Sea level rise is on the verge of wreaking havoc on the U.S. coast.
What's happening?
A study by the Union of Concerned Scientists showed that flooding caused by spiking global temperatures will disrupt critical infrastructure every month by 2050, the Guardian reported. Of the nearly 1,100 assets evaluated — affordable and subsidized housing, wastewater treatment facilities, power plants, schools, and hospitals among them — 934 are due for biweekly flooding.
The issue will affect 703 communities and almost 3 million people in the United States, with California, Louisiana, Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, and Massachusetts at the top of the list.
These flooding risks are expected to practically double by 2030 from 2020 levels, even though the researchers based their figures on "a medium rate of climate-driven sea level rise" and not a high one.
The Guardian said the critical infrastructure is "necessary to sustain daily life" and that the inundation of it "could unleash environmental hazards."
Why is flooding risk important?
The outlet noted the continued use of dirty energy sources such as gas and coal by the U.S., United Kingdom, China, and other countries was extremely concerning, given the already treacherous extreme weather events pummeling people around the world. Heat waves, heavy rainfall, droughts, and flooding are the result of human-caused rising temperatures, as the United Nations outlines.
These happenings disproportionately impact communities of color and the economically disadvantaged, and the Guardian pointed out that public and affordable housing was the most at risk of all the infrastructure analyzed in the study. That means more barriers for the underserved to clear, including longer distances to travel to doctor's appointments and school as well as the contamination of water supplies from the flooding of polluted soil.
"Even if their homes stay dry, disruptive flooding of vital infrastructure could leave people essentially stranded within their communities or enduring intolerable and even unlivable conditions," study co-author Erika Spanger told the paper. "There's a rapidly approaching deadline for many coastal communities that demands urgent attention."
Juan Declet-Barreto, another author, said low-income and marginalized communities must be protected to avoid perpetuating and reinforcing environmental racism and colonialism.
What's being done about sea level rise?
Governments and corporations are moving toward clean, renewable sources of energy, such as wind and solar, but the green transition has been slow. The warming of Earth has already exceeded 1 degree Celsius since preindustrial times and is likely to at least briefly surpass the 1.5 C limit set by the Paris Agreement in 2015.
The most impactful things you can do are take local action, talk to family and friends, and vote for politicians who will protect the environment, but small steps add up, too. You can switch to an electric vehicle, shop secondhand, and cut back on plastic.
"The amount of sea level rise by century's end will ultimately depend on the world's willingness to curtail or continue releasing heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions," the Guardian reported. "But without urgent action to reinforce critical infrastructure, the number of schools, apartment blocks, energy facilities and government buildings at risk of disruptive flooding is expected to rise by at least sevenfold by 2100, according to the UCS analysis."
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