The Oceans Are Coming - Part Three
To: [email protected]
Remaining Afloat
by Keith Farnish and Dmitry Orlov
ClubOrlov (January 17 2010)
The first two parts of this series drew a surprising amount of vitriol
from people who vehemently deny the merits of the case for adapting to
rapid climate change and rising sea levels - greater even than the piece
ridiculing the Teabaggers {1}. The torrent of comment spam got so bad that
I had to shut down comment submission altogether. It was probably fed to
some extent by the various interests which were fighting to make the
Copenhagen Conference a fiasco. I really do like giving people the ability
to publish thoughtful, reasonable, helpful comments, and so as a
compromise I have decided to turn comment submission back on, but only for
registered users (including OpenID). Those who wish to dispute the reality
of climate change should perhaps go to {2}.
Had Noah built his arc and the Great Flood never materialized, he would
have felt very, very silly indeed! Noah could thank God for such an
accurate weather forecast. In the biblical story, once the waters receded,
God told Noah that there won't be any more Great Floods, and some of us
may still find comfort in this bit of divine dispensation, but rising
ocean levels are a fact that more and more of us will be forced to take
into account as we redraw our coastal maps. How fast are the ocean levels
rising? Well, that's where we have a bit of problem. When making plans, it
is helpful to be armed with the most accurate and up-to-date forecasts;
laying plans for tomorrow based on yesterday's forecast seems like folly.
And yet that is precisely what our incomplete understanding of climate
dynamics forces us to do.
In Part One of this series, just a couple of months ago, we cheerfully
wrote: "The East Antarctic Ice Sheet (that's the big blob that surrounds
the South Pole just off-centre) seems to be quite stable, and should
remain that way for the next few centuries". That would have been nice,
because the East Antarctic ice sheet holds somewhere around eighty percent
of all the fresh water on the planet; if it were to melt, the sea level
would go up by between twenty and 36 metres (75 to 120 feet) and coastal
maps would need to be redrawn more or less from scratch. But then shortly
after we posted the second part of this series, Nature Geoscience
published a study {3} showing that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet was
undergoing a decline in thickness:
In agreement with an independent earlier assessment, we estimate a
total loss of 190 (plus or minus 77) billion tons per year, with 132 (plus
or minus 26) billion tons per year coming from West Antarctica. However,
in contrast with previous GRACE estimates, our data suggest that East
Antarctica is losing mass, mostly in coastal regions, at a rate of 57
(plus or minus 52) billion tons per year, apparently caused by increased
ice loss since the year 2006.
"Accurate quantification of Antarctic ice-sheet mass balance and its
contribution to global sea-level rise remains challenging", the authors
are quick to caution. Nevertheless, the study concludes that "in contrast
to previous estimates ... [the new measurements] indicate that as a whole,
Antarctica may soon be contributing significantly more to global sea-level
rise". In Part One we cited the aforementioned GRACE satellite system as a
way of assessing potential ice losses from Greenland, and based on it we
assumed - wrongly as it turned out - that East Antarctica would be safe.
Taking into account everything that has been discussed earlier in this
series, this shouldn't come as a surprise. Typically, we don't know what
exactly to expect or when to expect it, but we do know that it will be
worse than what we should have been expecting before. Should we wait to
act until scientific certainty has been achieved? If we do, will it be too
late to prepare or to adapt?
Newsflash! {4} It now appears that a couple of big Antarctic glaciers -
Pine Island Glacier and Thwaite's Glacier next to it - have passed their
tipping points. They have floated off the sea-bed, and will now
disintegrate, resulting in as much as a half-metre rise above previously
estimated sea level by the end of the century.
We are not in a position to face down the ocean, saying "This far, Ocean,
and not a centimetre further!" Our worst-case scenario is that our
worst-case scenario is going to continue getting worse and worse. We
cannot limit our planning activities to this or that mythical upper bound.
When our knowledge fails us, our myths are there to guide us. The success
of Noah's mission did not depend on having an accurate estimate of how
high the waters would rise, because his arc floated.
* * *
Were the advances all gradual, as are experienced from day to day on the
deep ocean island chains of Tuvalu, Mauritius and The Seychelles (where
the governments, perversely, still encourage mass tourism by
carbon-spewing jet aircraft) then the threat to the thickly-settled
low-lying coastlines of the world could, possibly, be managed in an
orderly manner. Managed retreat would certainly be a possibility. The
threatened areas could be redesignated as flood-zones, to be used only for
low-value farming and aquaculture. Coastal inhabitants would be gradually
resettled further inland. As swaths of coastal real estate are knocked
down to make room for more sea, abatement procedures would be followed to
prevent the coastal waters from being poisoned by toxic chemicals or
choked with floating debris. In preparation, new navigation channels could
be dug and seawalls and jetties constructed further inland.
But no such opportunities will present themselves in most places where
cyclones smash into the coast, inundating mile upon mile of lowland with
salt water. Storm surges can suddenly overtop shoreline defences that
seemed sufficient the day before, spreading their watery fingers across
fenlands and farms. Then the storm sewers back up, breeding
typhoid-spreading rats and malaria-spreading mosquitoes wherever the water
pools in stagnant reaches. In such cases, emergency evacuation and
resettlement remains the only option. But emergency management
capabilities are restricted, and will become completely inadequate as the
frequency of such emergencies continues to increase.
As we showed in Part Two, especially with the story of the Netherlands,
you can only hold back the tide for so long before the inevitable happens.
What is crazy about the way we occupy the coastal region is not that we do
it at all - there is a good living to be made there, as the crofters of
North West Scotland found prior to the Clearances, and as the seemingly
daredevil occupants of the Sundarbans do today. No, what is crazy about
the way we occupy the coastal region is that civilized humans assume that
the coastline is fixed. Civilized humans are wont to stand at the water's
edge and not so much dare it, as deny that the sea can take what they feel
is so rightly theirs. Yet anyone with a rudimentary understanding of
coastal geomorphology knows that many coastal regions are dynamic, their
relative stability dependent on the strength of the currents and waves and
the resistance of the material from which the coast is built. Shingle and
sand move with the dominant current along the shore, depleting one part of
the coast and building up another. Where the coast loses its protective
skirt, the water can rapidly eat into the land, causing slumps and falls
which themselves are carried away by the water. Some places are luckier
than others - and it is a matter of luck - to be blessed with mangroves,
salt marshes, coral reefs or natural shoals that reduce the impact of the
waves and undersea currents. Other places may be more resistant to change:
a granite or basalt coastline will withstand the harshest of conditions
for eons, even long after all the soil has been scoured off by storms.
Most shorelines are continuously moving. When the sea cooperates, it is
possible, for a time, to constrain them using embankments or dikes. But
the sea always wins in the end. The sea is the ultimate wilderness. We may
play its game and sometimes even win, but it will never play by our rules.
This much we know and it would be foolish of us to think that it could be
otherwise.
Just how foolish? Here is an example {5} from New South Wales, Australia,
where the local council have forcefully rejected the do-nothing option:
The "do nothing" option will not be considered by Port
Macquarie-Hastings Council as a response to the management of coastal
erosion at Lake Cathie, says the council's coastal and estuaries
committee. Local campaigner and Lake Cathie resident Leslie Williams said
that local Illaroo Road residents were pleased to see this option removed
and that consideration would now focus on alternatives such as beach
nourishment, seawalls and planned retreat.
PMHC's development and environment director Matt Rogers said the "do
nothing" option had been dismissed in the report to go before the next
council meeting, as the council recognised the impact of that option on
residents and was unacceptable. The council will also consider moves to
permit residents to make contributions to protection work, while
development applications for Illaroo Road properties would not be accepted
until the erosion issue was resolved.
Notice that last bit? It would appear that development applications will
not be accepted until Illaroo Road is made safe from the rising oceans.
Given the latest ocean rise forecasts, this is a perfectly sensible
procedural delay (not to be confused with the "do nothing" option).
Illaroo Road will be underwater for a short spell - just a few thousand
years - but then, with luck, the Earth will enter yet another ice age,
glaciers will grow again, the waters will retreat, and, in due course,
Illaroo Road properties will be developed. This is industrial-strength
foolishness, and is surely symptomatic of the megalomania that also makes
civilized people believe you can keep burning oil and coal as long as you
keep pumping the carbon dioxide underground. The erosion issue will never
be "resolved": something's got to give ... eventually.
* * *
Apart from such "proactive" approaches, those living low-lying coastal
areas around the world really have just two choices:
1. Keep denying the reality of climate change and the effects of increased
storm energy and sea level rise; or, with similar naivete, accept that
things are changing but assume that their political leaders will somehow
be able to deal with it.
2. Face reality, take matters into their own hands, and find ways to
adapt. Take to higher ground, or remain near the coast but prepare for a
life afloat and on the move.
* * *
If you are thinking of ignoring everything written so far in this series
and making your decisions based on the business-as-usual scenario our
political leaders love so much, we would urge you to reconsider - while
you have the option. Even if sea-level rise does not achieve the
catastrophic levels that are becoming more and more likely with each new
scientific study, your ability to adapt is going to be constrained by the
way you get around. Your speed may vary, but overall it will be inversely
proportional the speed at which the current petroleum-based transport
infrastructure falls apart, as the reality of crude oil's terminal decline
and resource scarcity begin to hit home. Before too long, you will be on
foot - if you are still on dry ground, that is - and, if not, you will
need a boat of some sort. Having an internal-combustion engine to push it
around is certainly a convenience, but you wouldn't want to be left
stranded due to lack of fuel.
One can reasonably imagine that certain internal combustion vehicles will
stay in sporadic use longer than others. On the water, smaller motorised
craft - dinghies, launches, and tenders - use little fuel, are very
energy-effective for the services they render, and so are likely to
persist for some time. On land, the pay-off per unit energy is much lower,
and so internal-combustion vehicles are likely to be relegated to the
realm of pure luxury from whence the "horseless carriage" originally
emerged. Limousines for weddings and hearses for funerals will perhaps
remain motorised the longest, moving slowly over unpaved roads, since
people would still be willing to pay extra for dignity on special
occasions. We can also foresee that certain groups, such as governments,
mafias, armed gangs and other social predators will be able to secure a
supply of fuel the longest. It is difficult to imagine that such a
winding-down can transpire uniformly smoothly and peaceably. Inevitably,
geography will be the determining factor: remote population centres, to
which fuel must be brought overland, will have their supply curtailed long
before those that are close to pipelines, railway lines, seaports or
shipping channels. In communities that find themselves without access to
transport fuels, much of the remaining economic activity will centre
around gathering the necessary resources in order to escape, and they will
steadily depopulate, leaving behind the old and the sick.
We can foresee that road traffic will be greatly reduced, as paved roads
revert to dirt and become eroded and, in places, impassable, as bridges
collapse from lack of maintenance, and as predation by both local
officials and highwaymen increases both the costs and the dangers. Both
pedestrian traffic and caravans of pack animals will try to evade official
and unofficial predation, opting for the less popular, more circuitous
footpaths instead of the direct and open road. Canals and other navigable
waterways will once again play a much larger role in inland transport,
with barges pulled by draught animals along towpaths and with sail-boats
carrying freight and passengers along the sea-coasts. As the sea-ports
that currently serve container ships, bulk carriers and tankers are
submerged under the rising seas, the current hub-and-spoke transport
networks will collapse, and smaller coastal communities will once again
find ample reason to want to build and provision ocean-going vessels, to
make seasonal migrations and to trade with faraway lands.
* * *
At the same time, the need for transport will only grow, as millions of
environmental refugees diffuse across the world looking for a new place to
settle, and, not finding any, remain perpetually on the move. Rapid
climate change is putting an end to the last ten thousand years of
unusually stable climate. It was this rare episode of climate stability
that has allowed agriculture to develop and flourish and previously
nomadic tribes to settle down in one place without starving. It even
allowed agrarian societies to produce such large food surpluses that
cities and towns could become established, eventually growing to millions
of inhabitants, all fed using cash crops grown elsewhere. As the climate
reverts to its chaotic historical norm, people everywhere will be forced
to abandon such sedentery patterns of inhabiting the landscape in favour
of the more usual migratory and nomadic existence, minimising the risk of
starvation by diversifying food sources across large geographic areas, and
making seasonal migrations to avoid extremes of hot and cold.
Even as the rising oceans devastate many coastal areas, the areas far
inland will become far less welcoming. Global warming will make extreme
weather events, such as the 2003 European heat wave, which resulted in
37,451 deaths, an annual happening. Many inland areas, such as much of the
southern United States, which are currently only survivable in the summer
thanks to widespread access to air conditioning, will no longer be
survivable. Ocean water's moderating effect on climate will make the
coasts seem relatively inviting in spite of the erosion and the flooding.
However, erecting permanent structures on such an impermanent terrain
seems like a foolish thing to do. On the other hand, being able to take to
the waves is an insurance policy that might pay you double if you are
smart enough. Not only will seas and oceans, coastal waters, waterways
inevitably reemerge as the default means of movement, but also as the
places where the circumstances will force many people to live. This they
should be able to do, provided their dwellings can float and move about
without energy from fossil fuels.
* * *
Imagine life on the ocean water, and a community that is connected through
its mutual dependence on the wildly dynamic coastal belt. Imagine your
home being a boat; moving with the winds, the tides and the currents,
rising and settling on the wash of floodwater. This is really not as
outlandish as it might sound. Options for post-industrial
sailboat-building are described in quite a lot of detail in Dmitry's
article "Twenty-First Century Transport", which will appear in Slaying The
Hydra, Gillian Fallon and Richard Douthwaite, editors, Green Books, May
2010. The design he proposes has been rather thoroughly thought out and
many of its elements rigorously tested.
On board are all the systems needed to make it a self-contained mobile
survival capsule. Water for drinking and washing is provided through
rainwater collection with a solar still for back-up. Illumination and
electricity for communications and navigational equipment and lights comes
from a few solar panels and a small wind generator. For sanitation, there
is a composting toilet, its proceeds used to fertilize bits of
permaculture tucked away on shore. For heating and cooking and getting rid
of the inevitable damp, there is a wood stove, the wood generally
available in the form of driftwood. What's more, it is very hard to starve
because the coastal zone tends to be very productive: Dulse seaweed,
clams, oysters, mussels, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, conchs, edible
periwinkles and what's left of the fish provide a year-round banquet. A
sea breeze provides the air conditioning. A few ratty old sails and a
couple of long sculling oars provide the propulsion when the time comes
for a change of venue. The same boat that can dry out at low tide on a mud
flat or nosed onto a sheltered stretch of beach can be sailed halfway
across the world quite safely and comfortably. It wouldn't win any races,
but then it doesn't have to be sailed by a professional crew of acrobatic
sea-monkeys either.
* * *
The sea exerts a powerful pull on the imagination of the landlubber. Go to
any seaside on a warm, sunny day, and you will see quite a few people
spread out along the embankment, sitting or standing, staring vacantly
over the water. From the water they look like ants. Go ashore and visit
any newsstand, even one quite far inland, and you are sure to find some
sailing magazines, full of airbrushed photographs of bikini-clad women on
top of similarly well-buffed large floating toys. The sea is the ultimate
escape fantasy. The landlubbers assume, and rightly sow, that just out of
sight of land lies a different world, one which shore-side society will
never be able to fully oppress.
The shore-side landscape has been carved up into various types of boxes
and rectangles. Architects never tire of putting boxes on top of, next to,
or inside of other boxes; this seems to exhaust their range of motions.
People inhabit these boxes, starting with the crib and ending with the
coffin. In the interim, they use four-wheeled boxes to navigate the maze
between house boxes, job boxes and shopping boxes. All of this fixation on
rectilinear geometry is supposed to make them safe and comfortable, but it
also makes them dream of escape. Escape to sea, of course, is an obvious
choice, because any body of water - even a smallish one - is automatically
a wilderness, while the ocean is a force of nature par excellence -
unconquerable by man, guaranteed to utterly destroy and humiliate any
human contrivance designed to keep it in check. The land has been carved
up into rectangles and boxes, but the sea-coast (the wet side of it, that
is) remains a relative wilderness precisely because it cannot be carved up
quite so easily.
Strange though it may seem, the wilderness starts right at the water's
edge. If our ocean-gazers turned their gaze to the boats bobbing around at
anchor or at moorings, and looked carefully, they would notice that some
of these stationary boats are, in fact, inhabited. Here is a dinghy tied
up to the stern of one; another has towels drying on the lifelines; a
third has a bit of smoke coming from a chimney above the wheelhouse -
somebody is cooking lunch. Unbeknownst to most of the box-dwellers on
shore, there is rather a large tribe of "live-aboards" - people who live
aboard boats. Some keep their boats in posh marinas and emerge from the
cabin in the morning wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. Others live
at anchor, setting a few crabpots or fishing off the stern to catch their
dinner, and rowing themselves ashore periodically to do an odd job or
gather some supplies. Some boats make semi-annual pilgrimages in search of
warmer or cooler weather; others have a summer holiday, during which they
visit picturesque places along the coast; still others stay put, growing a
thick beard of seafood. Living on a boat is in general much more
economical than living on land, and it is possible, if one is skilled, to
make a living of it without very much monetary input at all. But it is
certainly not for everybody. Some people try it and after a while give up,
others have been living aboard for decades and are not about to stop.
Many others are about to start living on the water, even though they don't
know it yet. The problem is, their houses don't float, don't move, and
they aren't particularly habitable without the wires and pipes that hook
them to various services. When the water comes, they are submerged and
disintegrate. Living on a boat may have its challenges and annoyances, but
living in a flooded house is close to impossible. And so, if the landscape
you inhabit is in danger of becoming flooded, cut off from the mainland,
or generally uninhabitable, why not build a boat instead of a house, or
next to the house, and float away when the time comes. It is quite
possible for an amateur with limited funds to build a craft that is roomy
enough to house a family, relatively immune to wind and waves, happily
sits upright on any relatively level bit of ground, rides well to anchor,
and contains all the necessities and even a modicum of luxuries, for a
perfectly civilized existence.
As a residence, a sailboat offers a unique combination of safety,
civilization and freedom. It may be raining cats and dogs and blowing so
hard that tree-branches are flying about on shore, but on a boat anchored
in a sheltered spot, once you lash down a few things on deck and descend
the companionway, you enter a different world. Standing in the cabin, you
are up to your chest in water, but the water is outside, while inside it
is warm and dry, you have your own source of electricity from the wind
generator, fresh rainwater is gurgling down into the water tanks, and,
what's more, you do not have to ask anyone's permission or pay anyone for
the right to be there. If someone minds you being there, or if the place
is uninviting, once the storm passes you hoist sails, pull up anchor, and
look for another spot.
* * *
In a world where rising seas are already putting millions of people at
risk of losing their homes, their lives, or both, a programme of building
large numbers of inexpensive, practical, utilitarian and versatile sailing
craft is a direct way to provide flood-proof, earthquake-proof and
storm-proof habitation, to build communities, to create local resilience,
and to provide hope for a survivable future. It is a way to create
connections between different parts of the planet that can survive into
the post-industrial age. It offers a way to transport people and goods in
a fashion that avoids predation that will be an inevitable element of a
disrupted time. It offers us an opportunity to make sure that we remain a
seafaring species even as the fossil fuel era recedes into history, and
gives us a way to salvage something very useful out of the wreckage of our
industrial past.
Links:
{1} http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2009/09/caution-white-people.html
{2} http://www.darwinawards.com/
{3} http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v2/n12/abs/ngeo694.html
{4}
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18383-major-antarctic-glacier-is-past-its-tipping-point.html
{5}
http://www.camdencourier.com.au/news/local/news/general/residents-reject-do-nothing-erosion-option/1706506.aspx
_____
Keith Farnish is author of "Time's Up! An Uncivilized Solution To A Global
Crisis" (http://www.timesupbook.com) and also writes The Earth Blog and
The Unsuitablog. He enjoys being a husband and dad, walking around and
growing things.
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2010/01/oceans-are-coming-part-iii-remaining.html
http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com
http://www.ashisuto.co.jp
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