Protecting our Cities from Sea Level Rise

Imagine the world where all the ice of the poles has melted away. Much of northern Europe is a part of the Atlantic Ocean. Florida is completely submerged underwater. Memphis Tennessee is now a coastal city along the Gulf Coast. It was different once. Cities like Miami and London use to be popular tourist destinations in the early 21st Century. All of the low lying cities like Miami, New Orleans, London, and Paris are under hundreds of feet of water. The ice locked in the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica has melted away, dumping most of our freshwater into the seas. Much of our freshwater supply and farmland is not contaminated or swallowed by the rising oceans since the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets melted. How could we as people prevent this massive disaster that the world has never been experienced before?

As modern humans, we have been innovators. We have solved many problems that many would have thought to be impossible such as going to the moon for instance. We have been posed with many problems and have come up with many solutions. Unfortunately many of the problems we faced were something such as “in the heat of the moment” situations. Unfortunately sea level rise is a slow process, so many people would not see this as a problem until we have shot ourselves in the foot. With rapid globalization taking hold in developing nations, more and more carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere. We as a planet must prepare for the worst because sea levels will creep higher into our cities. Even though we may be able to slow the rise of the oceans with carbon emissions, it still will not be enough to save our cities. Our homes and history will have been lost to the sea if we do not act soon to protect our c...

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...nt to us, our history. Many of our cities, especially those along the Mediterranean Sea, are vulnerable to sea level rise.

Works Cited

The Associated Press. "Levees, Removable Walls Proposed to Protect NYC." USA Today. USA Today, 11 June 2013. 18 November 2013.

National Geographic. "Earth Under Water." 8 August 2013. Youtube. 18 November 2013.

National Geographic. "Sea Level Rise." 2013. NationalGeogrpahic.com. 18 November 2013.

New York State Dept. of Labor. "State’s Private Sector Job Count Grows by 22,700 in August 2013." 2013. New York State. 18 November 2013.

The Associated Press. "Levees, Removable Walls Proposed to Protect NYC." 11 June 2013. USA Today. 18 November 2013.

Watts. Personal Interview. 11 November 2013.

Wong, Edward. "China’s Plan to Curb Air Pollution Sets Limits on Coal Use and Vehicles." 12 September 2013. New York Times. 18 November 2013.