We're All New Orleanians Now

"You've got a crisis situation, certainly, for everyone who lives near the Chesapeake Bay," says J. Court Stevenson, a marsh ecologist at the University of Maryland. "The buffering landforms that are the enemy of hurricanes will be gone. And the high water that is the best friend of big storms will be here in abundance."

And none of this considers the growing power, brought on by global warming, of hurricanes themselves. Stronger winds can push around more water, creating even higher surge tides that will roll toward coastlines already locked into disastrous high water. According to a study published in the journal Science last fall, the number of Category 4 and 5 storms has nearly doubled in the past 30 years as the planet has warmed. All of these factors, Stevenson says, mean that "100-year floods" won't come to places such as Washington every 100 years anymore, but as frequently as once every 25 years or even once a decade.

In the face of this sobering data suggesting we're bringing New Orleans to the Potomac, what should we do? Realistically, there are three major options: 1) abandon our coastal cities and retreat inland, a response too staggering to imagine, 2) stay put and try to adapt to the menacing new conditions, or 3) switch to clean energy as fast as possible.

Adapting, of course, means committing fully to the New Orleans model. It means potentially thousands of miles of levees and floodwalls across much of the region. And that's just to handle the rising sea. For hurricane surge tides, Stevenson thinks the only solution might be to build a floodgate across the Potomac near Mount Vernon. It could be closed during periods of maximum danger, then reopened as the surge ebbs. He envisions another on the Patapsco River to protect Baltimore. The New York Academy of Sciences, meanwhile, has examined the idea of three such floodgates for New York City.

But are we truly ready to become New Orleanians, casting our lot behind ever-higher, unsustainable walls? Once we commit to fortified levees and massive floodgates, there's no turning back. It's an all-or-nothing proposition, as New Orleans has graphically demonstrated.

Alternatively, we can go with the third option. It's less expensive, less risky and overall much better for us: clean energy. It's the option that treats the disease of global warming, not just the symptoms. Only by dramatically reducing greenhouse gas pollution -- by switching to hybrid cars and wind- and solar-powered electricity and high-efficiency appliances -- can we slow the sea-level rise and potentially calm the growth in hurricane intensity.

We must join the rest of the world in this effort because, while the effects are local, the solution can only be global. Some adaptation to global warming will still be necessary, given the momentum built into the warming process. And a national clean-energy overhaul will represent a huge challenge to our society, especially given how little time scientists say we have left -- maybe just 10 years -- before runaway climate effects become a reality.

But switching to clean, efficient energy is a challenge compared to what? Compared to life below sea level with a constant eye on the Weather Channel, waiting for the next Category 5 storm to replicate the horrifying events of last Aug. 29?

I've seen the consequences of inaction before. In 2003, my book "Bayou Farewell" chronicled the erosion of coastal Louisiana, leaving the state vulnerable to a killer hurricane that would flatten its cities "like a liquid bulldozer." But Washington didn't act. And today, as New Orleans knows too well, policymakers in D.C. are among the only people in the world whose decisions can directly protect their own homes from global warming. If "Katrina on the Potomac" has a bad ring to it, we can only hope that these leaders will finally do something about it -- and soon.

mwtidwell@aol.com

Mike Tidwell is author of "The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America's Coastal Cities" (Free Press) and director of the U.S. Climate Emergency Council.