Hey everyone its Fatima and I will be summarizing the New York Times article New York "Is Lagging as Seas and Risks Rise, Critics" Warn by Mireya Navarro for my first class assignment.
Navarro shares the severe effects from climate change like flooding, is having on New York and what our City officials are doing to protect the city. City officials are biased when it comes to what parts of New York are more important and should be safeguarded. According to Eddie Bautista,“a lot of attention is devoted to Lower Manhattan, but you forget that you have real industries on the waterfront elsewhere in the city." We also learned that the outer boroughs such as South Bronx and Sunset Park in Brooklyn have chemical-manufacturing plants, oil-storage sites and garbage-transfer stations that should be first priority because continual storm surges to the area could possibly toxify the water in the near future.While some are battling over part of New York to protect first, others are apprehensive to make immediate changes. Because of the cost and "risks" involved city officials have chosen to pursue a "resilience" strategy that "strengthens" the city from flooding with minimal damage to fix. It seems that officials are not really taking the rising sea levels as seriously as they should. They continue to build on the waterfront and decided to use short turn precautions such as porous riprap rock, soft edge of salt-resistant grass, sidewalk bioswales and vegetative tree pits. Carter H. Strickland, the city’s environmental commissioner says“It’s a series of small interventions that cumulatively, over time, will take us to a more natural system” to deal with climate change". What about transportation, right? The sea levels and flooding effects transportation a great deal. Klaus H. Jacob, a research scientist at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, informs us that "the storm surge from Irene came, on average, just one foot short of paralyzing transportation into and out of Manhattan". Steps have been taken to help prevent us from flooded subway stations such as increasing the pumping capacities, raising entrances and installing floodgates on stations that need it.There is a way to protect the low laying coasts of the boroughs by installing sea barriers. This is aan option but the officials are at a standstill because of the possible effects they could on the ecosystem and the 10 billion price tag it holds. As a fellow New Yorker I am concerned with our city officials "effort". They seem to be more concerned about what it will cost to safeguard the city and inhabitants. I think the sea barriers are the best option right now. Though the cost is high, we would provide the protection that is needed for the low lying areas.They could continue to build on the waterfront, subway stations and bridges would sustain minimal damage if any at all but most importantly New Yorkers would feel reassured and safe.
I also want to respond to Jim Gordon's comment located in the Readers Picks section of this online article. Jim states that "one of the most important an effective measures we need to take in order to ensure the health of our infrastructure, health and environment is to rapidly transition to clean and renewable energy. Spending billions of dollars to build sea gates without an Apollo like effort to stem the flow of carbon pollution currently accelerating rising sea levels, warming oceans and more intense an frequent storms is like treating the symptoms without curing the disease." Jim argues that it doesn't make sense to build sea gates before enforcing low-carbon alternatives. He believes that slowing the carbon pollution that is attributing to the increasing sea levels and warming oceans are more important. Jim does make a good point that we should put more focus on carbon pollution, but we are. The city starting moving in the right direction when they started production of electric and natural gas fueled city buses that are currently in use and also the production of CITI bikes and installation of bike lanes all over the city. Though its not much, its a start. I don't agree with Jim's opinion of the sea gates. Hurricane Sandy caused city, business, and residential damage that we are still recovering from. I believe if the sea gates were installed when the suggestion was made, we could have minimized devastation that Sandy caused. I am also inclined to believe that the home and business owners that were gravely effected by this storm would agree with me.
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