New Jersey: Shore to Please
Image by Escapemaker.com
It’s a good thing we’re not in the market for beachfront property. Global warming is the oncoming train to the New Jersey shore’s railroad-track-bound damsel in distress, says a new report from Princeton University.
From APP.com, “NJ groups take on global warming.”
Some environmentalists predict much of Atlantic City, Long Beach Island and the Cape May peninsula could be under water or prone to chronic flooding by Memorial Day 2100 at the current rate of sea-level rise.
New Jersey is one of seven Northeastern states to participate in a regional agreement capping carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants. …
A Princeton University study released last year concluded that New Jersey’s coast is highly susceptible to “inundation” as the result of a 2-foot to 4-foot rise in sea level.
The study suggested that the sea-level rise will have a “wide range of impacts on socioeconomic and natural systems,” including increased damage to property and infrastructure, a net loss of beaches and wetlands, declines in coastal bird and wildlife populations, and the contamination of groundwater supplies.
And from NorthJersey.com, “Projections see global warming erasing state park, Port Newark.”
The world’s rising seas could one day swallow Liberty State Park and Port Newark.
The shores of Gold Coast property from Bayonne to Edgewater could be overrun by the Hudson River.
The meadows and marshes along the Hackensack River could become mud flats and lakes, with floodwaters lapping at the sports stadiums as well as the Xanadu complex now under construction in the Meadowlands.
The New Jersey Public Interest Research Group used recent sea-level projections to develop this ominous prediction of what global warming will do to the state’s coastal and wetlands areas by 2100.
In a map released Thursday, the Meadowlands were listed as one of five “coastal treasures” that could be permanently submerged or chronically flooded unless policymakers act now to curb the global warming trend.
The areas most at risk of being overrun by tidal waters are pulse points of the state’s tourism economy— Atlantic City, Cape May, Long Beach Island and the Delaware Bay Shore.
“Global warming is real. It’s happening,” said Doug O’Malley, the group’s field director. “If left unchecked, it will have a very real impact on New Jersey’s coastal communities.”
What you can do, besides getting out your swim gear: Ask Governor Corzine to reduce New Jersey’s global warming pollution by 20 percent below current levels by 2020 and pledge to make a 70 percent reduction by 2050. Sign the letter by filling in an e-mail form here.
Melissa said,
May 29, 2006 at 6:22 pm
Thanks for this post, Jasmin. As a Jersey girl on the west coast, I still feel loyalty to the Garden State. We had a great vacation at the shore last summer, and for the first time, I got to check out Island Beach State Park. Beautiful dunes, wildlife, quiet… it was great. I’d really like for it to not be completely washed away. Already wrote to the Gov - thanks for the action alert.