“We need to better prepare ourselves for the impact of climate change,” O’Rourke said. He encouraged attendees to visit climatechange.ri.gov, lauded the efforts of the “amazing” scientists and researchers in Rhode Island who are working on this issue, and both he and the governor praised the work of the Executive Climate Change Coordinating Council (EC4). O’Rourke said Rhode Island is “planning for action” and “we need to move the ball forward.” I want our state to be a leader in climate-change resiliency.” It’s about preserving Rhode Island for future generations, and making smart investments when it comes to climate resiliency. We need to make communities more resilient. She said one of her top priorities is climate change. The governor noted that Rhode Island, and Aquidneck Island in particular, care about climate resiliency. Gina Raimondo and the state’s chief resilience officer, Shaun O’Rourke, both spoke at the Nov. In mid-November, at the Community College of Rhode Island’s Newport campus, a Newport County Resiliency Roundtable was held to discuss “key actions and investments to make Newport County and Rhode Island’s residents, economy, infrastructure, health system, and natural resources more resilient to the impact of climate change.” It was one of nine resiliency roundtables held in Rhode Island between Sept. They think it’s an issue for their grandkids.”
It’s a real-life problem, but we have decision-makers in the Legislature and elsewhere who don’t get the moral urgency. “We have a ton of communities that see upfront and personal the impacts of climate change. Aaron Regunberg, D-Providence, recently told ecoRI News. “We don’t have a governing majority that believes in the moral or economic urgency to take bold action on climate change,” Rep. When state lawmakers and officials pick and choose which recommendations to follow, environmental degradation is exacerbated. The decision to protect a beachfront bar and a crumbling oceanfront road from a rising sea with a Band-Aid isn’t trivial.
In 2013 Rhode Island added section 145 to its Coastal Resources Management Program to include “consideration of sea-level rise.” Section 145 charges the CRMC with developing regulations for planning and management purposes to accommodate a base rate of expected 3-foot to 5-foot increase in sea level by 2100 in the siting, design, and implementation of public and private coastal activities.
Science and studies were ignored, for example, to approve a seawall - against Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) guidelines that oppose new structures that harden the state’s eroding shoreline - to protect a popular Wakefield establishment, despite the fact the hardened structure will only delay the inevitable and hasten coastal erosion to the manmade structure’s left and right.
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These publicly funded documents are largely forgotten, so politicians can promise unrealistic economic growth, so Statehouse bosses can create specific short-term jobs, and to appease special interests.įuture generations will eventually pay the price, plus interest, if the present is unwilling to make sacrifices. In fact, the many taxpayer-funded studies and reports that explicitly outline the actions needed to address climate-related change in Rhode Island are little more than dusty security blankets, shaken out when needed to comfort select audiences or ripped as fake by deniers to rile up their base. The local climate-change alarm is sounding, but like a car alarm, it’s considered more of an annoyance than a call to action.