Exploring the Changing Landscape of America's Coasts: A Journey through Rising Tides

Matthew Rapaport: Ms. Rush is an “environmental writer” and writes, at least in this book, as a sort of anthropologist documenting individual and community responses to their changing environment. The underlying environmental theme here is sea level rise and its impact on U.S. coastal wetlands (or what used to be wetlands) along with the people who live in them. Yet sea level is only a part of her story, a much more significant part being wetland degradation–environmental damage–caused by human activity (drainage, construction, agriculture, shipping) going back a hundred or more years.

The patterns Ms. Rush finds in one place are often repeated. Whether in Maine or Louisiana, wetlands are not the most comfortable places to live permanently. Population pressure eventually forces people to make a go of it, and often, the poorest must suffer the burden of finding ways to live in those places. How they adapted and how they are presently adapting (or not) as the environmental collapse of these fragile areas accelerates is the meat of this book told with stories about individuals–sometimes scientists, more often residents–and communities.

Ms. Rush paints her...

United States on Mar 29, 2023

"john_lovie": Plenty of books about the impacts of climate change on shoreline communities focus on the risks to come. Some of those changes are already happening in the form of increased damage from coastal storms such as Sandy. Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore looks at communities impacted by these events and how governments have or have not responded to them.

Elizabeth Rush visits and reports in depth on several shoreline communities on the Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific coasts that are losing the battle with climate change. In addition to her own well researched and extensively footnoted reporting, she includes several first-person essays from residents of these communities and offers plenty of personal impressions of her own.

In many cases state and local governments are turning a blind eye to these communities, leaving the residents to either stick it out or pay their own way to relocation. In cases where there are funds available for buy outs these are used to buy out lower income blue collar neighborhoods while the richer second homeowners get their properties protected through beach replenishment.

Market based solutions such as increased flood insurance...

United States on Apr 22, 2022

Tri Guy: This book is a treasure for our times, both present and future. As a scientist who grew up spending as much time as possible on the wetlands of Long Island, NY, this book truly brought me back to my roots. And also made me think about how these roots will be changing in the future.
Throughout this book the author makes scenes come alive. She invites the reader into her experiences during her amazing 5 year journey of exploration in researching the topic of rising sea levels and the many aspects of life connected to this global climate change. She weaves science, history, politics, economics, social justice and so many other threads into a cohesive tapestry that is the reality of our engagement with our planet. And she brings humanity into clear focus while at the same time making the science accessible.
I was impressed with how self-disclosing the author was about aspects of her personal life that played out during her 5 years of research. I admire her courage in that – and now that I’m done with the book I see how this honesty and openness invites the reader to reflect on their lives and how all of this fits in to what they are experiencing as we continue this journey...

United States on Jul 23, 2018