Climate Change Update: Rebuild Smarter

It’s called “climate adaptation”: acting to deal with the reality of ongoing climate change.

Last week, Gov. Roy Cooper used the occasion of his Brunswick County visit to point out that rebuilding needs to be done in a way that recognizes the changed conditions. Stronger storms fed by rising global temperatures will dump more catastrophic rainfall, more often, in ways that threaten low-lying coastal areas.

“When you have two so-called 500-year floods within two years of each other, you’re not talking about 500-year floods anymore,” Cooper said. “We’ve got something else on our hands.”

If the General Assembly can be persuaded to acknowledge that human-driven climate change is in fact taking place before our eyes, they could support the adaptation process in many ways. Road construction standards, building code updates, and a recognition that we can’t hold back the rising sea level with more “terminal groins” would be among the good starts.

Useful discussion of the adaptation planning process and alternatives can be found here.

Up next, Florence Fallout Continues >>

To get news like this in your inbox every Monday, please sign up for our Conservation Insider Bulletin newsletter!