If you have already made up your mind on same-sex marriage or want no more information about the politics of gay marriage, step right in: This column is about other matters.
The state’s politics are not the only thing that has been heating up this fall; the water is getting slightly warmer and just a tad higher.
This comes at the same time that the state and city governments watch Oahu’s beaches disappear.
If you suspect a coincidence, you would be correct.
A recent paper issued by the University of Hawaii-Manoa’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology and the state’s land and natural resources department says sea-level rise is the principal cause of coastal erosion.
After looking at all of the things that cause beaches to erode, the No. 1 reason is a climbing water level, the scientists say.
Chip Fletcher, associate dean and a geology professor at SOEST, said Monday in an interview that there recently was an unusual pop in our local sea levels.
"All the islands are seeing something taking place," Fletcher said.
"When you look at tide gauge recordings in the last few weeks, we see the sea level has been higher than predicted by tides," Fletcher said.
It is not a huge change — inches, not feet — but it is rising. After the recent reports of sand leaving Waikiki Beach and the front of North Shore homes, there may not be a one-to-one connection, but there is a trend going on.
"They are little case studies of sea-level rise. They are episodes of water being a few inches higher and yet the beaches just sort of crumble away in certain areas.
"It tells us that with just a little more sea-level rise there is going be a new raft of erosion hot spots," Fletcher warned.
More sand is not going to solve the problem, he said.
There is a lot of confusion, he reported, about how government should react.
"We are still on a very reactionary footing when it comes to managing coastal erosion," Fletcher said.
Hurricanes push a lot of water out in front of them; if those sea surges are even higher — such as what happened last year with the East Coast’s Hurricane Sandy — there is more destruction.
Fletcher noted that the national flood insurance program is running a deficit, that those paying flood insurance premiums are not paying in enough to balance the claims going out.
"If we continue to see these billion-dollar disasters — and most people in climate science think we will continue to see them — it may mean that the national flood insurance program is no longer solvent," Fletcher worried.
Since taxpayers help subsidize the program, will they continue to support a program that allows people to live along coastlines that are going to be nibbled away?
The complexity of the problems is also mounting — as Fletcher put it, "there is no easy or inexpensive way to deal with erosion."
So we may have to face the fact that because of rising sea levels, some beaches in Hawaii may join the long list of endangered things in our islands.
"In the end, we need to identify some legacy beaches, where the beach is the most important consideration," Fletcher said. "There we will decide that we will not allow any form of activity that will potentially harm the beach."
Gov. Neil Abercrombie has just appointed to a new presidential commission on global warming.
It is a good idea to have someone from Hawaii on board. We will all need a lot of sharp minds and a decision to spend the needed federal money to deal with the inevitable.
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Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com
