{"id":17235,"date":"2011-12-08T15:51:19","date_gmt":"2011-12-08T23:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/?p=17235"},"modified":"2023-04-04T06:14:04","modified_gmt":"2023-04-04T06:14:04","slug":"sounding-the-waters-is-the-bay-area-prepared-for-sea-level-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2011\/12\/08\/sounding-the-waters-is-the-bay-area-prepared-for-sea-level-rise\/","title":{"rendered":"Sounding the Waters: Is the Bay Area Prepared for Sea Level Rise?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new documentary attempts to find the answer<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sea level rise will irrevocably change life near the San Francisco Bay. That’s the premise of RISE: Climate Change and Coastal Communities<\/a>, a documentary that starts airing this week on KQED Public Radio. Producer Claire Schoen sets the stage on a personal note.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Climate scientists predict that sea level rise and extreme weather will cause severe, repeated flooding of San Francisco’s Financial District by 2050.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Claire Schoen<\/p>\n

\u201cMom, can you please can it <\/em>with the climate change lecture\u00a0 \u2013 just for once,\u201d my children complained. At ages 22 and 26, my politically correct, Berkeley-raised kids are well educated in all things scientific and political. But… \u201cEnough already,\u201d they cry.<\/p>\n

And I confess that their complaint has some validity: I can bring up the topic of climate change in pretty much any conversation.<\/p>\n

But really, what other topic is there?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I do care deeply about war, immigration and famine. But all of these are affected by climate change which is a major cause of increasing drought, which in turn will create more and more wars to be fought over less and less arable land, pushing greater numbers of people to become environmental migrants the world over. This is not science fiction. And it is not the future. It is happening right now and it is being meticulously measured. The scariest part is that scientific estimates and predictions of the rate and intensity of climate change continue to be proven too low. It\u2019s all happening bigger and faster than the models have shown. And it will get worse if we don\u2019t radically slow our greenhouse gas emissions worldwide and<\/em> figure out how to adapt to the impacts of climate change that are already too late to halt.<\/p>\n

This past year has certainly been an eye-opener in the U.S., with a record-breaking number of record-breaking weather events<\/a>:<\/p>\n