The Advocate. October 9, 2023.
Editorial: If we’re to save the coastline by 2050, we have to be united in the cause
If there is a saving grace in today’s coastal crisis in Louisiana, it is that there is widespread agreement that our state has no other choice than to deal with climate change on multiple fronts.
We don’t think that consensus is going to change, whatever the outcome of the elections that will soon give us a new governor and Legislature. It’s too important; the political leadership of the state cannot go wobbly, to borrow a phrase, on coastal protection and restoration.
But if there is some wobble on particular strategies of dealing with the multiple problems reported in this newspaper’s outline of the challenges, we expect that the public will demand a more effective response.
A national group, the Environmental Defense Fund Action, is pushing ads before the Oct. 14 primary highlighting the need for coastal preservation. A poll commissioned in the spring by a coastal group, Restore the Mississippi River Delta, found as much unanimity as one is likely to get on any issue these days.
“To call this a consensus would be an understatement,” said pollster Andrew Baumann.
Where are the points of disagreement over particular projects? While the Restore poll said that more than two out of three respondents favor big sediment diversion projects like the Mid-Barataria canal now underway, there has been scattered opposition to it, some of it based on its impact on particular species that live in our waters.
And there is disagreement among coastal scientists about approaches; Louisiana’s coastal master plan is developed by the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, and some argue that the state is relying too heavily on building levees and other flood protection measures.
Craig Colten, an LSU geographer who has written extensively on Louisiana’s coastal challenges, believes that it is. The state must look harder at figuring out how to help communities relocate in a way that preserves their unique cultures, he says.
Such relocations are going to be expensive in themselves. But they are part of the larger 2050 challenge to deal with both saving lives from flood surge through levees and other structures, while also retreating from the most flood-prone areas.
The science and engineering challenges are great. But we believe that the imperatives of coastal protection are understood by voters.
Does that mean that there won’t be rhetorical nonsense about these issues, particularly the role sea level rise driven by climate change is playing in making coastal Louisiana more vulnerable? Of course not. A current front-runner for governor, Attorney General Jeff Landry, indulges in criticism that climate change is a liberal “hoax.”
While he said he cares about the environment, “I don’t really buy into the climate change that corporate America’s trying to sell,” adds Treasurer John Schroder, another gubernatorial hopeful.
That rhetoric just antagonizes Louisiana folks who live with these challenges, as well as our partners in national government who are vital to funding our responses to coastal erosion.
But we doubt that anyone who is elected governor can, on a practical level, derail the structural momentum and broad agreement — over Republican and Democratic state administrations — that coastal restoration and protection must be a top priority.
The voters understand that, deeply.
While they must navigate the day-to-day decisions and the politics of the coast, ultimately we think no political leader can turn away from this imperative.
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