The rising tide: Who will lead?

An important conversation took place tonight at the NC Botanical Gardens in Chapel Hill. Good people coming together to do good work to preserve one of the world’s most cherished resources: North Carolina’s 5000 miles of beach front and estuarine shoreline.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, the coast of North Carolina is a big deal. According to Stanley Riggs, the international expert in coastal management in the Geology Department at ECU, roughly $2.25 billion in direct dollars related coastal tourism flow into our state every year. That money – and our beaches themselves – are at risk.

Why? Because the sea level is rising. Riggs says that by 2025, if not sooner, we will have a tourist industry that’s swirling down the toilet because of stranded houses, septic tanks, demolished roads, gas leaks, and worse … the result of storms and hurricanes that are absolutely certain to hit our shores. Twenty thousand years ago, the North Carolina shoreline was 60 miles out to sea. The level has risen 140 feet in that time. It’s getting higher … and we’re seeing the impacts every day.

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