As California officials see it, global warming is happening so there's no time to waste in figuring out what to do.
California's interagency Climate Action Team on Wednesday issued the first of 40 reports outlining what the state's residents must do to adapt to the floods, erosion and other effects expected from rising sea levels.
Hundreds of thousands of people and billions of dollars of Golden State infrastructure and property would be at risk if ocean levels rose 55 inches by the end of the century, as computer models suggest, according to the report.
The group floated several radical proposals: limit coastal development in areas at risk from sea rise; consider phased abandonment of certain areas; halt federally-subsidized insurance for property likely to be inundated; and require coastal structures to be built to survive climate change.
"Immediate action is needed," said Linda Adams, Secretary for Environmental Protection. "It will cost significantly less to combat climate change than it will to maintain a business-as-usual approach."
Few topics are likely to be more contentious than coastal development. But along the state's 2,000-mile shoreline, the impact would be acute, particularly in Orange and San Mateo counties where an estimated 110,000 people would be affected, according to the 99-page state-commissioned report by the Oakland-based Pacific Institute.
Detailed maps of the coastline, published on the institute's website, show residential neighborhoods in Venice and Marina del Rey could be inundated. Ocean waters could surge over airports in San Francisco and Oakland, through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and across large swaths of Huntington and Newport Beach.
Roads, schools, hospitals, sewage plants and power plants may have to be relocated. More than 330 hazardous waste sites are at risk from floods.
California's far-reaching adaptation initiative reflects an emerging global consensus: Scientists can argue over how fast the earth is heating up and diplomats can wrangle over setting emissions caps, but politicians must begin planning for the certainty of climate change.
Dozens of world-class scientists and economists, many from the University of California and state research institutes, are examining potential effects of warming on snowpacks, wildfires, crops and electricity demand.
