The Collider to host author of new book on the threat – and opportunity – of sea level rise
By James Hrynyshyn
A year after his acclaimed 2011 book on the risks — and possible rewards — of geoengineering, Jeff Goodell found himself in New York City while its bedraggled residents recovered from the drenching of Superstorm Sandy. Then and there he found his next project.
“I saw what nine feet of storm surge did to Lower Manhattan, and I was talking to a scientist who said this was basically a dress rehearsal for sea level rise,” he recalled in a telephone interview from Anchorage, where he was speaking about climate change to the Alaska Federation of Natives. “Imagine a storm surge that came in and didn’t go out. That’s what we were talking about.”
The result of that project is The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World, released Oct. 24. Not bad timing, given what potential readers in Houston, Miami, and Puerto Rico, have just been through.
As part of a tour in support of the book, Goodell will be paying a visit to The Collider on the evening of Nov. 14. Advance praise for the book, his fifth, has been effusive, with reviewers using phrases like “frightening, scientifically grounded, and starkly relevant” and “characteristic rigor and intelligence.” One fellow author even assigned it to “the tradition of Rachel Caron’s Silent Spring.”
High praise, indeed. But the award-winning Rolling Stone contributing editor should find a particularly receptive audience among Asheville’s climate services crowd, considering his focus on the argument for adapting to the consequences of carbon emissions.
Not that he’s suggesting mitigation should be sidelined. “Cutting emissions is hugely important and the faster we can do that … the less sea level rise we’re going to get,” he said. On the other hand, “we’re not going to stop sea level rise by getting everyone to put solar panels on their roof. Some level of sea level rise is already built into the system. “
Just how much is inevitable has become one of the most vexing questions facing climatologists. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change official estimate is between one and three feet by 2100. But the notoriously conservative science the IPCC used to produce those figures was already out of date when published four years ago.
And a 2017 study effectively doubled the expected increase. James Hansen, the former chief of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has devoted much of his pre- and post-retirement career to nailing down what happened to sea levels the last time the Earth was this warm, but even he can’t be too precise. The one thing Hansen is sure about is the planet could become “practically ungovernable” if what comes to pass is closer to the high-end, but entirely possible, estimates.
Goodell shares much of Hansen’s gloomy outlook. Take Miami, which he calls an “Atlantis” in the making. “For this great all-American, rich, 21st century city, there’s no scenario in which it is going to survive to the end of the century.” He’s also up front about the uncertainty of the science: “If we knew there was going to be two feet of sea level rise by 2100, that would be something that people could get their minds around. But we don’t know that it could be two feet. It could be eight feet. How do you engineer to that kind uncertainty?”
But as a veteran of the climate beat, Goodell is still balancing the risks and the rewards, even on this topic. Italy’s storied canal city of Venice proves life on the water can be “wonderful.” In Miami is an architect who wants to build houses that “hover over the water.” And who doesn’t want to live in a house that hovers above the water?
Ultimately, he said, the book is about giving people the tools to think about and prepare for the biggest urban planning challenge in history. The chances of finding anyone in Asheville to disagree with that thesis are slim. It should be an easy sell.
“An Evening with Author & Rolling Stone Contributing Editor Jeff Goodell,” sponsored by Climate Optimize and Infrastructure Services Group, begins at 6:30 p.m. at The Collider, on the 4th Floor of 1 Haywood St. Doors open at 6 p.m. with a reception with the author. Malaprop’s Bookstore will offer the book for sale at the event. THE EVENT IS FREE BUT DUE TO LIMITED SPACE, PRE-REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED.
Collider member and editorial consultant James Hrynyshyn runs Class M Communications.