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West Long Branch, NJ --- U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) brought together mayors of New Jersey coastal towns today to discuss how to prepare for the impacts that global warming and sea level rise could have on their communities in the future.
The New Jersey congressman, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said governments at all levels worldwide must take the threat of global warming seriously, and do everything in their power to fight global warming in order to minimize its effects.
Pallone pointed to a report issued last November by three Princeton University researchers that found, under a worst-case scenario, global warming could cause the sea level off New Jersey's coast to rise nearly four feet by the end of the century. Such a rise, the report concluded, would leave three percent of the state underwater and reduce our shoreline by almost 500 feet. The Princeton report also found that so-called "100-year floods" would become much more frequent, hitting us every five years.
The New Jersey congressman said that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) estimates that a mere one-foot rise in sea level could increase flood insurance premiums by up to 60 percent.
"If these sound like doomsday scenarios, they are," Pallone said at today's forum. "They're meant to serve as a wake-up call. We need to understand the gravity of this problem and the impacts that it will have right here on the Jersey shore. Global warming and sea level rise are going to have tremendous impacts on our coasts, and we all should know what's coming and what to expect."
Pallone said New Jersey is one of several states leading efforts to fight global warming. New Jersey joined the Northeast Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a compact among eight northeast states setting mandatory limits on carbon dioxide emissions. The state also passed the Clean Cars Act, which will reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cars by 18 percent over the next 15 years. Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are causing temperatures worldwide to rise.
"New Jersey can't do it alone," Pallone continued. "The problems of global warming and sea level rise are national and international in scope, and therefore require leadership at the highest levels. Unfortunately, the Bush administration and Congress have largely ignored the issue, often at the behest of corporate polluters."
Last year, Congress passed an energy bill that Pallone said was filled with giveaways to the traditional fossil fuel industries but lacked any significant measures that would promote energy efficiency and conservation.
"It is past time for this country to craft an energy policy that harnesses American innovation to lower our dependence on fossil fuels, which are causing global warming and thus increasing the threats to our shores," Pallone continued. "An innovative energy policy would be the foundation of new American leadership needed to tackle global warming at the international level."
Pallone and the coastal mayors were joined at today's forum at Monmouth University by Tony MacDonald, Director of Urban Coast Institute, Dr. Tom Herrington of the Stevens Institute of Technology, Dr. Stewart Farrell of Richard Stockton University and Mark Mauriello, Assistant Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). |
