How climate change could wreck beach vacations

Every summer, visitors flock to the beaches along Rhode Island’s 400 miles of coastline. And the locals gain the benefits of a five-billion-dollar tourism industry. But climate change is starting to interfere with Rhode Island’s beach season.

Climate change could bring an end to beach holidays.

Rubinoff: “We have seen more and more heavy rain events.”

Pam Rubinoff is a coastal resilience specialist for Rhode Island Sea Grant. She says excess rain washes lawn fertilizers and other pollutants into the ocean. It can also overwhelm sewer systems.

Rubinoff: “Sometimes that runoff will cause areas in the water to be cut off to swimming.”

And even when beaches are open, beachgoers may encounter problems.

Read/listen to the Yale Climate Connections story by Dianne Madson - “How climate change could wreck beach vacations.”

Melbourne to experience the realities of Climate Change

Matt Golding's illustration
 with today's story in
The Age.

Climate change comes to town.

Or that, at least, is the implication of a story in today’s (October 21, 2012) Melbourne Age headed: “Climate change bill of $1b for suburbs”.

The Age argues in the story that waterfront communities face a damage bill of more than $1b over the coming nine decades from severe storms and rising sea levels.

The report, by Federal, State and Local Governments, says some part of the Rosebud foreshore will be completely submerged by 2100 by coastal flooding.