do we really have to live, as I said, in floodplains? The answer is more than likely a no. But if we insist to do so then we better do as the ancient ones did and build our homes on stilts.
Then again, we could, once again build up rather than out and I am sure we could accommodate a lot more people in a smaller area and keep the green areas for farming, forestry and wildlife.
© M Smith (Veshengro), September 2008
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Working with the Inevitable
