Just six months ago, Gov. Phil Murphy doubled down on New Jersey’s already aggressive response to the projected impacts of sea level rise and climate change. In mid-November 2021, Murphy signed yet another executive order establishing an interim greenhouse gas reduction target to be met by the year 2030. He said, “We must meet the devastating impacts of global warming and climate change, with bold intentional action.”
Murphy looks at the state’s vulnerabilities. We live in the most densely populated state in the union. The state of over 9 million people covers less than 9,000 square miles, 16% of which is water. The oceanfront coastline runs an estimated 130 miles, exposing heavily developed areas to threats from both ocean and bay. Murphy looks to the scientific literature and sees a need for the state to prepare for the direst of predictions.
We must credit the very real threats to a low-lying state. Studies predict accelerating sea level rise, rising frequency of major precipitation events and an increased number of potentially devastating storm events.
There is no longer time available to debate whether environmental change is coming. Even the strongest critics of the Murphy administration’s efforts acknowledge that challenges from environmental change are real. Serious questions exist about the state’s choice of threshold levels, planning horizons and almost complete myopia concerning the social and economic factors involved in an effective response to the threats.
The various initiatives from the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) are summed up in a catchy acronym, NJPACT, which stands for New Jersey Protecting Against Climate Threats. The intent of the acronym is to symbolize the pact the state is making with its residents, present and future, “to create a more sustainable and resilient world.”
NJPACT comes with two major thrusts. In one, the aim is pollutant reduction, which also carries with it a commitment to the rapid development of alternative energy sources. The wind energy initiatives include hearings for public comment, but do not include time for any adjustments based on that comment. Targets set for 2030 and 2050 involve an absolute commitment to pressing ahead with a wind energy initiative that has no flexibility for alteration due to public concerns.
The second thrust of NJPACT involves changes to land use regulations that will broadly increase inundation zones, require elevations that cannot be met by existing lot sizes, and so hinder development that property values cannot help but be depressed.
In all this, there are few words about how to meet the economic and social impacts of the initiatives. It is an aggressive push, based, in part, on scientific predictions for which the science itself acknowledges less than high confidence levels;the best example being the selection of a sea level rise threshold that the state’s own study says had a 17% chance of occurring by 2100.
This is not the way to build the crucial level of public support without which success in meeting real challenges is likely to be elusive. Placing leadership for the state’s efforts in an agency that narrowly sees its mission as environmental protection almost guarantees that a broad array of issues will be ignored.
For Cape May County, this is about more than whether property owners and municipalities in the coastal regions are ready for the enormous expenses, overt and hidden, that emanate from the proposed regulatory changes. It calls into question whether the state itself is ready.
Where are the financial plans? Where is the opportunity for public consideration and input on the Coastal Resiliency Plan? Should not that input, if it is to be meaningful, precede the rulemaking?
When speaking of strategies that inform that coastal plan, the DEP has openly stated that shore protection projects will not be possible in all vulnerable areas of the coastal zone. The agency speaks of facilitating the movement of populations to safe areas and limiting investments that would hinder such movement. The policy statements speak of protection for socially vulnerable populations without clarifying what those priorities mean. Crucial issues for coastal communities are stated in the most general terms.
We are told that the DEP has developed a Decision Support System that will guide the development and funding of strategies and projects. Where is the effort to explain to the public how this system works, what sources of data it relies on, and how the system will be used, as the DEP specifically says it will be, to inform investments in activities as vital as beach replenishment, dune hardening, jetty repair, and similar endeavors critical to the life of coast communities?
The biggest failing of the state effort to protect against climate threats is its formulaic approach to public input, which meets the letter ofthe law but appears to have little or no chance of significantly altering initiatives that aremoving rapidly.
We admit that we cannot meet the challenges of sea level rise and environmental change by ignoring them. We also assert that we cannot succeed in our efforts to protect the state from the most potentially devastating results of those changes by failing to build solid public support for difficult, and perhaps transformative, decisions.
After two years of effort constructing NJPACT, it is time to realize the importance of social and economic factors, to show the public how efforts will be prioritized and financed, and to involve the public in a realistic way in the process in order to build much–needed support.
Democracy is messy. Yet, it is, as Benjamin Franklin saw it in the 18th century, the best of the alternatives available. We cannot win by ignoring basic democratic processes with the argument that there is no time for them.
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From the Bible:
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves. Philippians 2:3
