Aerial view of Tangier Island.
Image - Tangierisland-va.com
One of the biggest global warming challenges we face is rising sea levels as a result of the melting of the poles. As we are regularly seeing on the blog, there are several cities that could be submerged at the end of the century such as Venice, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires or San Diego, but there are islands that are already disappearing like the tangier island and its specific challenges regarding climate change.
Located off the coast of Virginia, in the United States, it is already suffering from sea erosion. Since 1850 it has lost two-thirds of its land mass and could completely disappear in the next 40 yearsIn this regard, it is important to study how climate change affects other areas, such as the Strait of Gibraltar, where significant transformations are also taking place.
The island, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, has an area of 2,6 square kilometers. 450 inhabitants live here, most of whom have been on the island for several generations. One of them is Carol Pruitt Moore, who comes from one of the old relatives of fishermen.
At that time, it took him an hour to travel the island from end to end; now it only takes ten minutes. "Not saving Tangier would be a tragedy," he told the CNN. The funny thing is that many people in this small part of the world support US President Donald Trump when he says that climate change is not caused by humans. Total, he obtained 87% of the votes on the island. This phenomenon of climate change denial is observed in several coastal communities, which can have a profound impact on their future.
David Schulte, a marine biologist with the US Army Corps of Engineers, has the opposite view: global warming is accelerating the erosion of Tangier"The water is now high enough to impact above the sand line," he said. This process can be compared to other areas affected by climate change, such as what is happening with the winds in Spain.
Unlike other islands, Tangier is a sunken sand hill. It has organic clay soil but it is very soft so once the water can hit it directly, what it does is basically tearing it to pieces. Thus, little by little, it disappears as you can see in this video:
Regardless of residents' views on climate change, everyone agrees that something must be done to stop erosion. Faced with this situation, Mayor James Eskridge is pushing for build a new wall to protect them. But seeing the project become a reality is taking years. These types of protective measures are common in other places where climate change has caused damage, such as the erosion in the Strait of Gibraltar.
At the moment, it has been neither more nor less than 20. During that time »there has been so much erosion that the original project would not work», He commented.
We'll see what happens.
