It seems so long ago. In August 2006, the American Planning Association joined the U.S. Conference of Mayors, National Association of Counties, International Municipal Lawyers Association, and the cities of Seattle; Albuquerque; Burlington, Vermont; and San Francisco to file an amicus brief in the seminal climate change case, Massachusetts v. EPA. Many believe Justice Stevens's decision for the 5–4 majority was a watershed moment, acknowledging a truth that today both presidential candidates agree with.
The decision legitimized the public's concern about climate change in a way that a movie or book simply could not. Two years ago, Massachusetts and many of the amici found themselves trying to convince the Supreme Court of the magnitude of global warming. Climate change litigants today won't have to explain the science or impacts of climate change thanks to Massachusetts v. EPA.
Timothy Dowling, Douglas Kendall, Jennifer Bradley, and Marguerite McConihe of Community Rights Counsel (now the Constitutional Accountability Center) drafted APA's amicus brief. A few excerpts (minus footnotes) follow.
Global warming is not merely a future threat, but a present deadly reality. The World Health Organization estimates that anthropogenic (human-produced) warming already is killing up to 150,000 people each year due to malnutrition, malaria, and other maladies. In addition to these ongoing public health consequences, global warming also is causing immediate harm to the environment. And the overwhelming scientific consensus is that global warming will significantly worsen.
Conservative predictions indicate that average global temperatures will climb between 4.5 and seven degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. These numbers might seem small, but small shifts in global temperature can have enormous effects. Indeed, there is only about a 10 degree increase between today's average global temperature and that at the height of the last ice age. The United States is likely to warm between three and nine degrees Fahrenheit during this century.
The harm caused by global climate change will be especially challenging for State and local officials, who will serve as the first responders to the calamities global warming will bring. As has been made tragically clear in the United States in the wake of recent disasters, State and local officials are responsible for orderly evacuations from fires and floods, and they must plan and reconstruct neighborhoods or entire cities afterwards. Global warming is likely to mean more disasters like intense hurricanes and high storm surges crashing into America's eastern seaboard, which is one of the most urbanized parts of the country and one of the fastest growing.
Municipalities also must grapple with the less cataclysmic but still threatening challenges of climate change, such as higher temperatures that lead to more smog and federal sanctions for violating clean air standards; or sudden ferocious rainstorms that overwhelm and pollute municipal water supplies and flood transportation networks; or droughts that disrupt hydropower transmission and deplete local reservoirs.
Rising sea levels affect coastal communities in several ways. First, low-lying areas may be permanently underwater as seas rise. In the New York City area, for example, "[a] one-foot rise in sea level would bring about on average 120 feet of erosion and submergence absent costly measures to defend or restore the beaches. This kind of erosion would result in the loss of a significant portion of the beaches of New Jersey, New York City and Long Island." A five- to eight-inch rise in sea level would cause the loss of "thousands of acres" of beachfront land in Long Island and New Jersey.
Rising sea levels also mean higher storm surges (since the surge starts from a higher waterline). By the turn of the next century, New York City's 100-year floods could instead occur every 19 years, and overwhelm the city's airports, highways, subways, and tunnels. As a result of sea level increases, weaker, more frequent storms in the future probably will do more damage than powerful, extraordinary storms do today. If a category three hurricane hit New York City, "surge levels could rise 25 feet above mean sea level at JFK airport and 21 feet at the Lincoln tunnel."
Baltimore, Maryland, also has infrastructure at serious risk from rising sea levels and flooding. According to one city official, "if the predictions of current, scientifically accepted global climate change models relating to changes in annual precipitation and sea level changes occur, those changes would have significant costly impacts to Baltimore City. . . . Impacted infrastructure would include storm drains, utility conduits, underground at grade parking and sanitary sewage conveyance and treatment facilities. This entire public and private infrastructure is designed and built around the existing sea level." Both Santa Cruz, California, and Boston, Massachusetts, would see formerly 100-year floods every ten years if sea level rises just one foot.
Natural and human-induced changes, including the destruction of marshes, barrier islands, and wetlands over the last several decades, make the U.S. Gulf Coast particularly susceptible to damage from rising sea levels. By 2010, 73 million people will live in the nation's most hurricane-prone counties, most of them in the Southeast United States. They will be in the path of more destructive storms because climate change probably will increase the intensity, if not the frequency, of Atlantic hurricanes. Allstate Insurance Corporation no longer issues new policies to home owners in Florida, Louisiana, the New York City area, and the Texas Gulf Coast because of the high risk of hurricane destruction. Like private homes, public property — roads, sewers, schools, police stations — is also at risk.
Wildfires are yet another natural threat to human life and property that global warming will exacerbate. Scientists have documented a sudden, sharp upsurge in wildfires in the western U.S., with more frequent large wildfires, longer-burning fires, and longer fire seasons, starting in the mid-1980s. It is not clear whether the current rise in wildfire frequency and ferocity is attributable to global warming, but researchers note that "virtually all climate model projections indicate that warmer springs and summers will occur over the region in coming decades. These trends will reinforce the tendency toward early spring snowmelt and longer fire seasons. This will accentuate conditions favorable to the occurrence of large wildfires . . ."
Wildfires require a massive municipal response, going well beyond fire and police departments. When the largest wildfires in California history swept through the San Diego region in late October 2003, the City of San Diego set up three evacuation centers. City staff assessed 400 damaged structures in 72 hours after the fire stopped. The City's transportation department removed damaged trees, distributed 14,000 sandbags, and placed screens on storm drains to keep out fire debris. While much of the cost of responding to the fire was covered by federal disaster aid, the City lost about $2 million in waived fees associated with reconstruction, and was not reimbursed for other lost revenues, or the replacement of trees, shrubs, and groundcover destroyed by the fire.
Whether to fire or flood, the crucial first hours of disaster response are a local responsibility. Global warming will increase the likelihood of natural disasters, and therefore increase the demands on local and county officials, employees, services, and budgets.
Lora A. Lucero
