Long quote, brief comment (from the Wilmington Star-News):
The question is no longer whether the seas are rising, just if human-induced factors are speeding up the natural process.
But for North Carolina’s coastal officials, that answer matters little. What does is that while the oceans rise, an average of 3.5 millimeters annually as measured by tide gauges since 1993, the elevation of their barrier islands doesn’t.
But what to do about it as the waves creep closer remains a thorny question with plenty of political, economic and social challenges.
On Tuesday, those attending the N.C. Beach, Inlet and Waterway Association’s annual meeting in Carolina Beach were told that it’s not too early to start thinking about and planning for the changing face of the coast.
...Rob Young, director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University, recommended North Carolina adopt a sensible policy that both prioritizes areas to be saved and plans for relocating homes and infrastructure where there are no realistic long-term hope of holding back the waves.
He also said infrastructure and high-density development should be limited from being built within the 1-meter threshold.
Several attendees questioned the validity of the scientific data and the cost of building infrastructure to handle an estimated 1-meter rise in sea level by the end of the century when that’s three times the current rate.
But Young cautioned that being wrong about sea-level rise or underestimating its impacts could cost communities and taxpayers a lot more.
In other words, the benefits of building smarter at the coast outweighs the costs, accounting for subsidies and external costs. Hasn't that always been true? Yet, when you live there (as do all of the members of the NCBIWA) you don't factor in the subsidies and external costs and so it is difficult to see the positive net benefits of reversing years of growth at the beach.
