Retreat from a Rising Sea: Hard Choices in an Age of Climate Change

Abstract

The book is organized into 11 chapters: (1) Control þ Alt þ Retreat; (2) The Overflowing Ocean; (3) The Fate of Two Doomed Cities: Miami and New Orleans; (4) New and Old Amsterdam: New York City; (5) Cities on the Brink; (6) The Taxpayers and the Beach House; (7) Coastal Calamities: How Geology Affects the Fate of the Shoreline; (8) Drowning in Place: Infrastructure and Landmarks in the Age of Sea-Level Rise; (9) The Cruelest Wave: Climate Refugees; (10) Deny, Debate, and Delay; and (11) Ghosts of the Past, Promise of the Future. The same is true in geology, where extreme events such as hurricanes and typhoons can produce monster storm surges that will do more damage in a few hours than many years of slow sea-level rise.