Q & A Jeff Goodell: The Water Will Come Feb 20, Jesper Svensson, GWF Senior Editor, University of Oxford

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1 Jesper Svensson, GWF Senior Editor, University of Oxford Jeff Goodell, American author and a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, says sea level rise is one of the central facts of our time, as real as gravity. In The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World, he visits twelve places globally, including Lagos, New York, Miami, Alaska, Jakarta, Venice, and Rotterdam to explain the threat of sea-level rise. Here Jeff Goodell discusses why rising sea levels should be at the forefront of peoples minds with GWF senior editor Jesper Svensson. Global Water Forum (GWF): Why did you write this book? Jeff Goodell (JG): I have been writing about climate change for more than 15 years. I have always known that sea level rise was one of the most serious consequences of rising CO 2 emissions, but it never really became visible to me until Hurricane Sandy hit New York in When that happened, I visited the city the day after the storm went through, and I saw lower Manhattan under 9 feet (2.7 meters) of storm surge. I saw what 9 feet of water could do to a rich, modern city like New York and it hit me in a powerful way. As I was thinking about how I could write about this, I talked to a climate scientist at Columbia University who said: One way to think about this is as a dress rehearsal for sea level rise. If we don t do anything about climate change, that 9 feet of water coming in and remaining in the city is what sea level rise will look like. Then he said: if you really want to blow your mind go down to Miami and consider what 9 feet of water would do down there. So I did, and I realized Miami was in big trouble. I wrote a magazine article and realized sea level rise was a global issue that no one had really thought about in the kind of real-world detail that I wanted to talk about, so I launched myself into this book. Global Water Forum 1

2 The Water Will Come, the new book by Jeff Goodell. GWF: How high and how fast will the water come to cities like Miami and Lagos, and is there anything we can do about it? JG: How high and how fast the water will come are the central questions that everyone wants to know about sea level rise. Yet, one fact that is important to understand is that no matter what we do in terms of cutting carbon emissions, we are not going to stop sea level rise. Even if we go for zero emissions tomorrow, a certain level of sea level rise is a given because there is already a lot of heat built up in the oceans and the system. Cutting carbon can perhaps slow the rise a bit and change the ultimate trajectory of it but sea-level rise is going to happen. We need to realize this and think about that. As for how much and how fast, the projections are all over the place. The most up-to-date high-end projections and analysis puts sea-level rise at 7 feet, or more than 2 meters, by At the low-end, which everybody thinks is really plausible given the way emissions are Global Water Forum 2

3 going, is half a meter or so. What is frightening about the projections is that the high-end forecasts are now much higher than were projected a decade ago. This is partly because of the continued rise in emissions and the heat in the Arctic and Antarctic, but also because of a deeper understanding of the risks of melt in west Antarctica, which scientists had not really appreciated until recently. The other thing is that we now know that in the past there were periods when the sea level has risen as much as 13 feet in a single century, so we know that kind of thing is possible, but we don t really understand why it might occur. The complicated thing is that, historically, the impacts have not been equal everywhere and it is not always clear which countries or regions will be most affected. You mention Miami and Lagos, and although it is expected that the melting of west Antarctica will impact these regions, the fact that the ground is also sinking in each of these places is simultaneously likely to affect how high and how quickly the water will impact the cities. So, there are a number of factors affecting sea level rise that make accurate regional projections difficult. GWF: Are there any cities that are planning for a future of sea-level rise and how can we learn from those cities? JG: The Netherlands are an obvious example. As about 30% of the country is below sea-level, they have been trying to deal with rising seas and flooding for a very long time. However, although they are very knowledgeable about building dikes and levees, even the Dutch understand that with the kind of sea level rise projected, they can t just continue to build walls and barriers. They have to think differently about how they live with water and build adaptable infrastructure that allow for rising waters. After Sandy, cities like New York are undertaking a number of innovative projects to make their coastlines more resilient by building breakwaters off the coast, constructing sea walls, and raising critical infrastructure in the cities. However, the challenge of rising seas will require much bigger thinking than what anybody is doing. It is going to require things like moving airports, many of which are vulnerable. It is going to require rethinking how we live Global Water Forum 3

4 with water and how to begin retreating from the coastlines in many places. I don t think there is any place in the world that is really wrapping their heads around what is required to deal with this challenge in the coming decades. Map of proposed storm surge barrier locations around New York Harbour. Source: Wikipedia. GWF: It s noteworthy that President Trump s US National Security Strategy 2017 doesn t mention climate change as a threat to U.S. national security. What roles can we expect the military to serve in the case of sea-level rise and major coastal disasters? JG: I spent a lot of time with the Navy as I was writing this book and the military understands very well what is going on, despite what President Trump says. As one Navel Commander said to me, we have to deal with the world as it is and not as we would like it to be. There is a quite long history of understanding and acknowledging the threat of climate Global Water Forum 4

5 change in various defense industries, documents, and reports. These come in multiple forms and include such things as the operational risks associated with the dependence on fossil fuels, and the geopolitical implications of the opening up of the Arctic. President Trump s denial is political because he is beholden to the fossil-fuel industry in America, but the military is not in denial. What the military can do about it though is a different question. Climate change and sea-level rise impact the combat-readiness of US naval bases and military operations in many ways. For instance, the military is ultimately going to be the one that cleans up the problems caused by climate change and sea level rise, whether it is from more intense hurricanes that require more military-risk operations or increasing conflicts from climate-driven refugees. This makes them very aware of the potential costs imposed by climate change, and the implications these costs may have for their operations. GWF: What have you learned from writing the book? What has been the response from politicians and the wider audience? JG: I have learned that we are nowhere near prepared to grapple with what is coming. There is no simple technological solution to this. We need to be redesigning many of our coastlines and major cities, which we are really not doing quickly enough. This is largely because such a transformation poses significant political and economic challenges. For instance, a coastal retreat is a very difficult political decision for any mayor, governor, or state-official, not least because our political system does not prioritise long-term threats, such as climate change. Economically it is also an issue because of the amount of infrastructure that is built on the coastline. We have built our cities and lived on the coast as if the border between land and seas are fixed. Ironically, places like the water slums in Lagos, Nigeria, which have been forced to work in a dynamic system are very well adapted to sea level rise. People there live Global Water Forum 5

6 in houses that are built on poles in the water and they don t have railroads or any of the infrastructure that is commonly built in concrete on the coastlines. We need to be thinking more along these lines if we want to continue living on the coast. However, over the four years I spent working on this book, there are places at risk, such as southern Florida, the Gulf coast, and New York City, where incremental changes and advancements in thinking are being made. Further, more recently, I have seen many changes in cities, states, and corporations, so I am hopeful that the Trump phenomenon is inspiring people to think harder and deeper about these climate change challenges. Ideally, the push back against what Trump is doing today will give birth of a new kind of movement about climate-change and the urgency needed for necessary carbon emission reductions and adaptation to our rapidly changing world. Jesper Svensson is reading for a DPhil at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford. He holds a Master of Science in Asian Studies from Lund University, and two Bachelor s degree in Political Science and Environmental Science from School of Business, Economics and Law at University of Gothenburg. Prior to joining University of Oxford, Jesper worked as a Research Assistant for the Transboundary Rivers and Adaptation to Climate Extremes in North America (TRACE North America) project under Dr Dustin Evan Garrick. Previously, he was a Visiting Scholar at China Academy of Sciences where he conducted research on the water-energy-food nexus in the Yellow River Basin. Jeff Goodell s most recent book is The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World. Previous books include How to Cool the Planet: Geoengineering and the Audacious Quest to Fix Earth s Climate ; Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America s Energy Future ; and Sunnyvale, a memoir about growing up in Silicon Valley. A contributing editor at Rolling Stone, his work has appeared in The New Republic, The Washington Post, The New York Times Magazine, and Wired. Global Water Forum 6

7 The views expressed in this article belong to the individual authors and do not represent the views of the Global Water Forum, the UNESCO Chair in Water Economics and Transboundary Water Governance, UNESCO, the Australian National University, Oxford University, or any of the institutions to which the authors are associated. Please see the Global Water Forum terms and conditions here Global Water Forum 7