Photograph courtesy of: © William Neal, Orrin Pilkey & Norma Longo.
Excerpts;
There’s a “disaster” approaching North Carolina’s coast, and it’s not a hurricane. It’s an increasingly encroaching sea, Orrin Pilkey says.
An award-winning Duke University professor emeritus of geology, who is also the founder and director emeritus of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University, Pilkey doesn’t mince words when it comes to sea level rise.
“These beaches are doomed,” Pilkey has said, multiple times — most recently in The Washington Post and in an interview with The News & Observer. “The buildings are doomed, too.”
Read Full Article; The News & Observer (08-20-2018)
The only answer to rising seas is to retreat; By Orrin H. Pilkey & Keith C. Pilkey; The News & Observer (10-18-2017)
Except for the timing, there is no controversy among scientists regarding sea level rise. Defending the coast and holding the shoreline in place ultimately will be futile. With a three-foot or a six-foot sea level rise, we will retreat, probably beginning within the next 50 years…
Surrendering to rising seas; Scientific American (08-2018)
Coastal communities struggling to adapt to climate change are beginning to do what was once unthinkable: retreat…
We can’t ignore the rising sea; By Orrin H. Pilkey (06-15-2016)
Sea Level Rise Will Reshape U.S. Population In All 50 States; Yale E360 (04-19-2017)
Sea level rise could cause mass migrations that will affect not just the United States’ East Coast, but reshape communities deep in the heart of the country, according to new research…
How rising seas and coastal storms drowned the U.S. flood insurance program; Yale E360 (04-19-2017)
Sea level rise and more severe storms are overwhelming U.S. coastal communities, causing billions of dollars in damage and essentially bankrupting the federal flood insurance program. Yet rebuilding continues, despite warnings that far more properties will soon be underwater…
Let’s end war with ocean, Op-Ed by Orrin H. Pilkey
The immediate future most certainly holds more miles of sandbags, resulting in more narrowed and ugly beaches.But this trend can be halted and reversed. Now is the time to make peace with the ocean.The time is now to stop sandbagging, both physically with no more shore-hardening structures, and politically with no more exceptions to the intent of the rules, no more undermining existing legislation, and a return to enforcement…
“Retreat from a Rising Sea: Hard Choices in an Age of Climate Change,” A book by Orrin H. Pilkey, Linda Pilkey-Jarvis, and Keith C. Pilkey
“Retreat from a Rising Sea: Hard Choices in an Age of Climate Change” is a big-picture, policy-oriented book that explains in gripping terms, what rising oceans will do to coastal cities and the drastic actions we must take now to remove vulnerable populations.
