The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America's Coastal Cities

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In The Ravaging Tide, Mike Tidwell, a renowned advocate for the environment and an award-winning journalist, issues a call to arms and confronts us with some unsettling facts. Consider:

In the next seventy-five years, much of the Florida peninsula could lie under ocean water. So could much of Lower Manhattan, including all of the hallowed ground zero area. Major hurricanes like Katrina, scientists say, are becoming much more frequent and more powerful. Glacier National Park in Montana will have to change its name, as it is rapidly losing all of its thirty-five remaining glaciers. The snows atop Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa, so memorably evoked in the Hemingway story, have already disappeared.

The fault, Tidwell argues, lies mostly with the U.S. government and the energy choices it has encouraged Americans to make over the decades. Those policies are now actively bringing rising seas and gigantic hurricanes -- the lethal forces that killed the Big Easy -- crashing into every coastal city in the country and indeed the world. The Bush administration's own reports and studies (some of which it has tried to suppress) explicitly predict more intense storms and up to three feet of sea-level rise by 2100 due to planetary warming. The danger is clear: Whether the land sinks three feet per century (as in New Orleans over the past 100 years) or sea levels rise three feet per century (as in the rest of the world over the next 100 years), the resulting calamity is the same.

Although Mike Tidwell sounds the clarion in The Ravaging Tide, this is ultimately an optimistic book, one that offers a clear path to a healthier and safer world for us and our descendants. He writes of trend-setting U.S. states like New York and California that are actively cutting greenhouse gases. And he heeds his own words: In one delightful personal chapter, he takes us on a tour of his suburban Washington, D.C., home and demonstrates how he and many of his neighbors have weaned themselves from the fossil-fuel lifestyle. Even when the government is slow to change, there are steps we as families can take to, yes, change the world.

What Customers Say About The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America's Coastal Cities:

This book has helped me realize the connections between respect for our planet, personal responsibility, peace, and human dignity. All of them are intertwined, and Tidwell clearly shows their relationships in examining the effects of the Katrina hurricane on New Orleans and then connecting the magnitude of the detestation to human actions. If Tidwell was not such an inspiring, and hopeful person/writer I would be quite freightened by all of the new knoweldge I have gained. BUT, he puts it all into perspective and ultimately the world can be OK if we all take personal responsibility and as a planet reduce the C02 in our atmosphere.

Sifting through the challenges and the reactions of the ancient Mayans of Central America, Greenland's Vikings and the Polynesian society of Easter Island Diamond found common "interacting" factors that brought them down. Using the research of Jared Diamond and Conrad Totman, Tidwell illustrates how history is repeating itself. Jared Diamond in his book "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" shows how history is littered with people who allowed their society to participate in a form of group suicide. Are we in America going to stubbornly stick to the use of fossil fuels even if it kills us. Although the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), made up of thousands of climate scientists and scholars, said that one of the biggest global warming issues will be coastal flooding the 2005 post-Katrina emergency money was a dismal $250 million to fix broken levees, collapsed bridges and flawed evacuation plans. The catastrophic soil erosion that resulted from the deforestation made agriculture impossible. Conrad Totman in his book "The Green Archipelago: Forestry in Prehistoric Japan" says that Japan teetered on the brink of ruin in the 1600s when soil erosion, floods, mudslides and barren farmland resulted after logging most of their old growth forests. Although they use half the energy per capita as the United States they are pushing for more cuts while continuing to grow Europe's biggest national economy.

He said there was nothing "natural" about this disaster. Mike Tidwell predicted that a Katrina-like storm would destroy New Orleans in his 2003 book "Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana's Cajun Coast." He said in truth he knew the disaster was coming when he saw how much land had vanished while doing a story on Louisiana's coastal region for the Washington Post in the late 90s. Federal officials under both Presidents Clinton and Bush denied the project due to its $14 billion price tag. They launched one of the most successful reforestation program in the world's history. With rising public and scientific support a coalition of south Louisiana leaders pulled together a master plan called "Coast 2050: Toward a sustainable Coastal Louisiana" to enlarge the project.

For example the Easter Islanders cut down their giant palm trees although the fruit provided food and the trunks supplied wood for the canoes needed to harpoon fish. Tidwell says sea levels are expected to rise three feet within the coming decades. The leaders had wrapped themselves in the illusion of permanent prosperity. These included hostile enemies, climate change, self inflicted environment degradation and adverse changes in trading partners. Tidwell's 2006 book "The Ravaging Tide" explains why Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, shows how similar calamities will become more frequent and how we can prevent them.

The changes only cost him around $7,500 thanks to state and federal grants and tax credits (learn more at www.dsireusa.org). To prove that it's possible to repair and protect our life-giving climate Tidwell and his family switched to energy sources that don't generate carbon dioxide. Even the Bush administration, the biggest supporter of the oil and coal industry, admits that global warming is real and is driven by our use of fossil fuels¾ oil, coal and natural gas. By 1722 the island was a lunar landscape.Diamond says the Easter Islanders decision to pursue short-term gains at the expense of long-term survival led to their downfall. Today an astounding 70 percent of Japan is under forest cover¾ the most of any industrialized country in spite of having the highest population density in the developed world.Tidwell shows how the Katrina catastrophe could have been prevented. Tidwell says that over 100,000 American homeowners enjoy the cost effective rooftop photovoltaic (PV) solar panels and hot water systems.

There were also thousands of reports about the need for better levees and the restoration of the barrier islands. Without sacrificing comfort or convenience he now saves around a $1,000 per year. He bought a Toyota Prius gas-electric car and cut his home's carbon emissions by 90% in six months by using a combination of compact fluorescent light bulbs, greater appliance efficiency, a corn-burning stove for heating, a solar hot water system and rooftop solar panels for electricity. Also a million village homes in the developing world enjoy modest electrical power from small solar panels.

Tidwell says most of our nations problems¾ health, national security, the economy and the environment flow from our national energy choices. Satellite photos later showed that the "diversion" project south of New Orleans created hundreds of acres of new marshland. Thankfully history also shows there are viable ways to prevent future disasters. Because of conservation, hybrid engines, commercial wind farms, biofuels, and lighter vehicle frames Europe is twice as efficient and clean.

But Japan's collapse did not happen. In the early 90s the Army Corps built modest dam-like structures in the Mississippi's flood levees to control water flow through a series of pipes and canals. Tidwell believes America can cut its consumption of oil, coal and natural gas in a matter of months without sacrificing an ounce of comfort.

Tidwell's argument is simple: we created the damage Katrina caused, and we are going to create more destruction to coastal cities, by bulldozing, filling, removing the natural protections against storm surges. The book rips right along in making this argument--I would call it an "enjoyable" read except that he is so dead serious about the issue. As a part-time resident of Long Island, I have to hope he is wrong, and he certainly presents no counter-evidence (this is NOT a scientific book), but I fear he probably is right. The high tides out where I live have risen a good foot in the past forty years.

Thus, land that is today at or slightly above sea level will become land that is below sea level. A recent headline caught my eye; "Iceberg off New Zealand becomes tourist mecca," AP, November 21, 2006. Ranier to visit the ice caves. As world temperatures rise, melting or collapsing glaciers will add water to the ocean. The entire East Coast of the United States will be as vulnerable as was New Orleans.

While New York City is mostly on higher ground, the author observes that the infrastructure, the subways system for example, is well below ground. We have already lost one major city. Tidwell's thesis is that sea level will continue to rise and tropical storms and hurricanes will increase in intensity, all as a result of climate change. Certainly, whether or not storms grow more intense (this is still being debated in the scientific community), global warming will increase the level of the ocean.

I was disappointed to find that the famous caves were mostly gone. It is not clear what it will take to get our US government to take steps to limit the emission of greenhouse gases. Higher world temperatures will also mean that the water already in the ocean will expand and cause an additional rise in the sea level. All of our coastal cities may go the way of New Orleans. Tidwell does a good job of presenting the need for individual and governmental action.

The flooding of New Orleans resulted from a combination of effects: subsiding land, sea level increase, destruction of protecting wetlands, and of course a violent storm. The caves had disappeared because the glacier itself was retreating. We now know that glaciers all over the world are melting. The residents of New Zealand could look out their windows to see pieces of Antarctica floating by. This is also the overwhelming view of the scientific community. I also recommend "With Speed and Violence" by Fred Pearce. Most of Miami and the rest of Florida average just a few feet above sea level.

a book about recent scientific investigations and their implications for global warming. Recently, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a report in which it stated that the Earth is warming and that most of the warming is a result of human activity. My first encounter with the effects of global warming was a hike in the 1980s to the foot of the Paradise Glacier on Mt. Will we have to see a few more go before we take action.

Even though I've seen An Inconvenient Truth, and heard Bill McKibbon speak, I learned plenty from The Ravaging Tide that I hadn't already heard before. I loved this book so much that I've read the first chapter aloud to three appreciative people on the phone, and I'm also planning to buy a copy for every Maryland state legislator. Tidwell shares history, science, policy, despair (when we don't act on clean energy policy), and promise (when we do).Yes, it may be odd, but I was walking (not driving). (Let me know if you do the same in your state). Mike Tidwell writes beautifully. down sidewalks while reading this book. I couldn't put it down, until the very last page.Mike Tidwell is a former journalist and travel writer for the Washington Post and the National Geographic Traveler.