EnviroPolitics Blog

Where New Jersey’s new coastline will be if climate change persists

Visiting Professor Christina Gerhardt (right front), gives Princeton faculty, students, and community members an overview of Sayreville, New Jersey’s coastal history on a walk held on April 26 to discuss the impact of sea-level rise. Photo by Sameer A. Khan/Fotobuddy

From Denise Valenti, Princeton University Office of Communications

In 2012, Hurricane Sandy inundated Weber Avenue in Sayreville, New Jersey, with 18 feet of water. If climate change continues unabated, it will be underwater permanently in less than 100 years thanks to a predicted sea-level rise of 4 to 8 feet.

Princeton researchers, students, and community members visited the now-desolate street this week in two groups as part of the High Water Line: New Jersey, a public-facing project initiated and carried out by Christina Gerhardt, the Currie C. and Thomas A. Barron Visiting Professor in the Environmental Humanities in the High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI) and visiting associate professor in HMEI and the German department.

Most residents along Weber Avenue and the surrounding streets are long gone, having accepted buyouts offered through New Jersey’s Blue Acres program after Hurricane Sandy. The area is adjacent to the Washington Canal, which connects the Raritan and South rivers not far from Raritan Bay.

Gerhardt brought the groups to the site to physically mark where the Raritan is predicted to claim the surrounding area once sea-level rise reaches 5 feet. Using a liner filled with blue-tinted, water-soluble chalk, they drew a line through the neighborhood, which borders township parks and facilities and where there are a few remaining homes.

“It depends on whether or not we get our act together and reduce carbon emissions,” Gerhardt said. If the planet warms further, she said, the impact will be more profound.

Coastal Vulnerablility Index showing low/moderate/high probability of area flooding

A 2014 map by New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection illustrates the vulnerability of New Jersey’s coastal communities to sea-level rise. Map courtesy of New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection

Through the High Water Line project, Gerhardt, founding director of Environmental Humanities at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, is illustrating the impact of urban sea level rise. In doing so, she hopes to spark curiosity and engagement with the issue, she said.

Since arriving at Princeton in the spring of 2021, Gerhardt has worked with Climate Central, an independent organization of climate researchers and journalists, to create a map of the historic and future shorelines in the region using their Surging Seas software suite. Climate Central’s coastal mapping tool is available for public use to visualize how New Jersey’s coastlines will change with sea-level rise.

Aaron Shkuda, program manager for the Princeton-Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism and the Humanities and lecturer in architecture, said this week’s “walk-and-chalk” tours of the high water line, as Gerhardt calls them, are “like a living map. You’re moving through the space in order to understand it.”

The science on sea-level rise is clear, but Shkuda said even he feels a weariness from climate change narratives. “You can talk about x number of feet of sea-level rise, but when you actually see where the water might come from in the next five years, or a decade, or 50 years, that makes it all the more real to people and can drive them to action,” he said.

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At offshore wind conference in Atlantic City, New Jersey draws praise for its energy approach

By JON HURDLE, CONTRIBUTING WRITER NJ Spotlight

New Jersey has become a national leader of America’s budding offshore wind industry by committing to buying offshore wind power, building the first U.S. port for assembling giant turbines, and recognizing that its workforce needs to have the skills to serve the rapidly growing industry, government and business leaders said Thursday.

At a trade show panel titled “NJ Case Study: Build It and They Will Come,” officials examined whether New Jersey is laying the foundation for a sustainable offshore wind industry that others may emulate.

“What’s happened in New Jersey is, ‘This is what we want, we want some key manufacturing, we want port space, and we want to see it grow,’” said Doug Copeland, development manager for Atlantic Shores, which plans a 1,510-megawatt wind farm off Atlantic City and Long Beach Island.

Copeland praised New Jersey’s approach, which has the state committing to buying 7,500 MW of offshore wind power by 2035, and a combined public and private financial program to stimulate activity.

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U.S. identifies possible new lease areas

By JON HURDLE, CONTRIBUTING WRITER NJ Spotlight

The federal government is speeding up its process of identifying and leasing ocean areas for generating offshore wind power because the industry is showing strong demand, and because of the urgency of the climate crisis, the government’s top offshore wind official said Wednesday.

Amanda Lefton, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said officials will auction new wind-energy areas off the central Atlantic coast much more quickly than they did with areas in the New York Bight between New Jersey and New York.

On Wednesday, the bureau called for public comments on six areas from Delaware southward that have the potential for offshore wind leases. After gathering comments from stakeholders including the commercial fishing industry, environmental groups, and the Department of Defense, the agency will identify areas for lease that it says will have the least impact on other ocean users.

The Atlantic lease areas eventually selected will be a fraction of the 3.9 million acres for offshore wind power that the agency announced Wednesday, but they are expected to contribute to the Biden administration’s ambitious goal of generating 30 gigawatts of offshore power by 2030, Lefton said. The new areas also include 1.1 million acres off the coast of Oregon.

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Should EPA Back-Off Pollution Controls to Help LNG Exports Replace Russian Gas in Germany?

Cheniere Energy says the agency’s decision to start enforcing pollution controls on gas turbines is “counterproductive” in light of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Environmentalists strongly disagree.

The new Cheniere LNG export terminal is across the water, in Louisiana, from the neighborhood of Sabine Pass in Port Arthur, Texas. Credit: James Bruggers

By James Bruggers Inside Climate News

The nation’s top exporter of liquified natural gas, Cheniere Energy, is using Russia’s war on Ukraine to pressure the Biden administration for a break on regulations aimed at reducing toxic air emissions at its LNG export terminals in Louisiana and Texas.

Environmental advocates are hoping the Biden administration stands firm on its March decision to finally, after nearly two decades, enforce limits on toxic air emissions from certain kinds of gas-powered turbines used in a variety of industrial operations, including the chilling and liquefaction of natural gas at Cheniere’s export terminals on the Gulf Coast for shipment overseas in large tanker vessels.

But Russia’s war in Ukraine has placed enormous counterpressure on the president from the oil and gas industry and its supporters in Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, who want U.S. LNG exports to replace Russian gas. Before the war, Russia was supplying about 40 percent of the EU’s gas.

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Why Germany can’t quit Russian gas

iI would plunge the country’s economy into one of its worst post-financial crisis recessions.

By Neal Freyman Morning Brew

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the EU has paid more than $37 billion for Russian energy supplies—a big chunk of that by the bloc’s No. 1 economy, Germany. While pressure is mounting on the country to stop financing Putin’s war efforts with energy purchases, politicians there say the economic toll is just too large to do so immediately.

That toll: The country’s central bank reported yesterday that an embargo on Russian gas would plunge it into a recession. Instead of Germany’s economy growing by 3% this year, it would shrink by 2%, amounting to one of the worst recessions in the country since the financial crisis.

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Why the war in Ukraine generates interest in nuclear energy despite the danger

By Steven Mufson and Claire Parker Washington Post

The war in Ukraine has intensified interest across Europe in building new nuclear energy plants or extending the lives of old ones to liberate the continent from its heavy reliance on Russian oil and natural gas.10 steps you can take to lower your carbon footprint

Belgium made an about-face, deciding to keep open a pair of reactors slated for closure. The Czech Republic invited Western companies to deliver nuclear fuel to replace Russian supplies. Poland is negotiating to build new reactors in a quiet seaside town. The war has reversed the tenor of the nuclear debate, just when its prospects had seemed to dim.

“They’re all doing it for the same reasons: decarbonization, energy security and national security,” said David Durham, president of Westinghouse’s energy systems business, which as of early April had signed memorandums of understanding with 19 different companies or government agencies in a dozen countries, including Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic.

The heightened interest comes as the war in Ukraine shows the dangers of building nuclear reactors on NATO’s front line. Fighting around Ukraine’s nuclear sites raised alarms about damage that enemy troops, drones and missiles might inflict on installations — damage that could lead to radiation releases, which have been linked to a range of cancers years later.

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Highly pathogenic bird flu reported in Pennsylvania

From the Morning Call

The first case of highly pathogenic bird flu has been found in Pennsylvania, the state Department of Agriculture said Saturday.

The case was found in a flock of chickens at a poultry farm in Lancaster County, the department said.

The strain of avian influenza, or HPAI, is highly contagious and can be fatal to domestic birds. Poultry and eggs are safe to eat if cooked properly.

So far no human cases of bird flu have been detected in the United States, and there is no immediate threat to public health, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Other HPAI cases have been confirmed in South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, Kentucky, Indiana, New York and Maine. Symptoms in birds include sneezing, coughing, walking or swimming in circles, and swelling of the legs and feet.

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