CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities Blog

Facing the Flood

What would you do if you’re home was flooded? And I don’t mean just an inch of rain water the basement, I mean something far more serious. What if it was your favorite park, the subway you take to work, or perhaps the city beach that you visit on weekends to cool off from the summer heat?

This is the potential scenario that confronted New Yorkers who stopped by the CISC table at the City of Water Day (hosted by the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance), which took place July 24^th on Governor’s Island. CISC was one of many organizations on hand to talk to participants about various water-related issues. At the CISC table, attendees viewed a map of 1 in 100 year flood events developed by the New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC).

For anyone who may not be familiar with the NPCC, it is a panel of climate science experts convened by Mayor Bloomberg, modeled on the IPCC, and co-chaired by CISC’ own Dr. William Solecki to evaluate the impact of climate change on New York City. Earlier this year, the panel released a report of their findings that includes an assessment of the progression of severity of 1 in 100 year flood events (or flooding that has a 1% chance of taking place every year) under a rapid ice-melt scenario. It is clear from looking at the map depicting this flooding that the areas impacted will increase over decades to come.

The communication of climate science is a complicated matter, which we as a society still haven’t quite figured out yet. As I watched people grapple with this one small piece of climate change information and how to respond to it on a post-it note, the reasons for this hit home. Instead of just talking at them, we asked people to engage with the map by sharing their thoughts and questions on post-it notes.

Here is a snapshot of some of the things people wrote:

• Uh oh, there goes the beautiful Riverside Park! Make for the Highline!
• My house is under water.
• Need to stop global warming! ASAP
• How will this impact the landfill that makes up parts of Manhattan?
• I find the whole thing too depressing to think about.
• I had thought that the whole city was at risk of being submerged, or even the whole coast – thanks for the clarification, re-education, and dissemination.
• How will they keep subways pumped out?
• One of those things we’re just going to have to live with cause there is no easy solution.

Some people (many of whom appeared to already have knowledge of the topic) were eager to share their thoughts, knowing exact what they wanted to say.  Others mulled it over, even struggled to figure out how to connect with what was in front of them. Comments ranged from personal to global and tongue-in-cheek to highly serious. Still other event-goers chose not to write anything, a number of them stating something along the lines of “I don’t know what to say.”

As I spoke with people and listened to their thoughts, is seemed to me that in order to really connect with these highly technical climate science concepts, people needed to be able to repackage them in meaningful and personal ways. Those who could, often wrote something down on a post-it. Those who couldn’t, generally walked away without doing so.  Yet, I feel I learned as much from listening to people who chose not to participate as from those who did.

Becoming empowered to do something about climate change requires 1) that people connect with the information in front of them and 2) that people believe that their actions can make a difference- whether on the personal or the policy level. Millions of people across the country already do this. Still, we need to figure out how to involve millions more. It seems to me that asking people to engage with these concepts, instead of viewing them as passive recipients of information, is an important and promising first step, even if they do walk away the first time around.

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