"Tangier Island" is a short documentary that takes a look at the island of Tangier, located in the Chesapeake bay. The quiet, peaceful, salt-of-the-earth kind of place, home to a closely knit community of about 700 residents, may soon, within the next 25 to 50 years, become a casualty of rising sea-levels and its inhabitants may become among the first U.S. climate refugees.
From www.theatlantic.com/… -
Jeff Leeds Cohn’s short film is a solemn, atmospheric journey into the town’s partially water-logged streets. Visiting Tangier for the first time with his camera in tow, Cohn walked around, talked to people he encountered, and sometimes followed them as they went about their daily routines. “I tried to focus on the people rather than the politics,” Cohn told The Atlantic, “but it’s an inherently political subject… The idea of man-made climate change is not widely accepted there.”
In September 2017, after a major report detailing Tangier’s fate was published in Nature, President Trump called the town’s mayor, James Eskridge, to reassure him that “your island will be there for hundreds [of years] more.” Recently, the Army Corps of Engineers designated March 2019 as the new date for construction on a sea wall to mitigate coastal erosion. But the project has been delayed many times over the years, and according to Cohn, the town’s residents are skeptical that this time will be any different.
“The reality is that Tangier is one storm away from catastrophe,” Cohn said.
We may disagree with the characterization of this story as the “The First U.S. Climate Refugees?”; there are other historical cases which fall in this category — the dust bowl, Puerto Rico and Alaskan climate refugees — but the problem is real and close to home.
Tangier Island’s Future
In a paper published in 2015, Schulte and his colleagues examined the evolution of the Tangier Islands over the past 165 years. Since 1850, 66.75% of the islands landmass has been lost due to various factors including groundwater extraction and the after effects of a meteor impact near Cape Charles, VA approximately 35.5 million years ago. The relative sea level rise in this area is higher than average global sea level rise.
The authors conclude that under the mid-range sea-level-rise scenario, much of the remaining landmass is expected to be lost in the next 50 years (25 years in a high sea-level-rise scenario) and the town will likely need to be abandoned.
The authors even outlined a rough engineering plan, costing around $30 million, that involved breakwaters, pumped-in sand and new vegetation that could preserve the island. But Shulte also pointed out that “there will be dozens of Miamis and thousands of Tangiers. The Outer Banks, the Delmarva Peninsula, Long Island, the Jersey Shore — they’re in the same boat. It’s going to just take a little longer for them to get to where Tangier is now.”
The Clueless unPresident
Apparently, Trump phoned Tangier Island Mayor James "Ooker" Eskridge On June 12, 2017 after viewing a CNN report about the Virginia island's struggle with rising sea levels.
"He said not to worry about sea-level rise," Eskridge said. "He said, 'Your island has been there for hundreds of years, and I believe your island will be there for hundreds more.'"
The Larger Issue
From www.nytimes.com/… -
An excruciating question is how we will decide which coastal communities to rescue and which to relinquish to the sea.
But a number of other difficulties attend those decisions. How do we re-engineer the land, roads and neighborhoods of the places deemed worthy of salvation? How do we relocate residents whose homes can’t (or won’t) be saved? Also, there’s the money problem.
A recent study,commissioned by the Risky Business Project, an initiative led by Henry Paulson, Michael Bloomberg and the hedge-fund billionaire and philanthropist Tom Steyer, concluded that as much as a half-trillion dollars’ worth of coastal property in the United States could be under water by the end of the century. And that figure doesn’t include the cost of further encroachments by flooding.
Recent Congressional Action
Tangier Island
Prior to the arrival of colonists Tangier Island was a retreat for the Pocomoke Indians.
The people who came to settle the island permanently arrived in the 1770s and were farmers.
Many who live on Tangier speak a distinctive dialect of American English, which scholars have disputed as derived from a 17th-century English lexicon and phonetics.
There is only one school on the island, with fewer than ten children in each grade. The residents were given access to cable television and Internet through a new microwave tower in spring 2010. There are phone lines on the island. Two doctors live on the island currently, but practice in Delaware.
Today, the inhabitants of Tangier rely on crabbing to make a living. Tourism also provides some revenues; during the summer, several cruise ships come to the island each day, allowing passengers to explore and buy goods from the islanders.
The island has several restaurants, four gift shops and a hardware store. Violent crime is virtually nonexistent. There are two bed and breakfasts for overnight guests, and a wild beach without a boardwalk or concessions.
Primary modes of local transportation are golf carts, boats, mopeds, and bikes; a few islanders own trucks and cars.
The isolation also contributes to the prevalence of Tangier disease, a recessive genetic disorder which causes high blood cholesterol that is named after the island’s residents.
Tangier island sits just 4 feet or so above sea level.
Politics
From www.businessinsider.com/… —
Tangier's residents are mostly Republican — a majority voted for Trump in 2016.
According to Mayor Eskridge, most residents reject climate change. Many would prefer to receive a new seawall than consider the long-term effects of carbon emissions on sea-level rise.
Is support for the GOP correlated with lower levels of education? And strong beliefs in modern religion and lack of understanding of science?
Here is a hilarious and head-shaking segment from Full Frontal with Samantha Bee from Nov 2017, in which Allana Harkin respectfully tries to convince the people of Tangier Island that climate change is real -
Epilogue
What do you think?
- Is it worth spending a lot of time and resources on a tiny isolated island?
- Or will this help focus attention on climate change because it is closer to home?
- Will this help open the eyes of a few conservative voters to the science of climate change?
- Will this make any difference for Republican leaders, who are generally more interested in protecting profits than protecting people?
- What about Puerto Rico? How about inhabitants far up North? What about Bangladesh and all the other islands and low lying areas around the world threatened by rising sea levels?
- What about population displacements that will be caused by storms, extreme heat and lack of water?
- Do we have the resources, technology and the political will to make a difference?
- How much time is left to take action? When will we reach the point of no return?
Further Reading
- Trump told the mayor of a disappearing island not to worry about sea-level rise — these photos show how grave the situation has become — www.businessinsider.com/… — contains good summary and lots of good pictures.
- America’s Most Unique Island is Vanishing Away Just Off the Virginia Coast — appalachianmagazine.com/…
- Should the United States Save Tangier Island From Oblivion? — www.nytimes.com/…
- Climate Change and the Evolution and Fate of the Tangier Islands of Chesapeake Bay, USA — www.nature.com/...
- Tangier, Virginia — en.wikipedia.org/…
- Tangier Island website — www.tangierisland-va.com
- The Economic Risks of Climate Change in the United States — riskybusiness.org/...
- 13 Islands That Will Disappear in the Next 80 Years — www.rd.com/...