The Drip Drip Drip of Armageddon

This optimistic prof says rising seas are inevitable, and likely survivable

Happy May Day, everyone. Prepare to die.

Okay, maybe not ... if you are a really, really good swimmer. But you'll get my drift.

Take, for instance, the very name of this magazine. What could be more detrimental to overall men's health than climate change? One facet that even third graders recognize by now: global warming = superstorms and rising sea levels. Superstorms and rising sea levels = submerged seacoasts. Submerged seacoasts = your grandkids bodysurfing the Appalachian Trail.

Boston Harbor? Gurgle-gurgle. Manhattan Island? Sleeps with the fishes. In fact, of all the oceans in the world, the Atlantic is rising the fastest, which means all you duffers can bid farewell to barrier islands such as Myrtle Beach and Hilton Head. North Carolina's Outer Banks? Gone. Mention this to the average MH Joe? Crickets. And eye-rolling. Lots of eye-rolling.

"Part of the problem is that climate change is so gradual that people don't notice it,” the noted marine biologist Dr. A. Quinton White was telling me the other day. "We have a very short attention span relative to geologic time. In fact, in many cases, a nonexistent attention span. We're all about the snapshot of the here-and-now." 

White is a professor of Biology and Marine Science at Jacksonville University and the Executive Director of the school's Marine Science Research Institute. I found myself sitting down with him in a Florida coffee shop precisely because my attention span was elongated when this subject became here-and-now personal. The small, Jersey Shore town where I live was pretty much Ground Zero for last fall's Hurricane Sandy. Now summer is but around the corner, and I still travel up and down the coast marveling at the destruction the storm wrought. Some of my neighboring hamlets—Sea Bright, Mantoloking—remind me of the bombed-out villages I passed through in Iraq and Afghanistan. Naturally, city fathers swore all winter and spring that their municipalities will be good as new and back in business by Memorial Day. For towns that depend in large part on tourism, what else were they going to say? Sadly, not gonna happen.

That Sinking Feeling

And it's not as if we haven't been warned. Google abounds with interactive websites that depict our future watery graves. One of my favorites is Architecture 2030, a Santa Fe-based non-profit founded by the architect Edward Mazria. Mazria's outfit is dedicated to educating us oil addicts about the causal effects of greenhouse gas emissions and the myriad geographic, cultural, infrastructural, and economic crises we face from climate change. And good luck with that.

Nonetheless, on the Architecture 2030 site, under the rubric "Hot Topics," there is a nifty feature that allows you to pick an area in the most vulnerable states—goodbye Charleston, South Carolina—and roll your mouse over a current aerial photo to see what would be submerged with the expected sea-level rise. A few towns away from me, for example, I notice that an oceanic increase of one meter—not at all farfetched—will cause most of the beach and Barnegat Bay-side bungalows in Lavalette and Seaside Heights to become lovely man-made reefs. I'm all for ridding the world of Snooki and The Situation. Still. When my son's son is my age will he even have the chance to visit the Seaside Heights roller coaster that Sandy tumbled into the waves? Not without scuba gear.
There was one state that struck me more than most when I played with the Architecture 2030 site's interactive map. Florida. Where the beautiful Keys submerge and most of Miami slides into the Everglades. One scientist told me that there is a swell chance that by the next century millions of South Florida refugees will have poured north and thrown the entire southeast into economic turmoil, creating a ripple effect across the United States.

Which is why I sought out Dr. White for a chat. Florida guy and all. Due to arctic melt, he told me, "The whole planet's (ocean) system is rising. But because of the way the Atlantic Ocean’s currents operate in conjunction with the spinning of the earth, the location of the continents, and a whole bunch of other things such as plate tectonics, it ends up with the Atlantic being the highest part of the sea-level bulge."

Though White added that low-lying sections of the northeast such as New York City and Boston are in far more precarious positions, this is more of an economic than ecological catastrophe. Florida on the other hand—and in particular the flat, ridge-less plain of Southern Florida—is another story. "The salt marshes. The beachfront communities. They'll all be susceptible."

Cautious Optimism

Yet to my surprise the soft-spoken and professorially handsome Dr. White (dressed appropriately in sharp tweeds) proved to be the most optimistic global warming expert I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. I was expecting Cassandra. But as we discussed the probability of the main drag of, oh, say, Vero Beach becoming a tourist attraction for glass-bottomed boats— seriously; check the Architecture 2030 map—White edged into a cautious optimism based on his reading of the history of the human race.

Yes, he granted, long-range climate models indicate a sea-level rise of at least one foot around Florida over the next 100 years. This will turn that "flat" southern fourth of the state into an aquarium. But then in the next breath the professor admitted, "We humans have this tendency to think that we can fix things. Often, we can. And do."

"Sometimes we may just need to learn to live with things, and adapt to them. What exactly will happen to southern Florida? I don't know for certain. But will we have adapted to whatever occurs? People are amazingly resilient. So I suspect that what's going to happen is that we're going to adapt to these rising sea levels."

He offered disparate examples of this adaption from America's recent past. Our attitudes toward littering. The clean-up of Lake Erie (now, sadly, backsliding). The staunching of acid rain. Even the uptick in the popularity of hybrid cars. When, and not if, our coasts do go under, of course, White cautions that some people, like Orwell's equality, will prove more adaptable than others.

"People will move inland. People will build higher. And, yes, that new reality will favor the younger and stronger."

I mention my wife's 81-year-old aunt, whose Jersey Shore home was gutted by a five-foot tidal surge at the height of Hurricane Sandy. The poor woman is more than dismayed at the prospect and costs of not only rebuilding, but rebuilding on pilings that will force her to climb endless stairs just to get into her house.

White shrugged, frowned. No sugarcoating. "That's the hard part," he said. "It may be that you have to look at yourself and say, 'At this point in my life I'm not willing to do that.'" Then he brightened. "I'm a perpetual optimist. I always see the glass half full. If you start looking at the history of mankind, we have in fact typically adapted to change, and oftentimes came out the better for it."

Which I took to mean that I advise my son to begin looking for beachfront property somewhere in the Pocono foothills. Still. The idea of watching The Situation go under remains inviting.

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