For more coverage, see our story from April 2020, Mavericks pitch novel buyout plan for flood-prone Warren, from our series, When is it time to retreat from the sea?

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall. 

Warren, Rhode Island is one of the smallest towns in the smallest state — but when it comes to dealing with climate change, it has big plans. Located on the East Bay, the town is already seeing the effects of rising sea levels, and it’s starting to adapt.  

We had Janek Schaller and Emily Tom from our Possibly team look into it.

Janek Schaller: Hey Megan!

Emily Tom: Thanks for having us!

Megan Hall: So, give us the rundown. What’s happening in Warren right now?

Janek Schaller: Warren is located on a peninsula, which means rising sea levels are going to be a major problem for the town. But for one part of the town in particular, rising waters are already causing major issues. .

Emily Tom: There’s one street called Market Street, where flooding is soon going to become unmanageable. 

Janek Schaller: Experts predict that by 2050, flood waters could rise up to three feet in the Market Street area. 

Emily Tom: Janek and I took a trip down to Warren to visit a small park, located between Market Street and a wetland.

Janek Schaller: It’s one of Bob Rulli’s favorite meeting places.

Bob Rulli: I’m Bob Rulli. I’m the Director of Community Development for the Town of Warren.

Janek Schaller: We visited the day after a rainstorm, and the park was all puddles and mud. Rulli says that happens because heavy storms overwhelm the town’s drainage systems.

Emily Tom: And that’s what he’s really worried about: not just the rise in sea levels that’s decades away, but the storm surges that are in the very near future.

Bob Rulli: When we’re talking about a couple of inches of sea level rise, I mean, that makes people yawn a little bit. 

Janek Schaller: But Bob says that within the next few decades, floodwaters could rise high enough to wipe out the first floor of most of the houses in this area. 

Megan Hall: Wow, how many homes are we talking about?

Janek Schaller: There are four hundred buildings in the affected Market Street area. That includes about seven hundred housing units.

Emily Tom: Not to mention the businesses on Market Street. 

Megan Hall: What’s going to happen to all of these buildings? 

Emily Tom: That’s where Arica Thornton comes in. She’s a designer at Union Studio. 

Arica Thornton: Can we you know, relocate these people, can we get them out of there ahead of time before they lose the value in their properties.

Megan Hall: So, everyone in this part of Warren will have to move?

Janek Schaller: Yes. And Arica is helping to create new places for these people to live. 

Emily Tom: Her firm is creating a new development just slightly south of Market Street. The plan is to develop up to seven hundred new mixed-income housing units there.

Janek Schaller: The earliest phase of this new construction is scheduled to be complete by 2035, just over ten years from now.  

Megan Hall: And what’s going to happen to the Market Street Area? Will it just be an abandoned flood zone?

Emily Tom: Hopefully not. Even if people aren’t living there, that doesn’t mean the community can’t use it. Thornton has a few ideas on how to make the space an asset. 

Arica Thornton: We could have elevated walkways, and kayak launches, and people could really actively use this area for recreation.

Janek Schaller: It’s going to be a long process. And there will be a lot of loss. But Bob Rulli says it’s better to face the issue now than wait for it to get worse.

Bob Rulli: It’s an emotional thing for people to say, I’m going to potentially lose something. …But that’s like saying, You’re never going to get old. We are. 

Emily Tom: The bottom line is, Warren may be one of the first places to move people out of a future flood zone, but it won’t be the last. 

Janek Schaller: According to a recent analysis, by 2050, around 650,000 properties across the United States will be partly underwater or completely underwater at high tide.  

Megan Hall: So there’s no avoiding this?

Emily Tom: Well, we can still work to slow the emissions that contribute to sea level rise.

But we also have to adapt. Warren’s approach could be a blueprint for other cities as they prepare for the inevitable.

Megan Hall: Yikes. Got it. Thanks, Janek and Emily!

That’s it for today. For more information, or to ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, go to the public’s radio dot org slash possibly. Or subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. 

You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter- at  “ask possibly” 

Possibly is a co-production of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and the Public’s Radio.

The post What do you do when rising waters threaten a neighborhood? appeared first on TPR: The Public's Radio.

The post What do you do when rising waters threaten a neighborhood? appeared first on Possibly.

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall. 

Today’s question comes from one of our listeners. Dorothy wrote in to ask us: 

“Efforts to turn off lights for migrating birds are taking off across the US. What is Rhode Island doing?”

Excellent question. We had Emily Tom and Janek Schaller look into it. 

Emily Tom: Hi Megan!

Janek Schaller: Thank you for having us!

Megan Hall: Before we get started, we should note that our founder, Stephen Porder, is on the board of the Audubon society here in Rhode Island. Now, will you tell me – what exactly is Lights Out?

Janek Schaller: The National Audubon Society started Lights Out about twenty years ago. Its goal is to reduce light pollution and protect migrating birds. 

Emily Tom: A bunch of cities and states across the country are participating in it, including Boston and New York. 

Dr. Clarkson: So this grassroots program is designed to get these building owners or entire city governments to agree to limit or reduce the amount of light that’s emanating from these urban city centers during these peak periods of bird movement. 

Emily Tom: That’s Dr. Charles Clarkson.

Dr. Clarkson: I am the Director of Avian Research for the Audubon Society of Rhode Island. 

Emily Tom: He says it’s super important to protect birds as they migrate with the changing seasons. 

Megan Hall: Don’t get me wrong, I love birds, but are lights really that big of a deal?

Janek Schaller: According to Dr. Clarkson, it’s actually one of the biggest stressors on bird populations.

Megan Hall: Why? What happens?

Emily Tom: First we have to understand that eighty percent of migratory birds travel at night. The atmosphere is more stable, there are fewer predators, and some birds actually use the stars to navigate.

Dr. Charles Clarkson: And particularly on nights in which we have poor weather forcing the migrants to fly even lower altitudes, they tend to get driven or pulled off course by bright spots on the landscape below them.

Janek Schaller: Migrating birds are drawn to bright city lights and residential areas. That confusion can be dangerous for them. 

Emily Tom: A lot of birds will circle well-lit buildings until they’re too exhausted to fly anymore. Then they’ll fall to the ground, where they usually die without food or water.

Janek Schaller: It’s also common for birds to fly into windows. The National Audubon Society estimates that up to 1 billion birds are killed every year from building collisions alone. 

Megan Hall: That’s awful. So, back to Dorothy’s question, is Rhode Island part of the Lights Out program?

Janek Schaller: Right now, no. 

Emily Tom: But the Rhode Island Audubon Society is working on getting one started soon.

Janek Schaller: In the meantime, there are a lot of ways we can reduce light pollution in our own neighborhoods. Dr. Clarkson says there are some really simple steps you can take. 

Dr. Clarkson: Those include things like local homeowners putting UV decals on the windows in their homes so that birds see the windows themselves before flying into them. And keeping your indoor lights indoors, so doing things like closing curtains at night so that light’s not shining outside of your window. 

Janek: That can make a big difference because about half of all birds killed by window strikes aren’t flying into skyscrapers in big cities- they’re flying into homes in residential neighborhoods.

Emily: These light-reduction efforts are especially important during migration season- which is April to May and from August to November.

Megan Hall: I’ll definitely remember to do that. Thank you, Emily and Janek!

That’s it for today. For more information, or to ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, go to the public’s radio dot org slash possibly. Or subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. 

You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter- at “ask possibly” 

Possibly is a co-production of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and the Public’s Radio.

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