Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore

For millennia prior to the arrival of Europeans, hundreds of thousands of acres of wetlands hugged the shores of the United States. Many Native American communities inhabited these areas, where they harvested a number of different plant and animal species. These areas “belonged to no one, and so to everyone” (219). Within the span of just a few hundred years, monumental transformations turned wetlands into a commodity. Low-income housing, tech campuses, landfills, and planned communities replaced seas of grass. The loss of these wetlands has had profound impacts on entire ecosystems. To Rush, this loss is just the beginning. Human-induced climate change will likely result in the sixth mass extinction. 

Rush details how a single change reverberates throughout an ecosystem. One example involves the red knot or moon bird, which is “the size of a clenched fist” (36). Researchers recently discovered that juvenile moon birds are smaller than previously recorded in their arctic breeding grounds. This size reduction is due to these birds’ not being able to consume enough nourishment because “when ice melts earlier, the plants bloom earlier, and the insects that eat the plants emerge earlier too” (36). These smaller bodies come with shorter beaks. When they fly to their wetland winter feeding grounds, they are no longer able to dig for mollusks. They must consume less-nutrient-rich seagrass. This seagrass helps marshes adapt to rising sea levels, and thus, “bite by bite, the short-billed red knots unknowingly unknotting the web of their survival” (37).

Another example of this interconnection is the roseate spoonbill, which nests on the islands of the Florida Bay. These birds are specialist eaters because of their beaks. The spoonbills are having trouble finding their preferred niche. Since they cannot feed themselves, they are not breeding. For those that do breed, rising sea levels are extremely problematic. They require water that is just a few inches deep or else their nests fail and the chicks die. In addition, the presence of spoonbills is a sign that certain fish, such as kingfishers, redfish, and snook, are also there. These game fish are disappearing alongside the spoonbills. 

Rush’s book recounts the history of people living in coastal communities. Indigenous groups during the colonial expansion era, runaway slaves, and other marginalized members of society would often seek out wetlands. These environments provided a safe harbor because they were challenging to attack and easy to defend. Moreover, most wealthy and white individuals considered wetlands undesirable. Starting in the 1940s, many of the wetlands in the United States were redeveloped as residential areas. The individuals who primarily moved to these communities came from low- and middle-income backgrounds. Wealthier individuals found these homes undesirable because they were flood prone and often located near polluted water, and they had the finances to move elsewhere. From this history, readers see that ancestors of current residents had no alternative but to settle in coastal areas. Many current residents also do not have the financial means to leave their homes.

Despite this situation, these residents are often blamed when their house floods. Nicole Montalto notes:

I hate when people write comments like, ‘Well you shouldn’t have lived there in the first place.’ Of course if we knew, we wouldn’t have been there. People don’t move into these places thinking, ‘Living here I might lose my life.’ No, there are builders who buy the lots and then they sell them and they spin it and you think you are living in a fine house. People buy what they can afford (109).

The NFIP has made this worse. Through its mapping of flood risk zones and conducting probabilistic risk assessments, flooding became viewed as a patterned, scientifically understood event. Individuals living in these areas are now expected to purchase insurance to manage the risk of living in flood-prone areas. Those who do no purchase insurance “are perceived as having participated in their own undoing” (150).

Rush strongly argues that this belief ignores the vulnerability of the people living in these communities. They have inherited this vulnerability from their ancestors, who moved into these areas to try and survive. It also does not take into account the financial circumstances of many living in wetlands. Flood insurance is becoming increasingly expensive, making it less and less likely that coastal residents can afford it. Communities that are already impoverished and marginalized are getting hit hardest by rising sea levels.

Rush worries that strategies used to combat climate change will only continue to hurt people of color and low- and middle-income people compared with more privileged individuals. Facebook recently constructed a campus on former tidal wetlands that today sits less than two feet above sea level. Its construction cost was $195,824,452. While the entire building is perched on stilts, it is still likely that Facebook will eventually need to move its office. Even with this move, its identity as a social media platform will remain unchanged. It did not elevate the roadways or storm pipes, though. When those flood, taxpayers will cover the bill. Yet, when the road floods on Isle de Jean Charles, the state will no longer repair it for Edison because most of the community has agreed to relocate. His identity is tied to the land, which is rapidly changing around him. To Rush, “the ability to move and remain unchanged is a privilege not shared equally by everyone and everything currently residing along the water’s edge” (245). It is for this reason that she remains concerned that sea level rise will deepen social and economic inequality.