2017 was a year like no other in so many ways –– including a year of monumental flooding all over the world. It should be seen as a wake-up call, or perhaps “Watershed Moment.” Flooding reached new heights buoyed by record rain, and powerful storms ...
December 26th, 2017 Category: Sea Level Rise
“The problem is that rising sea level is like evolution”, he said sitting quietly in his office in a towering office building in Kuwait. This was one of the top scientific leaders in the country, Western educated, with a PhD. For a moment I was ...
December 17th, 2017 Category: Sea Level Rise
“We might see a six foot tidal surge come in and stay there,” a recent article about rising sea level stated. Nonsense! Even with the most catastrophic case, it is just not possible for the global ocean to rise rapidly like a tsunami or tidal bore, ...
December 10th, 2017 Category: Sea Level Rise
Friday, December 8th, is the current deadline for Congress to reauthorize the National Flood Insurance Program, the “NFIP”, a program that is roughly $24 billion “underwater” or bankrupt. Fortunately, there are calls for reform from many sectors, even from within FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management ...
December 3rd, 2017 Category: Sea Level Rise
A “glass-half-empty or glass-half-full” is a common metaphor about perspective, inviting us to look at something negatively or positively. It is easy to look at rising sea level as a negative given the huge problems it will create. Yet there are some positive perspectives that ...
November 26th, 2017 Category: Sea Level Rise
Writing this from Kuwait, my first time in the region, gives me a somewhat new perspective. This small nation is at the northwest corner of the Arabian Gulf, at the juncture of Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Here in this warm equatorial region it might be easy ...
November 19th, 2017 Category: Sea Level Rise
In Vancouver BC last week at one of my presentations, I was asked about the contribution of cattle farming to global warming and climate change. It was posed in the context of whether the elimination or reduction of beef consumption and becoming vegetarian, could be ...
November 12th, 2017 Category: Sea Level Rise
Confusion abounds about the rate of sea level rise, particularly the projections for what to expect in the future. Generally the perception is that the rate of rise may accelerate, but still somewhat smoothly. In fact there will almost certainly be relatively abrupt “steps” to ...
November 5th, 2017 Category: Sea Level Rise
Like many of you, I will never forget that Tuesday five years ago, turning on the television to see images of New York City, horrifically flooded. We watched the real-time aftermath of the superstorm that hit the region the previous evening. Just a day ahead ...
October 29th, 2017 Category: Sea Level Rise