Waikiki's Venetian Nightmare: Natural Disasters in Paradise?
Close your eyes and picture waves lapping at the first-floor facades of high-rise hotels. The golden sands along Waikiki have long been submerged by the surging Pacific Ocean, as has the nearby Kalakaua Avenue.
A few late-returning tourists in this future Honolulu plod through the low tide and past the partially submerged check-in desk of their hotel, before climbing up several flights of stairs to their electricity-less rooms.
They cannot fly home because, in this storm-tide future, commercial planes remain idle on the runway at the low-lying Honolulu International Airport, their landing gear deep in a dark pond of water and their lighting and navigation systems in need of repairs.
Call it Waikiki’s Venetian nightmare. (Italy has long struggled to slow the legendary city's descent into the waters that surround it, to little avail.)
And there is more of it. Storm water systems along the coastline, unable to handle the influx of seawater, spew sewage around homes.
Reefs that once teemed with brilliant colored coral and bright speckled fish are largely barren, except for thick patches of algae. Ahi and ono, deep-water protein staples, are increasingly scarce.
Beyond the destruction to a way of life, the hit to the economy of Hawaii is enormous.
The Ghost of Christmas Future could tell you that such visions are not what will come to pass, they are the things that could come to pass, if we don’t change. In this case, that means, if humans don’t find a way to curtail global carbon emissions, at least if a recently released federal report proves correct.
The third National Climate Assessment aims to help federal, state and local officials to adapt to mounting environmental challenges that are likely to result from warming waters, higher average temperatures, more extreme weather, and rising sea levels.
“This is a wakeup call,” said Jo-Ann Leong, one of the lead authors of the study and a scientists at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology. “If we could get everyone to pay attention and start doing these long-term plans, that is what I would like to see from this report.”
This latest report reflects sophisticated new data that scientists now have on climate change, she explained.
Even if carbon emissions are slashed, the report indicates that the effects of climate change may be very dangerous this century. But on the current trajectory, without major reductions, the situation will be much worse.
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