I think this chapter did a good job of answering a question we can’t help but ask ourselves from time to time: “Why should we care about environmental changes?” I was overwhelmed with the statistics about temperature increase and water rising throughout this section of the book. It’s strange how despite the fact that these inevitable statistics are available for anyone to view, people still don’t actively do anything to stop these changes from occurring. I guess it goes back to what we say in class; people choose to not take action until a problem is staring them dead in the face, at which point it’s likely that it’ll be too late to do anything.
I liked how McCully went in depth on beachfront properties and the flaws with them. I also found it to be pretty ironic that people are willing to spend so much more money for a home on the beach and don’t even realize that that home could be wiped out if faced with a severe storm. McCully writes, “homeowners continued to build their homes on sand, counting on federal flood insurance to bail them out should a storm flood their property,” which only proves again that ignorance is bliss. To think that if these climate changes continue to occur at the rate they’re going now, New York City might be submerged by the end of the century is ungraspable. I searched up a few links discussing New York being under water and came upon this website, which gave a graphic representation of the parts of the city that would most be affected. I live in south Brooklyn, which is predicted to be totally beneath sea level within 200 years….not cool.
