Coastal Risk Consulting – Media Articles

Jay OwenCommunity Development Solutions, Earth Systems Science

Rising Sea Levels Won’t Doom U.S. Coastal Cities

In the summer of 2013, Rolling Stone published a long article titled “Goodbye, Miami,” which claimed that climate change will submerge much of the titular city. “By century’s end,” the article warned, “rising sea levels will turn the nation’s urban fantasyland into an American Atlantis. But long before the city is completely underwater, chaos will begin.”

Such predictions are not uncommon as the science behind climate change becomes increasingly unassailable, and they are not unique to Miami. In America alone, a majority of the population lives within 50 miles of a coast. Many of the nation’s most beautiful and productive cities — New York, Seattle, San Francisco, and others — abut the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. As sea levels rise, are these cities doomed to an underwater future?

I doubt it. As an economist, my training in how individuals invest during times of uncertainty leads me to a much different prediction: America’s coastal cities are going to adapt, get ahead of climate change, and be just fine.

How can I be so optimistic? Similar to citizens who heeded Paul Revere’s warnings over 240 years ago, coastal urbanites and firms have been alerted that climate change is imminent. Asset owners and investors thus have clear information about the strong incentive to adapt to this emerging risk. What value that cannot be protected will be replaced in the form of new business opportunities for entrepreneurs who can design solutions to pressing problems.  The induced innovation literature has taught us that drug companies focus their efforts on researching and marketing new drugs for which there is expected to be great demand (think of aging baby boomers’ aching knees). This same logic holds in the case of climate change adaptation.

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