There’s a big and interesting-looking summit coming to Hampton this weekend, called Rising Tides, to discuss ways that coastal communities can cope with rising sea levels and more violent, if not necessary more frequent, storms. It’s invitation only and already booked, but you can learn more about it here.
Speakers include officials from NOAA and FEMA, covering the prediction and the reaction side of things, plus a Navy rear admiral. I hadn’t thought about it, but the Navy has a lot of facilities that will be affected by all this – their aren’t a lot of inland Navy bases.
The hosts, one a Democrat and one a Republican wrote an op-ed piece in the statewide paper, the Union-Leader, trying to get people to pay more attention to what is going to be a very expensive problem. Expensive? Just ask Miami, which faces regular flooding plain old high tides, known as “king tides.” Imagine what that would do to Hampton Beach tourism.
There is a little irony in the fact that a coastline session is being held in New Hampshire, which has the shortest ocean coastline of any state that borders the sea (assuming you measure it one way and not the other, that is).
Thats why we need to put insanely high taxes/impact fees on any more development at the coast, and possibly use eminent domain to prevent more land from being developed. You know…science and all…