Climate change could sink N.S.
Published Wednesday August 20th, 2008
Rising seas could turn province into an island
HALIFAX - When engineer Con Desplanque was working on Nova Scotia's dike system in the 1960s, the phrase "climate change" wasn't part of anyone's vocabulary.
"We never figured on a rising sea level when building the height of the dikes," Desplanque, now 90, said from his home in Amherst.
Desplanque has doubts the dikes can cope with storm surges that could spill over the neck of land that connects Nova Scotia to the rest of the country.
"There will be a time that the tide will be so high it will overtop (the dikes), and Nova Scotia will become an island for a couple of hours."
It wouldn't be the first time Canada briefly had two island provinces.
A storm surge and a higher-than-usual tide in the Bay of Fundy combined in 1869 to flood the area, known as the Chignecto Isthmus. The land bridge between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick was impassable for several days after the so-called Saxby Gale.
Bill Casey, the member of Parliament for the area, says he's concerned about the prospect of a similar weather event.
"It would completely flood the only rail link to Nova Scotia and the main highway to Nova Scotia," he said. "We'd have some really serious communications problems plus land loss and a tremendous loss of property."
Meanwhile, experts say the sea level in the area is projected to rise 70 centimetres over the next century.
The federal government has already identified the isthmus as highly sensitive to rising seas, and a large part of Prince Edward Island faces a similar threat.
As well, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change noted in its report last year that unless Nova Scotia continually raises its dikes, they won't protect the province from surging seas.
However, Desplanque knows that raising the dikes is easier said than done.
"The railway is on top of the dike and it will be a major effort to lift that dike to a higher level, because you'd first have to build another rail line."
The provincial government confirms the massive project would cost more than $40 million.
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Fredericton spent more than $40 Million on construction this year. One city. You mean to tell me the entire province of NS (with, BTW, a higher population than NB) can't come up with the funding to protect itself from this?
The planet will do what it wants. Don't try to prevent it, do things to plan to deal with it.
Thanks, but I'd rather believe the facts I see for myself, not what a bunch of political paid-offs in the IPCC say. And the facts show that climate change has happened for millions of years without human intervention. Maybe it will warm up (though current trends suggest otherwise)...in which case, it would be stupid to try to stop it, and just spend the $400 million and protect the levees against overflow (the original topic).
I mean, historical science is a big guessing game and no one can prove anything conclusively, but that doesn't stop it from being likely.
This way, the truth sounds a lot less alarming.