Rising waters are a threat to coastal cities around the world and even with strict cuts in emissions, scientists believe sea levels will rise significantly by 2100.
They believe sea-level rise will eventually render some regions uninhabitable.
Consider: sea levels have begun to rise.
Scientists are more certain than they have ever been that humans are causing climate change and believe that sea levels could rise by up to 2ft 8in by the end of the century.
A. Cornelia Dean, science editor of The Times, responds: If the earth is warming, and most scientists believe it is, sea level will rise, first because warm water occupies more space than cold water and second because melting water from inland glaciers and ice sheets will flow to the seas.
He believes a rising sea level threatens the city centre, and a barrier is necessary for protection.
"We need either the state - which doesn't want to get involved because the governor doesn't believe in sea-level rise - or the federal government to come up with funds," said James C. Cason (R), Mayor of Coral Gables, Florida, during a media call arranged by the World Resources Institute (WRI), publisher of the Roadmap paper.
As Louis Hinds, the Chincoteague refuge manager, said to me the other day, "The fact that some members of the community do not believe that sea-level rise or climate change are happening doesn't mean that I can choose to ignore the science".
MHP managers who do not believe in climate change or sea level rise still present a challenge.
But, unlike the present views of relative rapid sea level rise, they believed it would take about 40,000 years.
It was in a part of the city that's above sea level and, he believed, had been spared the waters of Lake Pontchartrain.
