Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore (2018)
By Elizabeth Rush
Climate change is affecting nearly every aspect of nature: from rising temperatures to wildlife endangerment to rising seas... Nature writer Rush travels to sections of the Atlantic coast that have seen a rise in the water level, especially inundating vulnerable marshlands with tree- and plant-killing salt water. (I learned a new word: rampike is the term given to these dying trees.) Rush starts her tale in nearby Jacob's Point in Warren, RI, before moving north to the Maine coast, then to the Oakwood neighborhood of Staten Island. Some of the people she interviews have roots to their communities going back centuries, such as a Pensacola, FL neighborhood settled by escaped slaves and the Isle de Jean Charles, home to Choctaw Indians for hundreds of years, but now shrunk by encroaching seas to just a tenth of its former size.
Many of these communities have neither the funds nor expertise to fix their problem, some of which are due not just to rising seas but to rampant development over former wetlands dating to the Swamp Act of 1850. In Oakwood, Staten Island, nearly all of the residents agreed to sell their homes through a govt buyback program, and move to higher ground, giving the former marshland the chance to recede back to its natural state. Rush also points to efforts around San Francisco Bay where wetland mitigation (after decades of salt mining) is having some success.
While the story (rising seas and destroyed coastland) is alarming, Rush's interviews with local residents are interesting and heartfelt, and it is not without hope - but there is a sense that this is an emergency. Rising is the Reading-Across-RI book for 2020 - and I hope the word gets out there!
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