EoW July 2011

Transat lant ic Cable

1 Enormous water gates could protect bays from storm surges. They already work in places like the Netherlands and Britain 2 Buildings can be raised on stilts like those that are now common in tropical Australia and are required in New Orleans, or tethered to the earth and saddled to floats 3 Shorelines may need to be vacated, with buildings toppled and wetlands restored. Some shoreline will evolve and build up in height without help if they are given back to nature ❈ There is a bright side to all this, although not for those who live along the Pacific littoral of the United States. Steve Goldbeck, a deputy director of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, told the Bay Citizen’s Mr Upton that accelerated rates of sea level rise there will most likely correspond with a slowing in the rise elsewhere: like parts of Asia, where rates now surpass global averages. AISI: the US steel industry is seeing the bene ts of recovery in the national economy With the American economy in recovery mode, shipments from domestic steel mills are expected to grow 14% this year. Daniel DiMicco, chairman of the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) and CEO of Nucor Corp, offered this projection at a media briefing during AISI’s general meeting, held 1 st -3 rd May in Colorado Springs. In attendance were more than 400 executives from the steel industry trade group and the Metals Service Center Institute (MSCI), a group representing businesses that inventory and distribute metals for industrial customers. But Mr DiMicco cautioned that the nation’s construction industry is not expected to fully recover to pre-recession peak levels until sometime in the middle of the decade. He said that this will slow job growth over the next few years. As reported by Wayne Heilman in the Colorado Springs Gazette (2 nd May), Mario Longhi, chairman of AISI and CEO of Gerdau Ameristeel, said that growth in the booming US energy sector has offset some of the weakness in the construction industry. Mr Longhi cited the main energy-related applications genera- ting demand for steel: towers for high-transmission lines, towers and other components of wind turbines, pipe for the transport of natural gas, and frames for solar panels. The Gerdau Ameristeel chief noted that AISI favours a comprehensive federal policy that promotes all sources of energy. John Surma, CEO of US Steel Corp and an AISI director, said that the group’s legislative agenda also includes reducing regulatory burdens on manufacturers, increasing the nation’s investment in transportation, promoting exports, and enforcing existing trade laws and rules – as well as pushing China to permit its currency to rise in value relative to the US dollar. Mr Surma warned that the American steel industry faces a significant challenge from rising costs for commodities and raw materials. These are threats, he said, that could erode or even eliminate any cost savings realised from layoffs and other restructuring moves that the industry put in place during the recent recession. Steel

The environment Luck may be about to run out for the West Coast of the US, long protected from the e ects of rising sea levels

“Planners say there is no need to panic but there’s no time to waste – especially along a coast where the sea has 30 years of catching up to do.” The reference, by John Upton of the Bay Citizen, a news organisation providing local coverage of the San Francisco Bay Area for the New York Times , is to the past three decades of Nature’s favour enjoyed by America’s 7,600-mile Pacific coastline. Over this period, Californians and other residents of cities and communities along its shores have been sheltered from the impact of the quickening pace at which seas around the world are rising. But suddenly sea levels are forecast to start rising along the eastern Pacific Ocean. Scientists say that not only might they catch up – they could even surpass global averages. (“A Change in Fortune for the West Coast?” 9 th May) Mr Upton, whose piece appeared on the Times ’s “Green” blog, noted a report published the week before by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California at San Diego. The researchers found that a dramatic shift in the directions of ocean winds is poised to reverse a tilt in the Pacific Ocean that has inundated parts of Asia but protected America’s western states from rising seas since the late 1970s. The change is traceable to the Pacific Decadel Oscillation, the less well understood cousin of El Niño (or Southern Oscillation), the mischief-making climate pattern that occurs across the tropical Pacific every five years. In studying signs of a flip from the Decadel’s warm phase to its cold phase, the Scripps researchers found that its winds are starting to behave like those that dominated the Pacific until the 1970s, when sea levels were last on the rise on the West Coast. Levels had been rising since 1930, when a similar change occurred in the oscillation’s phase. Now, Mr Upton wrote: “The [Scripps] report suggests that the American West will finally start to shrink as the ocean around it expands, succumbing to the same reality that is already vexing communities around the world.” ❈ Whether or not California contains its panic, as urged by Mr Upton, the state is officially bracing for seas to rise 14" by 2050, inundating everything up to a foot above high tide. Predictions for 2100 and beyond are very bleak. Airports and houses – not to mention golf courses – could flood; coastal property holdings could vanish; and sewers could fill with corrosive saltwater. Experts consulted by the Bay Citizen suggest Californians and others could retreat safely from the advancing sea, keep it at bay using mechanical and natural water barriers, and adapt to it with new approaches to building. ❈ As summarised by Mr Upton, that would mean preparing in stages, taking little steps now to lay the groundwork for more ambitious projects in the future. He collected these thoughts from the San Francisco Planning + Urban Research Association:

26

EuroWire – July 2011