Where will you be when the sea rises?

(Eco Business, 9 Nov 2018) It is not a matter of if, but when the seas rise and submerge many coastal cities. Jeff Goodell, author of The Water Will Come, tells Eco-Business how well prepared cities are for rising seas, how to argue with climate deniers, and what sort of review he thinks Donald Trump would give his book.

Sea-level rise is not the stuff of science fiction or Hollywood movies like The Day After Tomorrow. It is happening, says Jeff Goodell, an American investigative journalist, climate change expert and author of the book The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities and the Reshaping of the Civilized World. 

“Due to the amount of heat that is already built up in the world’s oceans, a certain amount of sea level rise is inevitable. And it’s why my book is titled The Water Will Come, not The Water Will Come Unless We All Install Solar Panels on Our Roofs,” he tells Eco-Business.

To research his book, Goodell has travelled to Alaska with former US President Barack Obama, and has been around the globe interviewing scientists and climate change leaders to investigate how climate change and resultant rising sea levels will impact humanity. 

The rising seas does not make reducing greenhouse gas emissions pointless, he argues. “The quicker we reduce greenhouse gases, the less the planet will warm, and that will have a big impact both on the height and trajectory of sea level rise we will see in coming decades,” says Goodell, who will be talking at the Singapore Writers Festival at the Victoria Theatre on Sunday.

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Eco Business, 9 Nov 2018: Where will you be when the sea rises?