What if Paris floods from climate change?

Since Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth came out a few years ago, people in the United States have idly entertained the idea that Miami or New Orleans could flood. In worst-case scenarios, New York City could be submerged - a story made morbidly fascinating in Alan Weisman's The World Without Us. But in the world of history and culture, few cities hold water (no pun intended) like Paris.

What if it floods from climate change? This is a scenario eerily represented in this video.



As TreeHugger notes:

More than 100 miles from the Atlantic, Paris is safe from rising sea levels for the foreseeable future, but coastal cities around the world aren't as lucky. The entire population of the nation of Kiribati, in the Maldives, is relocating to Fiji as its 32 islands disappear under the water. They are not the first rising-sea refugees, either.

To put the video's version of Paris in perspective, the best case scenario for this century is a 50cm rise in global sea levels. New reports show things will likely be worse.

Rising seas not only make coastal areas uninhabitable, they compromise drinking water supplies. The use of Paris, the famously beautiful city, as the potential victim could bring attention to a climate issue that is largely ignored.

Where would the art go? Berlin? Basel? Vienna? I have to admit a certain fascination and interest in such a problem. What kind of transition of culture would have to occur? I'm envisaging a modern version of the Irish monks of the medieval period who preserved so much in their cloistered corner of the world while Europe's powers plundered one another. Imagine the contingencies for the Mona Lisa. What about what's in New York's Museum of Modern Art? What future scenarios will there be besides A World Without Us or John Carpenter's campy Escape from New York?

A lot of people will argue New York is safe for a long time. And they may be right. The pumps that free the subways (and all of the island from the daily deluge of water that made the island a meadowland) run, more than likely, on coal. Coal, left unchecked, will power our machines for a long time. Maybe nuclear power fuels them. Maybe it will more. Maybe tidal will one day do it. But if its coal, and coal is left unchecked, that means an escalation of climate change. A real double bind. And one that makes for great apocalyptic story telling. I'm not saying the stories will necessarily or really won't happen. I don't know.

Right now, they're just stories. But each day with more coal dumping millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, the more traction the doom scenarios will get more traction and the more the Mad Max fans will say that thunderdome is on its way. Others will watch this video and think, there must be a different way to do things so that doesn't happen.

New York could continue drilling moratorium until June 2012

This is just in from the New York State Assembly:

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Environmental Conservation Committee Chair Robert K. Sweeney today announced that legislation to suspend the issuance of new permits for hydrofracking in New York State until June 1, 2012, was reported out of the Environmental Conservation Committee today.

"For the sake of our environment's safety and the integrity of our drinking water, I think it is appropriate and responsible for the state to take additional time to thoroughly study all the data that is available and forthcoming about hydrofracking before approving any additional permits," said Silver (D-Manhattan).

Under the bill (A.7400, Sweeney), no permits would be issued for new wells that use the hydrofracking process to extract natural gas or oil until June 2012. The moratorium called for in the measure will provide the legislature with additional time to review the Draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement, which the Department of Environmental Conservation is currently preparing.

Health and environmental concerns have been raised by communities across the nation where hydrofracking has been used to retrieve natural gas and oil. Reports of water contamination, habitat destruction and chemical spills have occurred in states that have permitted hyrdrofracking, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado and others. The Environmental Protection Agency, at the direction of Congress, is studying hydrofracking and is expected to release its report at the end of 2012.

"This legislation ensures that we do not embrace this drilling technology without examining all the risks. During our lifetime we have seen many environmental disasters that could have been avoided had all the facts been known before approvals were given. It's important that we in New York State get our policy on hydrofracking right, the first time," said Sweeney (D-Lindenhurst).

"There are too many unknowns about what kind of impact hydrofracking has on the environment. To be anything but cautious on this matter would be reckless and a threat to our environment and the health of New Yorkers," said Silver, who noted he expects the Assembly to approve the bill during this legislative session.