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Rob Young co-authors book about the threat of sea-level rise

Western Carolina University professor Rob Young and his friend and mentor from Duke University, Orrin H. Pilkey, have an “urgent message” for society about the threat posed by global sea-level rise.

In their new book, “The Rising Sea,” Young and Pilkey warn that rising ocean levels brought about by global warming is not something that might happen in the future, but is happening already. Scientific data indicate that over the last decade seas worldwide have moved upward an average of slightly more than one-eighth inch per year, and reliable research indicates oceans may climb as much as seven feet in the next 100 years, Young and Pilkey say.

The evidence of sea-level rise also is abundantly clear through casual observation at coastlines around the world, according to the authors. For example, a cemetery used by English settlers on North Carolina’s Portsmouth Island has become a salt marsh, “while the old pipes that are supposed to drain surface water runoff from South Carolina’s Charleston Peninsula are now partially blocked at high tides.”

While debunking the anti-scientific “manufactured doubt” industry that attempts to politicize science, Young and Pilkey argue that societies around the world must begin responding to the challenges of sea-level rise “in a planned and rational way, taking the long-term view” before major cities and other coastal development are inundated.

Young said scientists might still debate whether humans are causing global warming, but no reputable scientists can deny sea-level rise because it has been documented over the past two decades. Young said he believes it is “important for scientists to speak more forcefully” about issues such as sea-level rise to combat the wave of naysayers who use the media to spread non-scientific falsehoods. “We hope this book will start a national conversation,” he said.

Young is professor of geosciences and director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at WCU, while Pilkey, a pioneer in the study of American shoreline development policy, holds the position of professor emeritus in the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke. The two scientists became acquainted when Young was in graduate studies at Duke, and Pilkey was Young’s adviser and teacher.

Young earned his doctorate in geology at Duke in 1995, and joined WCU’s faculty in 1997. Over the years, he has become a much-sought-after expert on the topics of hurricane impacts and coastal management.

Pilkey founded a coastal science and policy center, the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines, at Duke in 1985, and when he decided to focus on writing books and articles in 2006, he chose his former student to take over the program. PSDS moved to WCU’s campus in fall of that year.

Young said he and Pilkey have collaborated on many research projects over the years, but this is their first book. The process of writing it took about a year-and-a-half, with each scientist writing chapters, and then editing the other’s work.

Bruce Babbitt, former U.S. secretary of the interior, has said “The Rising Sea” is “a must-read for all Americans. The authors are among our most eminent coastal scientists. They deliver, in clear and measured prose, an urgent message explaining how rising sea levels will affect New York, Miami, Houston, Los Angeles, and every coastal community in our country.”

James E. Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, calls sea-level rise “a lurking dragon” and says Young and Pilkey tell a story “that the public must understand – or the dragon may burst out of humanity’s control.”

Aimed at a popular audience, rather a purely academic one, “The Rising Sea” is set for a late-August release by Island Press.

For more information about the book or WCU’s Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines, contact Young at (828) 227-3822 or ryoung@wcu.edu.

By Randall Holcombe

© 2009 Western Carolina University.