Landing a solution to global warming

RELEASE: August 22, 2008 – Volume XLI, No.34

No matter what your opinion is on global warming, as a resident of a coastal state, it’s an issue worth keeping your eye on! Recent studies are revealing more and more about the scale of a potential disaster in New Jersey as sea levels are projected to rise significantly over the next fifty years.

In July, the University of Maryland’s Center for Integrative Environmental Research released a series of papers which combined environmental models and economic data to project long-term economic impacts of climate change in seven states, including New Jersey. The papers were a follow up their 2007 report “The U.S. Economic Impacts of Climate Change and the Costs of Inaction.”

According to the papers, rising sea levels, warming temperatures and more frequent, intense storms will mean more damage and flooding in New Jersey’s coastal communities, as well as increased risks to coastal shipping, commercial fishing and tourism. The report found 70 percent of the state's total annual tourism dollars are generated at the Jersey Shore. Just a 1one percent annual decline in shore tourism each year could cost the state $3.7 billion and 40,000 jobs by 2017!

Preventing the damage won’t be any cheaper. Beaches are estimated to erode 50 to 100 times faster than the rate of sea level elevation and will cost an estimated $6 billion in maintenance over the next 50 years. Any way you look at it – absorbing the damages or trying to prevent them – New Jersey and its taxpayers are in line for huge expenses.

At the same time other new studies are pointing to the relationship between global warming and land preservation. A recent Rodale Institute study found that the very farms that put the ‘garden’ in the Garden State can be powerful tools in the fight against global warming.

For almost 30 years, the Rodale Institute has collected data about the amount of carbon found in soil, and compared the effects of organic versus conventional farming methods on carbon trapping, also called “carbon sequestration.” Their research shows conclusive evidence that using regenerative organic farming practices can boost the land’s ability to pull carbon out of the air and trap or “sequester” it.

Since carbon is a major part of the greenhouse gases at least partly responsible for global warming, carbon sequestration is one potential partial solution to dilemmas posed by global climate change. In fact, the study estimates that nearly 40 percent of the planet’s total carbon-dioxide emissions could be sequestered if organic farming was practiced on all of the earth’s 3.5 billion tillable acres!

This is another reason for New Jersey to promote organic farming on existing farms and on new ones. Combined with the flood mitigation benefits of wetlands and other open spaces, land is one of our best defenses against the potentially devastating impacts of climate change. In this light, investing in additional farmland and open space conservation through the Garden State Preservation Trust makes even more sense than ever!

“So what can one person do about this global problem?” Gas prices may have already rendered you “car-less,” or driving less, or buying hybrid cars, but most of us don’t own farms, or have the resources to preserve lands of our own. There are lots of things you can do, however. One is to buy organic produce whenever possible. You can also lobby your state officials to renew long-term funding for the land preservation, which has essentially run dry. Take a look at reducing your own “carbon footprints.” With a little effort you can find your own part to play.

You can read the full details of the report at www.cier.umd.edu/climateadaptation/index.html, and the Rodale Institute report at www.rodaleinstitute.org/20080425/gw6. Or to find out more about carbon footprint, go to www.climatecrises.net/takeaction/carboncalculator. I hope you’ll contact me at info@njconservation.org, or visit NJCF’s website at www.njconservation.org, for more information about conserving New Jersey’s precious land and natural resources.

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