Discussions of rising sea levels and climate change have peppered our discourse with a bewildering array of new terms. We now hear about net zero, carbon footprints, flood mitigation, adaption, geoengineering, and carbon capture to mention just some.
Few members of the public are able to educate themselves in the new science and fewer still even attempt it. Many of us are much more prone to ideological responses to the climate issues than we are driven to self-education and informed opinions.
However one comes down on the causes of the changes, the facts of what is happening are threatening. Glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising, wildfires are more frequent and more devastating, and major storms are increasing with resulting billions of dollars in damages.
Scientific evidence is accepted by some and rejected by others. Either way, it is increasingly alarming in the picture it paints for the next 30-, 50- and 100-hundred-year time spans. Just in the last month, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) produced a 2022 report projecting faster sea level rise than in its earlier forecasts. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change also released its newest report warning of the growing dangers of inaction.
Yet, inaction is not what we are experiencing. Rather we are caught in a web of fragmented activity that angers all sides in the debate. For those who favor swift and transformative action, governments are not doing enough, fast enough. For those who have not accepted the threat as real, incremental actions at various levels of government are unnecessarily disruptive.
The reality is that sustainability and adaption have become key elements of strategy for the island communities in Cape May County. Even lacking consensus on climate change, we are reacting to it. Tens of millions will be spent on flood mitigation projects, with new stormwater pump stations, larger drainage pipes and requirements for higher bulkheads.
We are experiencing sweeping changes in state regulations that impact real estate development. Alterations to the flood insurance premium calculations could result in significant increases for many property owners on the barrier islands, increases that will come in relentless 18% increments over 5-to-10-year spans.
The move to electrify everything is gaining support, as major corporations spend billions in transforming products to rely on electric energy. This means the big bet being made on alternative sources for the generation of electricity to feed the increasingly hungry electric grid have to pay off. The evidence that they will is not yet convincing.
In Cape May County, we have an economy and a lifestyle that is built on our oceanfront and bays. Any threat to the island resorts is a threat to the entire county. Yet, we remain fragmented in our approach, depending on each municipality to fashion its own response.
We have vaguely understood plans from the Army Corps of Engineers calling for a $16 billion investment in its New Jersey back bay protection plan, which projects $5.6 billion of that investment coming from state and local funds.
Yet, much smaller allocations for beach replenishments continually get caught up in Washington cat fights over annual federal budgets. We have been told we will have a federal beach replenishment on Seven Mile Island in late 2022 or early 2023, but no monies have yet been allocated by Congress.
We have massive pump station projects on various islands that will increasingly absorb available capital funds and may demand new levels of debt.
The Army Corps plan calls for over 5,000 structures in Cape May County to be elevated. Yet, Cost of Compliance funds available to aid in meeting the costs currently depend on first experiencing actual storm loss. The list could go on.
The point is that transformation is occurring whether we have built a consensus on climate change. Our choice is not between inaction and action, but between coordinated action and fragmented, disconnected activity.
We also can elect to stay with an approach that leaves planning for sea level rise to each individual island municipality, or we can seek some common county approach that builds broad public support and a coordinated plan for moving forward.
County and municipal officials need to present plans for public discussion and buy in. Transformation will entail actions with associated “side effects” that the public needs to understand. If those plans do not exist, they need to be developed soon and they will require public support. To do less is to engage in activities that will be questioned and open to delay at every turn.
We are in this together because failure to preserve what attracts millions of visitors to this county impacts us all.
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From the Bible: Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans. Proverbs 16:3
