Wednesday, April 22, was Earth Day, a decades-old celebration of Reduce-Reuse-Recycle marked by festivals devoted to composting and solar panels. It’s a perennial reminder of the small sacrifices we can make to reduce our personal impact on the environment.
But on the day after and for years to come, we continue to be faced with threats of environmental catastrophes, some of which are as much a consequence of decisions made by the people we elect as they are of our own actions.
Whether it’s the intense flooding in areas like South Tampa or the saltwater invading the aquifers that store Florida’s drinking water, Florida is often referred to as the poster child for sea level rise.
Yet state officials apparently want to hear none of it, instead referring to it as “nuisance flooding” as encroaching seawater gears up to cause big problems for the millions of people who live here.
The hazards of rising seas would have been offset somewhat, says Thomas Patarek, chair of the Suncoast Surfrider Foundation, if the coast were still lined with mangroves instead of seawalls and buildings. Mangrove forests help secure sand with their roots, sand that otherwise washes away. Without them, the problem is compounded.
“Unfortunately, these mangrove forests that are so vital to our protection are being replaced by human development, weakening nature’s resilience, resulting in a true recipe for disaster,” Patarek said in an email. “On top of this development, the speed of sea level rise is nearly double the historic rate at which scientific data has studied in the past. The bottom line is that these ecological changes, coupled with our ambition to develop, are at a crossroads in nature’s ability to adapt.”
This article appears in Apr 23-29, 2015.