2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #43

A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week including,,, 

Editor's Pick

They Know Seas Are Rising, but They’re Not Abandoning Their Beloved Cape Cod

Lifelong residents are building higher with each flood. But while they deal with climate change, some say they aren’t sure what to believe about the cause.

 Cape Code

Sea level is rising at an accelerated pace along the Mid-Atlantic coast, from Cape Hatteras to north of Boston, while land in some of those areas is sinking. Residents can try to adapt or face more frequent flooding. Credit: Robert Scott Button 

"It flooded in early January, and then it happened again two or three months later," says Matt Teague of Barnstable, Mass., about the slew of storms that hit Cape Cod in the winter of 2017. "We're like, what are we doing here?" he says, opening his arms skyward.

It is now the peak of summer as I stand with Matt in the seaside community of Blish Point at the front door of the house he owns—a house that's about to be demolished. Matt, 43, with a trim graying beard and a belt buckle in the shape of a fishhook, is the owner of REEF Design & Build, which works all across Cape Cod. He bought the house with his brother and father more than 10 years ago as an investment. Blish Point, an area where native fishermen once laid out their nets to dry, today contains a couple hundred homes nestled between the mouth of Barnstable Harbor and the verdant marsh of Maraspin Creek. Some of the homes are upscale; others are simple cottages. The Teague house, one of the simple cottages, was ruined by flooding: five major storms in the past three years alone have struck this area, and two of the four nor'easters last winter inundated the ground-level home.

Matt pushes his sunglasses atop his head, revealing a pale strip of untanned skin along his temple, as he stretches out his hand 2 feet above the door's threshold to show me where the water rose to during the storms. Over his shoulder, a hungry excavator sits ready to begin its work as Matt's extended family arrives, setting up lawn chairs across the street from the doomed house, joking about who forgot the popcorn. They have come to watch the carnage.

In spite of his own rhetorical question, after the demolition, Matt is going to rebuild—not elsewhere, but right here, only higher. 

They Know Seas Are Rising, but They’re Not Abandoning Their Beloved Cape Cod by Meera Subramanian, InsideClimate News, Oct 26, 2018 

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Fri Oct 26, 2018

Sat Oct 27, 2018

Posted by John Hartz on Saturday, 27 October, 2018

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