The end of New York? A searing special report
Inspired to new heights of diligence by the article, I have prepared my own look at one of the great unfolding tragedies of our time.
Scientists blame global warming.
Two hundred miles to the north, Martha Duvall, 45, stands in the sheltering cool of her apple trees and looks at the line of suburban housing on the ridgeline in the distance.
Scientists blame global warming.
[...] both Swofford and Duvall are victims of the most pressing problem ever to hit the Empire State: the great land drought.
The oceans are inexorably rising, and New York has many low-lying communities, including the island of Manhattan itself.
Estimates are that 50 percent of New York’s current shoreline will be gone by 2050, creating new beachfronts farther inland and a rise in real estate prices.
The amount of land available for agriculture is dwindling — and much of the remaining acreage is taken up by highly profitable vineyards and organic carrot farms.
Despite years of warning, it was only last January that Gov. Andrew Cuomo took steps to deal with the emerging crisis.
A fund will be started to buy endangered land and sell it to farmers at well below market rates.
Scientists noted that the ocean has been placed under no such restrictions; it is permitted to take as much land as it wants, “just because it’s the ocean,” an activist noted.
[...] the new regulations fund the building of a series of dikes patterned after a similar network in Holland, where everything is just plain better than it is here.