There goes my stock in water wings. Update to a previous story.
Via CNS News
Ellis Island, the Kennedy Space Flight Center and Mesa Verde National Park are just three of 30 historic sites in the U.S. that are “at risk as never before” of being inundated by rising sea levels from climate change within this century, members of The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) warned at a joint briefing on Capitol Hill last week.
But the groups’ predictions were challenged by Dr. Pat Michaels, director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute and past president of the American Association of State Climatologists, who told CNSNews.com that it’s more likely that Yellowstone National Park will “blow sky high” due to underground geothermal activity.
“I’m concerned that the Union of Concerned Scientists is not really telling us the scientific truth,” Dr. Michaels said.
At the Washington briefing, the two environmental groups unveiled UCS’ new report, “National Landmarks at Risk,” which “highlights climate threats to the nation’s iconic landmarks and historic sites, and details steps being taken to protect these national treasures.” The report stated that the 30 national landmarks are threatened by “sea level rise, coastal erosion, increased flooding, heavy rains, and more frequent large wildfires.”
Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM) who also spoke at the briefing, brought up “marked changes” in New Mexico weather, particularly “precipitation patterns and temperature and even wind events that have driven a fire pattern that is very, very different.” He claimed that this new weather pattern “has the potential and has already begun to wipe archeological sites literally off the map.”
Dr. Michaels addressed the damage that the recent wildfires in New Mexico have caused to the state’s landmarks, saying, “It is a fact that the Pacific Southwest has been pretty droughty in recent years, but those landmarks were there in the 1500s, in the 1600s.
“Colorado river data or sediments buried in the Colorado River basin show us that the droughts in the Middle Ages made the current droughts look rather juvenile, rather immature,” by comparison, Michaels pointed out.