The Times - UK (2022-01-01)

42 Saturday January 1 2022 | the times

Wo r l d

A

s a renowned climate

scientist and

hydrologist who has

analysed the risks and

impacts of rising sea

levels for decades, Dr Peter Gleick

was struck by something while on

a passenger jet this week.

He used Twitter to share what

he saw. “Much of my work is

staring at little computer screens.

I just flew over southern Florida in

a window seat, and boy are they

completely screwed with what’s

likely coming,” he wrote.

Below him were homes and

industries, roads and power plants,

a steadily shrinking coastline and

the fragile 1.5 million-acre

Everglades wetlands, spread across

a pancake-flat landscape.

Gleick is depressingly familiar

with the factors that make Florida

the state most at risk from the

heat and flood impacts of climate

change — and with the data and

maps that show the steady creep

of the ocean over the land. From

the air, he gained an even more

pronounced perspective.

“I was struck by the vastness of

Disaster looms for Everglades

how low-lying it is — how

vulnerable so much of Florida is to

even a modest and entirely

plausible sea level rise. It’s not

going to take much of that to

cause billions and billions in

irreversible and unavoidable

economic and ecological

destruction,” he told The Times.

In 1987 Gleick co-founded the

Pacific Institute, a non-profit body

dedicated to tackling global water

problems and climate change. In

2000 he was one of hundreds of

scientists asked by the federal

government to assess the impact

of climate change, the report for

which an industry-funded group

known for climate change denial

went to court to try to suppress.

The lawsuit, which failed, was

emblematic of the struggles

scientists have faced in trying to

shout critical messages above the

noise from doubters, deniers and

agenda-driven detractors — a

phenomenon satirised in the new

Netflix film Don’t Look Up.

In the movie Jennifer Lawrence

and Leonardo DiCaprio play

scientists trying to save humanity

from an Earth-colliding comet,

while humanity is too consumed

by political ambition, financial

obsession, ignorance, fluff and pop

culture to listen.

“Scientists have been ignored

for decades,” said Gleick. “The

things we’ve been saying haven’t

been acted on... for too long,

policymakers ignored us, or

listened to the more aggressive

voices of climate denial. Being

ignored is bad enough but being

told that what we are saying is

either wrong or will hurt the

economy — or all these things

that were highlighted in the movie

— has been stressful.”

By 2040 the ocean surface could

be up to 17in higher than it was in

2000, according to the National

Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration. By 2070, it could

be 54in above the 2000 level.

Apparently unfazed, developers

have continued to build. Urban

sprawl, agricultural development

and unsound water management

have disrupted the natural flow of

fresh water, pushing the ecosystem

to the point of collapse.

Restoring the Everglades is

critical to mitigating climate

change harm, stabilising

shorelines to protect against

flooding and saving wildlife.

This week Florida pledged a

further $980 million towards the

restoration of the Everglades and

water resources, bringing its four-

year investment to $3 billion.

“In the Everglades more area

has been protected, water quality

has improved — but all that’s

going to be for nought if we don’t

act on the causes of climate

change” said Gleick. “Acting only

on the impacts is like trying to

build a bomb shelter for a comet

that’s bearing down for a

planetary wipeout catastrophe.”

Jacqui

Goddard

MIAMI

For almost 100 years since it was
flooded to provide drinking water to
California, the Hetch Hetchy valley
has been the hidden secret of the
Yosemite National Park, visited only
by a few climbers.
Now an effort to attract adventur-
ers to the peaceful northwest corner
of the park, about 178 miles east of
San Francisco, has divided locals.
In the century since the valley was
dammed and flooded, the reservoir
has provided a reliable source of
water for millions of residents in the
city and its surrounding counties.
However, campaigners have long
dreamt of undoing the engineers’
work and returning the site to its un-
spoilt state. The group Restore Hetch
Hetchy wants to drain the reservoir
and reopen the valley to visitors, say-
ing it plans to protect its natural
beauty while making it accessible to
tourists and ensuring that San Fran-
cisco does not lose a drop of water.
Lucho Rivera, 41, a rock climber
from the city, joined the fight after
falling in love with the valley. Now a
board member of Restore Hetch

Hetchy, he told the San Francisco

Chronicle: “That’s been the climbers’

M O with this place: Let’s keep it to

ourselves. Which is cool, and it’s part

of what drew me here. But I’ve had a

change of heart over the years.”

Critics have dismissed the aim to

“restore” the reservoir as a quixotic

campaign with little chance of

success. San Francisco voters em-

phatically rejected a 2012 proposal to

remove the dam and empty the reser-

voir, and a lawsuit brought against

the city by Restore Hetch Hetchy was

rejected by the California Supreme

Court in 2018. The San Francisco

Public Utilities Commission, which

manages the reservoir’s water infra-

structure with the National Park Ser-

vice, says the project could endanger

a key source of drinking water. John

Coté, communications director for

the commission, said: “This was a bad

idea back in 2012, when San Francis-

co voters overwhelmingly rejected it.

It’s still a bad idea.”

Despite the setbacks, Restore

Hetch Hetchy is not giving up and the

board wants to attract a younger,

more diverse membership to advance

the movement. Spreck Rosekrans,

the executive director, told the

Chronicle: “We’ve long talked about

the fact that our board is a little bit too

homogeneous — old, white.

“We really do want Hetch Hetchy

to be a place that is more open to the

demographics of the population than

national parks have been. Those

people will have different views as to

what restoration should look like.”

Restore Hetch Hetchy said that

emptying the reservoir would create

“one of the most ambitious and excit-

ing environmental restoration pro-

jects” in history.

Soon after the water is gone and the

valley exposed, the group argues, the

area will provide an invaluable learn-

ing environment for scientists and

students.

The environmentalists predict that

within five years, nature will reclaim

the area and native flora and wildlife

will reappear, with the bank of what is

now a reservoir filled with willows

and alders.

Hetch Hetchy has spent a century

at the centre of a tug of war between

those in favour of preservation of the

natural land and those who advocate

exploiting it for public utility.

The conservationist John Muir led

those against interfering with the val-

ley, but Gifford Pinchot, first head of

the US Forest Service, won the battle,

with the O’Shaughnessy Dam com-

pleted on the Tuolumne River in

1923. Hetch Hetchy has been de-
      scribed as the first major skirmish of
      the environmentalist movement.

Climbers regard the delights of the Hetch Hetchy valley as a hidden treasure but some want to open it up to universal access

Bid to reveal Yosemite’s hidden treasure

United States
Keiran Southern Los Angeles

50 miles

San

Francisco

Hetch

Hetchy

Valley

San Jose

Sacramento

Yosemite

National Park

Sierra

National

Forest

CALIFORNIA