Many
coastal regions must start bracing for frequent floods as key freshwater
sources are drying up elsewhere.
What is it about natural disasters and irony?
Just as local authorities in Detroit were denying thousands of
people access to running water, the bankrupt city experienced an epic downpour.
More than 4.5 inches of rain pounded Motown in mid-August, causing $1.2 billion
in damage. Three people
died, including a 100-year-old woman who apparently drowned in her
flooded basement.
And what’s even more ironic? Both freakish storms like the one
that swamped Detroit’s freeways and catastrophic droughts of the sort now parching
California are about to become a lot more common. A raft of new
research makes it clear that there’s going to be nowhere to hide from the
devastation wrought by climate chaos.
For starters, consider a new report from
the Union of Concerned Scientists on the floods that will wash over the
Atlantic Seaboard and the Gulf Coast during the next three decades as sea
levels rise. It’s a painful snapshot of when everyone in those areas will be
shopping for a new canoe, no matter how far they live from a body of water.
Without decisive climate action and local efforts to mitigate
the impact of rising tides, floods throughout the Atlantic and
Gulf coastal regions could become three times more common by 2030 and 10
times more frequent by 2045, the Union of Concerned Scientists predicts.
Yet Congress isn’t exactly
pumping big bucks into climate action, leaving cities and
states to fend for themselves.
Ready for more irony? The metropolitan area most vulnerable to
floods three decades from now is, of all places, Washington, D.C. On average,
the nation’s capital and its suburbs could experience three floods a week by
2030 and a flood a day by 2045.
That could prove ideal for growing rice, but is bound to get in
the way of governing the country.
What are state and local governments doing to brace for this wet
future? Taking a page from Mad Magazine‘s mascot, most are taking
the Alfred E. Neuman approach: “What — Me Worry?” Only 14 states have
gotten started with plans to cope with the watery world around the corner.
While the East and Gulf Coasts and Midwest grow soggier,
scientists predict that the Southwest, including California, will get more
parched. Droughts and
wildfires, already dire, will grow more common. You can read all
about what’s in store for where you live in the congressionally mandated Third National Climate Assessment.
Just as much of the United States must brace for inconceivably
common floods, some of our most important freshwater sources are running low. The Ogallala
Aquifer — an ancient underground reservoir that irrigates
fields in Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and five other states — is getting
tapped out, changing the
future of farming in the nation’s breadbasket.
Likewise, the Colorado River
Basin is drying up, jeopardizing water security across the
American West. At stake is the well-being of 40 million people living in Las
Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Tucson, San Diego, and other cities, and the
viability of 4 million acres of farmland.
What can you do, aside from doing your best to enjoy days that
are neither overly rainy nor parched?
Speak up and press for local action in your community.
Emily Schwartz Greco is the managing editor of OtherWords, a non-profit national editorial
service run by the Institute for Policy Studies. OtherWords.org
