View of the Week: On a Future We Must All Prepare For
Oh say can you sea: While the dam was breaking on impeachment, some other alarming news emerged from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC). The big picture: Sea levels are rising twice as fast as they did in the 20th century, and by 2100, seas could be two feet higher even if greenhouse gas emissions are reduced—maybe more if the world fails to do anything. Here’s what that means for cities: By 2050, extreme storms that typically happen once every 100 years could hit the world’s coastal cities at least once per year, according to the report. That would put more than 1 billion people in low-lying areas at risk worldwide. In some islands and coastal cities, local sea levels are already rising to those once-a-century levels more frequently, and even in the best case scenario those trends could reach U.S. cities on the East and West coasts as early as 2035. CityLab’s Linda Poon has the details from the IPCC’s latest report: The Storm of the Century Could S...