There's Little Time Left
to Save Coastal Regions
Edward J. Dodson
[Reprinted from
E/the Environmental Magazine, 22 April, 2008]
The debate over whether our global climate system is
experiencing changes at an accelerated rate seems to be over, even
if the extent to which human activity is a primary cause remains in
dispute. Climatologists are not yet able to model the full scope of
changes we will be experiencing; however, with even modest increases
in sea levels will come the increased probability of destructive
storms and flooding along the coastal regions of every continent.
Almost one-half of us live within a few hundred kilometers of a
coastline, and many of the world's most densely populated regions
are right on the coast. With little thought to the long-term
consequences, we have established these enormous centers of
population where the risk of disaster is ever-present.
It now seems clear that the engines of climate change will not be
reversed or even slowed before we experience ever-worsening storms,
rising tides and destruction of many cities and communities
constructed at sea level. Evacuation of these low-lying regions
around the globe or the construction of sophisticated flood
prevention systems (as exist in the Netherlands) are not under
serious consideration anywhere in the world.
What we need is what we do not have - time for debate,
consensus-building, and citizen pressure on governments to act.
There is only one practical step that can be taken by governments
around the globe, with direction from the scientific community. This
is to determine where the additional water can be safely channeled
to form inland seas where deserts now dominate the landscape, or
where there are deep depressions capable to storing water that will
otherwise flood our coasts. An immediate priority ought to be to
develop computer models that identify the best locations and routes
by which to channel water inland from the coasts.
I do not suggest this is an ideal course of action. However, after
much consideration of the challenges we face and the high
probability of coastal destruction over the next few decades, this
strategy must be considered and thoroughly studied to identify the
potential environmental consequences of converting large areas of
the earth's surface to inland saltwater seas. Paying for these types
of projects is certainly an issue for governments. Inasmuch as the
protection of the coastal regions also preserves land values, the
most obvious means of paying for the construction of inland canals,
dams and other necessary public improvement projects is to impose a
national surtax on land values (which are almost universally left
untapped by local governments as the most legitimate source of
revenue for public infrastructure).
The rationale for imposing a national surtax on land values is that
the creation of inland seas will surely create monetary land values
where currently they are very low or nonexistent. More than one
economist, including Nobel Prize winner William Vickrey, has argued
the case for capturing land values as public revenue. In 1977,
Professor Vickrey offered both advice and a warning to us:
"Use of land rents, or, at least, of a major
fraction of them, for public purposes is
not merely an
ethical imperative, derived from categorisation of these rents as
an unearned income derived from private appropriation of publicly
created values, but is, even more importantly, a fundamental
requirement for economic efficiency. Cities that take the lead in
such public use of land rents may find that in the long run the
subsidy is self-financing through the enhancement in land values
that results
There will, of course, be many an agonising slip
between abstract economic analysis and cold political and economic
reality. Lack of comprehension, political intervention, strategic
recalcitrance, and the inertia associated with heavy commitments
of fixed capital
may slow the processes involved to a
glacial pace. But the fundamental tendencies and requirements
inherent in the very nature of the city can be ignored only at
great peril to its economic health."
His analysis applies as well to our capacity to respond to rising
sea levels and other environmental threats. For example, in the
global arena, this principle must be applied under the Law of the
Sea. Licenses awarded to private interests permitting exploitation
the world's commons must be allocated by competitive bidding under
strict regulations to prevent environmental degradation. The
licensing fees collected could then be utilized as a global fund to
remediate the most pressing environmental disasters.
In those countries where the new inland seas are formed,
governments should retain public stewardship over the land and, to
the extent development along the new shores is warranted, offer
access to these locations under leaseholds awarded by competitive
bidding (with periodic adjustments in the annual ground rent charges
consistent with current market conditions). Hopefully, these
measures will yield enough time and public revenue for us to agree
upon and implement solutions to the many environmental, economic,
social and political problems pulling us toward a rather dismal
future.
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